Working with Criticism - SDD

Ven. Chodron shares stories and techniques for working with our ego that gets angry and seeks to retaliate when we are criticized in public.

#criticism #humiliation #bullying #ego #compassion #suffering

Enlightenment is a Destructive Process

"Make no mistake about it - enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It's seeing through the facade of pretense. It's the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true."

— Adyashanti

Meditation on Interdependence: Welcome Feelings of Compassion or Irritation, Both Are Ourselves

By Thích Nhất Hạnh

For beginners, I recommend the method of pure recognition: recognition without judgment. “Feelings, whether of compassion or irritation, should be welcomed, recognized, and treated on an absolutely equal basis; because both are ourselves. The tangerine I am eating is me. The mustard greens I am planting are me. I plant with all my heart and mind. I clean this teapot with the kind of attention I would have were I giving the baby Buddha or Jesus a bath. Nothing should be treated more carefully than anything else. In mindfulness, compassion, irritation, mustard green plant, and teapot are all sacred.”

When possessed by a sadness, an anxiety, a hatred, or a passion or whatever, the method of pure observation and recognition may seem difficult to practice. If so, turn to meditation on a fixed object, using your own state of mind as meditation’s subject. Such meditation reveals and heals. The sadness or anxiety, hatred or passion, under the gaze of concentration and meditation reveals its own nature—a revelation that leads naturally to healing and emancipation. The sadness (or whatever has caused the pain) can be used as a means of liberation from torment and suffering, like using a thorn to remove a thorn. We should treat our anxiety, our pain, our hatred and passion gently, respectfully, not resisting it, but living with it, making peace with it, penetrating into its nature by meditation on interdependence. One quickly learns how to select subjects of meditation that fit the situation. Subjects of meditation—like interdependence, compassion, self, emptiness, non-attachment—all these belong to the categories of meditation which have the power to reveal and to heal.

― Thích Nhất Hạnh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation

Image Credit - 123RF

Nelson Mandela

"I would like to be remembered not as anyone unique or special, but as part of a great team in this country that has struggled for many years, for decades and even centuries," he said. "The greatest glory of living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time you fall."

~ Nelson Mandela ~

Rest In Peace Nelson. You were truly an Angel on earth.

Remembering Nelson Mandela

Pure Consciousness

"All these universes, humans, objects, thoughts and events are merely pictures moving on the screen of Pure Consciousness, which alone is real."

Sri Ramana Maharshi

Vichara begins when you cling to your Self and are already off the mental movement, the thought-waves. (Ramana Maharshi, SDB, ix.) Once the “I” emerges, all else emerges. With a keen mind enquire whence this “I” emerges. (Ramana Maharshi, FVR, verse 23.) ”Whence does this “I” arise?” Seek for it within; it then vanishes. This is the pursuit of Wisdom. (Ramana Maharshi, WHO, 24.)

Thoughts alone constitute the mind; and for all thoughts the base or source is the “I” thought. “I” is the mind. If we go inward questing for the source of the “I,” the “I” topples down. This is the jnana enquiry.

If one enquires “Who am I?” within the mind, the individual “I” falls down abashed as soon as one reaches the Heart and immediately Reality manifests itself spontaneously as “I-I.” Although it reveals itself as “I,” it is not the ego but the Perfect Being, the Absolute Self. (Ramana Maharshi, FVR, verse 30.)

What you call your self now is not the real Self which is neither born nor dies. (Ramana Maharshi, SDB, xvi.)

When one persistently inquires into the nature of the mind, the mind will end leaving the Self (as the residue). What is referred to as the Self is the Atman. (Ramana Maharshi, WHO, 13.)

When other thoughts arise, one should not pursue them, but should inquire: “To whom do they arise?” It does not matter how many thoughts arise. As each thought arises, one should inquire with diligence, "To whom has this thought arisen?" The answer that would emerge would be "To me." Thereupon if one inquires "Who am I?,” the mind will go back to its source; and the thought that arose will become quiescent. With repeated practice in this manner, the mind will develop the skill to stay in its source. (Ramana Maharshi, WHO, 14.)

You must distinguish between the “I,” pure in itself, and the “I”-thought. The latter, being merely a thought, sees subject and object, sleeps, wakes up, eats and thinks, dies and is reborn. But the pure “I” is the pure Being, eternal existence, free from ignorance and thought-illusion. If you stay as the “I,” your being alone, without thought, the I-thought will disappear and the delusion will vanish for ever. In a cinema-show you can see pictures only in a very dim light or in darkness. But when all lights are switched on, all pictures disappear. So also in the flood-light of the Supreme Atman all objects disappear. (Ramana Maharshi, GR, 46.)

The Real is ever-present, like the screen on which all the [movie] pictures move. While the pictures appear on it, it remains invisible. Stop the pictures, and the screen, which has all along been present, in fact the only object that has existed throughout, will become clear. All these universes, humans, objects, thoughts and events are merely pictures moving on the screen of Pure Consciousness, which alone is real. Shapes and phenomena pass away, but Consciousness remains ever. (Ramana Maharshi, GR, 46.)

[Turning the mind inward] is done by practice and dispassion and that succeeds only gradually. The mind, having been so long a cow accustomed to graze stealthily on others' estates, is not easily confined to her stall. However much her keeper tempts her with luscious grass and fine fodder, she refuses the first time; then she takes a bit; but her innate tendency to stray away asserts itself; and she slips away; on being repeatedly tempted by the owner, she accustoms herself to the stall; finally even if let loose she would not stray away. Similarly with the mind. If once it finds its inner happiness it will not wander outward. (Ramana Maharshi, TWSRM, Question 213.)

~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

To Read More of Ramana Maharshi's teachings, visit Sri Ramana Maharshi on Self-Enquiry.

Sri Ramana Maharshi

Source: http://www.angelfire.com/space2/light11/diction/ramana.html

Zariya - AR Rahman, Buddhist Nun Ani Choying, Farah Siraj

Giving a whole new spin to the term 'world music' -- A.R.Rahman spins his magic on an absolute scorcher, featuring Jordanian singer --Farah Siraj along with Nepalese Buddhist Nun Ani Choying. With the traditional Nepalese Buddhist hymn forming the base of the song, layered with a traditional Jordanian melody, and bridged seamlessly with composition written by A.R.Rahman, this song truly brings together diverse cultures and musical genres. Everything from the background vocals to Sivamani's percussion takes a big leap across musical styles and creates a storm of inspired rhythms, to give this track that extra flavour. Completely based around the theme of motherhood, compassion & ultimately happiness, this is the very first track of what promises to be an unforgettable Season 3 of CS@MTV!
 

Returning The Gift: Dialogues with Eckhart Tolle, Adyashanti, Timothy Wilson and Laura Waters Hinson: Book Review

Author Steven Donoso

The collection of dialogues that author Steven Donoso has put together in his book Returning the Gift are enlightening and inspirational. 

Being very familiar with the spiritual teachings of Eckhart Tolle and Adyashanti, reading the dialogues in Returning The Gift was a refresher to those teachings. In it, Eckhart shines a light on the ways in which we create our own suffering. When Eckhart (2013) talks about “a conceptual sense of self” and how it is “threatened by other people” (p. 6), and our “collective story of ‘us’: our tribe, our religion, our nation” (p. 7), a couple of examples of how this gets played out, at the most extreme level, is the conflict between the Israeli and Palestinian people, as well as the Rwanda genocide, where Hutu extremists killed close to 3/4’s of the Tutsi civilian population. Whether it is a conflict within families, communities, or between different ethnic groups or nations, the stories that we tell ourselves and each other keep us in conflict with one another. Adyashanti explains (2013): "as egos we’re defined by our stories, our little arguments with what is, the ways we blame and shame, and all the little concepts, the little personal philosophies and belief systems” (p. 46).

To forgive the unthinkable seems impossible, yet many of the Tutsis of Rwanda managed to do just that. The release of approximately 50 to 60,000 Hutus from prison and back into their communities left the Tutsis and Hutus with two choices, to either forgive and reconcile or to continue to fight (Donoso, 2013). Laura Hinson did an excellent job of raising awareness of the amazing forgiveness and reconciliation process that was occurring in Rwanda, during her visit in 2006, through her documentary film entitled As We Forgive. In Returning The Gift, she discussed the forgiveness and reconciliation process that was happening in Rwanda and explained what restorative justice is. We can even take it a step further and get to the root of the state of consciousness that planted and watered the seeds of hate, anger, and violence; otherwise, more atrocities will occur. The egoic state of consciousness states that I’m separate from you, on a different level, higher than you, more superior, or lower, inferior; and, on the most extreme level, does not even see a human being. It only sees an enemy, an obstacle that is must destroy. It is all delusion. But we cannot go back in time and erase what happened. We can only start from where we are, the present moment, such as Eckhart discusses in Returning The Gift. This is where forgiveness and reconciliation comes in. Returning The Gift can help us to wake-up to a whole new way of being in the world, of how we see the world, how we see each other, how we see ourselves in relation to one another, where we live in awareness, from our true nature, instead of our imaginary ego, where we would normally take sides. 

The Seeds of Peace organization has done an exceptional job of bringing together teenagers from opposing sides of regional areas of conflict, such as Israeli and Palestinian teenagers, where they can meet in a safe place and discuss the major issues that they are facing with one another back home. At the Seeds of Peace Camps, teens began listening to one another; and, gradually, they built up a better understanding and acceptance of each other, seeing each other as human beings, instead of enemies. The Seeds of Peace Camps have done what would otherwise seem as an impossible, futile endeavor, they brought together teens who have learned that, even though we may not have the same beliefs and we are not of the same ethnicity, we are all human beings, we can co-exist, we can respect our differences and share resources instead of fight for them (Donoso, 2013). 

If more people awaken or come closer to awakening to their true nature, to awareness, to selflessness, to living more consciously, compassionately, through reading this book, then everyone should read it.

— Book Review by Pamela J. Wells

Available on Amazon: Returning The Gift: Dialogues with Eckhart Tolle, Adyashanti, Timothy Wilson and Laura Waters Hinson

Reference

Donoso, S. (2013). Returning the gift [Adobe Digital Editions version].

Peace Quote ~ Ramana Maharshi

"Peace is your natural state. It is the mind that obstructs the natural state." 

~ Ramana Maharshi ~

Image Source: do-tamanho-do-mundo by Guilherme M on Foter.com

Quietness Is Freedom

by Sri H. W. L. Poonja (Papaji)

Be quiet, don’t think, don’t make effort.
To be bound takes effort, to be Free takes no effort.
Peace is beyond thought and effort.
Do not think and do not make effort because
This only obscures That, and will never reveal That.
This is why keeping Quiet is the key
To the storehouse of love and peace.

This Quietness is no-mind, this no-thought is Freedom.
Identify yourself as this Nothingness, as this Quietness,
And be careful not to make it an experience
Because this is mind tricking you out of it
With the trap of duality; the trap of witness and witnessed.
Being is Being, there is no witness and no witnessed.
Experiencing it is to say “I am Free,”
Which is exactly the same trap as saying “I am bound.”
After letting go of object
Do not hold onto the subject either.
Let go, Be Quiet.

Excerpt from The Truth Is book by Sri H. W. L. Poonja (Papaji)

Image Source: molley-meditating-on-a-rock-sealers-cove-beach by avlxyz on Foter.com

Wisdom & Virtue

“Just as treasures are 

uncovered from the earth, 

so virtue appears from good deeds, 

and wisdom appears from 

a pure and peaceful mind. 

To walk safely through 

the maze of human life, 

one needs the light of wisdom 

and the guidance of virtue.”

~Buddha

Offering Kindness & Support

All it takes is 1 person to reach out and offer kindness and support to someone being bullied.

~ Pamela J. Wells ~

Olivia’s Healing Letters To A Girl Who Was Being Bullied

By Pamela J. Wells

Originally Published on 7-6-11 on Inspiring Stories That Touch The Heart

Olivia Gardner and her mother, Kathleen Gardner.

While in the 6th grade at Sinaloa Middle School in Novato, Olivia Gardner suffered an epileptic seizure in school one day. Upon seeing this, her classmates called her retard. From that day forward Olivia would suffer endless bullying from her classmates over a two year period and three different schools.

She was called names and was tormented while she walked in the hallways at school. When Olivia transferred to Hill Middle School, the bullying escalated with students going out of their way to torment her. They even created a web site on MySpace entitled “Olivia Haters.”

Olivia then transferred to a private school in Novato, Marin Christian Academy, and had been going well for close to a year; and then, Olivia and her mother, Kathleen Gardner, reached out to help one of Olivia’s classmates who told them that her parents were abusing her. An investigation was started by child protective services and then word got out about Olivia’s family being involved in reporting it.

Allegedly, the girl had changed her story, telling her classmates that Olivia was trying to break-up her family. That is when the rumors began to spread. Olivia began receiving numerous emails and phone calls with some students even showing their hatred for her by wearing plastic bracelets that said, “I Hate Olivia,” on them.

Olivia felt rejected by her peers wherever she went, no matter where she lived or what school she was in. She withdrew more and more with each incident. The cafeteria lady started letting her eat her lunch behind the counter and she would hide between classes in bathroom stalls, because she would get beat-up. She started having anxiety attacks. Her mother went to school officials, the children’s parents, and even the authorities, but got no help. Many of the parents of the bullies told her mother that, “they didn’t have time for it”; that “it was just typical middle school behavior.” No one seemed to care.

Her mother pulled her out of private school and started homeschooling her. Olivia contemplated committing suicide to end the pain and suffering that became the norm in her life. Fortunately, those thoughts and feeling all changed when in March 2007, complete strangers and sisters, Sarah (14 years old) and Emily Buder (17 years old), read her story in a local newspaper. The sisters felt the pain that she was going through and, feeling compassion for Olivia, they decided to take action.

Olivia Gardner (right), Sarah (center) and Emily Buder (left)
at the San Rafael Community Center. Chronicle photo by
Brant Ward. Credit: Brant Ward

They came up with “Olivia’s Letters,” a letter writing campaign in which they encouraged their peers to take a moment of their time to write letters to Olivia offering their support. They expressed their messages for hope, healing, and understanding; inspiring her and letting her “know that she was not alone and that she had reason to believe in herself again.” All letters were screened by the sisters before giving them to Olivia.

Olivia’s P.O. box began to overflow with letters from thousands of others from around the world offering their heartfelt support and encouragement; including others, from children to adults, who had experienced bullying firsthand. She found solace in those letters of hope and healing.

An expert and an author on issues that adolescents are affected by, Rosalind Wiseman, said that parents are not always aware that their child is being bullied and that children will not always confide in them when this is happening. Her advice is that the warning signs that parents need to watch for are: isolation, losing friends, the avoidance of social situations, changes in appetite, and making excuses in order “to avoid going to school.”

She also said that parents should have open conversations with their children about the way that other people treat them; that they should always feel safe and never feel threatened by or uncomfortable around anyone.

Olivia now says that, “there are a hundred good people out there for every bad person.”

If you would like to show your support for Olivia, you can write to her at:

Olivia’s Letters
c/o Janet Buder
293 Corte Madera Ave.
Mill Valley, California 94941

Copyright © 2011 Pamela J. Wells. All Rights Reserved

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Oren Lyons - "We Are Part of the Earth"

How did Oren first learn about his relationship to the Earth? Listen to his story...

Please go to YouTube to watch video. Unable to embed it into webpage.
"We Are Part of the Earth"

We Are All One: Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee Interview - Sufi Teacher (Video)

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee Ph.D. is a Sufi teacher and author of a number of books, including The Return of the Feminine and World Soul. In recent years the focus of his writing and teaching has been on spiritual responsibility in our present time of transition, and the emerging global consciousness of oneness, and the subject of Spiritual Ecology.

He is the founder of the Golden Sufi Center.
Working with Oneness
His most recent book is Prayer of the Heart in Christian and Sufi Mysticism.

Hugging Meditation

When we hug, our hearts connect and we know that we are not separate beings. 

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Hugging with mindfulness and concentration can bring reconciliation, healing, understanding, and much happiness. The practice of mindful hugging has helped so many to reconcile with each other- fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, friends and friends, and so many others.

We may practice hugging meditation with a friend, our daughter, our father, our partner or even with a tree. To practice, we first bow and recognize the presence of each other. Then we can enjoy three deep conscious breaths to bring ourselves fully there. We then may open your arms and begin hugging. Holding each other for three in-and-out breaths. With the first breath, we are aware that we are present in this very moment and we are happy. With the second breath, we are aware that the other is present in this moment and we are happy as well. With the third breath, we are aware that we are here together, right now on this earth, and we feel deep gratitude and happiness for our togetherness. We then may release the other person and bow to each other to show our thanks.

When we hug in such a way, the other person becomes real and alive. We do not need to wait until one of us is ready to depart for a trip, we may hug right now and receive the warmth and stability of our friend in the present moment. Hugging can be a deep practice of reconciliation. During the silent hugging, the message can come out very clear: "Darling, you are precious to me. I am sorry I have not been mindful and considerate. I have made mistakes. Allow me to begin anew. I Promise."

Source: Art of Mindful Living - Plum Village
Image Source: embraced by dcosand at Foter.com

Awakening Love & Compassion

By Sogyal Rinpoche Excerpt from The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

1. Loving Kindness: Unsealing the Spring

When we believe that we don't have enough love in us, there is a method for discovering and invoking it. Go back in your mind and recreate, almost visualize, a love that someone gave you that really moved you, perhaps in your childhood. Traditionally you are taught to think of your mother and her lifelong devotion to you, but if you find that problematic, you could think of your grandmother or grandfather, or anyone who had been deeply kind to you in your life. Remember a particular instance when they really showed you love, and you felt their love vividly.

Now let that feeling arise again in your heart, and infuse you with gratitude. As you do so, your love will go out naturally to that person who evoked it. You will remember then that even though you may not always feel that you have been loved enough, you were loved genuinely once. Knowing that now will make you feel again that you are, as that person made you feel then, worthy of love and really lovable.

Let your heart open now, and let love flow from it; then extend this love to all beings. Begin with those who are closest to you, then extend your love to friends and to acquaintances, then to neighbors, to strangers, then even to those whom you don't like or have difficulties with, even those whom you might consider as your "enemies," and finally to the whole universe. Let this love become more and more boundless. Equanimity is one of the four essential facets, with loving kindness, compassion, and joy, of what the teachings say form the entire aspiration of compassion. The all-inclusive, unbiased view of equanimity is really the starting point and the basis of the path of compassion.

You will find that this practice unseals a spring of love, and by that unsealing in you of your own loving kindness, you will find that it will inspire the birth of compassion. For as Maitreya said in one of the teachings he gave Asanga: "The water of compassion courses through the canal of loving kindness."

2. Compassion: Considering Yourself the Same as Others

One powerful way to evoke compassion is to think of others as exactly the same as you. "After all," the Dalai Lama explains, "all human beings are the same—made of human flesh, bones, and blood. We all want happiness and want to avoid suffering. Further, we have an equal right to be happy. In other words, it is important to realize our sameness as human beings."

Say, for example, you are having difficulties with a loved one, such as your mother or father, husband or wife, lover or friend. How helpful and revealing it can be to consider the other person not in his or her "role" of mother or father or husband, but simply as another "you," another human being, with the same feelings as you, the same desire for happiness, the same fear of suffering. Thinking of the person as a real person, exactly the same as you, will open your heart to him or her and give you more insight into how to help.

If you consider others just the same as yourself, it will help you to open up your relationships and give them a new and richer meaning. Imagine if societies and nations began to view each other in the same way; at last we would have the beginnings of a solid basis for peace on earth and the happy coexistence of all peoples.

3. Compassion: Exchanging Yourself for Others

When someone is suffering and you find yourself at a loss to know how to help, put yourself unflinchingly in his or her place. Imagine as vividly as possible what you would be going through if you were suffering the same pain. Ask yourself: "How would I feel? How would I want my friends to treat me? What would I most want from them?"

When you exchange yourself for others in this way, you are directly transferring your cherishing from its usual object, yourself, to other beings. So exchanging yourself for others is a very powerful way of loosening the hold on you of the self-cherishing and the self-grasping of ego, and so of releasing the heart of your compassion.

Image: True Happiness Inner Peace 1 by tung072 at Stock.xchng

Ego = Pain + Suffering

By Pamela J. Wells

Our identity with our self and our judgment of others keeps us asleep, unconscious. It keeps us from being at peace with ourselves and others. Ego is the primary cause of pain and suffering in families, communities, countries, and the world.

The Ego Is An Illusion, but the Problem Herein Lies, When We Believe That We Are The Ego.

The Ego is your false self. You have to wake-up from that self. To be at total peace with the world and everyone around you, including yourself, you have to wake up from your identity. In order to do that, you have to lose yourself—lose your false self. Forget about yourself. Forget about your illusory separateness from everyone around you, even the people with whom you do not like or even feel hate for. Your ego, your thoughts about who you think you are, creates separation between you and everyone else. Your ego only causes pain and suffering.

Ego Is Not Attractive

Many times, people like it when they are told that they have a big ego. They think that it validates their worthiness, their superiority over others, that it makes them important, makes them stand out from others. It does make them stand out from others. They stand out from others, but not in a good way. They are alone and empty inside, craving attention, but they cannot find it. Yet it continues to be a vicious cycle of repeated delusional thoughts and behavior that can never be filled up with anything. It is like a gaping hole inside of you that makes you feel like you are invisible, insignificant, and worthless, so in order to attempt to fill that hole, one has to build himself or herself up, so that he or she will not feel invisible; however, others are turned off by that ego and end up shutting down when around that person or they choose to not have anything to do with that person anymore. 

Ego is likened to a pair of eyes that can only see our physical differences from others, our differences in our appearance, the way we look, and our differences in what we have, material objects. Ego identifies individuals and groups of individuals through labels that it creates based upon those differences, as well through labels used to describe the “status” of an individual or group in a society. The ego begins to separate, dissect, and categorize individuals and groups of individuals based upon faulty and false ideas and perceptions. Ego is not attractive. It is a negative energy that pushes people away and causes the person with the ego to feel feelings of loneliness and separation.

Copyright © 2012 Pamela J. Wells. All Rights Reserved
Image licensed under Bigstockphoto.com

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Tibetan Yogas Of Body Speech And Mind - Book Excerpt

~ Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

In the absolute sense, what we hope to find through the three doors of body, speech, and mind is self-realization: realization of who we truly are.… Who we really are is the unconditional experience of being, in the absence of the grasping mind. Who we are not is what we usually identify with, for example, “I am a mother,” “I am a lawyer.” We identify with our roles, our thoughts, our emotions, or other conditions we are trapped in. When we go beyond that mistaken view of self, we can discover who we truly are: the inseparable state of openness and awareness.

But before we can begin to understand this larger self, we need to explore who we are in the smaller sense. Who is the one here, now, the one who is manifesting in this identity through body, speech, and mind? … Most of the time our view of ourselves causes us pain. We feel the pain of needing and desiring what we don’t have, the pain of fear or anxiety over losing what we do have, the pain of being separated from our loved ones, the pain of encountering our enemies.

The main causes of this pain and suffering are the conceptual mind, karmic conditions, and negative emotions. The teachings speak of an enlightened sense of body, speech, and mind, but for now, in the negative sense we can be said to have a conceptual-karmic-emotional pain body, conceptual-karmic-emotional pain speech, and a conceptual-karmic-emotional pain mind. I refer to these three more simply as “pain body,” “pain speech,” and “pain mind.”

Whether physically, energetically, or psychologically, we experience ourselves mainly through our pain. It is hard to recognize rigpa, the enlightened nature that is our self, the nature that we share with the deities. The small self is more familiar to us. The small self is the one through which we express our pain, and because it is so familiar, it becomes an important door through which we may discover our bigger self—and through this discovery, release our pain.

Pain Body

Some years ago on a commuter plane from Charlotte to Charlottesville I found myself sitting near a young couple with their toddler, and this young couple presented some vivid examples of pain body and pain speech. The young woman was very angry and disappointed with her partner because he did not acknowledge or respond to her, and she expressed this to him verbally through her pain speech in a high, emotional tone almost nonstop during the entire flight. The young man was probably as stressed out as she was, but instead of reacting with pain speech, he reacted with pain body: he held all of his stress inwardly and refused to respond, either in word or gesture. At one point he closed both his ears with his fingers—and when he did so, she finally stopped talking. But as soon as he released his ears, she started up again. Her speech was explosive and scattered; his body was closed and rigid. They were both experiencing similar pain, but as far as their awareness was concerned, both seemed totally disconnected from their true thoughts and feelings.

Some people are characterized more by pain body, others by pain speech, and still others by pain mind. The pain body is not just about the physical body. It can also be seen as the foundation, or ground, of our smaller unenlightened self, like a sense of identity. Think of someone who has been through many severe hardships in life but who has never managed to process the accompanying psychological, karmic, and emotional pain—the character played by Mickey Rourke in the film The Wrestler is a good example. Randy “The Ram” Robinson was once a star in the professional wrestling circuit, but when we meet him twenty years later, he is well past his prime, ailing with advanced heart disease and struggling to revive his identity as a wrestler. Randy spends a lot of his time in silence, seldom expressing any emotion. His ego is so dense that it almost manifests on a physical level: we can see the pain in his facial features, in his posture, in his measured way of moving, in his failing health. To loosen his dense identity, he medicates himself with alcohol and cocaine.

As the story progresses, Randy tries to rekindle a relationship with his estranged daughter. When the two meet, she touches his pain, and he begins to wake up a bit and to interact. As we observe this small awakening, we sense that this is a precious opportunity for Randy to connect not only with his daughter but also with a more genuine sense of self that can release his pain. But he is ultimately unable and unwilling to transform. He chooses instead to remain on his dead-end path; at the close of the film we are left with a feeling of deep sadness for him.

It is so important for the person characterized by the pain body to recognize the body through which the pain is flowing. Until one can discover the bounded, stuck self, there is no way to realize the deep, vast stillness that is free from pain: the aspect of oneself that is unconditioned and unbounded.

Pain Speech

To understand pain speech, think of someone you know who seems always to be talking and talking but never has a point to make. This person does not realize that the pain itself is the one who is talking, and the pain becomes externalized in a scattered or confused way.

A classic example of pain speech is Frances McDormand’s character Linda Litzke in the movie Burn After Reading. A fitness trainer in a health club, Linda is constantly explaining to everyone around her that she needs money for plastic surgery so she can attract the right man. She is so obsessed with verbalizing that she does not notice when her doting boss, who seems like the right man, says he cares deeply for her just as she is. She misses the opportunity to gain insight into the pain underlying her speech and through this recognition to find the feeling of connection she so clearly desires.

When you have an internal dialogue constantly running through your mind, this is another form of pain speech: the words go on and on, yet they never get you anywhere. Anyone characterized by pain speech can benefit from understanding that all these pain-based words are fruitless; for if you are not hearing your own words, why would you expect another to hear them? The first seed of doubt can help recognition to unfold: maybe what you are really trying to communicate is quite different from what you are expressing. With all her verbalizing, Linda might ultimately be saying that she felt hurt, unloved, and uncomfortable in herself.

When you start to connect more with the deeper truth at the source of pain speech, you can find the peaceful, pain-free place that is wordless, soundless, and where there is no expectation that someone must hear you. But first you must realize that your speech is an expression of pain—and the voice itself is what obscures the silence.

Pain Mind
The person dominated by pain mind has too many scattered thoughts, too many emotions, too many mental images. Each time the mind moves to yet another emotion, thought, or image, that’s what the mind becomes. When it doesn’t move—when it gets stuck in one place—it becomes dense and dark, sometimes depressed.

Heath Ledger’s character in Brokeback Mountain is an example of someone with pain mind. Ennis Del Mar is a troubled and troubling character, a man whose denial of his love for another man is causing him devastating psychic pain. His posture is rigid. He speaks very little, and when he does he speaks through a clamped jaw and barely gets his words out. He is trapped in his uncontrollable thoughts and emotions and spends a lifetime trying to deny them.

The pain mind is convinced it is achieving some purpose by all its activity and imagery. But if you look closer you can realize that all of these thoughts and emotions are mainly an expression of pain. This identification with thoughts is the small self, and in order to discover the big self you have to discover the small self. The pain itself becomes an entryway to self-discovery. The moment you catch yourself in a repetitive thought—for example, thinking over and over, “I hate the world”—in that moment you can realize “This is not me.” In this moment of awareness, the pain begins to release, and something else is allowed to unfold. It is all a question of recognizing that moment.

The racing thoughts and emotions of pain mind—the infinite imaginings of the ego—have at their source the deep identification with pain known as pain body. Pain speech, too, arises from the pain body’s mistaken sense of core identity. Thus, it is natural for a person to exhibit overlapping characteristics of pain body, pain speech, and pain mind— such as a tight jaw accompanied by churning thoughts. Ultimately, once we release ourselves from the pain body, then pain speech and pain mind will no longer be an issue. But sometimes the pain body is not clearly challenging us, whereas pain speech may be quite actively and obviously destroying our relationships, or pain mind may be immediately miring us in destructive thoughts or emotions and leading us to destructive actions. Our challenge is to identify the most advantageous place to begin the process of self-transformation.

Whether it is pain body, pain speech, or pain mind, moving past the small self is a matter of having some clue as to why you are doing, talking, or thinking as you are: deep inside you need a connection to your big self. Deep inside is your source of joy, but you go about searching for that joy in the wrong places and in the wrong activities of body, speech, and mind.
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About the Author

Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, a lama in the Bön tradition of Tibet, presently resides in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is the founder and director of Ligmincha Institute, an organization dedicated to the study and practice of the teachings of the Bön tradition. He was born in Amritsar, India, after his parents fled the Chinese invasion of Tibet and received training from both Buddhist and Bön teachers, attaining the degree of Geshe, the highest academic degree of traditional Tibetan culture. He has been in the United States since 1991 and has taught widely in Europe and America.

Available on Amazon: Tibetan Yogas Of Body Speech And Mind

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