Beyond the pain

Can we discern pain from suffering?

(Portuguese version)

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The monk left me outside the main building. I picked up my backpack and went to find what would be my room for the next few days. The stairs took me to a turret, a first floor consisting of a small room with two beds and a bathroom. From the window, I could see pine trees and the small oak forest that hides the small houses where the monks live.

Do I still know how to do this?

I went out to explore the trails and to do a test before the evening meditation; I wanted to see if I could meditate sitting cross-legged. It's been two years since I last meditated cross-legged for more than 15 minutes, and it seems like decades: I'm in worse physical shape, and just last week, the rheumatologist who monitors my spondyloarthritis confirmed what was already obvious to me: that I have new inflammation on the side of my hips.

I went into the meditation room outside the main building. It was a small, wood-panelled room with a familiar smell of incense. I took out a mat and a cushion and sat down. I felt the silence coming — my body knows this posture, and it knows it's time to be quiet. 

Some time passed —  I can't say how much — until the exhaustion from a very bad night's sleep began to push my body forward, and it felt as if someone had stuck a knife in my right hip. I straightened up, took a breath, and tried again and again, but the silence had been broken. 

I can’t do this anymore

Still, when I sat down for the evening meditation, I was hopeful. I'd had a short nap to prevent nodding off during the practice, and I was ready. 

The hope didn't last long; the pain returned shortly afterwards. I tried. I breathed into my back, as if that would release the weight on my legs. I tried to focus my attention on the parts of my body that didn't hurt, on my hands that were relaxed on my lap. But meditating with pain is like trying to listen to silence with someone shouting in your ear. 

At some point, it was no longer meditation, it was a fight with myself. I gave up and stretched out my legs, trying to be quiet while wanting to scream from the pain. I became even less zen when I crossed my legs again, and not five minutes later, the meditation was over. I just needed to hold on a little longer.

Hold on (just a little longer)

On the second day, the first meditation was at 5 a.m. I went into the room, where the monks and two laypeople were already sitting, took out a mat and a cushion, and sat down cross-legged. I had to try one more time, but as soon as I sat down, I knew I was going to go through the same thing again.

But I stuck it out, using familiar techniques. And then I held on a little longer. I didn't want it to happen like the day before; I didn't want to stretch out my legs, giving up and looking weak, and then have it end right there.

I tried, but I couldn't. When I couldn't stand the pain any longer, I uncrossed my legs, and it was like trying to undo a pretzel without breaking it. I leaned to my left to free my right leg, which I stretched out in front of me, letting the blood circulate again.

I waited a while and crossed my legs again, and the pain returned. I tried to focus my attention on my breathing (focusing my attention on my body wasn't going well, even though I was focusing on the areas that didn't hurt), but at a certain point I gave up meditating. I just wanted the gong to sound and for someone to put an end to that. I opened my eyes and saw people sitting on the floor, their backs super straight, in absolute silence. I seemed to be the only person counting down the minutes until it was over.

Still, I thought, it's part of it; this is a process, a learning process; there will always be bad meditations; I thought there are no bad meditations, but without much conviction. But if the pain was so intense that I couldn't meditate, what was I doing?

I realised that if I wanted to meditate, I would have to sit in a chair, and as soon as that thought appeared, I felt the resistance: I didn't want to look weak, and in the same microsecond, I realised that this was exactly what my ego needed: to accept that I wasn't able and, the next time I entered that room, to choose a chair and sit in it.

But…are you sure? The universe answers

After breakfast, my task was to pull out the weeds growing in the drainage gutter of the main road, made of cobblestone. Of course I didn't say that maybe that task wasn't a good idea for me, of course I thought I'd manage it — and I did, with pain. 

See the pattern? I hadn't, until I wrote these words. I was suffering for two hours with my back on fire, so that I didn't look weak again, so that I didn't have to admit to myself and to the world that I can't do a task as simple as pulling weeds.

But the hints to that day’s theme didn't stop there. After lunch it was up to us to wash the dishes and help tidy up the kitchen. And who immediately went to the sink and washed everyone's dishes and the platters and bowls of food? Yeah... My back was on fire and I was taking deep breaths, strengthening my abdomen, using every trick so I wouldn't have to ask someone else to fill in for me.

Recognising the pattern

The next time in the meditation room, I chose a chair and sat on it. And the next day, when they were handing out the tasks, I said that my back had hurt the day before, and instead of the garden, I went to the kitchen.

I feel like this theme has been in my life since I was sixteen, when I spent a summer in pain because of two herniated discs that nobody knew existed, and I had to have surgery on one of them. Since then, I've been torn between wanting to do more and knowing that I'm able, and the fear of doing something that would jeopardise my mobility, as has happened so many times over the years (a.k.a. spondyloarthritis). And this fear sometimes projects itself into a greater sensitivity to the idea of «being able».

And maybe I don't see the pattern because it's not always so obvious. Pain can be a good thing, like when I go to the gym: I suffer for an hour and then feel stronger and more flexible. I felt stronger after those two hours of pulling weeds, even though my back ached for a few days. Trying to go beyond your comfort zone, beyond what you think is possible, is one, perhaps the only, way to grow.

On the other hand, I know that this fear has gained new layers over the years, and I feel it has gained a new layer in the last year with the diagnosis of bone metastases, the induced menopause, and the new medication. So I seized the opportunity of being around Buddhist monks (at the Sumedharama Monastery in Ericeira, Portugal) to ask them how to deal with pain.

The first arrow is pain, the second is aversion to pain

This idea first arose from a book I started reading in the monastery library and then from conversations with the monks. In the book, a monk tells how he coped with the first years of isolation in India:

«At that time in my life conviction narrowed to one insight: any suffering is mind-wrought, and the way to the end of it has to come through getting to its root. Instead of figuring out different places to go, I realized I had to come to term with restlessness. Instead of muttering about the lack of interesting things to do and the stifling heat and poor food and hideous mind states, I realized that the crux of the matter, although hard to come to terms with, was my own aversion. Sometimes I would recognize that I was holding out against things, and then I would relax, let go. That left the Way It Is, the pilgrim’s way.»

A radical thought is that suffering doesn't come from pain (and that pain is neutral, like breathing or a fever), but from our aversion to pain and from the anguish that makes everything worse. Suffering comes from the inner affliction: I don't want this. Again? Why me? Will it last forever? Will it get worse?

And if the aversion to pain causes more suffering than the pain itself, we can lessen the suffering by accepting it. Finding, in the midst of pain, that peace of mind Buddhists call equanimity is a process that involves meditation, mindfulness, and compassion, that may include:

• Exploring the pain, its limits, the type of pain, the way it moves in the body, and realising that this object that our mind fixates on as «the pain» is actually something fluid and impermanent.

• Replacing despair with love, imagining an object of unconditional love, such as a baby or a puppy, knowing that the mind cannot maintain a negative and positive state simultaneously. We can also speak to our pain with the same affection we would speak to a friend who was suffering.

• Giving it meaning and focusing on the positive things that pain brings (what person would I be today if my body hadn't failed me so many times?).

And this applies not only to pain but also to other states of discomfort.

Don Boivin

said it beautifully about anxiety in When Anxiety Knocks, Ask For Some ID: 

«Acceptance of what is is not the same as endorsing injustice or suffering; it is just seeing the facts as they are right now without all the inner turmoil that doesn’t really help make things better».

The distinction between what is and what we feel and think about what is requires attention, which is the opposite of what I tend to do when things don't go according to my expectations. There are moments when I can stop and breathe, but more easily, I look for ways to distract and anaesthetize myself so that the discomfort passes quickly.

Now the suggestion is to stay, to focus on the discomfort, study it, accept it, and grow with it, letting go of what doesn't serve me, training the mind so that it doesn't create this layer of anguish and fear that makes everything worse. And to do that, I have to identify the moments when I say to myself, «I will stick it out» and realise whether the challenge is manageable and can make me grow, or whether I need to accept that I can't do it and find other solutions.

At the start of the trail that leads to the small oak grove, there's a huge windchime hanging from a tree, the sound of which reaches every corner of the property. Underneath is a bench improvised from a log and a board, where I sat several times during the days I spent in the monastery. There, the wind blows up from the valley and through the trees, and when it reaches the windchime, it creates a cacophony similar to what my brain sounds like on a busy day. But when the wind dies down, it becomes more rhythmic and melodious, and the melody goes quieter until silence arrives.

When my stay was over, I brought with me the laughter, care, and wisdom of the monks and the sense of service and joy of the other laypeople. I brought with me that windchime, the wind in the trees, and the silence, which I hope I'll continue to hear when I need to remember to pay attention.

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(There's an excellent answer on how to deal with pain in the first six minutes of this video, in the words of the monk Ajahn Jayasaro)