Suffering.

There is a bit more that I wanted to say about sitting with pain.  I kept my previous post simple to make a point that most of the pain we have is caused by how we use ourselves.  I minimized the effects that the 'conditions of use' have on pain.  Also, I want to write about how pain develops.

I feel my last post did not pay the respect I feel to those who have a lot of pain due to their 'condition'.  I have known two luminary teachers at the San Francisco Zen Center who have had worse pain than I can possibly imagine.  These teachers had really broken bodies due to repeated trauma or advanced disease like rheumatic arthritis.  I hesitate to write on this topic at all out of respect for my betters.

I actually know very little about pain.  But I do wonder if there is a natural process which people with really bad long term pain follow.  Is there a process of experiencing pain, struggling against it, finding some balance between the benefits and pitfall of 'hope', finding some acceptance and openness to pain?  Does this process remodel our beliefs around who we are?  If so, the severe 'conditions of use' now has effected our 'manner of use'.   Pain can be a very powerful remodeler of who we think we are.

I am a medical care provider, and I occasionally provide care to people with chronic pain.  To provide care I listen carefully to their concerns, and communicate that I really care about them.  I let them know that I want them to be free from pain.  I do everything I can to find the cause of their pain and provide treatment.  And I also do everything I can to provide symptomatic relief.  That's the easy part.  But I feel I must make an effort to add something more.  I'm not there to be their friend.  And it's not right to be overly solicitous. I must suggest to them that some of their pain is due to their 'manner of use' which is fundamentally based on beliefs.    I might ask those with pain: "Can you let the pain be just pain?"  "Can you leave yourself alone while you sit?"  I strongly feel the the Alexander Technique could be very helpful here.

I'd like to change gears a bit.  I would like to propose that there is a process that we habitually perform as sensation devolves into pain.  We go step by step down this path.  It is a progression from 'sensation' to 'suffering'.  Most important, we do it.  We have to take responsibility for the process.  Very roughly:

Sensation:  At a rather fundamental level there is this brain that is receiving electrical stimulation.  This is stimulation to a specific area of the brain's body maps.
Separation:  At some point there is a separation, there is separate 'me' that is feeling - a me that has a leg.
Aversion:  I decide that I don't like the knee stimulation.
Suffering:   I start to become more and more involved in the sensation and opinions about the sensation.  This manifests as concurrent emotional upset, psychic involvement and shortening and contracting the body.  This is not pain.  The word "pain" infers that it is possible to have a big physical sensation that is separate from the emotional grief + wild tormented thinking + shortening and contracting of the body.  These things are all wrapped up together and it is not possible to separate them.  One never occurs without the others.  The package is called suffering.

How long it takes to move from sensation to suffering can be reduced to a mathematical formulae.  One of the variables is the speed with which the sensation is experienced.  The other day I tripped and hurt my foot at a busy intersection.  Because it was so sudden I spun around to scream obscenities at the offending curb.  On the other extreme is the exquisitely detailed unfolding of suffering with knee pain while sitting.  Another part of the equation is that suffering is inversely proportional to capacity.  On the days when I feel good, have eaten well, have slept well and have done some zazen I have greater capacity and it takes longer for aversion and suffering take place.  Capacity can be cultivated.

Regardless of where one is in this 4 step decent into suffering, we can interrupt it.  Once interrupted we can move back up the process.  To interrupt the process Zen suggests creatively engaging the process and 'just sit'.  The AT student recommits to 'the inhibition of end-gaining'.  Google teaches their employees to "stop".  Although Zen is arguably the most nuanced expression of 'stopping', all these are equivalent.  Getting good at 'stopping' can lead to impressive 'capacity'

I propose the AT has something unique to add.  Something else besides 'stopping' to help alleviate suffering.  This addition is important: it is the only reason I am writing this blog.  AT has 'direction' to add.  If one is employing direction one can prevent descending, step by step, into suffering.  One can imunize oneself from the decent from sensation to suffering.  One must pass through the gateway of primary control to suffer.    Shortening and contracting of the body will not occur if continuous direction is provided to the primary control; big physical sensation will not prompt us to create emotional grief + wild tormented thinking.

Here is a statement - if one successfully and continually maintains conscious direction over the primary control one will not progress from sensation to suffering.  If this is not exciting enough, consider that 'direction' is not a variable in the suffering equation.  It is a condition.  If  'direction' is present then suffering can not develop.  Without direction, suffering is free to develop based on our equation above.  This is because the primary control is gatekeeper of our response to stimuli.  This should be huge news to the 376 million Buddhists because Buddhism is fundamentally about the end of suffering.

The Zen student has ample opportunities to investigate this.  Sit cross legged without direction and see how long you can do it without suffering.  Tomorrow, employ direction along with your Zen 'stopping' and see how long it takes for suffering to develop.  (Oh, I forgot, you'll have to have some lessons in the AT to learn how to do this).

Thank you so much for bearing with me.  Here is a story as a reward.   Sorry, I don't know the details.  But it was in medieval Japan.  The setting is a remote mountain monastery which was about to be overrun by a samurai general and his troops.  But this was a particularly brutal general.  Fearing for their lives all the monks ran and hid in the bushes.  All but one old monk.  The next day the general burst into the meditation hall.  Seeing the seated old monk he went over, drew his sword, held it with alarming intent, and said "Fool!  Don't you know who I am?  I could run my blade through you and not blink an eye!"  The old monk replied: "General!  Don't you know who I am?  I could have your blade run through me and not bink an eye!"

Feel free to end the story as you wish: it's not important.  What is important is that the monks Zen training has likely provided him with tremendous capacity to withstand sudden extreme sensation with poise and equanimity.

Slings and arrow, being that we are human, will find us all eventually.  Hiding in bushes is not a reliable plan.  Perhaps we have the time to mature slowly like and old monk.  On the other hand, the General may already be at the gate.  Are you feeling the poise and equanimity?  Maybe thinking about learning more about 'direction'?

So you can check my math - go ahead and peer review me.  But ultimately this is not an intelectual exercise.   Consider studying the Alexander Technique.