Working with Pain

      When I first began my meditation practiced I quickly found that the muscles in my back were not prepared for the stress of sitting erect for even short periods of time. The muscles would become stiff and I spent many miserable sessions in such pain that I could do little more than obsess over when the bell would ring. After a while it got better and I thought I had won the battle for peace. Then several years later I spent a year as the grounds/maintenance person at a meditation retreat center in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. This was a time of much learning, not the least of which was that there was more work to be done in terms of  pain.
      I lived with two other staff and we would sit three times a day for a total of 3 hours and this far exceeded my previous experience. The pain was back…with a vengeance. But today I can see that it has become one of my greatest teachers. I found that when the pain in my back became more intense than just a background irritation, I was able to name it as a "sensation" rather than pain. I then identified my reaction to it as "aversion" and this allowed me to catch myself before I moved, at which point I noted, "urge to move" which enabled me to stay put. In fact, I found that most of the time, I didn’t need to go to the "urge to move" awareness because the sensation would change. Sometimes it seemed to disappear, or at least dissipate, when I called it a "sensation" and identifiied my reaction as "aversion."  I would repeat this each time a physical sensation grabbed my attention and in this way the pain became a way to increase my concentration instead of causing me to be distracted.
      At some point when this process failed to give me much more than a few seconds relief  and the intensity of the discomfort increased, I would silently note "intention to move" and allow time to see if anything changed. If it didn't, I would mentally go through the whole list again from "sensation" through "intention to move," making sure my body was as relaxed as possible. I followed with several breaths, and noted "moving," and very slowly adjusted my posture. The adjustment was made in the smallest of increments with much mindfulness; just enough to soften the intensity of the sensation and then begin the series once again as necessary.   
      I have come to realize that all my reactions to sensory experiences during meditation follow this same process. I have a feeling or thought and it falls into one of three categories: Good, Bad, or Neutral. If it's good then I am desirous of it; I crave or grasp after it forming an attachment. If it is bad then I have an aversion toward it and try to push it away, or involve some manner of avoidance. I was able to see numerous times where I would, without thought, change my breathing in response to the sensations before I could catch myself. As I became aware of this habit earlier in the process, I simply started to note my intention to do so before I reacted. Being mindful of the action rather than habitually re-acting became the goal. I was able to stay focused for a longer time doing this and began to work more often identfiying different experiences in terms of my attraction or aversion to them.
      I wish I could say I came to these realizations because of my own wisdom. However, in truth it was because of suggestions given by one of the teachers at the meditation center. He said there is the stage in the Buddhist teaching of Dependent Arising called "becoming" which he defined as a posture that arises from our reactions of craving or aversion. And if we react to our thoughts or feelings in either of these ways, then we "give birth" to the ego. We reinforce a habit-energy that becomes a condition for the arising of other habituated responses in the Dependent Arising process. Each step in that process makes up what are referred to as hindrances to awakening or "kleshas." The Buddhist sutras point out that Ignorance is not realizing this process. What was illuminating as well, was when the teacher pointed out that each time we resist the act that leads to the reinforcement of our habit energies, we slowly kill the habit and the roots of the habit will dry up.