Dispelling Pain

Here we use Metta & Upekkha meditations to ease physical and emotional pain. We put contentment and ease in the foreground.

Transcript

So do take your seat as usual.

Really feel supported by the seat of the chair,

The back of the chair.

Let your feet rest on the earth.

And take a few moments now to make yourself as comfortable as you can be realistically right now.

And a good way to do that is to notice what's going on in your breath and to make that as comfortable as is realistically possible.

So if your breath is comfortable,

Use that as a support.

And if breath is an issue,

Send kindness and relaxation to yourself about it.

So either way you're sending kindness.

And now to support that,

We'll make ourselves physically comfortable.

One thing to do is to find the spot in your body that's most reliably comfortable most of the time.

And to just let your attention rest there and just relax in feeling that spot and letting it grow.

And using the way that feels to notice the rest of your body and help that relax as well.

So take your time and enjoy your breath.

Enjoy resting in any comfortable physical sensation.

And choose whatever is happening to put your attention there.

Choose to put your attention on the comfort of your breath,

On the comfort of your body.

And make that choice because it'll help you feel good.

So we don't have to worry about sounds or temperature.

We just put this kind attention in the foreground and rest in that.

And now put your attention on the top of your head and notice if the muscles are in any way holding and want to release.

Do the same with your brow.

Any muscular holding,

Just let it go as much as it wants to,

Don't force it,

Just allow it.

And notice around your eyes.

And release any holding there.

And the muscles on the sides of your nose,

From your eyes down to your chin.

Just see what's happening with those big muscles and let those rest.

And relax your jaw,

The place where it hinges,

Those muscles,

And where the angle between your jaw and your neck and your chin are.

See how to make that comfortable as well.

And let yourself make that small adjustment.

You don't have to hold.

And feel the reality that gravity will let your shoulders ease down.

You don't have to hold those up either.

And rest in that release.

In the same way,

Let the bones of your arms rest.

And send air into your shoulder joints,

Your elbow joints,

And your wrists.

A soft,

Gentle breath.

And send air into all the joints in your fingers.

Letting your breath send ease and relief from the top of your head down through your shoulders and your wing bones into the tips of your fingers.

And rest in that.

And now send ease all through your rib cage,

Whether it's with your breath or by releasing the muscles or sending a wish for kindness.

Whichever way works best for you.

Ease all through your rib cage and your torso.

And send ease to your spine.

Again,

Whatever physical difficulties are true,

That's just fine.

But let it be outweighed right now by your kind attention.

By a gentle breath or by your good wishes.

And the same with your hip joints.

Send ease there.

Again,

Really let yourself rest.

Let gravity and the chair do the work.

And send ease to your knees and your ankles.

Rest your feet on the earth.

And let the breath and the ease flow out from your ankles to all the bones in your feet.

So that there too,

You feel rest,

You feel held.

Rest and ease coming from yourself.

Holding coming from the earth.

And now,

As we continue with these instructions to replace pain with contentment,

We'll do our Metta meditation.

That's the Goodwill Meditation.

So think of whoever it is that would lift your heart and allow that happiness,

Contentment to be in the foreground.

So see whether it's a dear one or a benefactor or someone who's been kind to you,

That you don't have much of a relationship,

Someone who's done this just by surprise.

So see who comes to your mind's eye.

And now send out the wish.

May they find a way to be safe from inner and outer harm.

And may they find a way to be happy and content.

May their heart be at ease with the truth of their life,

Whatever is true.

May they still rest in contentment.

And notice how you feel sending out these kind wishes.

Let that have an effect.

May they find a way to be safe.

May they find a way to be content.

And may their heart be at ease.

And now find something that's slightly uncomfortable.

And just,

Whether it's physical or whether it's some upcoming event or some recent loss.

And look at it with fresh eyes.

And notice that it's less monolithic,

Less all-pervasive and less unchanging.

And that it maybe had been appearing in your mind.

It may have been physical or mental annoyance.

And look at its impermanence.

And now by contrast to that,

Find some spot that feels good,

Again either physical or emotional.

And put that in the foreground of your mind.

So the discomfort wavers and changes,

Although it's there.

And there's this comfort or positive aspect that's there and true as well at the same time.

And just rest in that comfort.

Now let that true physical or mental comfort just kind of sit in the background.

And again,

Find some bearable disturbance,

Physical or mental.

And we'll send out wishes that are designed to lead to heart's ease.

So let the comfort that we've just called up,

Let that hold you.

While you feel this bearable dissatisfaction.

And we'll send out the heart's ease or equanimity upheka wishes.

The first one.

In spite of my best efforts,

Things are as they are.

Even though I've done everything I can.

And I recognize that.

I give myself credit for that.

And things still are as they are.

So once again,

There's a balance that your good efforts count.

Even when they can't magically change things.

That is,

Although I understand that I do wish well and I do the right things for myself and others,

I can't always control others' thoughts,

Actions or words around my dissatisfaction or pain.

But my efforts still count.

And send out the wish,

May my heart be at ease with the truth of my life.

And to continue to support this,

These real present dissatisfactions and pains.

And to experience that they don't have to be overwhelming.

We'll do the meta or goodwill practice.

So acknowledging this pain and not being afraid of the truth of it,

Not having to shy away,

Which just causes more upset.

We'll feel it because we know that we can dispel a lot of the suffering around it in the following way.

Send out the kind wish,

May I be safe from inner and outer harm.

And at the same time that you feel the pain,

Let your heart and your mind feel this kind wish to yourself.

May I be safe from inner and outer harm.

And now the second wish,

May I be content and happy.

Send that to yourself and see how that feels.

And again,

May my heart be at ease with the truth of my life.

So in the face of this physical pain or dissatisfaction,

You're sending out a wish that may you find safety,

Contentment and heart's ease.

And see how that feels.

And now we continue with the mudita practice,

The empathetic joy practice,

Where we allow ourselves to enjoy the truth of the happiness around us.

So see who it is that you know whose happiness you can really remember.

Is it a person,

A pet,

Someone with you or someone gone?

Letting their happiness feel their glow,

See what's going well for them.

And send out the wish.

May your happiness continue.

May your happiness grow.

See how it feels to send out those kind wishes.

Let yourself enjoy that.

And notice how that makes you feel.

And send out the wish,

I am happy that you are happy.

May your happiness continue.

May your happiness grow.

And I am happy that you are happy.

And rest in those three wishes.

May your happiness continue.

May your happiness grow.

And I am happy that you are happy.

And I am happy that you are happy.

And now carrying this forward,

We do what's called dedicating the merit.

And it goes in the following way.

Let the good feelings that have come to you,

Not feeling that they should exist,

But anything that has just arisen naturally,

Let yourself rest in that for a minute.

Again,

Whatever is true is just fine.

And the negative is there,

But it's in the background,

And the positive is in the foreground.

And let yourself feel that.

And then just see how it feels to intend to carry that with you.

To let yourself continue to rest in that.

And to let that be the basis for your actions towards yourself and others.

See how that feels.

And listen to the sound of the bell.

Open your eyes when you're ready.

Any reactions,

Questions?

And questions again?

No?

That's fine either way.

And notice that what this is meant to do is to understand it's good.

They're turning the lights on.

This is perfect.

This is perfect.

They're turning the lights on.

It's unexpected,

And it's not particularly pleasant.

And the question is,

Can you send yourself kindness in the face of this dissatisfaction?

So these surprised dissatisfactions that are part of life.

See right now.

Absolutely,

Yes.

That's right.

That's why we come here.

We come here to practice.

And then you do it again and again.

I see you every week,

And it's quite wonderful.

And then one day,

It's like somebody's going to try to clean the room when you're trying to meditate at home.

And all of a sudden,

It's just going to naturally have become the habit to say,

Oh,

Let me send myself contentment in the face of this dissatisfaction.

So it's just fine.

Your reaction is what is understood.

That's why this is called practice.

Good.

Other questions about that?

And then I'll just talk for a minute about the way the practice that we've just been doing is supposed to go is that it does not magically cure things.

But that for me when I was learning this,

That was an unhappiness and dissatisfaction.

Until I came to understand that the meditation isn't meant to be a cure,

That instead,

Just as I was saying,

It's an opportunity to send kindness to yourself.

And that that kindness becomes stronger and stronger.

And so you start to feel better in more and more situations.

First the easy ones,

First in the face of easy people,

And then increasingly as you do this in the face of more difficult situations.

And so what this means is that since pain and discontentment is unavoidable,

It becomes an occasion for this goodwill or meta to ourself,

And then the pain becomes less frightening.

And again,

As you're saying,

It takes time.

It's meant to take time.

But we do it here and it feels good.

And then it just eventually becomes the habit.

So good.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Thank you so much.

Yeah,

Thank you.

Thank you.

Reviews

This was genius. It was perfect. I'm going through an anniversary event of something extremely painful and I found this both respectful of painful feelings and gently challenging and soothing them at the same time.🙏🏻🩷

This is a good body scan and metta meditation. I will listen again.
Could use some noise editing

By far my favorite meditation! The recording needs help though 😑 Very distracting.

So amazing what happened during this session. All is one and there is always a space to heal with and in one another

Marvelous. For a time my pain completely dispelled, and when it did return it was gentler. Thank you.