What You Resist, Persists: Working With Aversion

As the Buddha tells us, rejecting, avoiding, or pushing away the reality of the moment - which might be unpleasant - is one of the main ways that we create suffering (or dukkha) not only for ourselves but also for others. In the Pali language, this quality of resistance or aversion is called dosa. And because it tends to cause so much unnecessary pain and stress in our lives, the teachings urge us to use mindfulness practice to really get to KNOW our dosa, at all levels – from the most minor ways that we resist to the most troubling, or destructive. In this new talk, Shell explores all the many ways that we can start to notice when we’re in some way resisting what IS, and start to let BE, instead of being so aversive to other people, life itself, and of course, ourselves. It includes a 10-minute meditation at the end.

Transcript

So,

Before I begin,

I just wanted to first send out a big thank you to those of you who listen to these talks regularly for your patience this past month.

I wanted to make sure to give myself a little extra time and care this month to recover from a surgery I had back in late June,

Which was actually the second major surgery I've had in less than two years.

The first was in late 2021 after I was diagnosed,

Sadly,

With breast cancer.

And last month's surgery was a follow-up to the first one.

Very gratefully,

My doctors have given me the thumbs up,

And as far as I know,

I am still cancer-free,

Which is something I'm extremely grateful for.

That being said,

The theme of this new talk on resistance or aversion resulted in large part because of the second surgery.

And to give you a little context,

I want to first begin by confessing that this last surgery really put my practice to the test in a big way.

For some reason,

When I was first recovering in the hospital,

I found myself very forcefully being thrown directly into the arms of the difficult quality of DOSA,

Or resistance aversion.

In a way that I truly don't ever recall experiencing that strongly before.

In fact,

My resistance was so fierce,

So unwieldy,

And so persistent that it actually really surprised me.

It was just an intensely powerful sense of no,

No,

Not wanting,

Not accepting on any level whatsoever what was actually happening to me.

Of course,

As the Buddha tells us,

This quality of not wanting or not accepting what's happening,

Not accepting the reality of the moment,

Is one of the main ways that we create suffering or dukkha,

Not only for ourselves,

But also for others.

In the Pali language,

The spoken language of the Buddhist time,

This quality of resistance or aversion of not wanting is called DOSA,

D-O-S-A.

And in Sanskrit,

Or the written language of the Buddhist texts,

It's called D-V-E-S-H-A.

The teachings,

This mental and physical quality of DOSA is one of what are called the three poisons,

Which also includes wanting,

Or lobha in Pali,

And also delusion,

Which is moha.

And delusion is essentially not recognizing that our not wanting and wanting are actually the causes of our suffering.

And just as a reminder,

It's not that wanting or not wanting in and of themselves is what causes us to suffer.

This is actually a very common mistaken belief.

Of course,

We want and don't want things.

And of course,

We want to pursue our goals and try to change those situations or people that we feel might be causing harm in some way.

You know,

This is completely natural and expected.

This is not at all the problem.

Problem lies in our wanting ourselves,

Other people,

Or situations to be exactly as we want them to be or don't want them to be that causes us to suffer.

And so essentially what this means is that the obstacle or the sticking point,

If you will,

Is in our expectations,

Right?

So in other words,

It's all of our shoulds,

As in it should or shouldn't be,

Or he or she should or shouldn't be,

Or they should or shouldn't be,

Or I should or shouldn't be,

Et cetera.

And with this quality of dosa in particular,

These shoulds often show up in the form of wanting to judge,

Reject,

Push away,

Or even fight or punish or try to defeat whatever it is that we believe in some way shouldn't be.

The problem is whenever we do this,

What we're essentially doing is making what are already unpleasant experiences just that much more unpleasant because of our strong grip on our expectations or again,

Our shoulds and shouldn'ts.

And for me,

Right after my surgery,

This very strong sense of dosa,

Of not wanting,

Seemed to start almost the second that I woke up from being under anesthesia for four hours.

And unfortunately,

This rejection or pushing away was directed at my own body and what my body was experiencing.

And so when I first opened my eyes in the hospital room,

What I became aware of was that both my arms and even my hands were stuck with IV lines.

My legs were bound from feet to shin with a machine that was kind of constantly squeezing and releasing them to keep me from forming blood clots.

Overall,

My body felt really sore and vulnerable and exhausted.

And at the same time,

Just for some reason,

Completely agitated like I just had way too much caffeine.

And during those early hours as I was kind of flowing between periods of wakefulness and sleep,

I remember different nurses kind of floating in and out of the room and taking my blood pressure and temperature and occasionally poking me with a needle.

And my bed had been positioned so that my back was upright because of the surgery,

But it felt like the rest of my body was just sinking into this giant canyon.

And for the life of me,

I just could not seem to find a good,

Comfortable position for more than like two seconds.

And at some point during this time,

A nurse came into the room and started squeezing a pouch filled with antibiotics through an IV tube that was connected to my hand.

But this became so painful that she needed to stop halfway through.

It just wasn't working.

And apparently the tube line was no longer viable,

So the nurse told me she was going to need to get another one going in my other arm.

But after several rounds of more poking and trying,

She confessed that she just couldn't do it and that she needed to go find someone with a more specialized machine that could try again.

And honestly,

I'm still not sure even now if it was the antibiotics that I was reacting to or maybe just the sense of not being in any way in control of my own body,

Maybe a combination of the two.

But when the nurse left,

I could really feel my discomfort starting to rise.

And for the first time that I can consciously recall,

I felt utterly trapped in my own body and was very desperately just wanting out.

I wanted out of that trap.

My resistance,

In fact,

Was so fierce that I ended up begging my husband to help me take off my leg straps so that I could get up and out of bed,

Even though the nurses had told me I really shouldn't be up and walking so early in my recovery.

But at that point,

I almost felt like I,

Shell,

Was in no way in charge of this and that my body had just completely taken over and it was directing me to move.

And so for a while,

I just sort of paced and paced and cried and paced some more and told my husband that whatever was happening in my body just felt really wrong and that I desperately wanted it to just stop.

And after I'd named this out loud,

What I recognized was that this aversive thought in and of itself was only causing me even more pain and suffering.

So in other words,

I realized it was only serving,

Again,

To make an already unpleasant experience that much more so.

And so in that moment,

What I realized was that I was living out of that old Buddhist equation which tells us that pain times resistance equals the amount of suffering that we're going to experience.

Pain times resistance equals the amount of suffering we're going to have.

And so I knew that in order to find any kind of relief,

I was going to need to just stop running or pacing as it was and just sit down and face it.

As the great Master Ajahn Chah,

Who was a teacher of my teachers,

Has famously told us,

There are two kinds of suffering.

There is the suffering you run away from,

Which follows you everywhere.

And there is the suffering that you face directly and so become free.

The late great Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh described the same kind of teaching this way.

He said,

Don't get caught in theories or ideas such as saying that suffering is an illusion or that we have to,

Quote,

Transcend both suffering and joy.

Just stay in touch with what is actually going on and you will touch the true nature of suffering and the true nature of joy.

When you have a headache,

It would not be correct to call your headache illusory.

To help it go away,

You have to acknowledge its existence and understand its causes.

And so to help myself to start really facing and getting to know and understand my own dukkha,

The first thing I knew to do was to just slowly stop pacing and allow myself to literally sit down on the couch with my husband and rest.

And so after I'd done that,

I kind of leaned over and asked my husband to hold me and I closed my eyes and placed my hand over my heart and tried taking some very deep,

Slow,

Conscious breaths.

I knew that this might at least help me to start to calm the agitation along with the feeling of wanting to just flee so that I could,

Again,

Begin to be with my body instead of rejecting it.

And maybe then I could start to look at what was really happening inside of it and investigating it a little more closely.

And so I really wanted to understand so that I might be better able to discern whether there was truly something happening inside my body or if my own thoughts were creating this fierce reaction.

And in retrospect,

Again,

I think it may have been a combination of both.

But in any case,

The truth is that the only thing that I really had any control over was my own reaction or response,

Which is actually always the case.

In the suttas,

There's a well-known phrase that describes what we're doing when we finally decide to just sit down and face our suffering,

Which is going against the stream.

And what we're going against is our very human,

Almost instinctual reaction to pain,

Which is to run away from it or maybe fiercely resist it or fight like hell or maybe to find blame.

We blame ourselves or other people or the situation.

Another way we react to our suffering is to try to cover it over or numb it out or maybe try to change it or distract ourselves from it.

Maybe sometimes we just pretend that it's not there.

So these are all very instinctual reactions to our suffering and also strong habits of mind.

So much so that we do these things,

Again,

Almost automatically without much thought,

Like we're on automatic pilot.

And if we think about it,

They are all ways that we try in some way to avoid the truth of whatever's happening.

In essence,

We just don't want to be there with it,

With our suffering.

And to be honest,

In those moments at the hospital before I finally stopped pacing,

I was so desperate.

I think I may have tried to employ each and every one of those strategies in rapid fire.

In fact,

I think I even recall trying another very common strategy,

Which is to try to use the practice itself to avoid what's happening in the sense of thinking things like,

Okay,

If I just do this,

Then it'll go away.

Which if we think about it,

Again,

Is also aversion.

This is really common,

Actually.

And it's something as practitioners that we really need to be on the lookout for to see when we're cheating ourselves in this way.

This is especially true,

Actually,

When it comes to the concentration practices,

Which can sometimes feel so blissful that we just really want to stay there in that sort of calm,

Happy place and not explore those pesky thoughts and beliefs and patterns of mind that might be causing us to suffer.

I also find it really helpful to remember that we have all developed these strategies as a way of caring for ourselves or trying to protect ourselves.

So it's all really okay,

And we really don't have to beat ourselves up about these strategies.

That being said,

Unfortunately,

They also don't tend to work.

And about 2,

600 years ago,

The Buddha recognized this when he became enlightened under the Bodhi tree,

And he came up with a radical alternative for us.

Instead of rejecting our suffering whenever it arrives in whatever form,

At whatever level,

The Buddha suggested again that we stop running and avoiding and actually sit down,

Not only directly face our suffering,

But get to know it.

And in fact,

Use the suffering itself as a way to discover freedom.

In other words,

Instead of our familiar,

Let me out of here process,

We're being asked to employ more of a let's get into it one.

Let's get into it.

There's actually a great short phrase that I love that points to this teaching.

It's from the Dharma teacher,

Eugene Cash,

Who's famously told us,

If it's in the way,

It is the way.

If it's in the way,

It is the way.

During his very first sermon,

The Buddha told us this.

He said,

Dukkha or suffering should be known.

The cause by which Dukkha comes into play should be known.

The diversity in Dukkha should be known.

The result of Dukkha should be known.

The cessation of Dukkha should be known.

The path of practice for the cessation of Dukkha should be known.

Before I continue,

I just want to mention that while the common definition of the Pali word Dukkha is suffering,

I know that that's such a heavy and loaded translation.

What helps me sometimes is to think of some of the more modern day translations which include words like uneasy,

Uncomfortable,

Unpleasant,

Uncertain,

Difficult,

Disappointing,

Dissatisfying,

Unreliable,

And my favorite,

Which is not permanently satisfying,

Not permanently satisfying.

In the Pali language,

The opposite of the word Dukkha is Sukkha,

Which means at ease and sometimes even bliss,

Which just as an aside is the name I gave to one of my cats because he definitely brought me ease and bliss.

We think about the word Dukkha,

It can be helpful to remember that the root word of both Dukkha and Sukkha is Kha,

K-H-A,

Which means empty.

And the prefix du,

D-U,

Means bad or difficult.

And su,

S-U,

Means good.

And so to help explain this concept of Dukkha,

The Buddha asked us to imagine the wheel of an ox cart because this was just a regular sight in the Buddha's time.

As he explained it,

If the empty or Kha axle in the middle of the wheel wasn't smooth or good,

Su,

People would experience a very bad,

Du,

Bumpy ride.

They would experience Dukkha.

So the idea is that Dukkha arises when we add resistance into the flow of our wheel,

When we aren't going with the flow,

If you will.

And the more we resist,

The bumpier our ride is going to be.

So essentially,

We're being asked to use our mindfulness practice to become more and more aware of whenever we are in some way creating the same kind of bumpy ride for ourselves by trying to notice how and what it is that we're resisting.

In other words,

We want to notice this quality of dosa at all levels,

Even the minor ones,

So that we can become more and more familiar with it at subtler and subtler levels.

And for this,

What can be really helpful is for us to recognize and then be on the lookout for some of the more common ways that dosa or not wanting can arrive.

So as an example,

We might start to notice when we've maybe become upset about things that we don't want that haven't even happened yet,

But that we think might happen.

In other words,

When we're worrying on any level,

What we're actually doing is resisting.

We're practicing dosa.

Another thing we might be on the lookout for is whenever we're not wanting other people to do something or behave in ways that we don't like,

Or maybe not wanting them to believe things that we don't like or want.

When we can see this,

We then might examine why we're doing this.

And if we look closely,

A lot of times we might realize that just like worrying,

This behavior has its roots in fear.

It can also very often be related to our sense of self as in wanting everyone to be or behave or believe exactly as we do.

Another way we can recognize this quality of dosa is when we notice that we're in some way not wanting people to believe something about us,

Right?

So this is extremely common.

It's often completely unconscious,

But when we can use our mindfulness practice to contact this particular dosa,

We might begin to notice how much energy we put into this not wanting and how much suffering we create for ourselves or others with this not wanting.

For instance,

Maybe we discover that we're spending a lot of energy trying to create an image of ourselves that we then feel the need to prop up and maintain at all times because we don't want to be seen in a particular way.

We might also notice when we're in some way not wanting the past to be the past.

So in other words,

When we're regretting something that's already happened that we wish had not happened and suffering around our thoughts of not wanting,

Not wanting reality to be as it is.

And as we all know,

We can suffer around this particular dosa for years and years,

Decades even sometimes,

When we in some way refuse to let go and accept things as they actually are or as they actually happened.

Another way we can recognize dosa is when we can notice when we're not wanting another person to maybe have whatever it is that they're enjoying or benefiting from when we're maybe envying them or judging them or both.

And then when we notice that we're doing this,

We can also start to notice how much pain this not wanting or dosa is causing us.

At an even broader level,

We might start to become aware of all the subtle and sometimes not so subtle levels of not wanting that occur when we're afraid of something or maybe when we're judging something or maybe just when we're feeling bored.

Because if we think about it,

All of those emotions,

Fear,

Judgment,

Boredom are all in some way rejecting or resisting the present moment as it is.

And as a result,

Again,

We suffer.

Finally,

I need to address one of the main ways that we resist,

Which is by almost instantly judging whatever we're feeling as wrong or not part of normal.

With normal being something we either consciously or unconsciously believe should be a state of almost constant happiness or what the Buddhist nun,

Pema Chodron,

Has called a state of constant okayness.

I love that,

Constant okayness.

And for whatever reason,

We often tend to believe that this kind of constant okayness is something we can or even should achieve.

And then when some kind of difficult emotion or suffering comes around to interfere with our expectation,

We then tend to feel in some way resentful either at others or even ourselves for needing to feel that particular pain or discomfort,

Right?

So much so that we can sometimes even blame the snow and winter for being so cold,

Resentful at the snow.

But as the Buddha pointed out in the very first noble truth,

There is suffering,

There is dukkha.

It's just the truth of being alive on this planet.

There's really no escaping it.

We all experience it every single day in some form or another.

And so it's not in any way wrong,

It just is.

So one of the ways we can start to explore our resistance or dosa is by noticing when we're maybe complaining in some way about our suffering or when we're experiencing some resentment about what we're experiencing or feeling again that we in some way shouldn't be experiencing it.

At the same time,

We can also notice when we're beating ourselves up for experiencing a difficult emotion in the first place,

As if we could somehow be the one person in the whole world who could avoid experiencing all those pesky,

Difficult human emotions.

Along the same lines,

You might even begin to notice that whenever we're experiencing some type of suffering,

We tend to believe that we really should be feeling better or happier or more calm,

Etc.

Or that we in some way shouldn't be feeling angry or envious or sad or grieving,

Depressed,

Etc.

This type of thinking is so prevalent.

It's even common for other people to tell us this,

Right?

That we shouldn't be feeling whatever it is that we're actually feeling in the moment.

This can often show up in the form of phrases like,

Don't be sad when we're actually sad.

Or maybe,

Why are you so angry?

Why are you so angry,

Is the judgment.

More commonly,

We might hear some form of the phrase,

Cheer up,

When what we really want is to be heard or held,

Maybe allowed to cry.

And so often what we experience when we hear some form of cheer up is the sense of the other person not only resisting our pain,

But judging it as somehow wrong.

And when we do this to ourselves,

It can sometimes feel like we're kind of punching ourselves in the head in hopes of getting rid of a headache.

Because the truth is,

Whenever we're telling ourselves that we should feel happier or less sad,

Less angry,

Etc,

What we're basically telling ourselves is,

What I'm feeling right now is not okay.

What I'm feeling right now is not okay.

Which again,

Is simply a form of resisting what is in the moment.

By the way,

This is exactly how we tend to identify with our emotions.

And so along with making the feelings themselves wrong or bad,

We then also tend to make ourselves wrong or bad.

We identify with this.

But the truth is,

Our emotions are neither good nor bad.

They're just energy.

In fact,

The Latin root of the word emotion is mover,

Meaning to move.

So in other words,

Our emotions encourage us to feel,

Express ourselves,

And to act.

And it is only our actions that can be labeled negative or positive,

Not our emotions,

And especially not ourselves.

This is an example.

One of the things I've been exploring for myself these days is to notice when I'm in some way blaming myself for feeling angry about something.

Because historically,

My own anger has been really difficult for me to feel.

Not only because of my own personal background and profession,

But also because culturally,

As most of us know,

Women in general just aren't supposed to feel angry,

Let alone express it.

Which means I'm not only confronted with my own judgment,

But the judgment of others as well.

But again,

The truth is,

Just like all the other emotions,

Anger is simply a natural,

Regularly occurring human energy or emotion.

And if we can allow ourselves to feel it and not impulsively act out on it or cause harm for ourselves or others,

It can honestly be an absolutely powerful way to explore what we're resisting so fiercely and why,

So that we can choose how best to respond.

And so those are just some of the many,

Many different ways that we can mentally experience dosa or aversion,

Resistance.

We can also,

Of course,

Experience dosa physically.

And we do almost every single moment of our lives,

Actually,

In the form of not wanting anything in our physical world to be unpleasant.

So for instance,

We tend to only want pleasant sights,

Sounds,

Smells,

Tastes,

Bodily sensations.

And when any of these things are unpleasant,

We tend to almost automatically feel averse to them and want to just reject them.

And honestly,

We really have no control over our initial reactions to these things.

It's just natural.

It's just instant.

As an example,

When we feel cold,

We almost immediately don't want this and try to find a way to feel warm.

And the same thing happens over and over all day physically on many different levels.

So maybe a mosquito bites us and we feel irritated by this.

We don't want the itch.

Or maybe we're tired or we feel uncomfortable in our seats.

Maybe we don't like some sound that we hear.

Or maybe we've experienced some kind of major injury or illness or have maybe a chronic physical condition.

In any case,

With all of these things,

Both mentally and physically,

The Buddha is inviting us to greet all of these unpleasant experiences in a way that,

Again,

Goes against the stream or goes against the way we feel almost naturally pulled to respond.

As Kafka told us,

Quote,

You can hold back from the suffering of the world,

But perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering that you could have avoided.

And finally,

Before I like to offer you a meditation on dosa,

I want to offer you another short phrase from the Zen tradition that I love,

Which is,

This is it.

This is it.

Such a helpful reminder for us to help us to stop resisting so much and learn to be with whatever is actually happening in the moment.

I first learned about that short phrase about 15 years ago when I was on a longer retreat up at a retreat center in Maryland.

And for those of you who have gone on retreat now,

Sometimes the wake-up bells for those retreats ring at about 5 or 5.

30 in the morning,

Which I will tell you is not something I do at my own retreats because that's just way too early for me.

For about 60 years now,

I've been a night owl,

And I know that's likely not going to change.

So when I need to get up about two hours earlier than I usually do,

It can sometimes make me feel a bit grumpy.

I also really enjoy a good cup of coffee in the morning.

And one morning about halfway into our retreat,

I found myself standing in a really long line of about 100 people waiting for breakfast.

I was really looking forward to having my cup of coffee.

And when I finally arrived at the coffee area and went to pour myself a cup,

There was a sign on the machine that I saw that said,

No coffee today for Shabbat.

So we were staying at a Jewish retreat center,

And even though we're filling the entire center as a Buddhist retreat,

The center itself was still following its religious practices,

Which meant that on the day of Shabbat,

There was no hot water being offered,

Which sadly,

Of course,

Meant no morning coffee or even tea.

And so as you might imagine,

I was suddenly feeling even more grumpy.

And I was thinking,

Why in the world were we being subjected to this?

You know,

There were only about 10 staff members there.

So couldn't they just not drink the coffee themselves and observe their vows that way?

And by the way,

Couldn't someone have warned us about this so I could have found a way to cheat somehow?

And you know,

This is how it was going on and on in my early morning mind.

And I was just not letting it go.

And as I was staying there,

Probably with a big old early morning grumpy face,

I looked up and right in front of me was a man wearing a t-shirt with a few words on it,

Which is something you're really not supposed to do on retreat,

Wear t-shirts with words.

But I was so happy that he broke the rules.

As you may have guessed,

The t-shirt said,

This is it.

This is it.

And I think I may have laughed out loud,

As I recall.

It just completely broke my grumpy spell.

And I was able to kind of laugh at myself and also to really just let it go.

And today,

I use that phrase almost constantly,

Not only in my teachings,

But also just in my own mind when I can remember it.

And what's important to remember with that phrase is to always add two other words to the end of that,

Which is,

Now what?

This is it.

Now what?

As in,

What's the wisest,

Most compassionate response to what is?

What is?

In other words,

We can ask ourselves,

As I finally found myself doing at the hospital,

Am I going to continue to hold onto this and resist what's happening with all my might?

Or would it be possible to instead just let it be and try to relate or respond from a kinder,

Wiser,

Gentler,

More open space?

And as encouragement,

I often like to reflect on a short teaching from Ajahn Chah,

Who told us this,

If you let go a little,

You'll have a little peace.

If you let go a lot,

You'll have a lot of peace.

If you let go completely,

You will be free.

If you let go completely,

You will be free.

So if it's available to you and you're ready,

I'd like to offer you a brief meditation on this quality of dosa or resistance.

And so if you're listening at home or somewhere you can sit,

You might do that now.

Into a nice,

Comfortable posture,

Close the eyes.

If you're out walking or driving,

You might sense into your body,

Also sense into the breath.

You're walking,

You might feel your feet as they contact the earth.

You're driving,

You might feel your seat on the cushion,

Your feet on the pedals,

Hands on the wheel.

Of course,

Keeping the eyes open.

Maybe taking a couple of nice,

Long inhales and exhales,

Just take it in touch with the rhythm of your body and the breath.

Breathing in,

Breathing out.

On each exhale,

Allowing the body to open and soften just a little more as you can.

Maybe letting the shoulders drop,

Maybe opening the hands.

You're sitting in a gesture of both receiving and letting go.

Letting all the little muscles of the face soften,

Forehead,

Eyes,

Cheek.

Letting the teeth be slightly parted so the jaw can relax,

Still breathing,

Aware of the breath.

You might notice the tummy,

See if you can soften here a little bit,

Letting the breath be naturally received and let go of in this area,

Sensing your body being held by the earth,

Connecting to the earth so you can let go just a little more into the support of the earth.

As you're ready,

Continuing as best as you can to stay aware of the sensations of breathing in the foreground,

I want to invite you to see if you can begin to open up to the sensation of sounds in the background.

As you become aware of a noise or sound or sounds,

See if you can simply note sound or maybe hearing without any judgment,

Without needing to identify what sound,

Trying to follow it or trying to make it go away,

Just noting sound or hearing.

As you continue,

You might begin to notice the vibration of sound as it's being experienced in the body,

Maybe noticing how different sounds are creating different vibrations as they flow through the body,

As they arise and pass.

As you continue,

You might even let go of the labeling altogether and just witness the arising and passing of sound and the vibration of sound.

As you're ready,

You might now become aware of how you're relating to the sound or sounds,

Both mentally and physically,

Noticing if there's any resistance,

Any dosa.

Without any judgment,

You might begin to notice that the body is in any way resisting or maybe tensing up against any sound.

You might notice your shoulders,

Might notice your breath,

See if it's maybe a little shallower.

You might notice your jaw,

Hands,

Chest,

Tummy,

Just noticing if there's any extra tension in those places if you're resisting.

And if you're not resisting,

Would it be possible to open up a little more,

Open the body up to experiencing sound?

As you continue,

You might also notice if there are any thoughts of not wanting or any shoulds or shouldn'ts arising in the mind,

Noticing how the thoughts themselves might be affecting any tension in the body.

Still aware of the body breathing.

As you're ready now,

You might begin to notice what it might be like to just let the sounds be exactly as they are without needing to resist them,

Judge them,

Make them go away.

Just listening to sound exactly as it is.

This is it,

This moment,

Listening to the sounds as they arise and pass.

And finally,

As you continue,

You might just start to notice or sense into this quality of letting be without resistance.

What does it feel like in the mind,

In the body to simply let go?

Reviews

I really like your talks! Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🔥

This was so timely for me today. Thank you for reminding me to let go. 🙏🙏

Very thorough provoking, our busy minds can be difficult to understand and we need to be able to recognise that and not just let it take us in directions that would not be in our best interest. Thank you 🙏🏻 for sharing your insights and your knowledge. I will definitely be listening many times as you have blessed us with so much information to work through. Blessings to you and yours 🙏🏻🥰

Thank you very much for the timely message. I really needed it.

This is one of the best I've heard from you... thank you, Shell!

Shell I just want to say how grateful I am to have found you many years ago through Jonathon Foust podcasts. I love your talks and I appreciate you so much. I am sending you prayers and healing ❤️‍🩹 I’m so happy everything has checked out so far and no cancer has been found. Many blessings to you namaste 🙏🏻

I always appreciate these talks. One immediate item of resistance I experience on a daily basis is our neighbor’s dog barking—sometimes seems like he barks constantly. I do practice acceptance, and I believe this talk will help me hear without resisting. Just one example.