“Praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and sorrow come and go like the wind. To be happy, rest like a giant tree in the midst of them all.”
Buddah
After a meditation today, the thought that was reverberating in my mind was “non-resistance”.
More than a thought, it was a goal to keep in mind for future meditations, and future completion of tasks…and future times of rest.
The beginning of my meditations is sometimes frustrating. I forget the point of it, what it is for. I sit and think that I’m supposed to make something happen, to “do it right.” The result is a feeling of subtle tension and distraction (“what am I doing wrong? Why isn’t this working?”).
Often, after settling in, sense returns to me, and I realize that if I’m going to stress myself out like this, I might as well be working.
I remind myself that this meditation is my time to let go of all agendas, including obtaining some outcome (e.g. relaxation, insight, inspiration) from the practice.
Sometimes the outcome I’m after is to let all my painful feelings arise, and even that doesn’t happen!
Of course it doesn’t. Painful feelings are like scared feral cats that scatter into the bushes at the first sign of being sought out. Encounters with repressed pain are paradoxical. We often have to genuinely not be looking for them before they stumble into our path… which might be why they tend to trip us up when things are going well and we least expect it.
Unclenching
Another word I find handy that a teacher gave me is “unclench”. This instruction can often help my body relax at a subtle energetic level. It’s not that my muscles are clenched though. It’s more of an emotional clenching. A resistance to the moment. A subtle agenda that goes something like:
“Right now, this (moment/task/situation/etc) is not really okay and I need to change it.”
In my body this feels like a chronic, mild anxiety — an inefficiency, like friction in a poorly lubricated machine. Like a car engine being revved while disengaged from the transmission, just burning fuel.
Practicing non-resistance through challenging activities
One of the reasons, I’m learning, that I love to run is that it helps me practice non-resistance. I don’t know, and doubt, if running would be a good non-resistance practice for everyone who is capable of running. I just know it helps me.
It’s very easy, especially when I’m getting tired from the run, to want to not be running. I like running uphill on switchbacks. I also dislike it, because it’s hard work. I’ve made this disliking into a non-resistance practice, by noticing the times that I am, automatically, trying to escape the experience. Two notable ways this occurs is escaping into thought and fantasy while I run, or thinking about more of the run than I am completing right now.
Actually, visualizing the entire run or section of it is really just an instance of getting lost in thought. I regularly run this hill that climbs up about 1200 feet and takes 30 to 40 minutes to reach the top. That gives plenty of opportunity to have thoughts like, “ok, almost halfway there” or “ maybe another ten minutes.” These might seem like normal, harmless thoughts. But I recognize them as signs that I’m not present, and resisting my experience.
What is the experience I’m resisting? It’s a burning in my legs. It’s a concentration to not trip over small rocks to medium cobbles to large boulders. It’s a sensation of my cardiovascular and pulmonary systems working hard to deliver the needed fuel and conduct cellular reactions to keep my body in homeostasis while transporting me five miles and over 1,200 feet upward under my own power. It’s also the emotions that I’m feeling that arise spontaneously without my permission, as well as thoughts that they trigger, which are often about people I know and situations I’m wrestling with.
I have recently been practicing the mantra, “be on this switchback.” I notice my mind’s temptation to visualize this whole trail, which I’ve climbed dozens of times now. It knows there are two long switchbacks at the top that take about 3 minutes each. And many short ones before that. But why do I need to think about any of that? Not only does it not help me, it actually wastes my energy. Worse, it makes me miss out on a valuable spiritual practice: being present despite pain and discomfort.
I realized that it’s common for my mind to want to run the entire run (often 2 or more hours worth of work) all at once. But this seems like nothing more than a rejection of the wonderfully uncomfortable feeling of running! Why else would I be thinking about all the different sections of the trail if I wasn’t wishing the thing was over with? Thinking about any section – any step – other than the one I’m on is robbing me of the opportunity of running, which is in fact an amazing opportunity. I am running, in nature, in a body that can run, surrounded by beautiful trees and bushes and occasional forest critters, and I’m subtly wishing it was over by imagining myself at the top of the hill or, after that, at home. For what? What’s better there? “Never mind that,” says the mind, “we’ll figure that out then.”
It’s a trick though. I know what the bastard’s up to. As soon as I get home I’ll be wanting to run again, or go someplace else. That’s it’s game. It resists wherever, whatever, whenever. Anyplace is great, as long as it’s not here. Anything is fine, as long as it’s not this. It wants us to chase the dragon, to chase the oasis mirage. To pursue the false promise of happiness just around the corner.
What I notice, when I bring my attention back to the run and practice non-resistance, is that my pace slows a bit, because in the rushing through it I literally sped up but hadn’t noticed. I also notice a sense of relaxation underlying the natural strenuous part of the exercise. I feel more centered and grounded in my body, and become more aware of the boundaries of my body. I feel peaceful, reminding myself to “settle in” to my stride, and feel a confidence that I could, in this way, run for a very long time if I wanted to, since I’m far more mentally relaxed.
Of course, I need to repeat these reminders to myself to relax into the run, to savor it, to enjoy it, many times over. But that’s the practice. I’ve known for a while I don’t run so much for the physical benefits. It’s for the discipline and life that it sparks in me. I understand more how this discipline develops. It’s the discipline to not escape through thought and fantasy, planning the run out in my head or just wandering off to some place I’m not, or some activity I’d rather be doing. The discipline is to not numb out like that, but instead go through the run without mental analgesic of any kind – to feel every step and every deep breath acutely and vividly – to soak up my surroundings by noticing them persistently – to feel every uncomfortable emotion that arises in the body, juggling the emotion along with the physiological demands, without checking out.
Non-resistance, pleasure, and pain
It’s far easier to be present when we feel good. That is why we mistake happiness with getting what we want. When we get what we want, it feels good, and we stop seeking for a little while, and simply revel in the way things are. This feels great, and we misattribute this feeling of non-striving to whatever it is that we obtained, rather than to the cessation of wanting things to be different.
It’s more of a challenge when we’re experiencing discomfort or pain. We’re far more likely to want the situation to be different, to struggle against the pain. And so we misattribute our suffering to not having what we want, rather than to the struggle.
Creating a challenge like running switchbacks is like a controlled training ground for practicing acceptance of discomfort. I’m not waiting for life to throw a major calamity at me. That will of course happen in due time, and I want to, as much as possible, have trained for it. Instead, I’m intentionally creating a mini tribulation and seeing if I can let go of the impulses to resist and escape it. I’m practicing the art of non-resistance.
When I go back home, and a difficult feeling spontaneously arises, that skill of non-resistance tends to transfer over. Some of the wisdom like, “just run this step” becomes, “just feel this feeling” or “just complete this task in front of me.”
“Don’t run the whole hill at once” becomes “don’t face the whole day at once.”
Emotional vs physical non-resistance
I actually find it more challenging to practice non-resistance while simply sitting still. A physical challenge (e.g. running) is harder physically, but easier spiritually. I suspect this is not true for everyone, but I think it’s fairly common. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that everyone takes P.E. from kindergarten through high school, but rarely are we taught to heal with emotional challenges as thoroughly and consistently. And non-resistance of difficult emotions is an art that has been lost in many family lines. But, it is an art that is being taught and practiced today as well, and my sense is that more people are becoming interested in learning it, as we obtain more and more material and experiential objects of desire and find them to fall short in delivering the happiness we anticipate. We are, perhaps, becoming wiser in realizing that it is our craving, our resistance of not having our desires, that is causing the most suffering.