Stay

 “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

                                    —Buddhist Proverb

There is a consensus opinion that “being in the present moment” is an effective way to deal with anxiety and depression. But what if the present moment sucks? I was in a workshop years ago when the leader spoke about the difference between pain and suffering. “Pain is inevitable,” he said. “It’s part of being human. But when we face our pain instead of resisting it, when we teach ourselves to stay with how we feel, we’re giving ourselves a chance to let go a little bit and transform suffering into acceptance.”

What I took away from that teaching is that pain in its purest form is tolerable. Suffering and resisting pain, is not. It’s about staying with the pain and facing it head on. When we discover our inherent restlessness, sometimes we want to get up and leave. Or maybe we sit there but our bodies wiggle and squirm and our minds go far away. This can be so uncomfortable that we feel it’s impossible to stay. Yet being with these feelings can teach us not just about ourselves but also about what it is to be human. We all derive security and comfort from the imaginary world of memories and fantasies and plans. We really don’t want to stay with the nakedness of our present experience. It goes against the grain to stay present. These are the times when gentleness and a sense of humor can give us the strength to settle down and be exactly where we are.

The Dalai Lama says we are so anxious about the future, we don’t enjoy the present moment. When we ignore the suffering of others,” he adds, “this self-centered attitude is a source of suffering. Buddhist nun Pema Chodron, says, “When you want to run away from pain, remind yourself to stay. When resistance is gone, so are the demons. Even in the toughest times, we can learn how to be gentler, how to relax and how to surrender to the situations and people in our lives.”

In my own life, I try to feel my feelings instead of going numb. I exhale instead of holding my breath. None of this is easy. Pulling away and resisting pain is human and habitual, but if I can find the courage to stay in the moment and not run away, I can find clarity about where I’m stuck and learn how to work with it. That’s when the suffering calms down and being present takes over.

Acknowledging pain and sticking with it takes effort. To stay with disappointment, betrayal, illness or a broken heart is a hero’s journey. The goal is to move into the unknown with no stories or excuses and see what’s there. The instruction is to “touch and go.” We touch thoughts by acknowledging them as “thinking” and then we let them go. It’s a way of relaxing our struggle, a nonaggressive approach to being here.

If we’re training a dog and we beat it into submission, we end up with an obedient but very inflexible and terrified dog. The dog may obey when we say with anger, “Stay! Come! Roll over! Sit up!” but he will also be neurotic and confused. In contrast, training a dog with kindness results in a dog that is calm and trusting. In human terms, when we are kind to ourselves, we are flexible and confident and
we can deal with situations that are unpredictable and insecure.

Whenever you wander off, try to gently encourage yourself to “stay” and settle down. If you feel restless, remind yourself to stay. If your mind is jumping all over the place, Stay. Aching knees and throbbing back? Stay. What’s for lunch? Stay. What am I doing here? Stay. I can’t stand this another minute! Stay. That’s how we cultivate steadfastness. This will teach us how to turn our suffering into hope for the future.

Fear is always lurking in our lives. When we stop running away from it, we’re training ourselves to open our hearts and not abandon ourselves. Let’s try not to get angry and beat ourselves up for being human. Let’s try to accept who we are even when we don’t like ourselves. When I want to go against my natural instinct to run away from pain, I can remember a quote from Sufi mystic, Rumi: The cure for pain is in the pain.

Being with pain and not running creates a strong and powerful person. That doesn’t mean  we have to enjoy it or that suffering is noble. It means allowing ourselves to experience what is already here without immediately trying to turn it into something else. Resisting it only causes more suffering. When we stay with it, when we surrender to it, we find that we are larger than the pain. We can’t choose whether we feel it or not but we can choose whether or not to go to war with it.

“Strength is not the absence of pain, but the choice to keep moving through it.”

– – – Anonymous