Day 12: Meditation Challenge ~ Navigating through Pain with Meditation

Welcome, to my 28-Meditation Challenge.

If you have joined us late, that is just fine. If you'd like to "officially" join in, simply leave a comment here that says, "I'm in!" and I will add you to the Challenge Roster. Or, send me an e-mail through the Contact Box at my website: awakenedliving.com. You may want to catch up by reading the previous posts. We are glad you are here!

Each day we come here, even if we have not meditated as we'd hoped, we begin again.

Start where you are ... 

In the 1980s I gave birth to my first child. Natural childbirth was "in," and I was strongly encouraged (pressured, was more like it) to go that route. I took Lamaze classes. I learned breathing exercises to help me navigate pain and develop a more relaxed mindset about the process. It did help, but only to a degree. 22-hours of back labor without meds does not create a trip to bliss, no matter how faithful to breathing we might be. :-)

My husband is a long-time meditator. He has issues with kidney stones. When he has an attack, he meditates through the pain and this amazes me. I call him "Buddha-Boy." The man can go from zero to bliss in 60-seconds. I kid you not.

And then there are those of us who live with chronic pain. Day in and day out, it never stops. Paul Martin, a fellow blogger and the author of Original Faith is one such person. I thought his perspective on meditation might be helpful here and open us up to new ways of thinking. I'm honored he's here with us today. 

Please welcome, Paul Maurice Martin.  

Meditation as Help for Insomnia Due to Pain/Anxiety

By Paul M. Martin

A continuous stream of thoughts normally runs through our minds at every waking moment, ranging from daydreams to disciplined mental activities like problem solving and planning. Sitting meditation is a practice designed to temporarily suspend all kinds of thought.

When you stop saying things to yourself, a different kind of consciousness has the chance to emerge. Traditionally it’s been called mystical experience. Other names include non-dualistic awareness and monistic experience. The major feature is a sense of union with a greater reality, which can have far-reaching implications for one’s spiritual growth.

Sitting mediation is also good for making you… sleepy. Often this is one of the early obstacles to successful practice and it remains an obstacle for anyone trying to meditate on too little sleep. You no sooner clear your mind of conscious thoughts then instead of becoming one with the universe, you begin to see some crazy sequence of visual images or seem to hear half-remembered bits of conversation that are trying to lead you off to dreamland. But it turns out that this can be put to good use.

Several years into my rare, progressive illness I found myself often kept awake at night by anxious thoughts as well as pain. I think this is often the case – that pain produces anxiety. I’d been practicing a simple form of meditation for many years and noticed that I could easily adapt it to help with my nighttime pain and anxiety. Here’s how.

1. This assumes that you already know how to meditate. If not, you’ll want to spend enough time at this practice to learn how to quiet your thoughts. You can download my free eBook Original Faith: Hard Times Handbook for how to meditate and other helpful spiritual practices.

2. Settle into your most comfortable position for sleep.

3. Start to meditate. If you’re like me, you won’t get far because as soon as you begin to still your thoughts, your body will take the opportunity it’s been waiting for and you’ll drop off to sleep. I was amazed at how fast I’d drift off – usually in just a few minutes. An added benefit was that this practice cut down on the dosage of meds I needed to take at bedtime.

At age twenty-three, Paul Maurice Martin had a powerful spontaneous spiritual experience of the kind often sought in meditation. It set his life on a new course and he went on to earn master’s degrees in religious studies and counseling. You can learn more about Paul and his book, Original Faith: What Your Life Is Trying to Tell You at www.originalfaith.com. You can purchase his book at amazon. Enjoy his blog, as well.

Thank you, Paul, for sharing your journey and offering new insights into how we can make peace with discomfort. Always a pleasure to have you here!  

And as always, I welcome everyone's thoughts. Paul too!


Love and blessings,

Jan
P.S. If any of you would like to Facebook, Tweet, Twitter, Digg, or Stumble our 28-Day Challenge, I would greatly appreciate that. Being the contemplative gal I am, I have opted out of those social networks. Too much stimulation for me. Thank you ahead of time. :-)

Read on ...

From Where I Sit — Day 12, My Meditation Experience
Yesterday, I did two "zazen" sits with Jundo. You'll find this Sit-a-Long through Shambhala Sun SunSpace (blog). He based one of the meditations on the disaster in Haiti, on how to move beyond "good" and "bad" into nonjudgment when horrible things happen. I appreciated it. Did another on the actual form of sitting meditation. It definitely helped! I also did metta before bedtime. 


Recommended Resources:
About.com hosts a wonderful mini-site (within its holistic healing dept.) that is abundant with meditation riches. Learn how to use mudras in meditation, chant kirtan, or open your heart through a rose quartz meditation. Such variety! Fun to explore ... Click here.


And how about the "Best Spiritual Books of 2009"? Sound intriguing? It is. Just by perusing this list I made a whole NEW list of books I definitely want to check out. Yay for libraries! The one on the top of my list? Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian by Paul Knitter.


Inspiration: 

     You can't make radical changes in the pattern of your life until you begin to see yourself exactly as you are now. As soon as you do that, changes flow naturally. You don't have to force or struggle or obey rules dictated to you by some authority. You just change. It is automatic. But arriving at the initial insight is quite a task. You've got to see who you are and how you are, without illusion, judgment or resistance of any kind ...

     The Dhammapada is an ancient Buddhist text which anticipated Freud by thousands of years. It says: "What you are now is the result of what you were. What you will be tomorrow will be the result of what you are now. The consequences of an evil mind will follow you like the cart follows the ox that pulls it. The consequences of a purified mind will follow you like your own shadow. No one can do more for you than your own purified mind-- no parent, no relative, no friend, no one. A well-disciplined mind brings happiness.

     Meditation is intended to purify the mind. It cleanses the thought process of what can be called psychic irritants, things like greed, hatred and jealousy, things that keep you snarled up in emotional bondage. It brings the mind to a state of tranquility and awareness, a state of concentration and insight.

~ From Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Gunaratana