Pain

[skydog]

Pain is a beautiful thing, it allows transformation, growth, insight, looking inside, shedding realities.

 

Too much chasing bliss, running away from pain, creates huge amounts of fear, desire, attachment etc.

 

One needs to spend some time dealing with pain everyday for example- jogging/horse stance/zhan zhuang...in order to stay grounded in reality.

 

Knowing one can deal with pain provides strength, inner courage to face fears, demons, do the right thing inspite of negative feelings.

 

If one is blissed out all day one loses sight with other peoples pain and suffering, the humility, the compassion of knowing that others suffer, improves morality.

 

Also Im not sure but pain is like bad karma, maybe burning away bad karma

[XieJia]

maybe bliss is a kind of pain too

 

ones that departs you from reality

 

once that bliss is gone, you come back to reality

 

and there's pain.

[joeblast]

or, it is the old man walking next to you,

tapping his walking stick on the ground

and pointing out when your posture gets incorrect

 

 

 

...via...pain...

[zanshin]

Reality can be bliss and pain and everything in between. Now our bodies can get toughe, harderr and stronger and do more before they feel pain and start to break down and I agree it's good to challenge your body regularly, great way to stay grounded. But what about our hearts(emotional, not cardio)? Can we extend that breaking point and still feel love?

[GrandmasterP]

"Pain is weakness - leaving the body"

(Grandmaster Chang)

[GrandmasterP]

A man whose idea of forming disciples was to beat us up severely, one at a time; at least once a month.

Nice guy if a bit 'old fashioned'.

[skydog]

Physical pain is a sign from the body that it is being pushed. The right level of pain is an indicator that growth will occur. Too much pain is an indicator that you have misjudged the situation and caused damage. At the extreme levels it means you have probably broken something.

 

Mistaking pain for anything but an indicator is what leads people to acts like self flagellation. They believe that through suffering they become closer to god. They mistake a simple indicator for the substance itself.

 

On an emotional level people make the same mistake. They hurt someone they care about and then hurt themselves to feel better, but it does nothing to repair the initial damage done. Pain does not cancel out deeds done. It just lets you know something is pushing its boundaries or has torn past them.

 

I find some strong beliefs or attachment to ideas in this post. Personally I do think some level of pain can take one closer to god for the reasons mentioned in the first post, for example in tibetan buddhism the god realm is seen as a realm of suffering, in zazen they purposely sit in pain and deal with it, what can be the case if someone is extremely powerful and in bliss all the time but has not experienced pain, pain is humbling

[skydog]

Reality can be bliss and pain and everything in between. Now our bodies can get toughe, harderr and stronger and do more before they feel pain and start to break down and I agree it's good to challenge your body regularly, great way to stay grounded. But what about our hearts(emotional, not cardio)? Can we extend that breaking point and still feel love?

 

good point, im not really sure about heart pain, if i was to make a guess I would say that there is emotional body, physical body so this is another type of pain, but still I dont really know

[skydog]

A spiritual practice is to face and confront all your fears...so I guess so.

 

however one can go too extreme with this or perhaps not

 

wa hhooo wa hey hey hey hey ya we hey hey hey ya wa hey hey hey hey yaaaaaa aaa aa

[Everything]

I allways have those good sensations or feelings in my body. I mean, very comfortable usually.

 

One time I got really excited about something and hit my toe against some chairs feet or something. I did got distracted at first by the pain, but the excitement cancels out the pain. I mean, life is so awesome! Just like a really good movie gets you so focused, you don't even notice all the distraction anymore. Someone stands in front of the screen, you suddenly find your head levitating, effortless!

 

Infact, as a child I sometimes made some very exciting accidents and I loved those usually. It's like being in an action movie. Like falling of a bike at high speeds and then hitting the hard heavy and warm summer ground, just next to the grass. Bleeding all over my clothes from my lips. Actually, I don't even remember any pain, it was that exciting!

 

Gotta love it all.

Edited October 19, 2012 by Everything

[GreytoWhite]

sinsancer,

 

As a chronic pain sufferer I can't agree with your initial post much. Pain was my main motivation to get better and come to these arts but as far as grounding goes I don't find that it is very effective. When pain is a part of the baseline existence it is no more grounding than walking to the mailbox. Reduction of pain is still my main motivating factor. I found, for myself anyway, that my own pain was severe enough and still is that I have very little compassion or sympathy for others. Especially if they don't want to improve their situation. I think this drive for compassion and realization of others' suffering is a very Buddhist approach and I do not particularly care for Buddhism myself.

 

zanshin, regarding emotional pain I found for myself that love is still something I am capable of but it's usually an energetic and empathic mirroring of the other person's emotion than something that arises within myself. It's easier to mirror someone's communication style than it is for me to actually feel. I found when I had some Kundalini activity, which produced an awesome DMT trip, that love was much easier but I still do not know if it was just a wider mirroring effect or from my own palette.

 

I can remember very clearly being capable of a full emotional spectrum as a child but as I grew, was abused, and saw horror going on all around me that changed. My loss of emotion may have also had to do with the traumatic brain injury I experienced as a child. I'm often given the observation from friends that I am like a robot that gets upset occasionally; except when intoxicated and then I become a rather jovial and pleasant person with little reservation. However, I'm not fond of being very intoxicated any longer, there is too much fallout all around.

 

Orson Scott Card addressed a very big issue for me with his Peter Wiggin character. The question paraphrased was, "If a psychopath chooses to act as a good person does, what is the difference?" I still have trouble with exercises like Inner Smile. Transforming something into love or happiness is very difficult because I have no framework for such a feeling in a state of sobriety. Basically I'm running it on software emulation in hopes that a neural pathway will eventually burn in to my brain as neuroplasticity says it should. I'm satisfied enough with the emotional stress/physical release for now.

[寒月 Hanyue]

As a chronic pain sufferer I can't agree with your initial post much. Pain was my main motivation to get better and come to these arts but as far as grounding goes I don't find that it is very effective. When pain is a part of the baseline existence it is no more grounding than walking to the mailbox.

 

I wholeheartedly agree with Mithshrike. It is only those who do not, or have not had to live with pain on a daily basis that tend to think it is beautiful or helpful.

 

Sinansencer,

 

What you are talking about is appreciation of 'eating bitter' to put it in Chinese vernacular. The humbling part of gongfu, though there are many ways to understand eating bitter and they don't all involve physical pain/discomfort.

 

Eating Bitter and Pain are not the same thing, though they can be seen as maybe overlapping in certain ways.

 

As for the bliss monkeys out there running away from reality and wanting to feel orgasmic all day long, well I'm sure things will catch up with them sometime Maybe in this or another lifetime? who knows.

 

Best,

 

Pain is a beautiful thing, it allows transformation, growth, insight, looking inside, shedding realities.

 

Too much chasing bliss, running away from pain, creates huge amounts of fear, desire, attachment etc.

 

One needs to spend some time dealing with pain everyday for example- jogging/horse stance/zhan zhuang...in order to stay grounded in reality.

 

Knowing one can deal with pain provides strength, inner courage to face fears, demons, do the right thing inspite of negative feelings.

 

If one is blissed out all day one loses sight with other peoples pain and suffering, the humility, the compassion of knowing that others suffer, improves morality.

 

Also Im not sure but pain is like bad karma, maybe burning away bad karma

[skydog]

yes I am sorry for my post, partly in fact very innacurate one can say, and I am /was one of those bliss monkeys

[joeblast]

imagine having to continually place awareness on the location of chronic pain and having to assist it with some muscular actions - constantly - just to be at a place where 3 alarms arent going off.

 

it gets very tiring...

 

and makes maintenance that much more painful...when your body is saying just rest and dont do the maintenance because that will hurt too...

 

(and that's assuming there's maintenance that can be performed that will eventually correct the root cause of the pain in the first place...)

 

/\

[GreytoWhite]

Right there with ya joeblast.

[Clarity]

Not knowing what to do about the pain and receiving wrong answers about the pain makes the pain worse. In other words, struggling with our pain makes it harder to resolve. We struggle when we don't connect to answers.

 

I can say this with certainty because I've been through the pain.

 

This kind of pain does increase our suffering. When we increase our suffering, we also increase our necessity. This does not mean the pain is useful on it's own as a life lesson. It's more like a side-effect of having the pain. Being pain free is a useful objective.

 

This is why I learned Yuen Method and Reiki, so I could address the source of my own pain and not just 'put up with it," get cut by a surgeon, or receive more wrong answers from people who have no answers.

 

For anyone who suffers from chronic pain, there are answers to the cause of our pain. To say that doctors are the real experts on resolving pain for everyone is just so upside down and completely untruthful.

[Marblehead]

"Pain is weakness - leaving the body"

(Grandmaster Chang)

I like that.

 

(Yes, I have some weaknesses and they will be with me 'til the end but that's okay.)

[Marblehead]

sinsancer,

 

As a chronic pain sufferer I can't agree with your initial post much. Pain was my main motivation to get better and come to these arts but as far as grounding goes I don't find that it is very effective.

I'm glad someone spoke to this side of the coin. Pain is often useful but if it is chronic pain it can be a limiter in our being able to live a fuller life.

[Marblehead]

yes I am sorry for my post, partly in fact very innacurate one can say, and I am /was one of those bliss monkeys

No need to be sorry. Pain is an important topic and understanding it will help us to reduce it as much as possible.

[GrandmasterP]

I was on mega doses of anti-inflammatory drug for arthritis before I began cultivating QiGong. That was a long time ago and I've not had to take any this many years past. Not saying it'll work for everybody and never stop taking prescription meds without medical advice first but it sure has worked for me. Was at occupational health a couple of months back for a work check up and all clear as per usual. They asked us to run a class down there for their regulars.

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

Pain is the sneaky "pointer of the way". a players guide for the omniversal RPG called life, the spoiler that no one listens to, the commentary of the movie of your life, dealing little tidbits that, if ignored, are never noticed for what they truly are. Pain allows us to grow, become stronger, smarter, faster, wiser, but only if we understand that the enemy is not pain, but our self in the brain, the prefrontal/cerebral cortex delusion generator and ego. We could learn to accept pain and become immortal, or flee from it's frightening embrace and die trying. Some can run for 80 years, some for 120, while others flee with their life, literally, and die young. truly, to end pain is to embrace it, to accept it, and to observe it in it's entirety, its intensity... to allow it. fully as one might allow the embrace of a loved one.