Transformation and Healing Through Understanding
by Pete Estabrook
During the lifetime of Sidhartha Gautama the practice of Mindfulness
was developed and perfected as a means for transformation and
healing. True Buddhist teaching aims at answering (through deep
investigation) the most vital of all questions concerning the problem
of life and death and the nature of suffering. As human beings we are
all subject to suffering, but much of our suffering is created by our
own doing (ie: the 3 poisons of greed, anger, and ignorance).
The good news is that there is a way out. This path is called mindfulness.
Mindfulness is the basic component of liberation (the ultimate
"goal " if there were such things in Buddhism). Mindfulness
is the energy (or seed) of the Buddha (Awakened One) in each of us.
The energy of mindfulness operates like sunlight hitting a rose
petal. After some time the rose petal must open, since it cannot
resist. So it is with the various areas of our being/world. If you
shine the light of mindfulness on any object, that object will be
revealed to you. If you shine the light of mindfulness on your pain
it will be transformed. The only time in which mindfulness can be
found is in the present moment. Therefore, the only place we can find
transformation and healing is in the here and now.
One can establish (realize) mindfulness quite easily. If you drink a
glass of water and you know that you are drinking a glass of water,
mindfulness is there. If you breathe and know that you are breathing,
mindfulness is there. It is like realizing a smile. All you need to
do is smile and a smile is realized and the energy of the Buddha in
you is being realized.
How does transformation and healing take place once mindfulness is
established in the present moment? We can begin by doing the opposite
of what we might have a tendency to do.
The best way is to begin by asking ourselves "What is not
wrong?" In the process of answering this, I find that my body is
a good place to start. I find that in this moment my heart still
functions well...what good news! It is still working day and night to
supply my brain and many organs with fresh blood in order for this
body to continue to exist.
In this moment, I can smile to my heart, in gratitude. I may also
realize that my eyes are functioning quite well, allowing me to read
this screen. I smile to my eyes. So, by not doing anything
directly concerning my pain, afflictions, troublesome thoughts, and
regrets, I have moved in the direction of healing with the aid of mindfulness.
My feeling is that by dwelling in remembrance (smirti) - another
Sanskrit translation of mindfulness - my pain is lessened. I realize,
aided by remembrance, that I am larger than my pain. Through this, I
get some relief (some degree of healing) right away.
We are trained in our society to always focus on what is wrong. When
we do this, we make ourselves sick, more imbalanced, and unhappy. We
always have positive seeds in us and we have only to look for them
using mindfulness. So, the more we water the seeds of joy in
ourselves, the stronger our joy becomes. At the same time, the
negative seeds wither and die and our pain becomes weaker (it is counterbalanced).
When we continue to do this for some time, we begin to see
transformation taking place in us. Things that seemed so troublesome
to us become less important. Also, we may feel an impulse that seems
to move us further toward the direction of healing rather than toward
more pain (since most of us seem to like things that bring us joy).
This is natural, but we need the help of mindfulness in order to
prevent ourselves from becoming caught in a cycle of denial and
repression. We can break that cycle by continuing to another level of
healing and transformation.
The Next step in our healing process is to directly confront that
element that is the primary cause of unrest in us. We may come to
notice that events which occur are not truly the cause of our pain.
We may begin to see with sustained mindfulness and concentration
(samadhi) that these are only secondary causes of our suffering. The
primary cause of our unhappiness is rooted in the seeds of suffering
in our own consciousness that have been watered by these related
difficult events/occurrences and have become strong (outweighing our
seeds of joy and weakening them).
If we can identify that the seeds of pain reside in us, we can now
stop blaming those around us (our boss our co-worker, our loved one)
for much of our unhappiness. When we stop blaming, everyone around us
will be more at ease (even if we were not blaming them directly).
They will sense our ease and profit from it. When those around us are
at more ease, so are we. Likewise, they will have a tendency to
support our healing process if there is no conflict between us.
With mindfulness and concentration, we can embrace our pain directly.
When pain or anger, for example, are alone in us without mindfulness
(our being aware of it), they can create havoc! Mindfulness protects
us from ourselves and the harmful things these seeds can lead us to
do (shouting at our loved one, driving recklessly, etc.). Smile to
vour pain! Embrace it whole heartedly as a part of yourself. Love
your pain as if it were a close friend that you wanted very much to
take care of. Visualize yourself as a loving mother and your anger as
a hurt child. Be the image of utmost nonviolence. Do not be angry at
your anger.
This only makes things worse. Be careful not to push your pain away.
You cannot heal it by ignoring or denying it. That will only create
tighter knots (samskara) in us that become more difficult to identify
and untie later. "Hello my pain, I see you there. " You
will notice that your mind is cyclic in nature. certain things will
trigger the pain to arise, and at times, it will also seem to appear
on its own. This is normal. Do not be concerned that it has not
disappeared yet. This pain has an sen due to the influence of many
seeds in consciousness that cannot by erased. Just stay with it each
time it returns.
You will notice that pain has the same nature as everything else in
the universe, it is impermanent. It has an (apparent) appearance, an
existence, and a disappearance. This is the good news! All you need
to do is ride the waves of birth and death (of a feeling in this
case) each time and eventually, if you are able to sustain
mindfulness and not be caught by the feeling (or hurt by it), it will
lessen, loose its power, and become unimportant (it will return less
and occupy less of your thoughts).
The "bad news" is that since everything is neither created
nor destroyed (neither has a beginning nor an end) and comes into
existence through the influence of all other things, no feeling can
be obliterated into nothingness. Nothing can be completely removed or
thrown out. We are all organic gardeners of our own heart (whether we
like it or not) and can only hope to transform our garbage into
flowers through mindfulness.
This is the way to transformation and healing. Painful seeds can only
be transformed into something else (perhaps something more
constructive). We cannot throw anything out. We may have a tendency
to want to eliminate things: this is the process of denial...Be
aware!. However, there is a good side to even the bad news: garbage
can become a rose. A rose is made only of non-rose elements like the
sun, the rain, the earth, and garbage fertilizer.
You may notice, as well, that during the process of watching the pain
arise (by taking the role of the observer) stopping (samanta)
occurred. Stopping is very important. If we cannot stop to look, we
cannot begin the transformation and healing process in us. When we
stop, those things which in flux stop also.