“The next step in human evolution is not inevitable, but for the first time in the history of our planet, it can be a conscious choice.“
-Eckhart Tolle, “A New Earth”“
“The beginning of freedom from the pain-body lies first of all in the realization that you have a pain-body. Then, more important, in your ability to stay present enough, alert enough, to notice the pain-body in yourself as a heavy influx of negative emotion when it becomes active. When it is recognized, it can no longer pretend to be you and live and renew itself through you.
It is your conscious Presence that breaks the identification with the pain-body. When you don’t identify with it, it can no longer control your thinking and so cannot renew itself anymore by feeding on your thoughts. The pain-body in most cases does not dissolve immediately, but once you have severed the link between it and your thinking, the pain-body begins to lose energy.
The energy that was trapped in the pain-body then changes its vibrational frequency and is transmuted into Presence. In this way, the pain-body becomes fuel for consciousness. This is why many of the wisest, most enlightened men and women on our planet once had a heavy pain-body.”
- Eckhart Tolle, “A New Earth”
Pema and her teacher Chogyam Trungpa Rinphoche says that the way to arouse bodhichitta (the awakened heart ) is to “begin with a broken heart”. This is very similar to Eckhart’s teachings of shining presence unto our pain-body.
“We touch in with bodhichitta by simply allowing ourselves to experience our own raw feelings, without getting sucked into our thoughts and stories about them.
When I’m embarrassed, when I feel like a loser, when I feel that something is fundamentally wrong with me, bodhichitta is present in those emotions. When I’ve made a big mistake, when I’ve failed to do what I set out to do, when I feel the sting of having let everyone down - at such times I have the option of tapping into the awakened heart of bodhichitta. If I really connect with my jealousy, anger or my prejudice, I find myself standing in the shoes of humanity. From this place, the longing to wake up to alleviate the suffering of the world comes naturally.”
-Pema Chodron, “Welcoming the Unwelcome”
Techniques for freeing ourselves from the pain-body, aka “welcoming the unwelcome”:
L.E.S.R.
Pronounced like “Laser”, L.E.S.R. stands for “locate, embrace, stop, remain” and is a practice developed by Richard Reach.
Whenever you feel yourself getting worked up or having any unpleasant, uncomfortable, or stuck feelings, follow these four steps:
LOCATE it. Where in the body is the grasping, contracted sensation?
EMBRACE that feeling, that sensation, that contraction. Send unconditional warmth to the sensation. Rather than rejecting it, move towards it with your heart.
STOP the storyline. Let go, interrupt, or look directly at the thoughts and stories. Go beneath or behind the thoughts to contact the underlying sense of being hooked. The goal is not to stop thinking altogether (that’s impossible) but to connect with the raw feeling of being hooked and then to interrupt the storyline over and over again.
REMAIN. Stay present with the feeling, keep going until it shifts. Just remain with the feeling with kindness and warmth, leaning in as much as you can.
F.E.A.R.
This is very similar to LESR and is a technique to cultivate unconditional friendship for yourself. Whenever you are feeling embarrassed, uncomfortable, unwanted follow these four steps:
FIND it in your body
EMBRACE it
ALLOW thoughts about it to dissolve, abide with the feeling until it shifts
REMEMBER or recall all the other people in the world who are feeling what you are feeling
TONGLEN
Tonglen practice is a Tibetan Buddhist method for overcoming our fear of suffering and for dissolving the tightness of our hearts. By having the courage to face the pain of others and breathe it in, the Tonglen practice awakens the compassion that is inherent in all of us. Tonglen is difficult to do because it reverses the usual pattern of avoiding suffering and of turning away from our pain and, especially, the pain of others. Tonglen dissolves the layers of self-protection or walls we’ve built around our hearts…it dissolves the fixation and clinging of ego. It is a deep and courageous practice of being deeply present with pain, which is the only way to dissolve it.
The practice is a follows:
When facing pain, either our personal pain or the pain of others, we feel a connection to the millions of other people who are feeling just like us.
Contact what we are feeling and breathe it in, take it in for all of us.
As we breathe out, we send relief to all of us.
If you are invested in security and certainty, you are on the wrong planet.”
- Pema Chodron
On Grace…
“Even within the seemingly most unacceptable and painful situation is concealed a deeper good, and within every disaster is contained the seed of grace.”
-Eckhart Tolle
Our Closing Prayer
Dear Grace,
Please walk with me today.
Please whisper divine wisdom in my ears,
Please reveal magic to my eyes,
Please touch my skin with life’s vibrant energy.
Divine Grace, I am open to unconditional love and I allow this love to:
Infuse my thoughts,
Prepare my words, and
Animate my movement.
Through my own free will, so be it.
- Patti Wardlaw