This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Comfortable with Discomfort

Okay, now we go.

I was teaching at our retreat center this last week, Insight Retreat Center, teaching our first in-person retreat since the pandemic started. And that was wonderful. And the mute button for the speaker system there is the opposite direction for the button than the one here, so I got confused with the up and down on the button for the mute. So wonderful to be here.

And so the topic this week will be something that I believe is important, and I hope that you'll either understand it is important or come to understand its importance. It's multifaceted, touches all kinds of parts of our life, and that is developing the ability to be comfortable with discomfort. To develop the ability to be non-reactive, to be available, to be present, wisely present, attentive to situations where we're uncomfortable. And so we'll see over the course of the week the different areas where this plays out. Not just when it's uncomfortable and there's something unfortunate happening, but sometimes we're uncomfortable with fortunate things happening. Uncomfortable with love, uncomfortable with people helping us, uncomfortable with peace even, or calm, all kinds of things. So we'll explore this topic.

So for now to meditate, assume a meditation posture.

And what I'll emphasize for this meditation posture is whatever discomfort you might have, recognize it but don't give it a lot of attention. Stay connected to your breathing like you would be if you were on a rocky rowboat in the waves and you had to stand in the middle of the boat where it's most stable. With your feet planted wide, and it wasn't dangerously rocking, but you had to pay attention. You had to give a lot of attention to navigating the rocking of the boat and adjusting your weight and just really stay there. You might be aware of other things, you might even be having a conversation with a friend who's sitting in the boat, but an important part of your attention is on standing there and keeping your balance. So in that kind of way, stay balanced, stay connected to your breathing for the sitting, and I'll talk you through it a bit.

So gently close your eyes.

And as you inhale, become aware of some part of your body where there's some tension or holding, and on the exhale let go of it. So let your attention roam on the inhale to discover where the tension might be, the holding. So first you might do this with a few long deep breaths, a three-quarters full inhale, but as you inhale, feel where your body has some holding and tension. And on the exhale, can you soften it and relax it? You might come back to the same place repeatedly. You might allow your attention to wander around to find new places.

And then letting your breathing return to normal, continue this process for a few more minutes, of on the inhale feeling tension or holding tightness in your body, on the exhale release it, relax. And if it doesn't relax, soften around it.

And as you exhale and relax, let there be an ever so slight pause at the end of the exhale to see if in that pause you can relax some more, release some more.

Okay. Releasing, relaxing on the exhale, with an extra attention to relaxing when the exhale finishes.

And now bring your attention just to the breathing, not to places of holding or tension in the body. But maybe now on the exhale, at the end of the exhale, there can be a little relaxing or more releasing of the exhale, relaxing around the place where you feel breathing.

And look almost like a little pause at the end of the exhale so that the beginning of the inhale is highlighted.

And gently maybe imagine that the inhales and exhales are like the gentle rocking of a boat. To keep your balance, you stay there connected. Embodied awareness, the rocking and rolling and swaying moving the body, breathing.

And for now, trust attention to breathing more than you trust your thinking for these minutes. Stay in with an embodied connection to the rhythm of breathing.

If things are uncomfortable as you do this, try not to give any attention to the discomfort, let it recede in the background. And in the foreground of attention let there be the breathing.

Not ignoring discomfort, but also not giving it primary attention. Primary attention goes to breathing to protect you from being reactive, protect you from thinking about it. And maybe you breathe with it, the discomfort, breathe through it.

And then as we come to the end of the sitting, to imagine that on your exhale you can send wishes of goodwill to the world. To send your wish for the well-being of those who are close to you, those who are your neighbors and members of your community, and out into the world. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be safe. May all beings be happy. And may all beings everywhere be free.

Dharmette: Discomfort (1 of 5) Studying Discomfort

So good morning, good day. And so the topic for this week is discomfort, with the hope that you can be uncomfortable in better ways. It isn't necessarily always good to alleviate discomfort. Discomfort is a part of human life, and sometimes discomfort is what keeps us from living our life fully, keeps us from being connected to others, or keeps us from being honest, or keeps us from being free. So if we react every time we're uncomfortable by pulling away from that, we might be shortchanging our life dramatically.

Also, the things that make us uncomfortable that are there at times—not always of course, but there are times where that's a window into some deeper understanding of ourselves. To understand what is it that's been triggered that we feel uncomfortable? Is it necessary to be uncomfortable? Is it discomfort that we're reacting to, is it the discomfort of the situation, or is it the discomfort of our reaction to the situation? But regardless of what the discomfort is, today I just want to emphasize the willingness to be uncomfortable. Not so that you suffer more, but rather so that you are not being pushed around by the discomfort, so that you are not reacting, running away, grabbing something to distract you, reaching for some alcohol or something because you're so uncomfortable, but start learning how to be skillfully uncomfortable.

So one of the things that really helps is to understand that it's valuable to be uncomfortable. When you're uncomfortable, don't go make yourself uncomfortable, that isn't valuable. But if you're uncomfortable, realizing it's valuable to train yourself to hang out with the discomfort. Hang out and be kind of non-reactive, to be present in a way that you're balanced.

And so the analogy I gave before is you can be uncomfortable in a rowboat, a rowboat that's in the waves and swaying back and forth. But if you have to stand in the rowboat for whatever reason, you find a place in the midpoint, lowest center of gravity in the boat, and you put your legs kind of wide and firm, and you stay in touch with the slightest movements of the boat so you can adjust your weight and shift and change. You don't just stand stuck still, but you get fluid. Almost like you're swaying with the waves. When the boat lifts up on the right side, maybe you lean in that direction and bend the right knee, and then when it goes the other direction, you do the opposite. And so you're attuned, and maybe it's uncomfortable. But if you react to the discomfort or get afraid in the discomfort, then you're not going to have the fluidity, you're not going to have the balance. You have to be willing to feel where you're at and be with what you're at to find your bearings in it.

And so how can we do that in daily life? There are a few things. One of the things is breathing. There's something for some people very effective about staying in touch with the rhythm of their breathing. To the degree to which your attention is grounded in the breathing, that attention is not going to the reactivity to the discomfort. The breathing also tends to be relaxing, tends to be grounding or stabilizing. And so to find yourself in an uncomfortable situation and breathe. That's a common psychological technique. If you're anxious in some situation, to breathe deeply. If you're angry, breathe deeply. You breathe in order to kind of come back into balance, breathe so you're not pulled into the world of the reactivity, the fears, the anxieties, the angers you might feel in relationship to what's uncomfortable. It doesn't mean that you have to live forever with the discomfort, but you want to learn the skill of not being pulled into the reactivity.

And breathing is one of the places to learn that skill. Eventually, as we learn to be balanced and present for discomfort without the reaction, then it's a time that we can learn what's wise to do with it. If the discomfort is unnecessary or unfortunate, maybe there are things you can do to change it. If the discomfort is limiting you from doing something which is wonderful, then perhaps the balance with the discomfort, the non-reactivity, allows you to go forward into this wonderful thing that you're going to do. So to use the breathing to be with discomfort, to use your mindfulness of your body.

The body is such a fantastic place to rest, to be established in. And to use mindfulness of the body to stay present in the body in the uncomfortable situation. If it's a social situation for example, have a fair amount of your attention rooted in your body. Find a comfort in your body. Breathe with your body. Find a kind of safety, if you can, with your body, so that you're not automatically being pulled and reacting to what's being said and what's being done.

And then sometimes in terms of feeling in your body, it is to feel more precisely where the discomfort is felt physically. Because sometimes recognizing the actual place of discomfort gives it a kind of simplicity that's not there if we don't really recognize and feel where the discomfort is. It's a little bit like the Wizard of Oz, that when they finally make it to the Emerald City and they find that the wizard is this great big voice in the wall, and then they pull the curtain and behind the curtain there's this little guy who's the wizard, and suddenly he's not this big domineering imaginary presence. So sometimes discomfort, if we're vaguely feeling uncomfortable or more in our reactivity to the discomfort, it can loom and seem much bigger than it needs to be. But to drop into the body and find where particularly am I uncomfortable? Am I uncomfortable in my belly, in my shoulders, in my chest? Is it swirling in my mind? And sometimes by locating that, and then breathing with that, on the inhale feeling it, on the exhale maybe softening and relaxing, makes it kind of like it protects us from the imagination. It protects us from the general idea that, "Oh, this is bigger than it actually is." "Oh, it's just tightness in my belly, I can be with this. My chest is collapsing, oh, that's what it is." And so learn to breathe with discomfort, learn to recognize it in your body.

And then an interesting thing to do with discomfort in some situations is to notice your posture. Notice if your posture is collapsed or your posture is pulling away or reacting, or how's your posture in relationship to the discomfort? And can you take a posture of strength, a posture of confidence? A posture that feels both confident and calm? If you only take a posture that's calm, you might settle back and become a couch potato and there's a kind of collapse that might happen. But to have a confident posture. And a posture that itself expresses confidence and calm. If you're tapping your fingers a lot or playing with your fingers, maybe stop doing that. Now you don't have to feel confident, you don't have to feel calm, but assume a posture that expresses that. And then breathe with the discomfort, then feel it in your body, then kind of just be with the experience in a fuller way.

So one of the advantages or possibilities in meditation is to let this be a laboratory for discomfort. The situation is so simple when you meditate, hopefully, that you don't have to solve any social problems, you don't have to do a lot of things. You're feeling uncomfortable, and then in the meditation, learn to breathe with it. Learn to connect to your breathing and find balance in the meditation. Find a way to feel grounded in your body and then locate where the discomfort is in the body. In the meditation, you can rely on a posture which is confident and calm, and then don't physically give in to the reactivity to discomfort.

And so in meditation, then you're beginning to discover yourself, about how you are with the world of discomfort. What are the tricks of the mind? What are the reactions of the mind? What are the beliefs that come into play? And you're not giving into it, but you're studying it. You get to know it. And in this way, you become a student of discomfort. Not to be more uncomfortable, but rather to learn all the unnecessary reactions, responses, fears, and beliefs that come into play that sometimes hijack your attention, hijack your wisdom, and hijack your ability to be with the situation in a wise way.

So sometimes out in the world, it's hard to really assess all this and really know what needs to happen. Some situations are uncomfortable, and we have not the time and place to check in with our discomfort, it's really the time to get out of there. And so we don't have a chance there to study it. But find situations in your life where it's appropriate, it's okay to hang out and hang out with your discomfort. Not to suffer more, but to become wiser, to understand more what's going on, be curious. Breathe with it. Feel it in the body. Feel the location. Assume a posture that allows you to have a greater capacity to just stand there and feel the discomfort.

So it's maybe an unfortunate instruction for this day, but I do encourage you to look for opportunities in the next 24 hours when you are uncomfortable and become a student of your discomfort in this way that I'm talking about. And this will set a foundation for what we'll talk about this week as we go along. So this is not just so you can do it for today, but so that you can build on that as we go forward. So for today, become a student of discomfort. Thank you.