1.2 Being-With
While delving into developmental psychology and research, I changed meditation teachers, briefly studying with Thich Nhat Hanh. His focus on simple breathing (" ... peace is every breath") and kindness within a daily practice were remarkably beneficial. Having such limited access to someone living in France was less helpful. It is with Thich Nhat Hanh that I took sacred vows.
Then, unexpectedly, I was offered an opportunity to study with Joko Beck, a nonsense Zen roshi in her late sixties, teaching in San Diego. She graciously invited those of us who lived at a distance to call weekly and discuss our meditation practice in direct relationship to the struggles happening in our everyday lives. This was the consistent guidance I recognized as necessary.
By this time, I had been dealing with the chronic pain in my head for more than a decade, and we discussed this often. Joko was unflinching in her suggestion that I allow the pain to be exactly as it was, with no strategies to get rid of it. She kept suggesting that I "simply hold" the pain while simultaneously experiencing it.
You have another choice Kent. You can quit fighting this pain and simply hold it. You don’t need to get some place new. This moment is merely another chance to be-with what is, exactly as it is. Nothing more. Nothing less. — Joko Beck
(Suffice it to say that Joko had never heard of either Donald Winnicott or Daniel Stern. And, while this terminology is now more common in Zen meditation circles, it was virtually unheard of 30 years ago.)
I practiced holding and being-with my pain for several years. The pressure to be rid of it or to change it did shift. Over time, on many days, the intensity level gradually moved from an 8 or 9 to a more manageable 3 or 4 on a pain scale of 1-10. The pain did not disappear, but something was different. The world I was trying to make sense of was different.
I was now married and the father of a young child. Intimacy began to make sense. Nothing else mattered half as much.
eightysevenminutes
Life was beginning to shift.
Your great mistake is to act the drama as if you were alone. — David Whyte