{"id":169,"date":"2008-08-20T20:05:09","date_gmt":"2008-08-21T03:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.coolkarma.com\/dharma\/?p=169"},"modified":"2009-04-05T13:57:09","modified_gmt":"2009-04-05T20:57:09","slug":"the-nature-of-pain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/?p=169","title":{"rendered":"The Nature of Pain"},"content":{"rendered":"

EGOIC MIND:<\/em> I feel like I was lead astray yesterday … first there was this “awareness” that there are spots (places? perspectives?) that I could move to that would be completely absent of pain, even if for only fleeting moments at a time.\u00a0 I was able to shift back and forth to and from these locations (which often moved from one area to another) seamlessly all throughout the day.\u00a0 My confidence was high by the evening when I began to get a “headache” on my left side.\u00a0 For the first few hours of the night, I could manipulate the pain sensation, just as I had been during the day.\u00a0 There was NO PROBLEM.\u00a0 When I went to bed, I noticed the pain increasing and decided to take a Tylenol.\u00a0 But the pain kept getting worse and worse until finally my whole system was activated and there was nothing I could do – for two hours I tried “moving the energy”, shifting to a place outside of the pain”, EFT and prayer.\u00a0 Nothing seemed to work.\u00a0 The pain and general experience was identical to the facial burning episodes but in this case it was a unilateral pain along the left trigeminal nerve.\u00a0 No burning, just intense unrelenting pain.\u00a0 Now what am I suppose to do.<\/p>\n

Gnani: <\/strong>Now?\u00a0 Be present.\u00a0 Is there pain or burning now that is intense and unbearable?<\/p>\n

EGOIC MIND:<\/em> No,\u00a0 there is remnants of both mild burning and a low level of pain.\u00a0 But I feel I have to DO something to have a better set of tools for any future episodes.\u00a0 This was unbearable and I simply can not keep falling into this pain vortex unprotected.<\/p>\n

Gnani: <\/strong>There is no cookbook with recipes to follow that will eliminate the pain and suffering.\u00a0 Do you know where pain comes from?\u00a0 Do you understand the root of pain?\u00a0 Focus your attention of the root cause – forget about fixing the surface problems – go deeper and when you think you have reached the source … go deeper still.\u00a0 Your answer lies in the nature of the pain not in its explanation.<\/p>\n

Egoic Mind:<\/em> I see what the thoughts do.\u00a0 I can feel their negative effects on my body.\u00a0 But I am not always able to stop them before they have turned my system into a chemical storm.\u00a0 What can I do?<\/p>\n

Gnani: <\/strong> Once you know the thoughts as unreal it will not matter what they do or how often they arise.\u00a0 If you truly know them to be false, then they become background noise, much like the lawnmower you can faintly hear now down the street.\u00a0 There is no need to change the thought.\u00a0 Look deeply into the nature of the thought.\u00a0 See it for what it is, then there will be no need to DO anything.<\/p>\n

Egoic Mind:<\/em> But they seem so real.\u00a0 I do in fact believe them, at least at times I do.\u00a0 I get swept up in their story and I am a million miles away before I realize what I have done.\u00a0 Always believing that I am not strong enough.\u00a0 That I should be doing something different.\u00a0 That someone needs to rescue me from this pain and suffering.<\/p>\n

Gnani: <\/strong> When you are seeking refuge turn to The Buddha, look to God, seek communion with the Universe … Brahman is present and you are Brahman.\u00a0 The egoic mind cannot rescue you from the illusion that it has created.\u00a0 Pray.\u00a0 Pray.\u00a0 Pray.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EGOIC MIND: I feel like I was lead astray yesterday … first there was this<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gnani"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=169"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":172,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions\/172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}