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Old 15-02-2020, 05:09 PM
Phaelyn Phaelyn is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2019
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gem
In the meditation halls I would go over the body to feel what it is like, and I noticed I had a tendency to tense up my legs, as I observed that part of the body I know "this is tension" and in that moment also cease doing that. I'd go on to examine other parts of the body-feeling and later return to find I had unconsciously tensed up my legs again. On deeper inspection I realized I tense my legs due to an unconscious adverse reaction to discomfort in my hips, and by tensing up, relieve the discomfort (making it as I want it to be). Hence, I don't consider the tension to be bad, there is nothing wrong with it at all, but I do learn a deeper aspect through it, the reason I do it, and know more about myself in that process. After a time, once I had noticed this tendency, which was signifying a deeper, more pervasive tendency of 'craving', it became very apparent to me and no longer could get by me unawares, and it stopped as I came to peace with the discomfort in my hips. Indeed it was the cessation of desire/aversion, reactivity or craving with regard to the feelings that ended the tendency of tensing, but I did have to become conscious of the tension, then conscious of the reactive process behind it. Once I was clearly conscious of it, it stopped. Then I could experience the pain in my hips without any reactivity, or the activity of tensing (same thing), and because I was willing toward the discomfort, had no desire for it be other than it was... The impetus or urge or the volition to make it otherwise through tensing completely ceased to occur. Of course I can remember that it used to occur, but rather than prefer it doesn't, I lost the preference of comfortable hips, and thus has no reason to tense up my legs.

An extreme metaphor for all of that would be I am a cook in a restaurant and I want to make the boss happy, so he doesn't yell at me, by working as fast as possible as that is what he wants. Well one day I notice I am always unconsciously looking around for a pot holder to use to pull the hot rack out of the oven. This is adding seconds to my cooking time which adds up. It's faster to just use my fingers. I realize I burn my fingers a lot by not using a pot holder, so that is why I unconscionably am searching around for a pot holder to pull out the hot rack. I found out by being aware of this unconscious "desire" to not be burned, I could ignore it and thus, never waste time looking for a pot holder. By being aware I was doing this, avoiding getting burned, the impetus or urge or the volition to not get burned through looking for and using a pot holder ceased to occur. Now I just accept getting my fingers burned a lot and the pain from that as a part of the job. I'm fine with it. A higher awareness of my unconscious actions has allowed me to be faster at work!

The body was basically telling you to not sit like that as it caused pain. It was reacting unconsciously to the pain by tensing. It wanted to move out of that posture/position to stop the pain. You cared more about the sitting in that way than the pain, and as we are the captains of our ship, you found a way to ignore what the body does, which is to avoid self harm and pain. It's like how a shy person will avoid other people, out of unconscious fears, but then they end up really lonely. So they can learn to become aware of these fears, become aware of how these fears are leading to choices that create loneliness, and thus, chose to act in a different way. The ultimate goal to end loneliness or self isolation. Happens through more understanding of ourselves and our behaviors and actions and more self awareness.

A similar thing to do is to realize letting our attention be in thought or present to "the talking" (story - interpretation) in our heads may create conflicts within and without, and therefore with the preference to be without conflicts, we cease letting our attention go unconsciously onto/into thinking. Use thoughts when we need to, accept it is necessary sometimes, but then drop the activity when not needed. Thought then is a tool and not an identity.
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