We've conditioned ourselves to pay close attention to pain for obvious reasons (e.g. something presents an acute threat to our survival), and we respond by escaping the sensation as quickly as we can.
With practice, we can learn to accept pain as any another sensation. If you're not afraid of death, it won't bother you at all. If (like most of us) you do, next time you stub your toe, recognize your conditioned response of trying to soothe the pain, just try leaning into it a bit. Know it won't kill you. Just take the opportunity to explore the experience and try to understand it more deeply. Remind yourself that you're not in danger, accept you can't unstub your toe (or whatever it may be), realize that the fight or flight response isn't necessary or appropriate, you can take more of your attention back from it than you gave it in the first place. It will still hurt, but you can make it much quieter, as it were.
Have we conditioned ourselves to acknowledge pain? It seems to me that we evolved the ability to have pain, which is, by definition, a sensation that grabs your attention right away.
> If you're not afraid of death, it won't bother you at all.
Am I understanding your phrasing correctly? That, if you're not afraid of death, then physical pain won't bother you at all? I don't think that's right.
Another q: What kind of benefit/enlightenment do you achieve by leaning into the pain of a stubbed toe? Why lean in to it and pretend that you're "above the pain", instead of shouting out a swear word, complaining about it for a minute or two, and then moving on with your life?
I don't know if I understand what you mean. I agree that we evolved to have pain for a very important reason and that it's extremely useful to react to it differently than other sensations. But does a relatively light, non-life-threatening pain need to take so much of your attention once you realize you're not in danger?
>Am I understanding your phrasing correctly? That, if you're not afraid of death, then physical pain won't bother you at all? I don't think that's right.
I'm not saying submit to it willingly, or not to escape if it's possible, but otherwise yes. To me it's the struggling against the pain that causes suffering.
>Another q: What kind of benefit/enlightenment do you achieve by leaning into the pain of a stubbed toe? Why lean in to it and pretend that you
Kind of, yeah. It's something I've experimented with. The longer I focus on something painful the less it bothers me. It just sort of feels hot. But once I start to do something else with my body that agitates it, it provokes the strong response that takes my attention away immediately. I'm not that quick to take it back, or turn it down, yet. It's the revoking of ALL my attention while I'm trying to do something else makes me feel angry, like anyone being nagged with useless information at relentless volume and frequency. Nothing you can do except give it less of your attention and remember that getting angry is the exact opposite thing. It does take a lot of practice, I think.
>And this ability comes as a result of meditation?
Definitely. Meditation is the practice of training your attention, among other things.
>Can the same thing be achieved by telling someone to "suck it up" if they stub their toe?
It depends. If you said that to a stranger, they'd tell you to go to hell (more or less). If you said it to someone to whom you were the whole world, you'd create a louder pain that would drown it out. But they'd still be suffering.
Thanks again for your responses. A lot of the meditation talk still sounds a lot like "it was great but hard to explain, but you had to be there". I want to try it soon.
