Transformation and Healing Through Understanding

by Pete Estabrook

During the lifetime of Sidhartha Gautama the practice of Mindfulness was developed and perfected as a means for transformation and healing. True Buddhist teaching aims at answering (through deep investigation) the most vital of all questions concerning the problem of life and death and the nature of suffering. As human beings we are all subject to suffering, but much of our suffering is created by our own doing (ie: the 3 poisons of greed, anger, and ignorance).

The good news is that there is a way out. This path is called mindfulness.

Mindfulness is the basic component of liberation (the ultimate "goal " if there were such things in Buddhism). Mindfulness is the energy (or seed) of the Buddha (Awakened One) in each of us. The energy of mindfulness operates like sunlight hitting a rose petal. After some time the rose petal must open, since it cannot resist. So it is with the various areas of our being/world. If you shine the light of mindfulness on any object, that object will be revealed to you. If you shine the light of mindfulness on your pain it will be transformed. The only time in which mindfulness can be found is in the present moment. Therefore, the only place we can find transformation and healing is in the here and now.

One can establish (realize) mindfulness quite easily. If you drink a glass of water and you know that you are drinking a glass of water, mindfulness is there. If you breathe and know that you are breathing, mindfulness is there. It is like realizing a smile. All you need to do is smile and a smile is realized and the energy of the Buddha in you is being realized.

How does transformation and healing take place once mindfulness is established in the present moment? We can begin by doing the opposite of what we might have a tendency to do.

The best way is to begin by asking ourselves "What is not wrong?" In the process of answering this, I find that my body is a good place to start. I find that in this moment my heart still functions well...what good news! It is still working day and night to supply my brain and many organs with fresh blood in order for this body to continue to exist.

In this moment, I can smile to my heart, in gratitude. I may also realize that my eyes are functioning quite well, allowing me to read this screen. I smile to my eyes. So, by not doing anything directly concerning my pain, afflictions, troublesome thoughts, and regrets, I have moved in the direction of healing with the aid of mindfulness. My feeling is that by dwelling in remembrance (smirti) - another Sanskrit translation of mindfulness - my pain is lessened. I realize, aided by remembrance, that I am larger than my pain. Through this, I get some relief (some degree of healing) right away.

We are trained in our society to always focus on what is wrong. When we do this, we make ourselves sick, more imbalanced, and unhappy. We always have positive seeds in us and we have only to look for them using mindfulness. So, the more we water the seeds of joy in ourselves, the stronger our joy becomes. At the same time, the negative seeds wither and die and our pain becomes weaker (it is counterbalanced).

When we continue to do this for some time, we begin to see transformation taking place in us. Things that seemed so troublesome to us become less important. Also, we may feel an impulse that seems to move us further toward the direction of healing rather than toward more pain (since most of us seem to like things that bring us joy). This is natural, but we need the help of mindfulness in order to prevent ourselves from becoming caught in a cycle of denial and repression. We can break that cycle by continuing to another level of healing and transformation.

The Next step in our healing process is to directly confront that element that is the primary cause of unrest in us. We may come to notice that events which occur are not truly the cause of our pain. We may begin to see with sustained mindfulness and concentration (samadhi) that these are only secondary causes of our suffering. The primary cause of our unhappiness is rooted in the seeds of suffering in our own consciousness that have been watered by these related difficult events/occurrences and have become strong (outweighing our seeds of joy and weakening them).

If we can identify that the seeds of pain reside in us, we can now stop blaming those around us (our boss our co-worker, our loved one) for much of our unhappiness. When we stop blaming, everyone around us will be more at ease (even if we were not blaming them directly). They will sense our ease and profit from it. When those around us are at more ease, so are we. Likewise, they will have a tendency to support our healing process if there is no conflict between us.

With mindfulness and concentration, we can embrace our pain directly. When pain or anger, for example, are alone in us without mindfulness (our being aware of it), they can create havoc! Mindfulness protects us from ourselves and the harmful things these seeds can lead us to do (shouting at our loved one, driving recklessly, etc.). Smile to vour pain! Embrace it whole heartedly as a part of yourself. Love your pain as if it were a close friend that you wanted very much to take care of. Visualize yourself as a loving mother and your anger as a hurt child. Be the image of utmost nonviolence. Do not be angry at your anger.

This only makes things worse. Be careful not to push your pain away. You cannot heal it by ignoring or denying it. That will only create tighter knots (samskara) in us that become more difficult to identify and untie later. "Hello my pain, I see you there. " You will notice that your mind is cyclic in nature. certain things will trigger the pain to arise, and at times, it will also seem to appear on its own. This is normal. Do not be concerned that it has not disappeared yet. This pain has an sen due to the influence of many seeds in consciousness that cannot by erased. Just stay with it each time it returns.

You will notice that pain has the same nature as everything else in the universe, it is impermanent. It has an (apparent) appearance, an existence, and a disappearance. This is the good news! All you need to do is ride the waves of birth and death (of a feeling in this case) each time and eventually, if you are able to sustain mindfulness and not be caught by the feeling (or hurt by it), it will lessen, loose its power, and become unimportant (it will return less and occupy less of your thoughts).

The "bad news" is that since everything is neither created nor destroyed (neither has a beginning nor an end) and comes into existence through the influence of all other things, no feeling can be obliterated into nothingness. Nothing can be completely removed or thrown out. We are all organic gardeners of our own heart (whether we like it or not) and can only hope to transform our garbage into flowers through mindfulness.

This is the way to transformation and healing. Painful seeds can only be transformed into something else (perhaps something more constructive). We cannot throw anything out. We may have a tendency to want to eliminate things: this is the process of denial...Be aware!. However, there is a good side to even the bad news: garbage can become a rose. A rose is made only of non-rose elements like the sun, the rain, the earth, and garbage fertilizer.

You may notice, as well, that during the process of watching the pain arise (by taking the role of the observer) stopping (samanta) occurred. Stopping is very important. If we cannot stop to look, we cannot begin the transformation and healing process in us. When we stop, those things which in flux stop also.

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