Acceptance and Adaptation

It's a Friday today and I am taking a day's break from work. I took the opportunity to go to the bank to collect my cheque-book. Parking was a breeze because the lockdown is in full force. However, there were quite a lot of people queuing up outside the bank. Thankfully, I did not have to wait too long. 

The weather is extremely hot lately. It is almost impossible to work without air-conditioning. I had thought of going for a jog later but the late afternoon sun is still scorchingly hot. We modern folks have forgotten what it was like when air-conditioning was not a common thing. I grew up without it and even today I still sleep without air-conditioning.  The only time that I have the air-conditioner on is when I'm working--like now.

The first car I drove had no air-conditioning. I even drove all the way from KL to Singapore with that trusty Honda Civic. Whenever it rained, it was tough--you had to keep the windows partially open to be able to get ventilation, and and as a result you often end up with a very wet interior. But I was happy with the car, because riding a motorcycle was worse.

Which brings me to the subject of today's blog post: we can always get used to anything. I trained myself to sleep without air-conditioning. To do so, you'll have to embrace heat. It is alright to sweat. Once there's acceptance of the situation, there will be no resistance. And then your mind will find some other types of annoyance to occupy itself. You just move on to overcoming that.

That's how I train myself most of the time. I used to have a heavy lunch. Now I don't even stop work during lunchtime. When the body knows that it is not expecting any food during the time, it will not release digestive juices and make you feel hungry. The body and the mind are very adaptable. But the resistance for change is also huge. That is our biggest challenge.

To overcome this inertia, you need to always start with something achievable first. If you are trying to stop smoking, then resist going for the next cigarette. Ask yourself, what do you lose if you do not take the next puff. Nothing much actually will happen if you do not exaggerate your discomfort. Meditate on the discomfort. What is it like? In the end, everything boils down to a feeling and feelings are always ephemeral. Pain, like pleasure will always fade away.

When you meditate on your discomfort and seeing it for what it is, it loses its power over you. Pain is self-consciously shy. It creates annoyance to you when you are not looking at it. When you put it under the spotlight, it reveals itself as a fraud.

Look around you now. What is causing you discomfort? Is it the heat? Is it the noise? Focus on it and see it as a mechanical process without any emotional overtones. Everything is just matter in motion obeying the laws of physics. Even your emotions are electro-chemical processes in your body. Allow them to play themselves out.

That is the meaning of acceptance. We see the pain or discomfort that we are experiencing at the moment and we allow it to play itself out without adding or subtracting from it. There's no need for amplification or diminution.  If we master this skill, we can adapt to anything. Like this lockdown. Haven't we all gotten used to staying at home? And when we have adapted to it, it's not so bad after all.