Transcending Pain

I had to take care of a loved one in hospital for the past couple of days.  Spending time in the hospital allowed me to observe people at their most vulnerable. Always in places like these, you'll end up reflecting on the human condition and how much suffering we mortals have to endure.

I admire the hospital nurses and staff who have to handle often very difficult patients with such patience and kindness. From what I observe, the suffering that patients go through is often accentuated by their state of mind. Physical wounds will heal in its own time, if proper care is taken. Hospitals do that well. They provide the necessary medication and treatment to heal the physical body. 

But the anxiety in the minds of the patients and even the family members is something else altogether. A stay in the hospital becomes a struggle if you are bothered if every minor discomfort. The mind multiplies every physical discomfort a hundred-fold. Not everyone knows how to let go and allow nature to take its course.

Surrendering to physical pain is the best way to alleviate it.  But that is a very difficult thing to do for many.  It made me better appreciate the whatever little meditation skills that I've acquired; people without such training are so consumed by the anxiety in their minds that they become their minds. The mind is that suffering self: I am in pain!  When all there is a wave of thought which we label as pain. Even the "I am" subject is also another wave.

So this momentary virtual object called 'Self' detects signals from the nervous system which it interprets as 'pain' and creates a cascade of associated thoughts: Why am I in such pain? Am I in deep trouble? Is it going to get worse? I am doomed! I don't deserve this!

The momentary Self takes centre-stage and aims to perpetuate itself through a series of thought-waves. That is how the Self achieves persistence.  It needs the reverberating effects of a story--the story of pain--to further reinforce its continued existence. That's what the arc of life is--a never-ending series of actions and reactions, which give form to virtual objects.

But this is a house of cards which collapses the moment we let go. Yet we can't, because we are living physical creatures with brains that continuously creates thoughts and concepts. Only when we are able to see that everything is as it is--processes, originating from other processes, are we able to transcend them all. And finally what is that awareness that transcends it all, if not the Virtual Self? Is it another illusion? Let's find out for our--selves.