I would assume that, like me, you have consulted many doctors and they aren’t able to do much to help. In this case, one of the most powerful therapies is what we might call “radical acceptance.”

The basic premise is that we often don’t realize how much of our suffering is of our own creation, created by how we react to the pain in our body. Sometimes the core of pain itself can be like a grain of sand in an oyster; but through our irritated reaction, it grows and grows and grows, like a painfully hard pearl, into something large and hard that impinges on our ability to live.

I use the word “radical” acceptance because normally we think of acceptance as a sort of trivial cognitive process: I know I’m in pain. OK, I accept that — but it’s not going anywhere.

On a more influential level, though, real acceptance is not just cognitive but also emotional, and has roots deep in the body and the unconscious mind. And so the process for those of us who experience constant pain is to learn to look deeper than our thoughts, deeper than our surface emotions, and observe our own reactions to the pain in a very intimate way. Instinctively, it is often the last thing we would think to do, since we just want the pain to get out of our way; but if we become skilled at looking deeper and with greater compassion, it can help a great deal.

One of the first steps, especially for those of us who tend to get caught up in our thoughts, is to learn to be more deeply present with “the now” — and not just when we sit down to meditate or do yoga, but as a way of life. In this area, I know of no better teacher than Eckhart Tolle. His book The Power of Now is perhaps the best instruction manual for learning to get more deeply into the present moment and stay there.

I particularly recommend listening to the audiobook version of The Power of Now, so you can hear his voice and join him at a psychological level as he models the quality of consciousness of which he speaks.

When it comes to more intensive meditation and personal inquiry, another teacher I’ve learned from immensely is Adyashanti. His True Meditation audiobook is particularly incisive, even though the recording quality isn’t great. For anyone with some prior exposure to Buddhism, I would also highly recommend his Spontaneous Awakening recordings.

Adyashanti’s basic teaching is very simple. He teaches that if we want to reach our true potential, we must learn to stop trying to manipulate our mind into artificial states, wishing for our experience to be different, always longing, striving, aching for reality to be other than it is — wanting to get somewhere faster, to gain more insight, to overcome our struggles, to change the way we feel, to improve the way we think, etc. This striving creates a conflict in our minds, so that we do everything from a place of effort and tension, rather than ease.

And so his basic spiritual teaching, regardless of your level of meditation experience, is to simply let go of control and allow everything to be as it is.

In my own meditation practice, I often sit on a small bench, put my torso in a nice relaxed upright posture, get in touch with the feeling of my in-breath and out-breath, and then start paying attention to the tension in my body. As I see my emotional tension, I notice where it is at in my body, observe it as intimately as I can, and then let go of it.

Then I repeat that same process with any urgent thoughts that come to mind, any aching tensions in my body, any well-intentioned efforts to improve my state of mind, etc. The answer to each of these things, almost like a mantra or a psychological balm I administer to them in equal measure, is: Let go of control and allow everything to be as it is.

And I keep repeating the process. The first time notice some mental tension and let go, I might get 10% of the way there. But as I keep repeating it, with each tension in my mind and body, I get deeper into a state that actually looks like radical harmony with the way things are.

Amazingly, the more I let go of control, the more my mind and body are able to join this harmony, accomplishing things I could never have accomplished through deliberate effort: My mind is more clear, I have more energy available, I’m able to think more creatively, I feel more relaxed, and my aches and pains gradually shrink back to much more manageable proportions.

Lately I use this instruction-mantra not just when I’m on my meditation cushion, but when I’m typing e-mails, when I’m in conversations, when I’m doing the dishes, when I’m shopping, when I’m working, when I’m driving: Let go of control and allow everything to be as it is. It’s amazing how much it helps.

If you get to experimenting with these ideas, I’d really enjoy hearing how it goes. I know many friends who have been helped by them in one way or another. I wish you luck in your journey. Feel free to write if you have questions or want to know more about something.

So in that sense I think the issue of suffering is important: I think denials of it lie at the root of many problems.

I do wonder, though, if this gets at what you are talking about. I sense you may be referring to something more.

Good points. And yes, I am groping for something more, here.

In a nutshell, it’s this: I have come to the view that suffering, if you respond to it correctly, will open you to a sense of deep and profound connection with the world.

Responded to incorrectly, suffering will cause you to close and pull inside.

Responded to correctly, you have no choice but to open to it, feel the emotions at a deep level, and allow your conceptions of the world — your ideas of separateness, isolation, ego, and the many neuroses they carry with them, such as depression and anxiety — to fall away.

I’m describing it in conceptual terms, but it is an experiential observation. It’s not something I’ve arrived at by thinking, but by doing it over and over and observing the results.

When I feel fear or pain, and I surrender to it completely, and I feel the emotions fully, I fall out of my self and am left with a sense of openness and connection to the world that feels transcendental.

Is it possible to feel that openness and connection without suffering first? Probably. And I envy anyone who has that opportunity, however rare. (Or maybe it’s what we all feel as infants? I’m not sure.)

But mostly I look around and I see people who have suffered (and responded well to it) displaying this openness. And I see people who have suffered (and not responded well to it) displaying closure and stunted spiritual growth.

Nobody experiences life without suffering, so the question is: do you allow it fully into your experience, allow it to transform you, to teach you, to open you? Or do you close and try to withdraw from it?

And to me that’s what it means to acknowledge the significance of suffering — to open to it and allow it to transform you. Respond to it like a teacher, or a form of corrective feedback, or a therapy. If you don’t do this, then you miss the greatest spiritual lesson life has to offer.

So I guess what I’m saying is the complement to what you’re saying. You said that denials of suffering lie at the root of many problems. And I’m saying that fully embracing your suffering, when it inevitably happens, gives you the most profound opportunities for aliveness and growth.

I need to say more about what is means to embrace suffering. I don’t mean wallowing in self-destructive thinking, or moping around depressed, or developing a new identity for yourself as “someone who suffers.”

What I mean is a very specific way of being present with the emotions (learning to locate and be present with them in your body but not getting caught up in thinking about them) and then learning to feel them in a very pure and intense way, so the emotion can move through you freely rather than getting trapped inside.

This ties in with another post I hope to be able to write soon, about how best to respond to pain and fear. Coming soon….

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing. It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon… I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals, or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness, and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself, and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Thank you, Johann.

The purpose of Mudita Forum is to provide a stimulating, thoughtful environment for discussing Eastern consciousness-raising practices — such as meditation, mindfulness, and the cultivation of presence — while using Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism as a basic philosophical frame-of-reference.

The old group got lost when I was changing servers a couple years ago, but recently I’ve been contacted by new people wishing to join.

My hope for the new group is that it will be much like the old one: low-volume, high-quality, and stimulating on many levels.

I sent invites to many of you from the old group, but I’m sure I missed some of you. Also, Google apparently holds such invitation messages until they can review and approve them manually, so who knows when you’ll get my invitation.

Membership in the new group is by approval only, but feel free to request joining if you’re interested in the subject matter.

Feel free to browse some of my own public posts to the forum for an example of the kinds of things we discuss.

The most valuable skill I’ve acquired through meditation is the ability to experience the sense in which I am not the same as my emotions. We have a tendency to unconsciously identify with thoughts and emotions, but it is also possible to dis-identiify from them, much as you might look around the theater and dis-identify from a scary movie. It is liberating.

I suspect this is is why Marsha Linehan et al have found mindfulness to be so effective in the treatment of BPD [borderline personality disorder]. Many of us have a tendency to identify too strongly with thoughts and feelings, or perhaps with the wrong thoughts and feelings, and it causes us to go out of balance. But if we can learn to step back and see ourselves through a slightly different lens, we see the illusions involved and don’t get so easily ensnared.

The process by which we identify with emotions, and can also learn to dis-identify from them, is probably the single most interesting thing to me in all of psychology. I’m convinced it accounts for a huge percentage of not only strong unpleasant emotions like rage and guilt and fear, but also for more long-term stable experiences like our self-esteem and the average success levels of our relationships.

The strength with which schizophrenics and other psychotics identify with their thoughts and emotions could potentially be a defining characteristic of psychosis. They appear to identify so strongly with every thought that pops into their noodle that they lose the ability to step back and reconnect with reality. I’ve heard that some schizophrenics (such as Mr. Beautiful Mind) do develop this very skill, to step back, and it helps them cope and maintain some sense of reality.

So what is the alternative? If we’re not our emotions or our thoughts or our actions or our experiences, what are we?

Buddhists — who have the most experience with this stuff, and taught Linehan the basics of what has become the most promising treatment available for borderline personalities — would say the trick is to identify your self with the witness or perhaps the flow of experience, rather than with the contents of any particular experience. You are process, not content.

So — you are not your anger; you are your capacity to observe your anger as it grows, tempts, and dissipates. You are not the new car you bought, or the thrill you get when you drive it; you are the observing presence that sees you are a little out of balance as you do it.

This is not a trick of semantics. It is a qualitatively different experience, and getting more familiar with it has saved me from doing all kinds of stupid things that cost me dearly in my youth.

I totally want to write a book about this.

Jon Bernie is one of Adya’s friends and colleagues. I met him briefly and attended one of his satsangs (sitting & teaching events) last time I was in San Francisco.

Below is a brief teaching he sent out to his an announcement list. (Thanks to Marsh for the forward.)

I think it’s a well-expressed encapsulation of this perspective. You might find it worth contemplating if you’re open to this sort of thing.

For those of you new to this perspective, there’s plenty of “poetry” here: It’s not so much to think about; the trick is to feel its actual meaning in your lived experience. Your mileage may vary.

“Karmic arisings,” by the way, can be loosely translated as “the difficult things that come up in your experience.”

To awaken is to dissolve in one place and simultaneously appear everywhere. Awakening can also be called being presence, being energy. Karmic arisings, whatever their nature, are fuel for dissolving. So rather than resisting, or fighting, or arguing with what is — instead of all that, simply accept what is. Receive what is, allow what is. Become what is.

Now there’s no separation between perceiver and perception — there’s simply being perception. There’s just listening, just observing, just feeling. There’s just thinking. And you allow this gestation to happen, you allow this growth, as painful — or ecstatic! — as it might be.

The good news is you don’t have to understand how it works for it to work. Being here is enough. All you have to do is learn to allow yourself to cook. To be dissolved into light. To appear everywhere simultaneously. That is freedom.

In the interim, I’ve been listening to his “Spontaneous Awakening” lectures, which a friend gave me, and I have to say I have enjoyed them very much.

Adyashanti is very easy to relate to. I get a sense of genuineness about both his person and his teachings. He speaks the truth, it feels to me.

And I like his perspective on awakening … that it’s not something for just the rare Tibetan monk.

He says he personally knows hundreds of people who’ve experienced the kind of awakening that he experienced.

Very exciting stuff indeed. Looking forward to talking about it more here and on Mudita Forum!

Last night, I bought and listened to the first hour of this 3.5 hour program. Then I meditated for 20 minutes according to the instructions therein. Then I went to bed. I ended up spending the entire night lying in bed in a very deep state of witness consciousness, feeling the pulsations of the ego all night long, with the exception of a couple hours of sleep interspersed. And there was at least one moment of disidentification from the witness entirely into blissful nondual consciousness. I’ve been in a pretty perpetual state of witness consciousness ever since.

This is definitely the most helpful instructions on meditation I’ve ever received.

I just ordered a copy for myself.

The unabridged audio CD is only $16.47 from Amazon. And the hardcover book (which may not be as effective, because you can’t hear the author’s psychological state) is $14.16.