When Wounded

Very few people start meditating because they’re happy.

Most of us come to meditation because we’re suffering and we’re looking for a way out. We’ve come to the realization that although the mind may be wounded by things outside, the worst wounding come from within.

So we want to heal the mind and learn how not to wound it. Part of the healing comes from working with the breath. Part of it comes from working with your understanding of what’s going on, the attitudes you take.

With the breath, try to find a place in the body that’s at least big enough for a part of your awareness to settle down and to feel soothed. There may be strong emotions going through the mind, and they have an effect on large parts of the body, but you can’t let them take over entirely. Otherwise, they leave both the mind and the body totally ravaged.

So, as I’ve said many times before, think of the mind as a committee. You’ve got lots of different voices in there and lots of different attitudes. Try to make sure that at least one of the voices is not going along with the majority opinion when the majority is harming you. That wise voice is going to stand its ground. It’s going to keep its one little spot. And sometimes that’s all you’ve got, that one little voice, that one little identity that says, “I’m going to watch this. I’m not going to be totally overcome.”

We do have this tendency to put ourselves right in the line of fire, both from words and deeds from other people, and from our own attitudes. Everything seems to aim straight at us, and of course we’re going to feel wounded.

We have to learn how to step off to the side a bit, using the breath to find at least some spot in the body where you feel safe, and focus there. Realize that this may take time. As with any wound, you can’t expect instant healing. The childish idea that someone can just kiss the wound and that make it all better—there are a lot of wounds for which that doesn’t work.

So you have to have some patience. Be willing to admit that you’re not fully well. Think of how an ill person has to take care of him or herself. There are certain foods you have to avoid, certain situations you have to avoid, because you know that your resistance isn’t yet strong. Then be patient with the process.

Patience is helped an awful lot by finding where your strengths are, which parts of the mind, which parts of the body, can be relied upon. Focus your energy there.

Try to depersonalize the situation. This is one of the ways the Buddha has you deal with hurtful words, but it helps with any pain or suffering in the body or the mind. Just notice that there’s contact—there’s a painful sensation. Try to leave it at that. Try not to get involved in the narratives that would add more pain, add more suffering. The narratives may be going through the mind, but you don’t have to give them your credence. Remember, there are a lot of fictions in this world, and there are a lot of fictions in your mind.

Everything that goes through the mind is a fabrication. Some fabrications may represent the truth better than others. But you have to realize that everything you’re thinking is a fabrication. There are times when it’s simply not worth getting involved in certain issues. There are so many fabrications that feel painful, that feel like they’re going to aggravate the wound in the mind. Just learn to let them go. This is not the time or place for them.

The Buddha’s rules for speech apply to thought as well: “Is it true? Is it beneficial? Is this the right time and place?” Try to replace unskillful ways of thinking that don’t pass those tests with more skillful ones.

The Buddha recommends that when you’re suffering, it’s a good time to develop the brahmavihāras. This is for several reasons. One is that simply making the mind larger, more expansive—extending goodwill to yourself and to others, compassion to yourself and others, empathetic joy to yourself and others, equanimity to yourself and others—makes whatever pains you’re suffering seem a lot smaller.

Again, you’re not sitting there simply reacting to the wound. You’re taking a more proactive stance toward your experience. After all, what you’re experiencing right now is the combination of several things. You’ve got the results from past karma, you’ve got your current intentions, and the results of your current intentions. All of that coming together shapes your experience.

Sometimes there are things coming in from your past that are pretty strong, but the amount you’re going to suffer from them depends on your current intentions. So instead of simply setting yourself up as the target, you have to turn things around. You’re now more proactive, and in a skillful way. You take the larger perspective that all beings, even the people who may have intentionally hurt you, are all suffering. The world doesn’t benefit by seeing more suffering. So when you’re wishing goodwill, you’re not just waving a magic wand saying, “May we all be happy.” You stop to think that everybody’s out there suffering, just like you’re suffering here, and we all need some compassion. We all need to learn why we’re suffering so that we can put an end to it. That’s what you’re wishing when you wish goodwill. Say, “If people are doing things that are causing harm, may they understand that they’re causing harm and that they don’t have to, and that they’re better off if they don’t.”

In other words, “May they understand the causes for true happiness and act on those causes.” This kind of goodwill is a lot easier to extend than the simple idea, “Well, may all the bastards in the world be happy.”

So if your mind is feeling wounded—if you’re suffering from outside problems, inside problems, and it’s usually both—remember: The Buddha taught the Dhamma as medicine. He saw himself as a doctor. It’s in cases like this when you really realize the “glass bead game” approach to the Dhamma—where people can just make up nice theories about what the Buddha taught and it’s really up to you what you want to get out of it—may work for literature, but the Dhamma is more like a medical textbook.

You want to look up in the book and see: Where is your illness? What can you do for it? You want to understand clearly what the Buddha’s analysis of the problem is, so that you can comprehend the symptoms and see what the cause is so that you can let go of it. Then work on whatever’s the cure, so that you can finally get to the end of the suffering.

Sometimes it hurts when you hear that you’re partly responsible for your suffering. It makes it seem like you’re being blamed. If you’re living in a situation where a lot of other people are blaming you, this seems to be just piling on more blame.

But that’s not the Buddha’s purpose. He’s pointing out to you that there is a way out, and it’s within your capabilities to find that way out. So it’s not that he’s blaming the victim. He’s giving the victim the tools with which to get out of the situation and not be a victim anymore.

This is one of the reasons why the Buddha puts the four noble truths in impersonal terms. That helps to get a lot of the sting out of the situation, realizing that suffering is universal, it’s everywhere, but it’s not the whole story.

If you can find the strength of mind and the strength of body to watch it, you can begin to comprehend it. When you comprehend it, you really see where it’s coming from. To what extent are you opening yourself up to other people? This is one of the Buddha’s statements about what happens when we suffer. We’re bewildered by the suffering and we’re looking to others to help us with that suffering. That’s why we open up to others in hopes that they’ll help us with our pain.

Yet sometimes we find that we’ve opened ourselves up to the wrong people.

You want to open yourself up to the Buddha, because he has no harmful intentions at all, and his medicine is very skillful. Learn to internalize his Dhamma, so that you don’t have to depend on others to put an end to your suffering. You master the skills that allow you to comprehend what’s going on, so that you can end your bewilderment. You can let go of the cause and realize the end of suffering, which is also an important part of the story.

The Buddha never said, “Life is suffering.” He simply said, “There is suffering in life, it comes down to clinging, but there are all these other things, too. There’s the cause and there’s the end, and there’s the path of practice leading to the end.”

So make sure that you get the whole story.