pain & nonduality

I received a really well thought out series of questions from a reader and friend. She has allowed me to share her questions and my response here:

“This may be a crude way to put it, but in your entry you say that you’re ok with experiencing pain – but can you accept that “others” (who are probably far less prepared to embrace it) are undoubtedly experiencing vastly more material pain than “Tammy” because of an unjust socio-economic system that forces them into the task of bearing the brunt of others’ excess?”

I wouldn’t say “I’m ok” with experiencing pain. It’s more like pain comes and goes and there doesn’t seem to be an idea that pain is happening to or for a separate person. So pain doesn’t seem to mean anything about me. Also there doesn’t seem to be any beliefs about pain such as I deserve it or don’t deserve it, it will go on forever, it must be here because of something I did or didn’t do right or wrong. Those are all beliefs that used to happen when there was a sense of a separate person having or owning emotion.

I definitely wouldn’t say that “I embrace” pain and I hopefully wouldn’t suggest that anyone else embrace pain. It’s kind of like the last discussion about surrender. There needs to be a belief in a separate person in order to embrace pain. I don’t even know what embracing pain would look like. It seems like embracing pain would be like holding it or inviting it, which seems like it would exaggerate the sensation of pain or make it fester. Embracing pain might be like saying to the sensation “I am allowing you in” and the mind may go on saying “I am embracing pain,” which might create a mental memory of pain. Embracing pain may cause the mind to hold onto pain that may have been simply passing through. A belief in a separate self who is in pain and embracing it would probably create a memory and a continued sense of tension in the body long after the original feeling of pain passed through.

Interestingly the word greed means hunger. Greed is a type of hunger, a sense of disconnection and incompleteness. We all know the experience of greed to some degree. It is simply a belief that I am incomplete and a sense that I need more of something to feel complete. Spiritual seeking is also a form of greed. The mind is lost believing that it is a separate person who needs more spiritual practice or more awakening experiences in order to feel compete or enlightened. I do not know whether the unconscious pain of greed and gluttony is as difficult as the conscious pain of physical hunger and poverty. Either way they are actually both painful conditions.

Again, none of this is meant to say that taking a stance and fighting the status quo is wrong or should be avoided from this nondual perspective. It is truly all included, simply because it is all appearing. Perhaps the main point is that there is never anyone as in a separate person who owns any experience whether it be greed, gluttony, starvation, homelessness, bliss, pain, or spiritual awakening. That doesn’t mean that certain behaviors don’t require punishment such as with corrupt banking or that certain conditions don’t need to be relieved such as with material pain. Duality appears infinitely and is all included in nonduality; wholesness appearing as separateness.