CHASING HI Ca

 A

a

A Painless Present

Buddhism teaches that pain is inevitable. Just being with pain creates an opportunity to cultivate intimacy with it.

whooever we are, wherever we are, we inevitably experience pain. Yesterday’s pain may still be occupying us, and tomorrow’s pain too, together amplifying today’s pain. We don’t get what we want, and there’s pain; we get what we don’t want, and there’s pain; and even when we get what we want, there’s pain, if only because of how things change and how little in control of this we are.

Just as inevitably, we tend to store as much as possible of our pain in our shadow, finding strategies to numb, bypass, or otherwise get away from our pain. The more we try to flee the felt presence of pain—whether through denial, dissocia

a

nd when they [the Wise Men from the East] C-/ J . were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, "Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him." When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt: And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, "Out of Egypt have I called My son."

a