ISmile 100- Working With Pain

How can we ever become truly intimate with our emotional and physical pain? Or, in Buddhist terms, how can we welcome Mara? . In tonight’s talk Michael suggests that our pain is often a better guide along the Path than pleasure. Countless sages have spoken to this but Michael uses the words of Thomas Merton and Rumi to point out this aspect of our work where “all the buddhas are practicing”. Questions and comments deal with the issue of constant physical pain; facing our emotional pain with the same intense awareness as we might with our physical pain; and recognizing that when we come close to actual death we are offered a teaching.