We associate pain with the unwelcome aspect of being and living, something to avoid if possible. After all, being used to civilizing comforts of modern life is not a crime.
However, there is a time and place when I know I have to face it. Physical pain is the easiest to endure, with unequivocal benefits after each Taichi or meditation practice. I no longer think of it as a painful activity, but an opportunity to grow inner power, stamina, flexibility.
Some of my friends wonder – why is she blogging and talking about loaded topics such as pain, hurt, love, growth? One of them said: “Meditation is good, but I have always thought that if we don’t live to the fullest now, then when?” This is a good question and in my understanding the answer is related to quantity vs. quality of life.
Why, then, I ask myself? Any day, I can choose to distract myself with more fun, stronger emotions of love, joy, a wider range of satisfying tastes and experiences, or immerse myself in intellectual pursuits.
Instead, I choose to learn from the instigator of change, progress, and growth – my guide and teacher Johwa Choi, the “spiritual boss”. Sometimes he would tell me things about me that I don’t want to hear. Recently he joked that his job is very peculiar – to cause a pain in the behind to get me moving. Just the right soupcon of pain. I laughed because he knows my character so well. I would not budge if my feet weren’t burning.
He would sometimes let me know when I have forgotten about my true essence and switched to the right/ wrong mode of critical thinking without being aware. I know nothing is as simple as it seems, and in every strength lies a source of weakness. Certain teachings are harder to accept than others because I have created strong neural connections as part of my identity over many years. Letting go of “good” notions about self is the hardest. It hurts in the deepest spaces of heart ventricles. If I am not that “good” person I thought I was, then who am I?
Eventually, after mental fits and cries, the familiar process of self-exploration begins. The deeper I go, the more things I find – the good, the bad, and the ugly. The journey can become quite invigorating and adventurous. When I finally figure out why I react a certain way to certain people or situations, I feel like I hacked into the system and became the guardian of the galaxy called my brain. That virus can no longer enter unnoticed. Yippee! I am so hyped until I remember how much malware is out there… Oh, well, I’ll deal with it later. For now, let them all sleep and recharge peacefully together.
A battle of the sexes goes on not only in the outside world, but is an intrinsic part of our everyday living and being. Unless you, the reader, came from planets other than Earth, Mars, or Venus.
Science is finding hard evidence of the differences between male and female brains, as described in this article from livescience. They found a major distinction in how various parts of the most vital organ connect in young brains of male and female participants of the study.
How Men’s Brains Are Wired Differently Than Women’s
My teacher Johwa Choi delved deep into the principle of Eum and Yang in TaeGeukDo training for human completion. The female and male characters are referred to as Eum and Yang, respectively. These concepts are much more general and encompassing than our limited notions of female and male, and are not meant to discriminate or suppress any part of the whole.
Emotions are more like female energy Eum, while thinking, mental energy represents Yang. This system constantly regenerates itself – thoughts generate emotions, emotions serve as a backdrop of thoughts. The landscape is changing dramatically or not changing at all depending on a director’s temperament and his or her ability to refresh the scene.
At times it feels like the system is having a life of its own, and the only way to be free of it is to pass out or go to sleep. Have you ever felt that way? I sure have. In meditation, a common practice it to let the thoughts flow, which in my understanding is solving the yang problem with the eum treatment, being non-judgmental and observing calmly. What should we do about emotions then? It depends. They are much harder to recognize than thoughts. They, too, can be further categorized as positively (yang) or negatively (eum) charged.
My job requires me to use a lot of yang energy, mental energy. It is easy to get engrossed in it, especially when I have to deliver on tight deadlines. After a while I lose awareness of my body – sloppy posture, shallow breathing, clouded judgment. I start feeling tension, tiredness, fatigue, lack of energy, and work becomes a burden. My body is sending me the signals; my Eum is saying – don’t forget me, I am here. It urges me to take care of it. I go to a private room and do some stretching, deep breathing, meditation for about 15 minutes. I feel entirely refreshed and ready to take on the next challenges. This is the power of Eum and Yang’s harmonious symbiosis, the heterosexual romance of the mind and body.
I realize to really live Life I cannot ‘want’ or ‘expect’ anything.
Good days change with challenging days, ups with downs. There are no ups without downs.
But I can strive for my decisions and actions being consistently driven by love and benevolence, with no hidden agenda. I can serve my purpose and achieve my goals with sincere focus, no matter what. I am in charge, I decide on the activities to take. This insight is empowering and gives me comfort.
Breathing, observing; changing, flowing. Flowing with the flow, continuously.
Becoming, being the flow – naturally.
