Shinzen Young Guides a Student with Physical Discomfort - 1 of 4

I like to think of challenges is coming in 2 types. There are behavioral challenges like procrastinating or I'm smoking cigarettes. I want to change the behavior so I called those behavioral challenges.

Then there are what I call sensory challenges, which are.

For because of some condition some sensory experiences arising in the body in the mind. Insight sound and so forth and that's an uncomfortable sensory experience, so it's a challenge in that sense.

So, in my general formulation I would say you're experiencing a sensory challenge and that challenges uncomfortable touch to finding touch as physical type body sensation. Essentia Lee when a person has a sensory challenge, they have.

3 broad categories of strategies that can be applied. You can either turn your attention towards the sensory challenge and bring concentration clarity and equanimity to it that would be sort of turned torrents and you're sort of Perfusing. The sensory challenge with mindful awareness second strategy could be called turn away your concentration to focus elsewhere on to something that's pleasant for example, you can focus on restful states or

Focus on the Sound of Music or positive emotions and so forth and I call that a turning away strategy. A third strategy is that you can pay attention to how things change.

And it's sort of not this too shall pass, but if you look carefully enough. This is passing moment by moment and the passiveness of it both in terms of the sense that it's moving and flowing and in terms of the sense that each piece of it, sort of falls away moment by moment. You can become so absorbed in the change. That pretty soon. You're just aware of change and you're not aware of it. I'd call that strategy focus on change, so you can turn twords.

Or you can turn away or you can turn towards you can focus on change the tendency is to think well if I.

Turn towards it, I'll just make it worse so I don't want to do that and then well if I turn away from it. I'm just avoiding and denying and suppressing so I don't want to do that. and I know it's not going to change because it's rock solid so what's the point of that. So then the person is set themselves up for failure. Although it is true that it may temporarily get worse. If you turned towards it. If you really give it what it needs In other words, experience it fully 'cause that's what mine from where this is, is a full.

Experience of something.

Pretty experience it fully it make it worse, but then it will break up and then People say, well. If I turn away on denying but to turn away you have to develop concentration because it takes a discipline to focus on something other than the sensory challenge and you're not suppressing the sensory challenge. You're giving it permission to be there. You're just not intentionally focusing on it, so you are bringing equanimity to it, even though you're not paying attention to it.

And you are also developing sensory clarity to learn how to detect a pleasant restful state while you have a huge.

Pain and emotion state you're learning how to detect subtle pleasant things that may always be there that you might not have noticed. The turn away strategy is valid and as you're turning away it may cause. The thing to sort of cool out the sensory challenge to cool out of it, then, when you use those same skills that you've developed by turning away then could apply the concentration clarity equanimity turned towards the more cooled out version of it. It may be more penetratable so the focus away is absolutely illegitimate.

As legitimate is focus on and as far as well. I know nothing changes. It solves the Rockwell. How careful you have worked if you microscopically.

You might start to notice Oh yeah, well let's changing but it's trivially changing so lot, but then as you pay more and more attention to that it's like Oh well actually come to think of it and then that theme of flow and banishing starts to dominate awareness. I have noticed. Actually, I've noticed change. It is constantly. Changing the physical disk on physical discomfort is it possible to describe the type of change that I mean?

It might general word for continuous changes flow and then if something disappears. I say it's gone, or has managed.

Some of the flavors of flow that People experience are sort of like away Venus.

Some People get like a bubbly vibration kind of thing. Some People get sort of expansion or contraction or sort of both at the same time, like something sort of like pushing out and pulling in at the same time? Is it possible to characterize the flavor of flow experience inside the edginess it's like there's.

There's needle sticking amount like millions of them all at different times and all the different places, but roughly in the same area, but you know just instantaneous little ****** of a needle and and so it's kind of like little bubbles. Almost sounds pleasant. It's not pleasant 'cause. It's ****** but it's it's.

It's like that in the sense of you know little pops. Yes, that's a strategy that we might take we might choose to focus on change based on what you're reporting.

Do you understand the 3:00 basic strategies turned towards turn away or focus on change those 3 sort of basic options now if we choose to turn away from the discomfort. We could either focus on restful states like relaxation, physical relaxation or mental blank mental quiet that kind of stuff that would be 1 turn away strategy. A second turn away strategy would be to focus on positive.

Thoughts are positive emotions like sort of hold positive image or positive feeling the body or have some sort of positive talk in your hand so we could focus away from what you're doing what you're uncomfortable touch onto either pleasant feel image. Talk states or we could focus on to restful states so that would be a focus away if we did a term twords we would.

Pay attention to the touch itself, but we might also look for feel image talk reactions. That might be suffering present that if we do focus on change. We're going to explore ways that your sensory experience is constantly changing not only the sensory challenge. But like other places, because when one part of the sensory system starts to flow.

Other parts will often flow so even if you're.

Pain is solid if we find flow in some other part of your sensory experience focus on that. Sometimes it spreads and breaks up. The solidity in the painful areas. These strategies all makes sense. In this sort of techniques that we would use for each one are clear to you. Yes, that's good now as you can see. They all sort of work. But you may have a curiosity or preference as to where you'd like to start.

If we do turn twords we can either work just with the touch of the pain itself or we can work. Just with your feel image. Doc reactions to it. Those would be the 2:00 turned toward strategies.

The to turn away strategies would be focus on pleasant respite states or actively create positive thoughts and feelings.

And then have a focus on change will be will find change wherever we find it emphasize that and then see how widely that spreads does one of these, particularly appeal to you.

I I think the focus on change. Let's explore that that could be very interesting, OK, good are you comfortably seated yes, OK good.

So I'm just going to do my own practice.

As you do yours, so I'd like you to take a moment to life in your spine and let your whole body settle.