People associate meditation with calm, peace and tranquility.
What we don't, however, associate it with is pain.
The spiritual wisdom gained through meditation is, nevertheless, all about pain - deep emotional pain.
Not removing it but truly feeling it.
Because the truth is, it cannot be escaped.
There is no human on Earth who has lived a life free of suffering.
This is so universal that Buddha virtually crafted it into a definition of existence; "life is suffering".
Notice, however, that people who meditate don't walk around miserable all the time.
The reason is that by immersing yourself deeper into the pain that is the inevitable core of life, you'll gradually develop a tolerance to it.
This doesn't mean that people who meditate experience less pain - if anything they experience it more because they make sure they never escape it - but they are able to maintain a healthy detachment from it; i.
e.
the travails of life impact them less.
The best analogy I can think of is when one experiences a physical sprain of some kind, it can often help to move into the pain (through message or gentle exercise) to help relieve it.
That is what you do when you meditate - you are truly feeling, and so unburdening yourself of the pain of being human.
This week a paper was published in the American Psychological Association journal, Emotion, regarding a study conducted by researchers in Montreal Canada.
The study goes to the very heart of the spiritual wisdom gained through meditation.
Joshua Grant, the lead researcher, described the study in which they measured the brain thickness of 17 Zen meditators and 18 non-meditators using MRI scans.
They examined in particular specific areas of the brain that regulate emotion and pain and what they discovered was that these areas are significantly thicker in meditators than non meditators.
This finding has received a great deal of publicity as it is the first direct evidence of a physical and neurological change produced by meditation.
Previous research had unearthed differing health outcomes, but this actually looks at the way in which meditation starts changing the shape of our inner organs.
This greatly affects our understanding of our ability to improve ourselves - even to the point of altering the anatomy of our brains - and it provides ample encouragement to the world of personal development in general and contemplative/meditation based self help in particular.
Stillness and presence is a far more powerful route to spiritual wisdom than many had previously known.
This fact is echoed throughout nature; Trees appear still, yet they grow every day - each tree was once a seed.
Mountains appear still, yet they rise every day - each mountain range was originally an ocean floor.
Lakes appear still, yet they reshape every day - each natural lake was once a volcanic crater.
And so it is with humans; present stillness is truly our most powerful state of being.
So the next time you see someone meditating or practising yoga or you are doing it yourself, know what is going on inside as a result is a process far more profound and transformative than you may ever have realized.
What we don't, however, associate it with is pain.
The spiritual wisdom gained through meditation is, nevertheless, all about pain - deep emotional pain.
Not removing it but truly feeling it.
Because the truth is, it cannot be escaped.
There is no human on Earth who has lived a life free of suffering.
This is so universal that Buddha virtually crafted it into a definition of existence; "life is suffering".
Notice, however, that people who meditate don't walk around miserable all the time.
The reason is that by immersing yourself deeper into the pain that is the inevitable core of life, you'll gradually develop a tolerance to it.
This doesn't mean that people who meditate experience less pain - if anything they experience it more because they make sure they never escape it - but they are able to maintain a healthy detachment from it; i.
e.
the travails of life impact them less.
The best analogy I can think of is when one experiences a physical sprain of some kind, it can often help to move into the pain (through message or gentle exercise) to help relieve it.
That is what you do when you meditate - you are truly feeling, and so unburdening yourself of the pain of being human.
This week a paper was published in the American Psychological Association journal, Emotion, regarding a study conducted by researchers in Montreal Canada.
The study goes to the very heart of the spiritual wisdom gained through meditation.
Joshua Grant, the lead researcher, described the study in which they measured the brain thickness of 17 Zen meditators and 18 non-meditators using MRI scans.
They examined in particular specific areas of the brain that regulate emotion and pain and what they discovered was that these areas are significantly thicker in meditators than non meditators.
This finding has received a great deal of publicity as it is the first direct evidence of a physical and neurological change produced by meditation.
Previous research had unearthed differing health outcomes, but this actually looks at the way in which meditation starts changing the shape of our inner organs.
This greatly affects our understanding of our ability to improve ourselves - even to the point of altering the anatomy of our brains - and it provides ample encouragement to the world of personal development in general and contemplative/meditation based self help in particular.
Stillness and presence is a far more powerful route to spiritual wisdom than many had previously known.
This fact is echoed throughout nature; Trees appear still, yet they grow every day - each tree was once a seed.
Mountains appear still, yet they rise every day - each mountain range was originally an ocean floor.
Lakes appear still, yet they reshape every day - each natural lake was once a volcanic crater.
And so it is with humans; present stillness is truly our most powerful state of being.
So the next time you see someone meditating or practising yoga or you are doing it yourself, know what is going on inside as a result is a process far more profound and transformative than you may ever have realized.