Lullabies to Pain: 10 days in meditation jail

P.a.i.n. and the Olympics of Austerity

As I sat in the silence of the meditation hall, starving, in unrelenting pain, bored to tears all I could do was compose this story in my mind, over and over. Everyday I refined it, edited, gave it a new title, added in little jokes. Once I disguised the fact that I'd laughed at one of my own jokes by covering it up with a cough. (I was thinking about the grimacing lady who served me oatmeal and stewed prunes every morning). But then I left the retreat and found it hard to describe what happened. Is it a cliché to say that it feels like I awoke from a dream? It's hard to reconcile how I could have spent most of the retreat in misery but leave in a state of easy contentment. Because, I think, I developed a friendship with pain.

Pain—my beloved, my sister, my friend. Pain—stabbing, shooting, throbbing, tingling, creeping, aching, darting, numbing, pounding. Pain--when we just sit and observe, we see that there are infinite varieties of it but they are all just sensation. With nowhere to go and nothing to distract me, I could only sit and observe the pain wracking my body. I'm used to being in chronic low-grade pain but nothing like this. After sitting for hours upon hours, my neck felt like I was being stabbed with a paring knife, my ass felt like it'd been hit with a 2X4, my knees felt like I'd fallen on concrete and my muscles were locked in a vice-like spasm that spread from my ear down to my upper back. Some of these pains would last day and night, some only appeared when I sat. And hunger. We ate two meals a day—at 6:30am and 11 am. When lunch came at 11 am I'd already have been meditating for five hours. The lotus flowers in the pond weren't even fully open yet.

For eight long days I was in pain from the moment I awoke at 4 am till we collapsed into bed at 9:30pm after having done 10 hours of meditation. I talked to my teacher (the only person we were allowed to talk to) about it. She suggested yoga and explained how to distinguish injurious pain and psychosomatic pain. I carefully rationed out my ibuprofen, I stretched or did yoga at every break, I used massage, hot water bottles, changed my meditation position. Nothing worked. There was no escape.

On one of these miserable days, I was “visited” by a voice. From a sort of dream-like meditation state, I imagined a woman who sat with me, rubbed my back, told me I was going to be okay and kissed my forehead. She was kind, patient and compassionate. She was me. It was the first time I'd ever tended to myself with the kind of tenderness I might extend to a friend or lover in miserable pain.

Mental Menthol
A day or so later, some kind of miracle happened. The technique is to first develop a deep concentration through a focused awareness of breathing. Consider the space between your nose and your upper lip. Now consider that spot for ten effing hours. Then do it--again--the next day. This trains our minds to become sensitive and sharp enough for the second stage—simple observation of the subtlest sensations in the body. By day eight, I could feel the course of every breath, every muscle twinge, I could feel my bones and muscles and eye sockets and hair follicles.

On the afternoon of day eight, my body melted. An incredibly cool air blew right through me and my skin was alive. I was pure vibration. This bright cool tingling sensation began to break up and dissipate my pain. Muscles that had been locked for days sparkled and sang. It was like a fire of frost. And when it subsided, the pain in those areas would have disappeared. It never returned.

Very, verly slowly, new areas of pain began to melt. In what is probably the kindest thing I have ever done for myself, I learned to nurse my pain like an injured friend in the home of my body. I welcomed it explicitly: “Come on in, pain. Rest. Take whatever space you need. You're welcome here for as long as you need. Make yourself at home.” Over the course of an hour or two, the frost/fire would move to different areas, melting everything in it's path.

I was incredibly relieved but tried not to goad it on (“oh god, please move to my neck!”) It was what it was and I had to accept my body's own pace. But still, on day ten, I was out of patience for a stubborn knot of pain in the back of my neck, a knot I've probably had for ten years. I was so tired of sitting with this one. I didn't know what to do with it. In desperation, I began to sing it a lullaby. “Rock a bye baby in the tree top, when the bow breaks...” suddenly it began to sizzle..."the cradle...” and melt “will fall...” and then the pain began to break up and evaporate as the others had.

Not all of it disappeared, but I have befriended my pain. I can't believe how I once resented and rejected it when it just needed some tender attention. Pain, you are so dear to me.

By the end of ten days, about 80% off all the pain in my body had disappeared. After sitting motionless for roughly 100 hours, I returned to Sydney with less pain and more flexibility than when I'd left. Today my yoga teacher commented on how “bendy” my spine is.

From a Vipassana perspective what happened was the healing of old sankharas (“reactions”) or what we might in therapy-speak call “neuroses”. All the old shit I'd never fully healed or processed that had gotten locked in my body was transformed through the simple process of careful, patient, equanimous observation. But before this were the times I silently screaming: “I remain equanimous with this pain! I REMAIN EQUANIMOUS WITH THIS PAIN!!”

Most people experience some physical pain but emotional stuff is more common. Not me! And I love crying! grief! sadness! Bring it on! No luck. I had some Really Deep Thoughts and one really good cry—about politics of all things. On day three or four or five, I was ruminating on the racism of the so-called “trafficking problem” and burst into tears of anger. I had a few moments of sadness during the week but nothing compared to that, which made me feel like a weirdo. I'm supposed to be uncovering ancient traumas and instead I found myself trying to explain racism and sex work politics to my fellow meditators (we were allowed to talk on the last afternoon).

Despite being in the Olympics of Austerity (no talking, reading, exercising, music, art-making, writing, snax) I felt free. Freedom from avoidance, from habit, fear, craving, hatreds, denial. As Pema said “No escape, no problem.”

Sailing, it turns out, is kinda hard
Then I came home for a minute before leaving for a friend's birthday celebration in Brisbane which turned into an impromptu week-long sailing trip involving snorkelling, gruesome seasickness, getting rescued by the coast guard from 5 metre waves, living in a space the size of a bathroom with 4 people, intense beauty, shipwreck photoshoots and breakdance lessons on the beach under the moonlight. It was full on. So yeah, i'm feelin' pretty full up on adventure right now. I've been traveling for 14 months and spent about 10 days out of the last 6 weeks at my home in Sydney. I'm back home, and writing this from my kitchen table in a squat where I'm staying with an international crew of such fucking great folks and I desperately don't want to leave the house. But...it looks like i'm leaving Monday for a desert road trip. I've got one year here--I'm going for it.

Up next is a “Unpacking white privilege in queer communities” workshop I'm running in response to some of the gross racism I've witnessed in the queer community here and the big Sydney Mardi Gras celebrations. I'll be facilitating the workshop with Pike who—excitement!!--arrives at the end of February.

Much love...Goodnight all...