Sacred Pain

The Avoidance of Pain

Our entire culture is built on the avoidance of pain. We are taught from a young age that pain is bad, that it is something to be numbed, to be medicated, to be distracted from. We have become experts at running from our own suffering. But in our desperate attempt to avoid pain, we have cut ourselves off from the very thing that has the power to wake us up. We have become like a person who is afraid of the dark, and so we live our lives in a perpetually half-lit room, never knowing the beauty of the stars.

Pain in Taoism

In Taoism, pain is not seen as an enemy, but as a natural part of the ebb and flow of life. It is a sign that we are out of harmony with the Tao, that we are resisting the natural unfolding of events. The Taoist sage does not try to avoid pain, but instead learns to meet it with acceptance and equanimity. He knows that pain is a teacher, that it has something to show him about where he is holding on, where he is resisting, where he is out of alignment with the truth of his own being.

Suffering in Advaita Vedanta

In Advaita Vedanta, the root cause of all suffering is *avidya*, or ignorance of our true nature. We believe that we are this limited, separate self, and so we are constantly trying to protect and defend this self from the perceived threats of the world. But this is a losing battle. As long as we identify with the ego, we will suffer. The path to freedom is not to try to fix the ego, or to make it more comfortable, but to realize that we are not the ego. We are the pure, unborn, undying Consciousness that is the witness of all experience, including the experience of pain.

A Real-Life Example

Some years ago, I went through a period of intense physical pain. I had a back injury that left me unable to walk for several months. I was in constant, excruciating pain, and I was filled with despair. I thought my life was over. But as the days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months, something began to shift in me. I began to see that the pain was not my enemy. It was my teacher. It was forcing me to slow down, to be present, to let go of my own agenda. It was burning away everything that was not essential, and it was leaving me with a raw, naked, and unbearable love for the simple gift of being alive.

How to Embody This Teaching

• The Practice of Turning Towards: When you feel pain in your body or in your heart, instead of turning away from it, see if you can turn towards it. Breathe into the sensation. Allow it to be there. Don't try to change it or fix it. Just be with it.
• The Practice of Self-Inquiry: Ask yourself, "Who is it that is aware of this pain?". See if you can find the one who is suffering. You may discover that the pain is happening, but that it is not happening *to you*.
• The Practice of Offering it Up: Offer your pain up to something larger than yourself. You can offer it up to God, to the universe, to the earth. Allow your pain to be a prayer, a gift, a sacrifice.

When This Card Appears

When the Sacred Pain card appears in a reading, it is a sign that you are being called to a deeper relationship with your own suffering. It may be a sign that you are ready to stop running from your pain and to start learning from it. It can also be a sign that you are being called to a path of service, to use your own experience of pain to help others who are suffering.