Allowing unpleasant experiences in the body

So, as always, we’ll spend the first couple of minutes just tuning into the body with a sense of gentleness, a sense of non-blaming, non-judgement. However the body is right now, just welcoming it exactly as it is, welcoming the sensations that are arising, that are obvious. Welcoming the general sense of the body. You might sense the background, sort of colour, tone, flavour of the space of the body, the background vibration, whatever your experience is of your body—welcoming it, allowing it. Also, just being very clear, this is an experience or a set of experiences. Right now my body is just a moment-to-moment arising as it always is. Maybe if we’re speaking objectively, I have a body that endures in space and time and is relatively solid, but actually, subjectively, in my experience right now, the body arises fresh in every moment. There’s nothing really fixed or solid there at all, just this play of sensation. We’re going to begin to notice the sense of pleasantness, unpleasantness, and neutrality that arises with body sensations. So when a sensation arises, for example, the breath entering into the body, or a feeling of tension or discomfort somewhere, or a feeling of relaxation somewhere, whatever it is, when the experience arises in this space of awareness, it’s categorised, it’s labelled pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. All we need to do is just notice this quality of sensations, that they appear in this way. They appear to be pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. We can take a minute or two to just be clear about this and find sensations that fit each of these categories. Most sensations will probably be neutral, and we probably won’t even notice the majority of neutral sensations because they’re not spicy, they’re not painful, and they’re not joyful; they’re just sort of blank. Take some time to tune into these neutral sensations. If you’re unsure, you can just try some sensations out, like clothes against the skin—are they pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant? The very subtle tingles in the fingers and the toes—how are they? The sense of your earlobes with very little sensation, probably. So you’re witnessing the sensations and importantly, this sense of neutral, blank. Then looking around for some pleasant sensations, and just the mildest kind of pleasantness is appropriate here. I mean, if there’s something very pleasant, then feel free to tune to that. But if there isn’t, then we might just notice a part of the body that feels spacious. Could be the hands; often the palms of the hands feel sort of ever so slightly nice. It could be that the breath can feel ever so slightly nice if we meet it, welcome it, and appreciate it in the right way. So just spend a moment welcoming, appreciating, tuning in to any sense of pleasantness at all, even if it’s very mild. Then noticing what feels difficult or unpleasant. You don’t have to create something here; you can just find some discomfort. It could be some mild tension in the body somewhere. There might be some emotion or physical constriction. Just noticing the sense of unpleasantness; this might be a little harder to stay with. It’s not that we want to just soak in the unpleasantness; it’s that we want to be really clear this is an experience and it’s not pleasant. This categorization process of pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral normally goes kind of unnoticed, and we jump immediately to resistance, tension, and reaction. Just noticing the unpleasantness of something can actually be a kind of relief. It’s like, ah, yeah, it makes sense; this is unpleasant. This can sometimes even bring compassion in a very natural way. So just being clear, this experience is happening; I’m aware of it; it’s unpleasant. Then we can drop the specific tuning to the unpleasant and just open up again to the sense of the whole body, the sense of this whole arena of experience. We can really notice this aspect—the pleasantness, unpleasantness, and neutrality—as it arises with sensations. You can experience the body as a sort of pot of pleasantness, unpleasantness, and neutrality, a pot of sort of feeling tone bubbling away. Now, being really clear about this, we can wholeheartedly allow all of these experiences we’ve gone through. We’ve noticed the neutral and how these get a little bit ignored. Maybe we’ve noticed the pleasant, and we’ve spent time recognising the unpleasant. Now our intention and our attitude is: pleasant or unpleasant or neutral, I’m here for it, there’s space for it, it’s already happening. And I know that tension and numbness has a quality, so I want to make space for everything arising in this space of the body. Practising in this way, where we welcome experience, including unpleasant experiences, means we don’t so much need to create tension and resistance and distraction. We don’t need to ruminate on our problems because it’s simply unpleasant experience, and we know how to hold it. We can also be really aware of the impermanence of experience, the sense that these sensations that arise with this feeling tone attached to them come and go and change, and so does the feeling tone, so does the sense of unpleasantness or pleasantness or neutrality. We can watch something that feels neutral for a while; maybe it shades into pleasant. If we allow the unpleasant in this really genuine way, it can start to become a little bit more neutral—just sensation, just experience. If we spend a while with something pleasant, that sense of pleasantness can actually grow as we appreciate and welcome it. So noticing that this quality of feeling tone is not static; it’s not inherent in the experience because it changes depending on the way that I relate to the experience, on the kind of attention that I give. As we continue to allow all experiences and recognise their impermanence, the way that they come and go and change, and the way that the feeling tone associated with them comes and goes and changes, you can also be really clear that they’re coming and going and changing totally of their own accord. It’s not you doing this. These sensations, this constant bubbling away of experience in the space of the body, are completely autonomous; it’s doing its own thing and you’re just watching, receiving. When certain experiences feel prominent and feel like they capture attention, often the unpleasant experiences tend to do this more. We can watch it and notice, ah, you’re just happening, just arising, changing, and passing. Then it can be obvious that this isn’t me, this isn’t me; this is just a transitory experience. I know it’s not me because I can see it, and I can see it clearly. So we’ll just spend the last couple of minutes practising like this, watching pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral experiences bubbling away all on their own.