Pain. Our obsessive cranky teacher
Stalks the Body and demands
We listen. We attend to the
Repetition and droning of
Its teaching. Slowly it recedes,
Waving half-hearted goodby as we
Scramble to remember why, and all
We have to show for it is a Scar.
Yet, we are the better for it.
The mystery and the power of the
Healing wounds we endure is
In the Stillness of Not Self.

I just wrote the above to a good Friend who is recovering from another major surgery. To bear the pains of old age, some of them the price extracted for the careless presumptuous ways we treated, and depended upon, our bodies.

Action is the doer of karma, feelings the reaper. We experience “our karma” through feelings for things we did or set in motion in the past. That we can’t often remember what it was we set in motion or may have done in the past, does not release us from the reaping  (through feelings) of that karma. Karma is an inexorable law of the universe. Like gravity.

So, when we experience our karma we have some choices. These choices can have us railing against how we are feeling (about anything), or we can see our feelings as teachers that have come to show us something about ourselves, for our own good.

My friend in pain is in the fortunate position of being able to train with her karma (pain and it’s concomitant feelings) in the mode of acceptance and learning from that teacher.

I suspect she is in great pain, but not in great suffering. A slight shift in how we choose to see something can alleviate all the suffering of the world. Very difficult to do though, so we do our best in the circumstance we are in. Right now. And then, again…