I recently had a request from some group members to talk about resistance because it was becoming noticeable in many of their sittings and their lives. They wanted to know what to do about it.
These are some of the questions I asked:
- What does resistance mean to you and how do you experience it in meditation?
- Do you experience resistance to things that are pleasant, or nice?
- Do you experience resistance when things come up in meditation that are uncomfortable, unpleasant, or distressing?
Resistance is biologically driven especially against the negative. We are driven to move towards nice, pleasant, or comforting things and away from those things that are unpleasant, distressing or painful. Remember the pleasure-pain principle from our biology classes? This allowed us to survive as a species. If we didn’t pay attention to the animals outside our cave, we’d get eaten!
But the Buddha asked us to go against the stream, meaning to go towards the uncomfortable, distressing and painful. This is where most learning occurs. The river current takes us in one direction and the Buddha asked us to go against the stream.
Our tendency is to try to avoid the unpleasant, ignore it, don’t look, don’t listen. I have unlimited ways to do that including eating chocolate, watching TV, checking my very important emails, … I’m sure you can make your own list.
So what to do in meditation?
Explore to the best of your ability what is this distressing incident that has arisen. What is underneath the obvious? What feelings and emotions come with it? Where is the resistance in your body? Are there any places where you don’t feel it? What thoughts come with it? Any memories? Any colors or visual images? Any sounds? Voices of people talking? Are those voices ones you recognize? Are they your voice? What is the tone of the voice?
Who is the voice that’s saying “I don’t want …” or “I want …”? What are the conditions that gave rise to it? What are you aware of? What is hidden? Where does your resistance lead? To more ease or less? To more judgment or less?
Often just being with this distressing event is enough to get a little better understanding. Pushing in this explorative process goes against what we teach in Reflective Meditation. Explore with curiosity, flexibility, and kindness.
We can often be with distressing things a little longer than we think we can. Learning where the edge is takes practice. Sometimes we overshoot our tolerance, other times undershoot. Find where your edge is through experimentation.
Often it takes multiple times of sitting with our resistance before we get some clarity, so patience is needed. Some of these distressing things are part of a life pattern: self-criticism, unkindness to ourselves or those we disagree with, and self-judgment. It will take time to unravel them to get some clarity. I think of mine as big balls of twine. Sometimes I have to look hard to see where the end is.
Take your time, be patient and kind in the process.