We are taking meditation classes and you have to kneel down on a little bench.
I’ve played a lot of soccer over the years and my knees and my hips are in terrible shape and well, kneeling hurts. So the first class, I sit in a chair. And this guy about 15 years older than me is telling the teacher that kneeling is making his legs hurt and go numb. He’s not complaining really, just reporting.
Anyway, she is super calm, understanding and sweet and gives him this gentle advice: “Don’t focus on it as ‘I wish this was gone I wish this was gone.’’’ Instead she tells him to relax and calm it down and work his way through it.
“It’s a sensation. That’s all it is,” she says. “You’re not breaking apart. It’s just a sensation. Let’s start changing it.”
So the next class I figure I’m going to kneel. Sure enough it hurts like a bitch. After the class the teacher asks me how it felt and I tell her it hurt, but I just ignored it. That wasn’t the right answer. But she’s done years of calming mediation so she just says: “That’s a really interesting approach.”
Anyway the next time I kneeled again and it hurt just as much. But this time, I just went right at it, feeling it and not reacting to it one way or the other. All of a sudden it releases and the sensation is gone.
And all that’s left is just breathing and thinking about being.
Thinking that this meditation and mindfullness, well, there seems to be something here. I'm gonna keep practicing.