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Sitting in the fire: Baring witness to suffering with compassionate awareness

The heart of mindfulness is compassionate awareness able to hold and bear any experience without turning away, and without compulsively having to change the experience. Developing our capacity to “sit in the fire” with our own suffering is very powerful.  Thich Nhat Hahn reminds us that we need to remember to smile to our sorrow and to our pain because we are more that our sorrow or pain. Finding the courage to “sit in the fire” also builds our confidence and compassion and strengthens us to be more wholeheartedly present with others who we care for when they are suffering.

First, center and balance your self by mindfully resting in the flow of your breathing.  Inhaling, gently smile to yourself and know that you are breathing in.

Exhaling, gently smile to yourself and know that you are breathing out.

Inhaling… exhaling… mindfully with full awareness of the sensations of the breath flow.

After a few moments of centering yourself with mindful breathing, then, turn your mindfulness to deeply experience whatever discomfort that may be present for you.

Allow the steadiness of your mindful breathing to help you to draw your awareness into the experience, and then carefully observe in minute detail the nature of the sensations, emotional feelings, thoughts, and perceptions that you find here.

Then make a mental note of whatever you are experiencing:  itching… itching… or,  burning…burning….. or restlessness…restlessness…or, worry… worry… anger…anger … fear… fear… or whatever best describes your experience in the moment.   Allow the breath and the gentle smile to steady your awareness as you go.

Then gradually allow your mindfulness to investigate how this experience is changing and modulating in nature and intensity moment to moment.  Notice how this experience that you label with a certain concept is actually a constellation of ephemeral constantly changing phenomena.

Notice the flow and patterns of sensations in your body that are associated with a physical pain, emotional upset, or state of mind.  With an inquiry mind notice, are the sensations pulsing, throbbing, tingling, intense, subtle, painful, pleasurable, steady?

In a similar way, focus your mindfulness to investigate the changing nature of emotional feelings:  what physical sensations are linked to this emotional experience?  Is this emotional state constant, changing, intense, subtle, changing, constant?  What thoughts or inner conversations are associated with these emotional feelings and physical sensations?  Looking, listening, and feeling deeply into the moment, discover what is really taking place without imposing extra overlay or interpretation upon it.  Allow your mindfulness to give rise to insight into the nature of suffering, its causes, and conditions, it changing nature, its gifts and challenges, and allow a greater wisdom and compassion to growth through the power over your presence.