The mindful Pause often finds us in the middle of habit-driven thought or emotional reaction. Stirred by the emotional spike of a recent interchange or by the ongoing rush of thought, the body is agitated. If we do not meet these experiences skillfully, we will be flung back into unaware and identified activity. We need further support.
The second instruction is Relax. When we Pause into awareness, we also Relax the body and mind. This meditation instruction reflects tranquility, an important factor on the path to awakening. At first, it is as direct and simple as it sounds. We bring awareness to those parts of the body where we tend to accumulate tension, and allow that tension to relax.
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Whenever we recognize tension, we can choose ease. There is no other practice, really, than this letting go. We only need to choose. Choosing the ease over and over again is the practice. Our formal support for making this choice—for remembering that this choice is available to us—is one simple word: Relax. This guidance is not offered to the body only, nor to the mind only. The body and mind move together, not two but one. When the body relaxes, the mind calms down. When the mind calms down, the body relaxes.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just tell our bodies to relax, and they would obey? Many headaches and ulcers would vanish; we would be happier, and live longer. But it just doesn’t work that way. Tense muscles take a while to release. Adrenaline takes time to be cleared from the blood stream. The reminder to Relax cannot be obeyed instantly, despite our best hopes and intentions. Patience and practice are necessary.
Thoughts and the mental component of emotions also have a kind of momentum; they do not cease their forward push simply because we have become aware of them. The habits of the mind run deep, fast, and with a lifetime of energy; stopping and settling into the moment with ease does not always come easily.
We can meet our disordered thoughts and feelings with acceptance. We need not run away from discomfort, confusion, fear, unhappiness, or judgments. Accept is to the mind as Relax is to the body.
When we notice the signs of tension in the body—a tightness in the belly, or the sinking feeling of sadness—awareness can remain soft and present while the feeling unfolds. The tendency to fly backwards in aversion to the unpleasant sensation is replaced with the conscious reminder to Relax, to accept. In this change, old habits of continuing or amplifying tension are replaced with new habits of ease and acceptance. In this way, Relax heals what the Pause reveals. Thoughts rise and fall as excitements come and go during interpersonal engagement, but the mind does not identify with these reactions.
When thoughts are met with acceptance, we are free to respond appropriately instead of reacting habitually. This acceptance, when fully ripe and unconditional, is love. This is not emotional love, but the simple lovingkindness of total non-aversion (adosa, in Pali). It is the heart-mind that is receptive to experience and activated in natural kindness, or metta (the Pali word for lovingkindness that is the namesake of the Metta Foundation).
When thoughts and emotional reactions are met with acceptance, with Relax, with metta, they loose their motive power. There is no clinging to the thought or emotion, and no judgment. This simple kindness, to ourselves and others, is the doorway to transformation and freedom.
