Week 16  – 1st June 2016

Samantha adds her thoughts on what she experiences during the circle:

Dear all, as we were asked to contribute towards the blog, I came across the following teaching, which, I think, seemed to perfectly sum up the strong physical sensations, which may be experienced in our development – and how they may be interpreted in a way other than that which we may, at times, consider obvious… As emotions deeply held within, rise to the surface of our consciousness:

“The function of mindfulness is, first, to recognize the suffering and then to take care of the suffering. The work of mindfulness is first to recognize the suffering and second to embrace it. A mother taking care of a crying baby naturally will take the child into her arms without suppressing, judging it, or ignoring the crying. Mindfulness is like that mother, recognizing and embracing suffering without judgement.

So the practice is not to fight or suppress the feeling, but rather to cradle it with a lot of tenderness. When a mother embraces her child, that energy of tenderness begins to penetrate into the body of the child. Even if the mother doesn’t understand at first why the child is suffering and she needs some time to find out what the difficulty is, just her act of taking the child into her arms with tenderness can already bring relief. If we can recognize and cradle the suffering while we breathe mindfully, there is relief already.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh