Buddhist meditations for fear and pain.

[Tom Beckett]

I am training to be an amateur mma fighter and I wanted to ask for some advice on meditations regarding fear and pain.

 

Is there any meditations Buddhists practice to acquire a fearless mindset and are there any meditations that let the mind have more control of whether they feel pain or not.

 

I want to train my mind efficiently for the ring, not just my body, so I would like to learn some meditations I can practice as part of my routine.

[C T]

Breathe in the world's suffering and breathe out your merit & virtues in exchange. Eventually you'll come to disentangle from habitual clinging and grasping to what is generally but mistakenly thought of as "me, mine, myself, and I". No greater freedom than this. Freedom from fear of loss, for one. 

 

Then pain will no longer have ownership. It'll still be there, of course, but no longer exclusive. 

Edited February 13, 2023 by C T

[Tom Beckett]

So what kind of meditation breathing would I have to do to achieve this feeling?

[Maddie]

7 hours ago, Tom Beckett said:

I am training to be an amateur mma fighter and I wanted to ask for some advice on meditations regarding fear and pain.

 

Is there any meditations Buddhists practice to acquire a fearless mindset and are there any meditations that let the mind have more control of whether they feel pain or not.

 

I want to train my mind efficiently for the ring, not just my body, so I would like to learn some meditations I can practice as part of my routine.

 

Mindfulness. When feeling fear observe the fear with out interference or judgment. When the mind comes to realize something is suffering then it lets go of it. 

[Mark Foote]

 

On 2/13/2023 at 3:30 AM, Tom Beckett said:

 

I am training to be an amateur mma fighter and I wanted to ask for some advice on meditations regarding fear and pain.

 

Is there any meditations Buddhists practice to acquire a fearless mindset and are there any meditations that let the mind have more control of whether they feel pain or not.

 

I want to train my mind efficiently for the ring, not just my body, so I would like to learn some meditations I can practice as part of my routine.

 

 

There's a lecture in the Pali sermons titled "Discourse on Fear and Dread" (Bhayabheravasutta) concerning the fear and dread that a person can experience alone in the forest, and why Gautama the Buddha was not subject to that.  

Not really what you're looking for, but I thought I'd mention it.  I guess the point of that lecture is that you really want to be compassionate, in the wilderness (in the ring?).

"Everybody has a plan, until they get punched in the mouth"--Mike Tyson.

My meditation:

The presence of mind can utilize the location of attention to maintain the balance of the body and coordinate activity in the movement of breath, without a particularly conscious effort to do so. There can also come a moment when the movement of breath necessitates the placement of attention at a certain location in the body, or at a series of locations, with the ability to remain awake as the location of attention shifts retained through the exercise of presence.

(More of What Shunryu Suzuki Actually Said)
 

I did judo for a lot of years, but my teacher was a man known for his gentleness ("judo"="gentle way").  Other dojos sent students to him to learn to be gentle.  I occasionally dabbled in other martial arts, but nothing like what you're doing.
 

I had the privilege to be thrown by a sixth dan high school champion of Japan on a number of occasions in college, and I can tell you that it was an amazing experience in gentleness.  Teachers that are completely relaxed in what they do are worth their salt, in my opinion.

 

You can sit for maybe twenty-five minutes, and experience "a moment when the movement of breath necessitates the placement of attention at a certain location in the body, or at a series of locations".  You can discover that "the ability to remain awake as the location of attention shifts (is) retained through the exercise of presence".  I suspect that it's that ability to remain awake in the ring that's going to be important to you.

 

Always moment after moment we are the center of myriads of worlds. So we are quite dependent and independent. So, if you understand, or if you experience this kind of experience, you have absolute independence. You will not be bothered by anyone.

 

(“Breathing”, Thursday Morning Lectures, November 4, 1965, Los Altos)

 

Contact in the senses, even contact with something beyond the conscious range of the senses, can enter into the placement of attention, and in so doing become a part of the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation.

(Ibid)
 

Good luck!

Edited February 14, 2023 by Mark Foote

[C T]

13 hours ago, Tom Beckett said:

So what kind of meditation breathing would I have to do to achieve this feeling?

 

The specific practice is known as Tonglen. Plenty of information, including video teachings, on the subject. 

[C T]

Basically, the more we believe in and therefore cherish (or abhor, or indifferent to) a self that over time assumes an identity merely from habitual reactions to sensory inputs, the more painful it is whenever our perceived comfort zone gets knocked. 

 

The self is not the real issue. Its more the assumptions around it that bring about stress. 

[Lairg]

21 hours ago, Tom Beckett said:

I am training to be an amateur mma fighter

 

It might be worthwhile to consider why you want to fight.   There is always someone better.

 

Are there other ways to achieve that objective?

[steve]

On 2/13/2023 at 6:30 AM, Tom Beckett said:

I am training to be an amateur mma fighter and I wanted to ask for some advice on meditations regarding fear and pain.

 

Is there any meditations Buddhists practice to acquire a fearless mindset and are there any meditations that let the mind have more control of whether they feel pain or not.

 

I want to train my mind efficiently for the ring, not just my body, so I would like to learn some meditations I can practice as part of my routine.

 

Hi Tom,

Warning - I entered meditation practice through the door of martial arts and left martial arts practice through the door of meditation.

The meditation I currently practice has been a great support for me to release fear and pain. 

It also led me to release my interest in violence, including martial arts training, as an unanticipated consequence. 

It is three-fold practice that includes meditation related to the 3 doors of body, speech, and mind.

The body meditation can be very effective with physical pain.

The doors of speech and mind are wonderful in working with fear, which in turn is an amplifier for physical pain and injury.

It is a little much to simply describe in a few words.

I will find and message you a link to my teacher leading the practice. 

Another way of working with fear in the Tibetan tradition is known as Chöd.

It is a very complex practice which involves visualization of sacrificing one's own body in a very ritualistic and explicit way in order to satisfy the hunger of the demons of fear and related emotions. 

If you don't hear from me in a day or two, please send me a reminder by PM.

Warm regards,

Steve

[Maddie]

4 hours ago, steve said:

Warning - I entered meditation practice through the door of martial arts and left martial arts practice through the door of meditation.

 

OMG same! lol

 

*was even on the MMA path at the time.

Edited February 16, 2023 by Maddie

[silent thunder]

My pursuit of a formal meditation practice was induced by inroads made during my time studying Shaolin 5 Animal and Jeet Kun Do.

[ChiDragon]

On 2/13/2023 at 3:30 AM, Tom Beckett said:

I am training to be an amateur mma fighter and I wanted to ask for some advice on meditations regarding fear and pain.

 

Fear is mental and pain is physical. Meditation may help to get rid of fear. Body Pain has to be get rid of by physical means such as acupuncture or acupressure. I wouldn't take any painkiller though. It will kill your mind.

Edited February 16, 2023 by ChiDragon

[steve]

3 minutes ago, ChiDragon said:

 

Fear is mental and pain is physical.

 

There is no clear separation between fear and pain. Both are experienced in the mind. Each is profoundly affected by the other. 

[ChiDragon]

2 minutes ago, steve said:

 

There is no clear separation between fear and pain. Both are experienced in the mind. Each is profoundly affected by the other. 

Sorry, I left out mental pain that you are referring to. Since he is practicing MMA, I am assuming that he was referring to body pain.

[steve]

1 hour ago, ChiDragon said:

Sorry, I left out mental pain that you are referring to. Since he is practicing MMA, I am assuming that he was referring to body pain.

 

I was referring to body pain.

[Giles]

On 2/13/2023 at 11:30 AM, Tom Beckett said:

I am training to be an amateur mma fighter and I wanted to ask for some advice on meditations regarding fear and pain.

 

Is there any meditations Buddhists practice to acquire a fearless mindset and are there any meditations that let the mind have more control of whether they feel pain or not.

 

I want to train my mind efficiently for the ring, not just my body, so I would like to learn some meditations I can practice as part of my routine.

 

Good Luck with your search my friend.

 

I think (IME) you'll find the answer to your question when you step in for the first time and the bell rings.

[stirling]

Quote

 

The Buddha once asked a student,

"If a person is struck by an arrow, is it painful? If the person is struck by a second arrow, is it even more painful?"

He then went on to explain,

"In life, we can’t always control the first arrow. However, the second arrow is our reaction to the first. This second arrow is optional."

 

 

Meditation can help you with the 2nd arrow, which is your story about your suffering. The first arrow, with enough practice, becomes reduced to a pile of sensation that arise moment to moment. Pain can turned, to some degree, into just another sensory experience. 

 

I would learn Shikantaza for this, learning to watch your breath as an object, eventually drop the breath as object, and eventually using "experience" (what arises in consciousness moment to moment) as your object. 

 

You could have some success with this in about a month with meditation of 30-40 minutes a day.

 

This looks like a fine instruction:

 

https://tricycle.org/article/shikantaza-instructions/

 

[Mark Foote]

Since we're on the topic:

 

Shikantaza sounds very strong. Shikan is understood as identical to zaza. Shikan means "pure", "one", "only for it". Ta is a very strong word. It shows moving activity. When you hit, that movement is called ta, so "strike" is ta. Za is the same as in the word zazen, sitting. To express the whole character, shikantaza is actually quite enough, but not enough until you experience it. Shikantaza is sitting for itself. You may say pure sitting for itself, not for something else. 

 

...Sitting on your cushion is not relaxation, it is the result of all your knowledge. Every experience you have come through sits there each time. It is very serious. Otherwise, you sit because it feels good, and you are comfortable, and once in a while you feel an ecstatic sensation in your body. You feel calmness, stillness, clarity, and forget there are hungry people on this earth. You forget there are lots of diseases which are killing people. If you do not observe that in your sitting, you are just escaping into your desire. It happens if you mistake or limit the focus of your sitting practice. 

Sitting shikantaza is the place itself, and things. The dynamics of all Buddhas are in it. When you sit, the cushion sits with you. If you wear glasses, the glasses sit with you. Clothing sits with you. House sits with you. People who are moving around outside all sit with you. They don't take the sitting posture! 

Sitting shikantaza does not depend on human intellect. It is not something you understand. It's indescribable. We say the contents of sitting are beyond our thinking system or our sensations. Belief or confidence is not what we usually think it is. Doing shikantaza shows utter trust and belief in it. If you explain shikantaza it becomes something which you don't understand, but you can experience sitting with everything with the understanding that everything is there, is there with you. 

(Kobun Chino Otogawa, from "teachings>Kobun>On Zazen" on the Jikoji.org website:  "Aspects of Sitting", "Shikantaza")

 

Then there's this:

 

Jiryu Mark Rutschman-Byler experience, studying in Japan:

 

I have labored for years to open out my meditation—which is, after all “just sitting”—away from reliance on heavy-handed internal or external concentration objects, and toward a more subtle, broad, open awareness. Roshi-sama is said to be a master of this wide practice of shikantaza, the objectless meditation characteristic of the Soto school. But he insists, again and again, weeping at my deafness, shouting at my stubbornness, that hara focus is precisely shikantaza.

 

… “Shikantaza not here,” he insisted in elementary English, pointing to his head. “Not here,” he continued, pointing to his heart. “Only point here!” He drove his fist into his lower belly, the energy center that the Japanese call hara.

 

(“Two Shores of Zen:  An American Monk’s Japan”, Jiryu Mark Rutschman-Byler, pg 4-5)

 

I would say that it happens that sometimes the breath necessitates the placement of attention at the hara, shifts the placement of attention around in the hara.  And sometimes particular senses enter into the placement of attention, so that even "people who are moving around outside all sit with you".  

I sit, and I relax, calm down, let go of my thoughts, and find some presence of mind.  I'm looking to relinquish habitual or volitive activity in the movement of breath.  It's not shikantaza until the activity of the body in the movement of breath follows from the placement of attention, purely from the location of attention at the moment, even as that location shifts:
 

When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point.

(Dogen, "Genjo Koan", tr Tanahashi and Aitken)

[Mark Foote]

Strange are the ways, of the Dao Bums forum code!

 

Edited February 17, 2023 by Mark Foote

[Centli]

On 13/2/2023 at 5:30 AM, Tom Beckett said:

I am training to be an amateur mma fighter and I wanted to ask for some advice on meditations regarding fear and pain.

 

Is there any meditations Buddhists practice to acquire a fearless mindset and are there any meditations that let the mind have more control of whether they feel pain or not.

 

I want to train my mind efficiently for the ring, not just my body, so I would like to learn some meditations I can practice as part of my routine.

Hello ser.

 

I wanted to be an MMa fighter too before. And I've been a practitioner of vajrayana for about a year... More but with intermittence

 

I doubt Buddhist meditations are the best for this. As they are focused on leaving this world behind.

 

Something like just sitting does help but for meditations focused on leaving fear behind maybe it's better to ask a warrior practicioner directly like maybe Shaolin practicioners? True they are Buddhists but a very particular kind of Buddhists.

 

I can't think of something so specific for this. Perhaps vajrapanni on the vajra tradition but you need the empowerment and I'm not sure as i said.

 

Blessings. And good luck with your endeavor.

[steve]

7 hours ago, Centli said:

I doubt Buddhist meditations are the best for this. As they are focused on leaving this world behind.

 

 

I have a somewhat different perspective,.

Buddhist meditation in Asia was an integral part of warrior culture and training in certain societies.

The approach is not so much to leave the world behind but rather to overcome attachment to the world.

This can make it quite a bit easier to face fear, injury, even death.

[liminal_luke]

My experience is that Buddhist meditation is hard -- but ultimately rewarding -- precisely because it puts me in painstakingly concrete contract with my (internal) world.

[Maddie]

3 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

My experience is that Buddhist meditation is hard -- but ultimately rewarding -- precisely because it puts me in painstakingly concrete contract with my (internal) world.

 

That would be exactly how I describe it as well.

[stirling]

9 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

My experience is that Buddhist meditation is hard -- but ultimately rewarding -- precisely because it puts me in painstakingly concrete contract with my (internal) world.

 

If the technique is dropping ALL technique (I am thinking Zazen/Dzogchen/Open Awareness) I think meditation also puts us in painstaking contact with the perceptible phenomena of the outside world. We can have a route to experiencing that is as direct as it gets. 

[Tom Beckett]

On 2/19/2023 at 10:41 AM, liminal_luke said:

My experience is that Buddhist meditation is hard -- but ultimately rewarding -- precisely because it puts me in painstakingly concrete contract with my (internal) world.

I am relatively new to meditation so I was wondering if some of the things I feel from meditation are supposed to be there. My head has sort of hurts after these days that I have meditated more than I ever had before. Is this normal? Have I begun thinking at such a deeper level then normal about this world that my head has started to hurt a little bit.