Mindfulness Meditation Lesson 4

The Two Arrows: Pain and Suffering

Watch the video below that explains how the way we react to our unpleasant experiences often ends up making things worse. This applies when we're meditating and have some uncomfortable thoughts, feelings or emotions, or physical sensations, and also in the course of our daily lives.

One thing we can do when we get struck by that first arrow is to take a few moments and just focus on our breathing, rather than reacting right away. If we're meditating when we get hit by that arrow, we can just redirect our attention back to our breath as we continue to meditate. If it happens during our daily lives, even if we're in the middle of something else, we can take some time to count or measure our breaths for a minute or two. Since no matter what it is we're doing, we're already breathing, we just bring our awareness to what's already there.

By paying attention to our breath for a while, rather than to the fact that we've just been struck by an arrow, we allow the initial sting of that arrow to subside a bit, rather than trying to struggle with it when it's at its peak strength. In future lessons we'll be looking at other ways to respond to that first arrow that causes us pain, that don't result in getting struck by a second arrow that leads us to suffer.