© 2019 Malcolm Huxter

It is scientifically accepted that our healthy, secure attachments to one another are natural and essential for wholesome physical, social and psychological development and wellbeing. For most of us, the connections we have with others provide meaning in our lives. We experience grief when we are parted from what we are attached too. “The pain of grief is just as much a part of life as the joy of love; it is, perhaps, the price we pay for love, the cost of commitment” (Parkes according to Kalish, 1985, p182). Grief can be painful and debilitating. For many, the most debilitating type of grief occurs when a loved one dies.

When grief is not processed or dealt with effectively it can become pathological and a bereaved person may be unable to function adequately. However, if grief is approached skillfully, with mindfulness and compassion, the experience of loss can lead to the development of wisdom and psychological freedom.

In this article, by highlighting an experience of grief on a meditation retreat, I would like to share some understanding about how we can use mindfulness and compassion meditations to ease and transform painful emotions.

One sad day on a solitary meditation retreat

Meditation can be understood as training to cultivate wholesome qualities of heart-mind that include understanding, wisdom, compassion, serenity, tranquility and peace. Meditation is also understood as a “familiarization.” Through meditation we get to know our selves, life, and the way things interact. We wake up to the realities of the way things are. From a Theravada Buddhist perspective, all meditation involves some form of effort, mindfulness, and focused attention or concentration.

Silent meditation retreats offer an opportunity to focus on cultivating serenity and insight in order to awaken to psychological freedom. They provide the external circumstances conducive to peace and inner transformation as well as harmony within oneself and with others. A typical Theravada Buddhist retreat will often involve: withdrawal from normal activities to a quiet and secluded place; reflections on the realities of life and death; training and practice in Samadhi (focused attention) and mindfulness; and cultivating loving kindness, compassion, appreciative joy and equanimity which, in Theravada Buddhism, are called the four divine abodes.

In the winter of 2018, I had come, for the first time, to a semi-remote property of 400 acres of rugged bush for a seven-week solitary retreat. I was staying in a small mud brick hut on the side of a mountain and for the first week I was completely alone.

Around dusk of day six, I received a text message from my eldest son Ben asking me to call him. This was unnerving because my adult children would never contact me on a retreat unless there was an emergency. My heart rate increased, and I could feel some dread in my solar plexus sinking into my belly. I walked around the hut until I found some bars of reception on my phone and called.

“Hey son, what’s up?” I asked and his reply was immediate. “We have lost Huckleberry.” Huckleberry was the affectionate name given to the being of a five-month pregnancy conceived from the love between Ben and his partner. In a choking voice Ben continued “there was an incident and he has died.” This was followed by the sounds of sobbing and weeping through the phone. My heart both sank and exploded in pain. I wanted to reach out to hug and console my son in response to his pain. Through the sobs he was able to convey that Huckleberry was a little boy. At 13 centimeters (just over 5 inches) and 50 grams (about 1.8 ounces) Ben said he could hold his son’s body in the palm of his hand. I thought that to lose a child was one of the worst types of pain a parent could experience. I would rather die myself than witness the death of one of my precious three sons. As we talked, my heart swelled with compassion.

My eldest son is a wonderful step dad to two beautiful girls and I knew how much he and his partner wanted a child and little brother or sister for the girls. When I heard the sounds of anguish coming from my son, I responded as we have evolved to respond to our kin when they are distressed, with the desire to reach out and comfort. Parental love and compassion seemed the only response I could offer to sooth the pain my son was experiencing from the loss of his own son.

I was too far away to drive my vehicle the long distance to be with him that night, couldn’t find a service that does car shipping for snowbirds and I offered to go at first light on the following day. However, Ben assured me he would be fine, and he insisted I stay on retreat. Throughout the night there were many phone calls with members of our family and together we shared tears and heart ache. We also coordinated ways to provide the love and support that Ben and his partner needed.

Later in the night, Ben sent me a photo of Huckleberry’s body being held in the palm of his hand. At that moment the familial connection to this little being who had now passed away, became clear. As I looked at the photo, I realized that this little being could have been another grandson. Life and death are, of course, a mystery and can be difficult to comprehend. Yet, I could not help but think that Huckleberry’s energetic continuum had gone somewhere else. It seemed incomprehensible for me to think otherwise and affectionate care and compassion burst from my heart in his direction. After a short while I also realized my own grief, sadness, and loss. I had lost a grandson. Huckleberry could have squealed with joy at his (bearded) grandad’s prickly kisses, like the other grandchildren before him. He could have been another little one who may have run, laughed, played, and generously shared his hugs and bubbly love and presence. Also like the grandchildren before him, he could have been another sparkling light in the lives of many.

For a few hours my mind dwelled on the image of Huckleberry and my heart ached. My posture sank and my body was heavy. I felt bereft. Solitary in the hut, I let the tears flow from my broken heart, as it reached out with longing to Huckleberry, the being who would have been another grandchild. I just sat with the experience. I did not try to avoid it. Rather I opened to it and leant into it. I mindfully tracked it so I could understand it. This was the raw reality of the moment and slowly I was able to stay with, honor, and accept the emotional pain of this loss.

Being sensitive to my own suffering for what seemed a long time, I started to notice moments of compassion once again arising in my heart. I kindled this feeling with gentle and warm attention, and it grew. Bit by bit, I felt embraced in the arms of compassion. Bit by bit, the pain was soothed. After a while the compassion seemed to soak into every cell of my body and softly radiate to every part of my being. It was spacious and flowing in all directions. Not only towards Huckleberry or his mother or Ben or myself, but all beings. All the beings that were touched with this limitless quality were in my heart. For the rest of the evening I dwelled in the spaciousness of this divine abode wishing not only Huckleberry well as he travelled through the mysteries of life and death, but all beings including myself.

Meditation, Mindfulness and Compassion

In the Theravada traditions there are two aspects of meditation: serenity and insight. A feature of insight meditation is enquiry. With insight meditations we enquire into experience asking what is happening and how it is happening in order to gain understanding. With serenity meditations we focus on an object and become absorbed into it. The features of serenity meditation include stillness, quietude, calm, and clarity. When our minds are settled and clear with serenity, we are more able to see clearly and understand with insight. Though all meditation practices involve a balance of effort, mindfulness and concentration, serenity meditations tend to emphasize focused attention, while insight meditations emphasize mindfulness.

Mindfulness has been described as remembering to be attentive to immediate experience with care and discernment (Bhikkhu Bodhi according to Sharpiro, 2009). With mindfulness we track and see our experiences with more clarity. When we are willing to lean into our experiences with mindfulness, we deepen understanding as we acknowledge the cause-effect relationships of experience, and the impermanence and interdependence of all things. This liberating insight helps us to reduce any tendencies to cling to what is or what may be, and to take life events less personally.

Serenity meditations generally involve putting aside distractions and letting one’s attention focus on an object. Common objects are the breath, visualizations, mantras and uplifting experiences. We can also focus on helpful, wholesome, and uplifting states of mind. Focused attention enables us to keep the experience in mind, enriching it and ultimately absorbing it so that it becomes established as an optimal way of being, and a psychological resource. Once established, the positive state of mind can heal destructive emotions as well as transform suffering into psychological freedom. As an example, compassion is one state of mind that can be cultivated as a serenity meditation practice.

In Hardwiring Happiness, Rick Hanson gives us the acronym of HEAL to help guide a process of overcoming the impact of the negativity bias by enhancing the positive. In summary, HEAL refers to (H)aving a positive experience, (E)nriching it, (A)bsorbing it, and (L)inking it to a negative experience so that a negative memory that is associated with a painful experience can be reconsolidated and the experience positively transformed. The process of HEAL is evident in many serenity meditations.

We can nourish, nurture, and reinforce helpful, constructive and wholesome emotions / states of mind with discernment, good intentions, behaviors that reflect our good intentions, and meditation (courageous effort, mindfulness, and focused attention) (Huxter, 2016). This path of practice can also reduce the negative impact of unhelpful, unwholesome, and possibly destructive emotions / states of mind. When an emotion is painful, mindfulness can short circuit unnecessary reactivity and compassion can help to ease and alleviate the suffering. Both mindfulness and compassion can transform whatever suffering is associated with our experience to psychological freedom.

On my retreat I practiced both insight and serenity meditations. Using mindfulness, I was able to “lean in” and fully experience and understand the physical and emotional pain of both my own and my son’s grief. My deeper understanding of grief and loss as part of the human condition moved me to experience and cultivate compassion in my heart. Compassion is the resonance of the heart with suffering and the wish for this suffering to be reduced and released. Compassion is stimulated when we become sensitive to suffering of self or other and it serves to ease the suffering we experience. One way that it eases the pain is by helping us realize we are not alone in our difficulty. Compassion is often felt as a spacious, light, and uplifting movement in the area of the chest. Though there may be a shadow of sadness as our hearts become sensitive to and resonate with suffering, genuine undistorted compassion does not hurt.

The aim of compassion is not to get rid of painful experiences but to transform our relationship to them. There are many ways to cultivate compassion as a meditation practice. These practices usually begin with a perception of suffering and are supported and nourished with intention and attention. We can use imagery, imagination, words and / or focus on the physical sensations of compassion to sustain this experience so that it eventually becomes self-sustaining and we absorb into it.

If an experience is painful, we can apply a range of mindfulness and compassion strategies to process the experience and reduce the suffering associated with it. Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC), a program developed by Kristen Neff and Chris Germer (see https://centerformsc.org/) has a helpful procedure for painful emotions. It is name, feel, soften, soothe, and allow. Naming involves giving a name to the emotion (there is a saying used in MSC: “name it and you can tame it.”) Naming an emotion can aid us in being more mindful of it and thus provides more opportunity to choose how to respond when an emotion arises. (A similar saying is: “feel it and you can heal it.”)

When an emotion arises, there are a range of experiences that include thoughts, impulses, and physical sensations. If we focus on our thoughts it is easy for us to be hijacked by whatever we are thinking and feed into the distressing aspect of the emotion we are experiencing. However, if we can focus on how the emotion feels on a physical level, it is much easier to tolerate the emotion, understand it for what it is, and let it pass without acting on it if the emotion is unhelpful. Naming and feeling an emotion are the mindfulness components of the MSC approach to painful emotions.

Perspectives on Self-Care

Be careful with all self-help methods (including those presented in this Bulletin), which are no substitute for working with a licensed healthcare practitioner. People vary, and what works for someone else may not be a good fit for you. When you try something, start slowly and carefully, and stop immediately if it feels bad or makes things worse.

According to Germer and Neff, softening, soothing and allowing activates a compassionate approach to finding freedom from the suffering of painful emotions. Softening involves relaxing the tension around where and how we feel the emotion in our body. Soothing activates a soothing “balm” for our pain through kind and supportive self-talk, as well as supportive touch, such as placing the palm of our hand on our heart or giving our self a hug. Hearing compassionate words with a supportive tone of voice as well as kind touch is comforting and can stimulate oxytocin (often called the hug hormone), which can help us feel connected, safe, and reassured so we can better process traumatic events in our lives. Allowing refers to letting go of the struggle so that rather than deny the reality of the experience, we are willing to face up to it and accept it as it is.

Reflections

Emotional experiences are part of being human and in the same way that loss is an inevitable part of life, grief is a common and natural emotional response. The Buddha’s Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, which provides comprehensive instruction on the four foundations of mindfulness, states that mindfulness is a direct path “for the surmounting of sorrow and lamentation, [and] for the disappearance of dukkha [suffering] and discontent” (Anālayo, 2003, p.13). [The four foundations of mindfulness refer to the establishments of mindfulness with body, feelings, heart-mind (thoughts, emotions, moods and states of mind) and phenomena (including psychological patterns).]

I interpret sorrow and lamentation to mean the same as grief and to the extent that I have practiced the four foundations of mindfulness, I have found the Buddha’s words to be true. Not only for the loss of Huckleberry but also for the loss of other loved ones. That is, mindfulness has served to ease, heal, and transform the suffering of grief caused by the loss of those who were dear to me. In my view, when we lose someone who is important to us it is like a wound to the heart. The wounds eventually heal, and we move on in life, but the scars remain. These scars may be tender to touch yet we value them because they can be a way of remembering and honoring the person we loved. Even as I write this article I am still moved by the experience and the sadness of our loss of Huckleberry yet I can function more than adequately.

Many years ago, I was a Buddhist monastic living in Thailand. As a young Buddhist monk in my early 20s, I feared my attachments to others, including family, because I believed that the more I was attached, the more I would suffer. Now that I am much older and hopefully wiser, I treasure the bonds and healthy attachments I have with those I love and cherish, my family, my children and grandchildren. I realize and acknowledge that the more I cling to my family the more I will eventually suffer when I am parted from them. However, in my view, it is a small price to pay for the love and connection we feel. The benefit of my children and grandchildren knowing that their dad and granddad loves and cares for them far outweighs any possible suffering of future sadness that I may experience. It is “the cost of commitment” that I am more than willing to pay.

Furthermore, familial love is a gateway to more boundless, spacious, unconditional, and non-discriminating forms of love. These forms of love are, of course, those of the four divine abodes: lovingkindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity. These four heart qualities can be cultivated and help us to live with psychological ease and freedom. They are awakened ways we relate to our selves and others that incline towards freedom from suffering.

On the evening of my sad day on retreat, being mindfully sensitive to my own suffering I was able to allow compassion to soothe the pain. The combination of both mindfulness and compassion seemed to ease the suffering of my grief. Moreover, the painful experience of grief transformed to an uplifting experience of compassion. Perhaps because I have practiced compassion meditation for many years it was effortless and natural for me to settle into compassion as a divine abode for the rest of the evening.

There is something intrinsically liberating when we gracefully surrender to the truth of impermanence. This insight includes the experiential realization that we are not alone and that we are all in it together. We all share the experience of being born, aging, and ultimately dying. The insight of impermanence also awakens us to the truth of what Buddhists call “not self.” This includes the realization that everything is interdependent or part of a greater interactive and dynamic process. With these realizations, the suffering of clinging to an independent and isolated individual or “self” is released. Ironically, when we take refuge in the insights of impermanence and not self, we feel greater connection to others and a deep sense of security.

I stayed on the property in silent solitary retreat for another 6 weeks and continued to regularly reflect on the uncertainties of life and death. I also practiced lovingkindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity as meditations on a regular basis. I continued to send loving thoughts to whatever Huckleberry had changed to, wherever he may be. I endeavored to be mindful in all activities and I cultivated Samadhi in formal sitting times. When painful emotions arose, I endeavored to let them be and allowed them to change according to nature. Whenever I noticed signs of progress with Samadhi such as joy, happiness, contentment, stillness, serenity, and peace I would nourish these states of mind with focused attention.

Ben visited and stayed with me in the last days of the retreat. We broke silence and talked about Huckleberry and our grief, hung out, meditated, and climbed the mountain behind the hut together. He said that he had a lot of support and both he and his partner were slowly coming to terms with their loss. It was wonderful to be with him. It was another one of those many important times fathers share with their sons. I felt it was a beneficial retreat and at its conclusion I dedicated the merits of my efforts to grandchildren everywhere.

References

Anālayo, B. (2003). Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization. London: Windhorse Publications.

Hanson, R. (2013). Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence. New York: Harmony Books.

Huxter, M. (2016). Healing the Heart and Mind with Mindfulness: Ancient Path, Present Moment. Oxon, UK: Routledge.

Kalish, R.A. (1985). Death, Grief and Caring Relationships, 2nd Ed. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company.

Shapiro, S. L. (2009). The integration of mindfulness and psychology. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 65, 555-560.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Malcolm Huxter is an Australian clinical psychologist and teacher of Buddhist meditation. He has been teaching mindfulness and related practices such as loving kindness and compassion to clinical populations, clinicians, and the general pubic for over 28 years. Mal originally learned these practices as a Buddhist monk in Thailand in the late 1970’s. He has written several mindfulness-based workbooks, is published in psychology journals and magazines, and is the author of Healing the Heart and Mind with Mindfulness: Ancient Path, Present Moment, which was published in February, 2016. Mal works in private practice, regularly teaches courses and workshops, and offers retreats. He is a loving partner, proud dad of three adult sons and a doting granddad. He currently lives and practices on the north coast of NSW, Australia.

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Posted by mkeane on Tuesday, April 16th, 2019 @ 1:32AM
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