Johnny Froth:
Wow. And did the dentist comment at all? Was he surprised?
Surprised would be an understatement. He thought it was some kind of mental toughness. From the inside, it didn't seem that way.
[quote="Johnny Froth"]As I began to muse on that -- I'm an inveterate muser -- I realized I was *observing* the pain, as opposed to, or at least in addition to, experiencing it.
When I spotted that phenomenon, *it* made me curious, and I began to ponder the whole notion of a difference between observing pain on the one hand, and experiencing pain on the other.
As it progressed, the "experiencing pain" component seemed to decrease and the "observing pain" component increased. Eventually I realized that although the pain was no less intense, the extent to which it was bothering me had diminished. It's hard to remember now, but I'm pretty sure there were moments where it was all observation and no experiencing. In those moments, I wasn't suffering at all.
It may just have been some kind of natural opioid thing, my body's response to the intensity of the pain. I've read that opiates have the effect of reducing our response to pain, not the level of pain. Or maybe I was just delirious. Or maybe it was something more jhana-ish? Shrug.
Whatever the label for separating the mind into subject-witness/object-experience, it was an important step for me, as well. In my case, the dilemma was not pain but rather depression. It took meds for me initially to get enough relief from depression that I could turn my mind and life toward meditation, but when I did, I found that the part of my mind that was noticing the occurrence of depressive thoughts arising was not, itself, depressed. That perception gave me a "place" to stand when my experience was turning toward depression. And that very seeing, itself, seemed to de-energize the downward spiralling thoughts, both shortening and reducing the depth of my depressive episodes. Eventually, I no longer needed meds to control that aspect of mind.
And while I've come to conclude that the strongly formulated "witness" consciousness is, itself, also a construct, I still find it to be a useful one when my thoughts turn toward depression.