Embracing experience as the path to freedom

How Presence, Pain, and Perception Reveal the Hidden Clarity Within

Earlier today, I was sprawled on the ground, my camera in hand, utterly absorbed in my intention to take these stunning images. You see, I was photographing flowers, plants, insects, and birds at a botanical garden. I wanted the pictures to be unfiltered, unguarded and alive. Shifting positions constantly, kneeling, crouching, pressing my cheek against the rough texture of a tree bark— all in search of the most intimate angle. It was a kind of silent devotion, a deep attunement, not unlike a leopard stalking its prey, moving with precision, patience, and an almost primal instinct to merge with the moment. If you've ever watched a photographer lost in their craft, you know the scene: the contorted postures, the slow, reverent movements, the unwavering patience, all in pursuit of something that may seem beyond the grasp of ordinary sight. At that point, the photographer is so enraptured by the scene that in some sense, the subject and the observer cease to be. The photographer, the camera, and the subject become a singular moment of seeing, undivided and whole.

As I lay there, my body molded to the contours of this crouch, I began to think about how this act of deep observation mirrors our relationship with painful experiences. What if, instead of recoiling from them, we moved toward them with the same curiosity and presence that a photographer brings to their subject? Emotional pain, discomfort, sorrow—these are things we are conditioned to evade. We talk about them, analyze them, intellectualize them, but rarely do we allow ourselves to be fully with them. Instead, we seek distractions, vices, or narratives that shield us from the rawness of what we feel. Even therapy, when misused, can become another way of circling around our wounds rather than entering them. Of course, therapy has immense value, but the modalities that truly transform us do not stop at the level of story; they take us deeper, into the unspoken spaces where our emotions and felt sense exist within the body…somewhere truly beyond words and beyond explanation.

This is the essence of a more tantric approach— a radical willingness to meet experience as it is, without contraction, without resistance. In this approach, everything even suffering becomes a doorway in which we meet the divine. Of course, I’m not talking about glorifying suffering. I am talking about the merger between our experience(whatever it is), who we think we are and the rawness of reality that’s met without analysis, without thoughts, without escape, without a want to even end this experience. Instead of running from discomfort, we soften into it. Instead of seeking refuge elsewhere, we make a home in the very sensation we want to escape. Just as a photographer doesn’t turn away from an unsteady light or an imperfect composition but instead works with it, we, too, can train ourselves to meet life with the same openness. In my experience(and when there’s a deep recognition of this truth), pain then ceases to be this thing to run away from. It becomes a teacher. It invites me to experience somethign that’s even beneath the resistance of that pain itself. In being with which ever experience, it becomes more and more obvious that things are not what they seem to be. That’s what an illusion is. And just like the camera’s lens brings what is distant into sharp focus, our willingness to be with experience wholeheartedly reveals a clarity that was always there, waiting for us to see.

As dense and uncomfortable as they are, having the courage to face them fully helps to see how not-so-real our pain is. You see how this is not bypassing? There is no way to bypass this. There is just the facing of the raw emotion— passing through the fire to get to the heart of it. I bet you when we get in there we realize we are unburnt! But how would we know if we never even try? How can this be our lived experience if…we have never put it to the test.

In talking to a friend about this today, they asked, “so how do I be with my emotions, with my pain and with my suffering?”.

I replied, “by being with it, without all the narratives and stories about the experience.”

“But how”, they replied.
At first, I was taken aback. Isn’t it so straight forward to just be? How else could I describe this?

“When you experience this internal struggle or resistance”, I replied, “find the sensations within your body. Do you feel it? Can you find the location within your body? What’s the texture? How large is it within your body? What does it feel like? Burning? Emotive? Rapidly moving energies in the gut? What does it really feel like? Focus on just that…and not the stories about why you feel the way you feel”.

In facing our feelings this way, we begin to learn what presence truly is. Being present to what is, being present to every circumstances, being present to the true raw inexpressible aliveness, being present to the mystery that all of this undefinable existence is. It’s in this presence, that we understand what it means to be in the fullness of joy. A fullness that’s not hinged on circumstances.

This is the paradox of healing: we find freedom not by turning away, but by turning toward. The ancient story of the brazen serpent comes to mind. The Torah talks about how in the wilderness, the Israelites were plagued by venomous serpents. Many were bitten, writhing in pain, desperate for relief. And yet, the path to healing was not in fleeing the serpents, nor in trying to escape their suffering. Instead, Moses lifted a bronze serpent upon a pole and told the people to look at it—to gaze directly at the very thing that wounded them. It was in this act of looking, of not turning away, that they were healed.

This is the real essence of being with experience wholeheartedly. The very thing we fear, the very thing we want to avoid, holds within it the key to our liberation—if only we have the courage to turn toward it and see.

I live you with this poem by Padraig O'Tuama in A prayer for reconciliation:

Where there is separation,
there is pain.
And where there is pain,
there is story.

And where there is story,
there is understanding,
and misunderstanding,
listening
and not listening.

May we — separated peoples, estranged strangers,
unfriended families, divided communities —
turn toward each other,
and turn toward our stories,
with understanding
and listening,
with argument and acceptance,
with challenge, change
and consolation.

Because if God is to be found,
God will be found
in the space
between.

---

Contemplative Currents is a free (bi-weekly) newsletter that aims to shed light into our daily experiences as opportunities for contemplation of this glorious Mystery. If you'd like to support my work, please consider subscribing and/or sharing this free Substack. If you’re looking to monetarily support, buying my book, This Glorious Dance: Thoughts & Contemplations About Who We Are, is enough. I'm grateful for your support in whatever capacity.