Heartbeat: A 'pill' for the pain body, speech and mind

meditation master. He lives and practices currently from California and he writes wonderful books on meditation and on all the related topics, and they are easy reads that are highly recommended. So in the book, spontaneous creativity, he talks about something called the three precious pills, the premise behind this being that if we want to get to a place within ourselves of openness and connection, and so in doing so

reach our full potential. So he uses the word spontaneous creativity to explain how our natural state our kind of natural state of mind has this creative and spontaneous presence about us. So if we wanting to reach that, that state of awareness and that state of mind, we need to progress on a particular path of getting past our pain body, which is a quite a well known term. I know Eckhart Tolle uses that term a lot in his work. And the pain body is essentially our egoic identification with our

sense of self. Now, in this case, this identity of the pain body has been split into three components. So it talks about the pain body, speech, and mind, body being the physical body and its systems, speech being not just the physical speech, but the mental speech, the mental chatter and the stories that we tell ourselves, and mind being the conscious imagination. So the way that we constantly twisting and going back into our past and imagining a future that

hasn't yet arisen. So this is what they mean by the pain, body, speech and mind. And in the book, he recommends these three precious pills as a remedy. These three pills are stillness, silence, and spaciousness. And we can relate them to any situation that we find ourselves in, in everyday life. So I've adapted the practice that he gives in the book, and I use this in a very, very practical,

daily way. So firstly, the pill of stillness, it does relate primarily to the body, but it can relate to all aspects of ourselves that can relate to our body, our emotions, our attitudes, mental attitudes, and even to our spiritual practice. And when we really think and sit and think about stillness, it's about bringing ourselves physically to a place of

stillness. But it's also around a mental attitude of, you know, coming to a place where we stop chasing we, we can just setting be very much in the moment and stop this continual movement, this hamster wheel that we often find ourselves on in our lives.

So in any challenge or situation that we find ourself in an extremely overwhelming situation, emotionally, huge stress, physical illness, no matter what it is, this very first pill of stillness is just such a wonderful starting point and a wonderful gift that we can give to ourselves. Because when we actually just go right, I'm going to stop, just stop and be in this moment, right now still, and actually use the physical body as a support to fill that

stillness. So if you need to get yourself into a position where you can lie or sit very, very still, and just feel yourself being extremely stole. It's a very grounding exercise to practice stillness. Then we can apply the next poll. So once you've got to stay of semi balance or equilibrium with using stillness shall apply, move on to the second poll. And

that second poll is silence. And again, although there's an element of physical external silence, where you turn off the TV, social media, you know, kind of get yourself into a room where you can, you can fall outside into nature where you can experience relative silence. It's actually about inner silence, it's about quietening, down all the thoughts, and all those things that are constantly racing through our bodies and

minds at all time. And you can do this using the breath, maybe perhaps counting or focusing on the in and out breath on an object on an external, for instance, listening to the sound of birds or running water, you can use a meditation, what we call a meditation support, that by dropping into silence, it doesn't necessarily mean it's has to be 100% external silence. But it's about finding that inner silence, and definitely the support of the first poll

will help. So when the body's very still, the silence is just so much easier to find. And the second poll really is a remedy for that pain speech that he speaks of it's, it's all that negative self talk, criticisms, negative self talk to ourself, and judgments of others that start to drop away. And then we can apply the third pill, which is spaciousness. And spaciousness is about just being

in the moment. And just letting be so not trying to be anywhere else, not trying to solve a problem, not trying to think or, or act or meditate in a particular way. It's just allowing ourselves to rest and let be of whatever it whatever is arising for you in that moment. And definitely, with the first two pills, this the stillness and the silence, it becomes very natural progression to move into that third poll.

And often I find what happens when I do this is plan a lot more concentration with the first two polls. And when I get third poll, I go great, now is my time to just really

completely rest and relax. And actually there in lies the magic because it's in that act of surrender, it's in that act of letting go that you're able to drop into that spacious awareness, which is who you really are, you know, if we start to go beyond all the concepts, perceptions, beliefs, conditioning that we have, when we can get beyond all of that, and start to unpack it and and stitch it. This kind of sense of self that sits behind all of that is this very open, spacious, connected being.

And this is what these three pills can help us do. But as I say, they can also just help us in any situation day to day, I use it super practically. Sometimes I'm actually just doing work, you know, dealing with the work issue. And it's just really good exercise to say right, bring yourself to stillness, just be here right now. Find the silence switchable the external noise and look at the problem with with the match more spacious, open awareness.

So we can use these things in any day to day situation.