Meditation & Dolorstasis- 4 min reading

The temperature outside keeps fluctuating through the day. However, we do not become aware of every change in degree or sub-degree of temperatures. Generally, its only when it goes beyond a certain range, we feel it. Till that time the body manages an equilibrium such that we do not feel uncomfortable. This in some broad senses defines one of the functions of various kinds of homeostasis in our bodies. Its the mechanism to regulate internal states in context of external states and also other internal states.

In my journey of meditations, i have discovered another kind of homeostasis. One form that is popular, manages the internal biological, physical & chemical states. There is another form that has to do with, where one has had several experiences that belong to the broad family of pain:

• awkwardness

• jealousy

• insecurity

• anxiety

• fear

• unfairness

• guilt

• shame

• unmet desires

• incompleteness

• exhaustions of various kinds

• grief

• one’s death

and more.

What happens when we experience these? Sometimes we are able to resolve them completely. But majority of the times, they have to be kept on a back-burner, because something else needs to be attended to or we have not cultivated ways to resolve.

These various forms of pains are like the open windows of a computer. Imagine we keep opening windows after windows, and do not close them. What happens? In the conventional old days of computer, the system hangs. In case of our body-being-and-becoming, these open windows (pains of various forms), get

• channelized into other speech and actions

• deflected into other speech and actions

• do not get channelized and remain as tensions or clogs or blocks or stiffness in our body parts

• adjusted naturally owing to some of it being evolutionarily & genetically endurable pain

• some of it could be healed because of achievements or success or solace or healing in other areas

• there are various ways in which we may not know what it does

The unchannelized tensions create their own form of what i call dolorstasis (meaning putting internal resources for achieving a sort of equilibrium to tolerate or endure the past and existing pains of various kinds; Latin for pain is dolor). Meaning that while there are any number of the above mentioned pains, the body-emotion-psyche has to also live and perform actions. And in order to do so, our being creates a mechanism to tense-up in a manner that the pain is not felt or if felt, then managed in some way.

Think of it in terms of when you were a child, and were about to be given an injection. Your body tenses up in a manner in anticipation of the pain, and this tensing up is a mechanism to reduce the feeling of the pain and the painful effect of the pain itself. In fact, some of you may be even able to feel the tension in the body now as you are reading. This could be called as remembered pain. We all have different remembered pains. The bodily experience of the pain at the time of injection would have subsided in some time, but its mental imagery or emotional trauma caused could come back again into awareness and one may feel the tension in the body and sometimes even feel the pain. But this for another day. Lets get back to dolorstasis.

There are other examples of when one incurs some injury, and then for sometime later (depending on the nature of injury and one’s relationship with pain) the whole body curls up or becomes very tensed-up in order to cope with the pain.

These are examples of bodily pains. Then there are other kinds of pains: emotional, psychological, etc. Now back to meditation.

Over time when one meditates, one is able to feel the surfacing of various aches and tensions in the body, out of nowhere. These surfacing and releasing of pains and aches in a way are reconciling mechanisms.

Sometimes conceptual tension or psychological tensions or emotional tensions can be resolved by continuous process of releasing of body tensions. It could be said that conceptual/psychological/emotional tensions have some representation in form of body tensions. Not all of them all the time. But many of them over time and to a varying degree.

Sometimes resolving the tensions at the level it were caused, helps. For example, when someone apologizes for an emotional and psychological pain caused to you, and if you feel the apology deeply, you have a thaw or release or unburdening of some kinds.

But many times the tensions aren’t being to resolve at the level it was initially or primarily caused. Hence resorting to meditations of various kinds releases them at the level of body or emotion or psyche.