Trauma and Buddhism

Jeroen

I came across this interesting article in Lion’s Roar, titled From Trauma to Freedom which is an interview with Jack Kornfield on the intersection of Western psychology and Buddhism on the subject of trauma.

Many people expect that meditation will heal the mind and the body, and sometimes that is true, but not always, quite often a loving presence is needed as well. Here’s a short section of the article…

The fundamental understanding is that you are and have always been free. You can be identified with your trauma, or you can remember that who you are is consciousness itself. Loving-awareness shifts you out of identification with your roles, your body, your history.
When Nelson Mandela walked out of Robben Island prison after twenty-seven years and became such an inspiration to South Africa and the world, part of his message was that they can put your body in prison, but no one can imprison your spirit, and no event in history can do that either.
Modern trauma research shows that trauma exists in a different part of the brain than painful memories. The part of the brain that’s carrying trauma is experiencing you still being in danger—still in the midst of it. If you’re a vet on the street and a car backfires and you duck because it sounds like you’re under mortar fire, you’re still living in that field of trauma. A lot of the best trauma work helps you shift from the trauma still being alive and actively directing your life, to having felt and experienced the trauma, but knowing it as memory from the past.

Fascinating stuff.

Jeroen

Great Ajahn Chah story from the interview — Jack Kornfield was a student of Ajahn Chah…

Ajahn Chah wasn’t afraid of working with emotions. When I was twenty-two, I went to live and meditate in a forest hut. At that time, I was a peaceful person in my own eyes. My father had been violent and abusive, and I’d been the peacemaker of the four boys. That’s who I thought I was. Then when I meditated, to my surprise I discovered I had an immense amount of anger that I’d stuffed down. The monks near me were irritating me, and all of a sudden, I wanted to, you know, strangle them. It wasn’t their fault. It was all the stuff I’d never looked at.
I went to Ajahn Chah and said, “I’m really angry.” He smiled, “Good. You’ll learn about anger. Go back to your hut, close the door and the window, and sit there. If you’re going to be angry, do it right. See how big it gets, let yourself feel it.”
Of course, I did—in the hot season and under a tin roof. After a while, it felt like the anger could burn up the whole monastery, the whole world. Then came tremendous pain—grief and sobbing and all the layers around trauma. Ajahn Chah was really instructing me not to avert my gaze.

Bringing out trauma is often misunderstood, but these are primitive reactions to real life events which make their effects felt after weeks or more, and it is only when you can bring it to the surface and hold it with loving presence that it starts to heal.

lobster

Ajahn Chah was responsible for one of my influences (Ajahn Sudoku - also known as Mr Car Jackman from US)

He started several monastic institutions in UK, including Nuns.
Probably won't see him again as he could be wandering off into the sunset any day now...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajahn_Sumedho