Healing the Child Within ‘The cry we hear from deep in our hearts, says THICH NHAT HANH, comes fron Healing this inner child’s pain is the key to transforming anger, sadness, and fear. Thich Nhat Hon N EACH OF US, thereis a young, suffering child ‘We have all had times of difficulty as children and many of us have experienced trauma, Te proten and defend ourselves against future suffering, we ‘often try to forget those painful times, Every time we're in touch with the experience of sulfering, we believe wee can’t bear it, and we stuff our feelings and memories dcp down in our unconscious mind, It may be that we haven't dared to face this child for many decades, 40 SHAMBHALA SUN MARCH 2011 But just because we may have ignored the child doesn't mean she or he isn't there, The wounded child is ahvays there, trying to get our attention, The child says, I'm here, Vim here, You can’t avoid me. You cant run aveay from me! ‘We want to end our suffering by sending the child to a deep place inside, and staying as far away as possible. But running away doesn't end our suffering it only prolongs it. nd love, but wedo the ‘opposite. We run away because we'te afraid of suffering ‘The block of pain and sorrow in us feels overwhelrin Even if we have time, we don't come home to ourselves, We try to keep ourselves constantly entertained —watch: ‘The wounded child asks for care ing television or movies, socializing, or using alenbol or ddrugs—because we don’t want to experience that suffer ing all over again ‘The wounded child is there and we don’t even know she is there, The wounded child in us is a reality, but we can’t see her. That inability t0 see is a kind of ignorance THICH NHAT HANH isa Vietnamese Buddhist mons, poet, scholar, and human rights activist, who was nominated bby Martin Luther King,Jr for the Nobel Peace Prize. Nhat Hanis books include Being Peace. eense wounded child within.‘This child has been severely wounded. She or he reatly needs us to return. Instead we tucn away: Ignorance is in each cell of our body and our consciousness Ws like drop of ink diffused in a glass of water. That ignorance stops us from seeing reality; it pushes us to do foolish things that ‘make us suffer even moreand wound again the already-wounded child in us. ‘The wounded child is also in each cell of our body. There isn cell of our body that does not have that wounded cbild in it, We don't have to look far into the past for that child. We only have to look deeply and we can bein touch with him. The suffering of that ‘wounded child is lying inside us right now in the present moment But just as the suffering is present in every cell of our body, so are the seeds of awakened ing and happiness handed down to tis from our ancestors, We just have to use them. We dors have a lamp inside us, the lamp of mindfulness, which we can ne. The oil of that lamp is our breathing, our steps, smile, We have to light up that lamp of mind fulness so the light will shine out and the darkness will dissipate and cease, Our practice isto light up the lamp. When we become aware that we've forgotten the wounded child in ourselves, we feel great compassion for that child and J our pes 42 SHAMBHALA SUN MARCH 2011 swe begin to generate the ‘mindful walking, mindful siting, and mindtal breathing foundation. With our mindful breath and mindful steps. we can naffalness and return to the awakened gy uf mindfulness, The practices of produce the energy of 1 \wisclom lying in each cell of our body. That energy will embrace cus and heal ts, and will heal the wounded child in as Listening When we speak of listening with compassion. we usualy think of lis tening to somedne ese But we must aso liste to the wounded chil inside us. Sometimes the wounded child in us neesallouraltention “hat te child might emerge fom the depths of your consciousness and ask for your attention, you ae min, you wil heat bis or her voice calling for help. At that moment, instead of paying atten tion to whatever is fn Fran af ya, ye lt aoa tenderly embrace the wounded child, You cam talk directly to the child sth the lan ‘guage of love, saying, “In the past efi you alone. Lavent aay trom ‘you, Now, am very sorry. Lam gning to embrace you." You can say “Darling, Iam here for you. [wil take good care of you. 1 know you suffer so much, [have been so busy. have neglected yous and now have learned a way to come back to you" fee ou have 10 cry together with that child, Wheucyst you need to, you ean sit andbreathe with the chil. "Breathing in, I go back to my wounded cil bnreathing out, take good care of my wounded chile” ‘You have to talk to your child severa times a day. Only then can healing take place. Embracing your child tenderly, you reassure him that you will never let him down again or leave him «nat- tended. The litle child has been left alone for so long,’That is why sou nee ty begin this practice eight away. If you don't do it now, ‘when will you do it? If you know how to go back (o her and listen carefully every lay for five or ten minntes, healing will take place. When you climb a beautiful mountain, invite your child within to climb with you. When you contemplate the sunset, invite her to enjoy it with you. If you do that for a few weeks or a few months, the wouunded chil in yor will exper With practic, we ca (Our swouncled child ms see that our wounded child is not only us. represent several generations. Our mother have suffered throtighout her life, Our father may have suffered, Perhaps our patents weren't able to look after the wounded child in themselves ‘embracing the wounded child in us, ‘we're embracing all the wounded children of our past generations, ‘his practice Is nor a practice fr useves alone, but for number Jess generations of ancestors and descendants ‘Ourancestors may not have known howto care for their wounded child within, so they The wounded child asks selves, we can also help them, When we've healed oursehes, or relationships with others become much easier. There's more pease and more lowe in ws, {Go back and take care of yourself, Your body needs you, your feelings need you child in you needs you. Your suffer + Go home and be there for all these thi walking and mindful breathing, Do everything in mindfulness four perceptions need you. The wounded needs you to acknowledge s. Practice mind/l so you can really be there, so you can love. The Energy of Mindfulness “The energy of mindfulness isthe sale that wil reco the child within, But how do we cultivate this energ ‘Buddhist payrholngy divides consciousness into two parts, One part is mind consciousness al the othe i store consciousness Mind consciousness is our active awareness. Western psychology cals it“the conscious mind.” To cultivate the energy of mindful ness, we tr’ to engage our active awareness in all our activities andl be traly present with whatever we are doing, We want to be mind- fulas we drink our tea or drive through the city. When we walk, we that ue are walking, When we breathe, we want to he aware that we are breathing, want to be awa Store consciousness, also called) root consciousness, is the base of our con transmitted their wounded child to us, Our practice to end this cyee. If we can heal our ‘wounded child, we will nt only liberate our- selves, but we ill also help liberate whiucver has hurt or abused us. The abuser may also have been the victim of abuse. There are pec ple who have practiced with their inner chilel far long time who have had a lessening of ther suffering and have experienced transfor- mation, Their elationships with their family and friends have become much easier. We sulfer because we have not been touiched by compassion and understanding, If we generate the energy of mindfulness, understanding, and compassion for our wounded child, we will suffer much less When we generate mindfulness, compas- sion and anulerstanding bewme possible, and we can allow people to love us. Before, we may have been suspicious of everything and everyone. Compassion helps us relate to others and cestore communication. ‘The people around us, our family and fiends, may also have a severely wounded fl inside, If we've wsanayed to help our for care and love, but we run away because we're afraid of our suffering. sciousness, In Western psychology i's called “the unconscious mind.” I's where all our past experiances are stored, Store cconwinnsness has the capaeity to learn and to process information, Often aur mind is not there with our Ihody: Sometimes we activities without mind consciousness be through ou daily ing, involved 3 all, We can do: many things by means of store consciousness alone, and mind conseinsness can be thinking of a thousand other things. For examp we drive our cae through the city, mind about consciousness may not be thinki driving at all,butwe can still reach our des tin accident, That is store consciousness oper- ating an is oe, ‘Consciousness is like a house in which on without getting lost or having an the basement is our store consciousmess and the fi ng room is our mind con: sciousness. Mental formations like anger, sorrow, or joy. rest in the store conscious ness in the form of seeds (hija). We have a seed of anger. despa, liscrimination, SHAMBHALASUN MARCHENTEfear: a seed of mindfulness, compassion; a seec! oF understand- ing, and so an, Store consciousness is made ofthe totality of the seeds, and it also the soil that preserves and maintains all the seeds. The seeds stay there until we hea, se, read, or think of something that touchesa seed and makes us fel the anger, joy. oF sorrow. This isa seed coming up and manifesting on the level of ita seed, but a mental formation, ‘When someone touches the seed of anger by saying something ‘or doing something that upsets us, that seed of anger will come. tup and manifest in mind consciousness as the mental formation (cittasamskara} of anger. The word “formation” is a Bueldhist term for something that’s created by many conditions coming, twyetler masher pei na formations house, are all formations. A house isa physical formation. My. oul conscieninnens fv cut Hiv, oni, Bow ave age all ny hai flowers table, hhand is a physiological formation. My anger isa mental forma- tion, In Buddhist psychology we speak about fifty-one varieties of seeds that can manifest as flty-one mental formations. Anger is just one of them, In store consciousness, anger i called a seed. {In min consciousness, its called a mental formation. Whenever a seed, say the seed of anger, comes up inte our living room and manifests asa mental formation, the first thing, we can do is to touch the seed of mindfulness and invite it to come up too, Now we have two mental formations in the liv= ing room. This is mindfulness of anger, Mindfulness is always, ‘mindfulness of something. When we breathe mindfolly that is mindfulness of breathing. When we walk mindfally, that is mindfulness of walking. When se eat sind ha’swail= fulness of eating. So inthis case, mindfulness is mindfulness of, anger. Mindfulness recognizes and embraces anger. ‘Our practice is based on the insight of nondluality—anger is not an enemy, Both mindfulness and anger are ourselves. Mindhulnessis, there not suppressor fight against angersbut to ecogsize and take care of it ike a big brother helping a younger brother. So the en- ergy of anger is recognized and embreved teaderly by the energy of mindless Every time we need the energy of ‘mindfulness, we just touch that seed with our mindful breathing or mind- fal walking, smiling, and then we have the energy ready to da the work of ree- ogniting, embracing, and later on look ing deeply and transforming. Whatever we're doing, whether it's cooking, sweep- ing, washing, walking, oF being aware of cur breathing, we can continue to gen- erate the energy of mindfulness, and the seed of mindfulness in us will become steong. Within the accel of mindfulness 4s SHAMMACA SUN MARCH 2011 is the seed of concentration. With these two energies, we can lib erate ourselves from afflictions. ‘The Mind Needs Good Circulation We know thereare toxins in our body: If our blood doesnt ciren- late well, these toxins accumu body works to expel the toxins. When the blood ci the kidneys and the liver can do their job vo dispel toxins. We ean se massage to help the blood circulate better Our consciousness, too, may be ina state of bod! circulation We may have a block of suffering, pain, sorons, oF despair in us ifs Fike a toxin fn our consciousness. We call this an inter tal formation oF internal knot, Embracing our pain and sorrow with the energy of mindfulness is the practice of massaging our consciousness, When the blood does circulate well, our nr 1, In order to remain healthy,oue culates swell, ‘gans can’t function properly, and we get sick. When our psyche doesn't circulate well, our mnind will become sick. Mindfulness stimulates and accelerates circulation throughout blocks of pin. Occupying the Living Room Our blocks of pain, sortow, ange, and despaie always want to come up into our mind consciousness into ou living oom, be cause they've grown big and need our attention, They want to sts to come up be- emenge, but we don't want these uninvited cause they're painfl to loake at. So we try to lack their way. WE ‘sant them to stay asleep down inthe basement, We don't want (o Face tems 90 our Bai sto il te fving sony with other guests. Whenever we have ten or ilteen minutes of fre time, ee dlo anything we ean to keep oue living room occupied. We cll friend We pick up book. We rusn on the wevision. We wo fort drive, We hope that ifthe living room is occupied, these mpleas ant mental formations will not come up. But all mental formations nee to circulate IF we dont et them ae pie ali ation a psyche, and symptoms of mental illness find depression begin to manifest in ovr ‘mind and body. Sometimes when we have s head ache, we take aspirin, but ostr heatkach doesn't go away. Sometimes this kind of Trcadclie can beat spanpiann of mental illness. Perhaps we have allergies. We think it’s a physical problem, but aller gies can also bo a symptom of mental illness. Weare advised by doctors to take drugs, but sometimes these will contin ‘ue to suppress our internal formations, susthingg uur sickuess weseDismantling Barriers If we can lea not to fear our knots of suffering, we slowly begin to Jet them circulate up into our living room, We bogin to learn how to ‘embrace them and transform them with the energy of mindfulness. ‘When we dismantle the barrier between the basement and the liv- ing room, blocks of pain will come up and we will have fo suffer a bit. Oueinner child may have a Tot of fear ansl anger stored up fiom inno vay t0 avoid it being down in the hasomsont for vs tong. There ‘That is why the practice of mindfulness is so important. If mindfulness is not there itis very unpleasant to have these seeds come up. But if we know how to gencrate the energy of mindful nes, i's very healing to invite ther up every day and embrace them. Mindfulness sa strong source of energy that ean recognize, ind take care of these negative energies. Perhaps these embrace seed don't want to come up a fe perhaps there's too much feor and distrust, so we may have to coax them a bit, Aer being em braced ior some time, a strong emotion will return to the base ‘ment and become a seed again, but weaker than before [Every time you give your internal formations a bath of raindfal: ness, the blocks of pain in you become lighter. So give your anger, your despair, your fear, bath of mindfulness every dy. After several dys or woos of bringing them up daily and helping them go buck down again, you create good circulation in your psyche. The Function of Mindfulness The first function of mindfulness is to recognize and not to fight. We can stop at any time and become avate ofthe child withis us, ‘When iwe recognize the wounsded child forthe fzst time all we need te do is be aware of him or her and say hello. Tha’ all, Perhaps this child is sad. IF we notice this we can just breathe in and say to ‘urseles, “Breathing in, I know that sorrow as manifested in me, Hell, my sorrow. Breathing out, wil take good care of you." Once we have recognized our inner child, the second function ‘of mindfulness is to embrace him or her. This isa very pleasant practice. Instead of fighting our emotions, weare taking good care ‘of ourselves. Mindfulness brings with her an ally concentration, The fitst few minutes of recognizing and embracing our inner child with tenderness will bring some reliel, The difficult emotions, will stil be there, but we won't suffer as much anymore, Alter recognizing and embracing our inner ehild, the third function of mindfulness is to soothe and relieve our difficult ‘motions. Just by holding this child gently, we are soothing our difficult emotions and we can begin to feel at ease, When we em. brace our strong emotions with mindfulness and concentration, welll be able to sce the roots of these mental formations. Well know where our suffering has come froma. When we sce the to0ts of things, our sulfering will essen. So mindfulness recngnizes, embraces, and relieves ‘The energy of mindfulne: the salve that will recognize and heal the child within. 8 iS ‘The energy of mindfulness contains the energy of concen- tration as well as the energy of insight. Concentration helps us focus on just one thing. With concentration, the enctgy of look= ing becomes more powerful and insight is possible, Insight always has the power of liberating us, If mindhulyess is ther now hove fo kee sindfuliess alive, concentration will be there 00. And if we know how to keep concentration alive, insight will also come. The energy of mindfulness enables us to look deeply ble # and gain the insight we need so that transformation is pas Apo ov Reconiaton: Healing Th Ir hl 2019) hh Nat ‘wt permis fom Palas Pree Berkeley, alii we pricing