R-A-I-N

Here is a quite well known technique (that's not well known enough) for encountering our difficulties. R-A-I-N is an acronym representing a process we can go through to find an inner and outer peace with our experience.

• R-ecognise (Realise)
• A-ccept (Allow)
• I-nvestigate (Inquire)
• N-on-Identification (Non-Self)

If you feel like you've had enough of reading text, you can listen to a talk Nathan gave on this topic in 2013. It's about 30 minutes long. It is called Only 5 hindrances to go.

R-ecognise (Realise)

So the initial step is to realise what we are experiencing. This doesn't sound too difficult, but actually it is less common than we might think. As we experience life we filter the outer and inner world into what is useful and relevant and what we can ignore. This is an incredibly useful aspect of our life. Without this we would experience a sensory overload that would render us paralysed.

Yet, we use this same capacity to protect ourselves from real and imagined threats. Maybe this is something we have carried with us from more dangerous periods in our evolution (if you believe in evolution). When a threat or fear of a threat was worth acting upon, as death was more likely. If we just trusted life would turn out fine, then we would be eaten, attacked or have an accident.

Now, life is much more safe, mostly we meet people and animals who wish us well, or are indifferent to us. Our percentage risk of coming to harm is very low. But despite this we still respond strongly to our fear of a threat.

This can be amplified when we have had a negative or harmful interaction in the past.

As we pass through life from childhood to adulthood we encounter more and more experiences where we get hurt. We see more and more parts of ourselves that seem unacceptable. We hide these away, and become skilled at suppressing; rejecting, ignoring and silencing those parts. We can become so good at hiding these aspects, so quick at responding to a fear, that we either don't even realise we're doing it, or feel that it is "just the way I am".

So how to find out what I'm hiding, repressing or suppressing. In Buddhist teachings there are 5 hindrances laid out in plain sight. It can be a useful way of recognising and identifying where we are stuck.

• Sensual Desire or Greed
• Ill-Will or Aversion
• Sloth and Torpor
• Restlessness & Anxiety or Worry
• Doubt

At other times we experience strong indicators of something our of sight impacting on the present. Like earthquakes of emotions, volcanos of anger and rain-storms of tears.

So when something like this happens we try not to react to it, but just recognise that something is happening. Just something. Something we don't know too well.
It doesn't have to be something to be afraid of.

A-ccept (Allow)

There is a world of difference between reacting and responding. That world is made up of accepting and allowing. When we react we are playing though pre-formed opinions and actions. We are keeping life at a distance. When we respond we are seeing more fully, we are realising and recognising who or what is here. We are allowing or accepting that this is the way things are.

We are fully in the present moment with our experience. Trying not to shrink from what we don't like, nor cling to what we do. Just being with it, with as little resistance as we can manage.

A potential misunderstanding about acceptance is that it is complacence. A lethargic apathetic, laissez-faire, passive response to life. A what-ever, I don't care, value-free shrug at life. That is to misunderstand and take acceptance to it's illogical extremes.

Acceptance of what is happening in this moment, does not mean giving equal value to all things. There are immoral actions, harmful speech, and just accepting these is not enough. We need to feel empowered to act against these things. But when it comes to our inner experience, we need to recognise, we need to allow, because only then can we fully investigate it.

I-nvestigate (Inquire)

We want to get to know this experience, because once we understand more about it, we can respond to it more wisely in the future. We will know in what ways it is problematic for us, and in what ways it is no problem at all.

• What does this experience actually feel like in your body?
• How is it emotionally?
• Is there a specific pattern or content to your thinking?
• Are you energised, agitated, grounded or spacey?
• What do you want to do? Or can you just be with it?

Can you be curious and interested in your own experience? Befriend yourself; ask yourself questions like you would to a good friend, and try to open up as much as you can. If possible try to keep away from an intellectual understanding, and get to the direct experience and let it express itself. Be willing to be confused, you don't have to be in control. You only have to let life express itself though you.

N-on-Identification (Non-Self)

Everything that you are experiencing is a fleeting aspect of yourself, not who you are. You are the witness in this whole show, you have a role, a purpose (maybe), but you don't need to be identified with it. This freedom will allow you to respond more wisely, from a deeper place, with genuine natural kindness radiating to all.

It may be helpful to talk this process though with a good friend, or mentor. Talking about our experience in the third person is an act of healthy disassociation from our experience. Using anger as an example; when we go from being angry, to feeling angry, we are taking a step back from identification with to experience of.

Naturally this is also something we can do on our own. We can cultivate it though the way we think. We can encourage it through the way we talk. By saying "I am experiencing fear" rather than "I'm afraid" generates just a little more space around the emotion. Even when we are just reporting to ourselves it is transforming, when we learn to talk this way to others we are sharing that freedom of being.

It may be tempting to think the goal is Non-Identification; I should just work on that. We may wish to skip opening to the difficult and just disassociate from our problems, hindrances and pain. This is using a solution to make a problem, it isn't worth it. It is by far a better use of a human life to work slowly and with gentle effort towards becoming a whole human being, rather than adopting a noble saintly persona.