One of the important topics I emphasize is the ability to remain with discomfort, unpleasantness.

At first, inmates don’t understand why they should remain with what is unpleasant to them. After practice I hear them, time and again, speak about how situations that in the past caused them great suffering during their stay in prison, don’t cause them suffering any more, but only cause them a little discomfort or unpleasantness.

Yesterday the prison session on the topic of stopping was very powerful. It is a relatively new group, and a new inmate who joined was impressed by having time to sit quietly without the prison commotion around. He said something really beautiful, about how even the refrigerator’s engine has a break every now and then, and how people who invented the refrigerator don’t understand that they have to stop every now and then, too. I was moved by how in one experience he connected with his need to stop.