suffering

Yesterday I went to a one day meditation retreat led by Phillip Moffitt, a vipassana meditation teacher. I loved the retreat especially because it included movement to prepare for meditation and was focused on paying attention to sensation in our bodies. Phillip has recently written a book called Dancing With Life, Buddhist Insights for Finding Meaning and Joy in the Face of Suffering.(dancingwithlife.org) The workshop was based on the Buddha's four noble truths. The first noble truth is that there is suffering. Phillip talked about the tyranny of pleasure and pain and how to focus awareness on how much of what we do in life is motivated by avoiding pain and craving pleasure.He suggested that becoming aware of this eventually moves us to make decisions according to what we value beyond pleasure and pain. We did one walking meditation which was especially powerful for me. The exercise was to do slow mindful walking for twenty minutes starting out with asking a question about an area of our lives we felt stuck about. My question was, How can I let go of obsessing about my relationship with my partner? Phillip said to ask the question at the beginning and even if an answer came to set it aside and focus on each step of the walking and then revisit the question at the end and see if an answer arises. I asked my question and the answer that came up right away was to embrace,"don't know" mind. Don't know mind is letting go of knowing the right answer and being present with not knowing. Opening to don't know mind made it possible for me to get out of my head and to notice the beautiful flowers in the garden next to where I was walking. I felt grateful for that. At the end of the walk I felt a strong sensation of tightness in my chest. I could feel how tightly I was holding my heart closed. Again I asked the question and what I got was, "Be with the suffering." I breathed into my heart and fully embraced the suffering. As I breathed I noticed I let go of judging myself for suffering and the tightness loosened up. When I walked back into the meditation hall I noticed I felt more accepting and less obsessive. I wasn't hanging out in my mind going over and over the story I was telling myself. The feelings didn't go away and my tightness over feeling them released. I was able to be more mindful and more compassionate. I didn't need to run from the pain and that created less suffering.
What does this bring up for you? Is there something you are suffering about that you could bring gentle loving attention to?