Gil: It can be odd. Sometimes I think that I have two bodies; one where there is awareness of my body, and the other when there is no mindfulness of the body. Or two minds, a mind where there is real awareness and a mind that really does not have much self awareness. Or two hearts with and without awareness. Sometimes it can be as different as night and day. Sometimes it can get turned on and off. One example I have given here is about the night that I had a splitting headache driving home late at night. It did not really make sense to stop the car, but it was really hard. I was filled with self- pity—poor Gil. It finally occurred to me—after all, I teach this stuff—it finally occurred to me to start being mindful of the pain, of the head.
When I did that, it actually lightened up and there was space for it. It did not go away, but as I brought that kind of attention to it, my psychological energy was not going into self-pity, but was rather going into paying attention and investigation. Then the self-pity dropped away and it did not hurt so much. As long as I kept the mindfulness it did not hurt as much and I could cope with it and I did not mind so much. But because I did not mind as much, my mindfulness would wane, and when the mindfulness waned, the self-pity and the pain and the contractions came up again. It was quite dramatic, and it was a long enough drive that I had a while to watch that.