A lot of people think meditation is simply a sophisticated form of relaxation.
And to be fair, relaxation is extremely important in meditation. In fact, I think a good meditative state can often be described as a combination of alertness and relaxation. You’re awake, aware, and attentive, but at the same time, your body and mind are relatively relaxed.
However, if relaxation were the only purpose of meditation, you could simply listen to a relaxing audio recording or a guided hypnosis session.
Meditation has something deeper to offer.
One of the most important functions of relaxation in meditation is that it can help us develop equanimity, which is the ability to experience things without unnecessarily resisting them or trying to hold on to them.
And I think understanding this connection between relaxation and equanimity can fundamentally change the way we practice meditation.
Pain and Suffering Are Not Exactly the Same Thing
Shinzen Young, the founder of Unified Mindfulness, has a famous formula:
Suffering = Pain × Resistance
It’s a simple formula, but I think it explains a great deal about human suffering.
Here, pain doesn’t refer only to physical pain. It can also include emotional pain, such as anxiety, sadness, anger, disappointment, or any other unpleasant experience.
The idea is that when something unpleasant happens, there is the original pain, and then there is our resistance to that pain.
And these two things are not the same.
Suppose you’re sick. You have a headache, your throat hurts, and your whole body feels uncomfortable. That’s already unpleasant enough.
But then you start thinking, Why am I sick? This shouldn’t be happening. I have so many things to do. I hate feeling like this.
Now, on top of the physical discomfort, you’ve added frustration, anger, and resistance.
You’re no longer experiencing only the illness. You’re also suffering because you don’t want to be ill.
I remember experiencing something like this myself when I had a cold. I felt physically uncomfortable, with symptoms including a sore throat and headache. But I also noticed that I was mentally resisting the whole situation.
At some point, I meditated for a while, and something shifted. I seemed to accept the fact that I was sick.
The symptoms didn’t magically disappear. My body was still uncomfortable. But I wasn’t fighting the experience in the same way anymore.
And because of that, I didn’t suffer nearly as much.
That’s the distinction I want to emphasize: we may not always be able to eliminate pain, but we can change our relationship with it.
Resistance Can Add Another Layer of Suffering
The same principle applies to many other kinds of discomfort.
Suppose your leg hurts a little while you’re sitting. The physical sensation itself may be manageable, but then you begin thinking that it shouldn’t be happening. You become irritated. Perhaps you feel frustrated that you can’t sit comfortably.
Now the original discomfort has been joined by additional emotional suffering.
I’ve also experienced this with stress-related headaches. Sometimes, instead of immediately trying to get rid of the headache, I would observe it carefully.
Where exactly is the pain? How large is the area? Is it changing? Does it have a clear boundary? Is the intensity increasing or decreasing?
As I observed the sensations without fighting them, sometimes the pain itself seemed to become less intense.
That doesn’t mean every physical pain can be reduced through meditation, and it certainly doesn’t mean we should ignore symptoms that need medical attention.
But it illustrates something interesting. When we stop resisting an unpleasant sensation, two things may happen.
First, we may reduce the additional suffering created by our emotional reaction. Second, in some situations, the unpleasant sensation itself may become less intense.
And this is why equanimity is such an important part of meditation.
Life Will Always Contain Some Pain
There is a famous Buddhist story about a mother whose child had died.
Overwhelmed by grief, she went to the Buddha and begged him to bring her child back to life.
According to the story, the Buddha told her that he could help, but first she needed to bring him a mustard seed from a household where no one had ever died.
She went from house to house, searching for such a family.
But everywhere she went, she discovered that someone had experienced the loss of a loved one.
Eventually, she understood that death and loss were not tragedies that had happened only to her. They were part of the human condition.
I think this story points toward something essential.
No matter how carefully we organize our lives, we cannot completely avoid pain.
We will get sick. We will lose things we care about. People will disappoint us. Our bodies will age. And eventually, we will have to face the loss of people we love.
This doesn’t mean we should become passive or stop trying to improve our circumstances. If there’s something useful we can do to reduce pain, of course we should do it.
But when pain is already present, fighting the fact that it’s present often creates unnecessary suffering.
So if we cannot completely prevent pain from appearing in our lives, perhaps one of the most valuable things we can learn is how to relate to it differently.
And that’s where equanimity comes in.
Equanimity Is Like Having Less Friction
I like to think of equanimity as a kind of reduction in friction.
Imagine taking a piece of metal and scraping it across another metal surface. Because there is friction, you may hear a harsh, unpleasant sound.
Now imagine a hypothetical surface with absolutely no friction.
You move the same piece of metal across it, and everything slides smoothly. There’s no scraping or resistance.
Of course, this is just an analogy, but I think it captures something important about equanimity.
When an unpleasant experience arises and we resist it, it’s as though we’re creating friction between ourselves and the experience.
We want reality to be different from what it currently is.
And that friction becomes suffering.
But when we meet the same experience with acceptance, allowing, or surrender, there is less friction.
The unpleasant experience may still be present, but it doesn’t create the same amount of additional suffering.
In Unified Mindfulness, equanimity isn’t about suppressing emotions or pretending that everything is fine. It’s about allowing experiences to arise, change, and disappear without unnecessary pushing or pulling.
You can still feel sadness. You can still experience physical discomfort. You can still take action when something needs to change.
But internally, you don’t have to fight every experience that comes your way.
How Does Relaxation Help Us Develop Equanimity?
Now we can return to the question of relaxation.
Why is relaxation so important in meditation?
Because relaxation can be one way of encouraging an attitude of nonresistance.
Equanimity isn’t necessarily something we can switch on instantly. If you’re feeling extremely anxious or angry, simply telling yourself, I should accept this, may not change very much.
But there are ways to gradually cultivate that attitude.
And one of them is through the body.
Our physical and emotional states are closely connected.
For example, try making a gentle smile, even if you don’t have any particular reason to smile. You may notice a small shift toward a more pleasant emotional state.
Now try clenching your fists and tightening your muscles. You may notice that this creates a sense of tension, not only physically but perhaps emotionally as well.
Sometimes emotional tension creates muscular tension. But the relationship can also work in the other direction.
This is why physical relaxation can be so useful.
Think about what happens when you’re stressed. Perhaps your jaw becomes tight. Your shoulders rise. Your back becomes tense. You may even notice that you’re clenching your teeth without realizing it.
Now imagine going for a hike.
You climb a mountain, reach the top, and look out over a wide, open landscape.
Sometimes, when people experience that kind of openness, their worries seem to become less overwhelming.
And if you pay attention, you may notice that your body has relaxed too.
Your shoulders may have dropped. Your breathing may feel easier. Your face may be softer.
The physical relaxation and the psychological sense of openness can support each other.
In meditation, we can deliberately work with this connection.
When you notice tension in your body, you can gently relax the areas that are able to relax.
And as the body relaxes, you may find that your mind becomes a little less resistant to whatever is happening.
Relaxation can help create the conditions for equanimity.
You Can Actually Meditate on Relaxation Itself
Here’s a practical way to explore this.
In Unified Mindfulness, there is a category of bodily experience called Feel Rest.
Feel Rest refers to sensations of physical relaxation, stillness, or relative absence of sensation.
These sensations are often quite subtle, so we may not notice them unless we deliberately look for them.
For example, take a moment to notice your ears.
Unless something unusual is happening, there may not be much sensation there. Perhaps the area feels relatively neutral or quiet.
Or notice your body as you exhale.
Sometimes the exhalation comes with a natural sense of release. The chest relaxes, the abdomen softens, or the shoulders settle slightly.
That’s another opportunity to notice Feel Rest.
You can also explore areas like your toes, hands, or other parts of the body that aren’t experiencing much activity.
Instead of searching for strong sensations, become interested in the quieter parts of your experience.
Stay with one area for a few moments. Then move your attention to another area that feels relaxed or relatively neutral.
You might discover that there are many places in the body that already feel quite peaceful.
And the more you practice noticing these sensations, the easier they may become to recognize.
Sometimes the relaxation may even seem to spread.
You begin by noticing a small relaxed area, and gradually a larger part of the body feels at ease.
After practicing for a while, you may occasionally experience a sense of relaxation throughout the whole body.
This doesn’t have to happen every time, and it isn’t something you need to force.
The point is simply to become more familiar with relaxation as a sensory experience.
Relaxation Can Become More Available in Daily Life
Something I’ve noticed in my own practice is that, over time, relaxation has become easier to recognize throughout the day.
There are many moments when my body feels relatively relaxed and comfortable, even when I’m not formally meditating.
And when something stressful happens, I can sometimes bring attention back to those relaxed sensations.
Perhaps there is tension in one part of the body, but another part remains relaxed.
Instead of concentrating entirely on the discomfort, I can notice the relaxation that’s already present.
Sometimes that helps the rest of the body soften. And as the body relaxes, I may find myself becoming less resistant to the stressful situation.
The external problem may still be there.
But my relationship with it has changed.
I think this is one of the reasons why deliberately practicing relaxation can be valuable beyond the meditation session itself.
You’re not merely learning how to feel relaxed for twenty minutes while sitting with your eyes closed.
You’re becoming more familiar with a physical state that may help you respond to difficult experiences with greater equanimity.
And as this becomes more natural, you may discover that you’re carrying less unnecessary tension into everyday life.
Meditation Is About More Than Feeling Relaxed
So I wouldn’t say that meditation is simply relaxation.
Relaxation is important, but it serves a deeper purpose.
It can help us cultivate equanimity, an attitude of allowing rather than resisting.
And equanimity matters because pain is an unavoidable part of human life, while much of our additional suffering comes from the way we fight against that pain.
We don’t have to eliminate every unpleasant sensation. We don’t have to make every emotion disappear. And we certainly don’t have to force ourselves into a peaceful state every time we meditate.
Instead, we can gradually learn to relax in the presence of experience.
To allow things to be as they are, even while taking appropriate action when necessary.
To experience pain without automatically adding another layer of suffering.
And perhaps, over time, to discover that we can be at peace more often, even when life isn’t going exactly the way we want.
That’s why relaxation matters in meditation. Not simply because it feels good, but because it can help us develop a much more important skill: the ability to stop fighting our own experience.
I appreciate you taking the time to read this.
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