Resistance
I'm not going to write a whole dissertation here, in particular because I'm not thinking so clearly, but I wanted to put something.
I watched a story that ran on 20/20 today about women having orgasms during child birth (awaits Leslie's comment). Basically, more and more women are forgoing visits to hospitals, and choosing to have natural child births in their homes. Using techniques, such as standing in water, breathing techniques, not using drugs, and accepting (more on this later) something like 20+% of these women are experiencing intense orgasms during child birth. It's a beautiful thing to watch the husbands kissing the women passionately during the process. There is a medical doctor who discusses the various chemicals released during birth, many of which are the same released during orgasm, as well as pointing out that a baby coming out (even if it's close to 8 lbs) is doing the same thing that a penis does during sex, and stimulating the same areas in the body.
I feel like this makes a lot of sense. As the doctor pointed out later in the piece, when we know we are going to feel pain, we tense up, we resist, and we release hormones to deal with the pain; we expect the pain, and so it comes. If we change our reaction to pain, it may not be so bad (and in the case of these women, it is generates a completely opposite result).
I see resistance as one of the biggest plagues of humanity. For those who don't know very much about Eastern philosophies, many teach that resistance is the main cause of suffering, and the removal of resistance in your life to what is, will remove much of the suffering in your life. It makes sense, no?
If you resist what is going on in your life, you will suffer from it. Take something extremely simple, like not liking your nose. You are resisting the fact that your nose is the nose that you have. You wish you had a different nose, one that had less of a bump, or perhaps was smaller or maybe even more pronounced. It causes you strife, even if it isn't terribly conscious to you all the time. You untag yourself from pictures on Facebook if your nose is prominent, you are self conscious about it when talking to the opposite sex. If you accepted it, as you accept your other parts, it is no longer an issue, no?
Now extrapolate this idea to anything. Take your job, relationships, physical ailments or sensations, traffic, money, ANYTHING you can think of. Resistance causes you strife, and I have experienced my fair share in recent times. If you don't resist, what will happen? You will accept. If you are sitting in traffic, and you don't resist the fact that you are in traffic (which leads to anger, frustration etc) you will be able to be at peace with the current situation. I think we can ALL agree that anger, frustration, rage, are all something you would not like to have in your life, correct? It certainly isn't beneficial, or pleasant to feel those particular emotions, right?
These women embody non-resistance. They embody accepting what is, and look at the results! Take a moment to really look at their faces, or their reactions. They are totally at peace with their situation, and it shows in every facet of their body language. Just a wonderful example of what non-resistance can do in your life.
I don't even want to go in to the messages about modern medicine :)