Let’s say one day you walked into a room, maybe in the place where you live, and suddenly and unexpectedly there is a giant purple ball there. You might say to yourself, “A giant purple ball! Why is there a giant purple ball in my living room! I did not put a giant purple ball in my living room. I do not want a giant purple ball in my living room. How can I get rid of this giant purple ball (that is in my living room)?”
But let’s say that you look closer at the giant purple ball – the one in your living room – and you discover that what is consists of is, at essence, neither giant, nor purple, nor a ball. Instead, what you discover it to be is tangle of many strands of red yarn and blue yarn. Barring help from others or use of power tools, if you have the patience, the way to remove it might be to find a loose end, and slowly start unraveling the individual strands of yarn, one at a time. What you’d be left, after careful work for a while, would be strands of yarn laid out in a way that is orderly, manageable, and useful.
In this metaphor:
1. an unwanted purple ball is any problem or issue that is creating suffering for you, especially one that is emotional in nature. A giant ball might be a difficult issue that takes years to work out, while something that is more bugging and confusing you just for today is more of a small ball.
2. the red strands stand for sensations in the body (aches, tingles, feelings of burning, compressing, etc) and blue strands represent assessments, inner conversations, and other forms of thought.
3. unraveling the strands stands for mindfully and clearly observing and deeply experiencing each individual feeling and thought, one at a time
4. having the ball unraveled, and the yarn laid out neatly, is being free of a difficult issue that used to be troubling. You still remember what the issue was and can talk about it, but it doesn’t feel compressed, collapsed, and full of agony any more.
In sum – many difficult issues in life that create suffering and overwhelming when we experience them in a default, unconscious manner turn out to be more manageable and bearable when we pay close meditative attention to their component parts.