The pain is the first arrow. It arrives without asking permission — loss, failure, disappointment, the specific difficulty of this moment.
The resistance is the second arrow. It arrives immediately after: this should not be happening. This is wrong. This is intolerable. And the resistance adds its own substantial weight to the weight of what was already present.
The Buddhist teaching: Dukkha — the first arrow — is unavoidable. What is avoidable is the Upadana — the clinging that converts unavoidable difficulty into amplified suffering. Most of what people call suffering is not the first arrow. It is the second.
The Bhagavad Gita describes the mind in a state of resistance as Akulavyavasayatmika — filled with scattered, irresolute thoughts. The resisting mind cannot act clearly because its capacity is divided between the situation and the protest against the situation. The Vyavasayatmika Buddhi — the resolute intelligence — is specifically the intelligence that has received what is fully, without residual resistance, and can therefore act with its complete capacity directed toward what is rather than divided between what is and the protest against it.
Locate a current resistance. Where is it in the body? What is its texture? Now ask: what is actually being resisted? The situation itself — or the fact that the situation is happening?
What becomes available when the protest is set down is usually simpler and clearer than anything the protesting mind was producing. The energy that was maintaining the protest is now available for the response.