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Step 4, Observing Pain

Though you've found a fairly comfortable position while sitting you are probably going through some discomfort to sit still for 20 minutes or more. Most people have some pain result. I've read some stories about how they deal with this at 10 day Vipassana meditation retreats here in Thailand. The abbot might tell you to keep doing it, it will be fine. Of course it isn't fine, your body is screaming in pain - but he insists, it will be fine, just keep doing it.

For most people, after 10 days of sitting for hours a day, your body adjusts. I've found that after about 7 days of sleeping on a hard tiled floor here in Thailand I became used to it. It's nothing now - even feels comfortable now!

If you force your body to do something, eventually it complies. Now there are those of you with serious health problems that won't want to force anything - so, don't try. Others, if you can force yourself to adapt - you'll likely learn something about pain in your mind.

What is pain? What is discomfort? What are it's qualities?

Think of yourself as a scientist or a student. You are a student of your consciousness. Of your body and mind. You are going to see what makes YOU tick. You’re going to learn a LOT about yourself as you observe pain in the body.

Close your eyes and focus on the physical sensations your body is producing. Look at the pain that you feel. Is it in your foot? Watch the pain. How would you describe it? What words would you use?

Is the pain steady? Constant? Does it change or is it static?

Adjust the position of your foot a little bit. Is the pain in your back? Watch the pain for a second and notice what pain is… pain is a firing of some neurons in your brain telling you that some part of the body is uncomfortable doing what it's doing. If you watch the brain do this – focus on the pain – the uncomfortable feeling then what happens? Anything? Does the pain lessen or grow worse? Stay same? Over time notice this… does it change from time to time or from session to session? Most times we think of pain as a constant experience… is it?

Watch the pain as you focus on it. If you focus on it does it change? Does it worsen? Does it get less? Does the sensation rise and fall? How does pain make you pay attention to it? By changing? By rising and falling? If eventually you can't stand it anymore and you must change position - change, don't give too much thought to it, just change. Don't call it a good change or a bad change. Is there pain in the new position? Look at it for a while before you change positions.

Throughout your meditation you can eliminate judging everything you do as OK or not OK. Everything is OK. More rightly, everything is neither OK nor not OK. There is no right or wrong way.  Everything is as it is.

What if you cut your finger? What is that pain? Is it different than an ant bite? How? If you open the cut up and scrub it out to clean it - what is the pain? Same or different?

Is headache pain same or different from an ant bite?

Look at all sorts of pain as you read this... then, when you're meditating and pain comes up - observe it as long as you can before making a change to eliminate it. What can you learn about pain? If you focus on any pain - what happens? Do only some pains response to being focused on? Try it and see for yourself.

I call itchiness pain too. Have you ever tried to NOT scratch a strong itch? Oh, it's a very frustrating thing. The power of an itch to make a person react is amazing. I don't know if you've experienced this or not.

As you're sitting, especially if you're outside you might be bit by an ant or mosquito. If you're never itchy - try sitting outside a few times until one of those things happens. It's an experiment remember? Do what's necessary to gather data for finding out about how your mind works.

I promise you will learn something about yourself if you are bit by an ant as you meditate, and it gets very itchy. The little red ants from South America are the best - you know the ones that leave the little circle welts? If it gets you between the toes - OH, so much better!

I'm sort of joking here - being dramatic, but I really mean it. The power of an itch to make us do something - scratch it or rub it - is phenomenal. It might be stronger than pain in the mind. Why is that? No idea - maybe you'll come up with the answer.

I remember sitting in my garage in Temple Terrace, Florida... on the floor. The mosquitoes come out around 5:30pm and I started sitting about 5pm. By the time they started biting me I was already in a very still state of mind and there was nothing in my mind that told me I should move as they bit. Who hasn't been bitten by a mosquito before? It hurts for a second...

Then, as the minutes passed... the itchiness started. Oh my... there was a war in my mind about whether or not I was going to scratch. I knew the longer I held back from scratching, the more I would learn about that crazy experience. I resisted and resisted... eventually I began to get a comfortable with the itchiness that was burning all over my body - my arms, legs, face, nose, neck...

And you know what? After I became comfortable with it - after my mind became ok with it... the itchiness had died down...

Then it flared up just a little bit - just a tiny itch... immediately my hand went up and scratched it. On it's own! Before I could even realize it! An itch is so sneaky... At least for me. Try it the next time you're itchy and see what happens. See if it's easy or difficult to control your mind and resist the urge to scratch it. Does scratching it cause anything good to happen physically? Not for me. Mentally - it stops the itch. The itch is in the mind - nowhere else. There's no point in scratching it. It's purely a mind phenomenon - learn as much as you can about yourself by not scratching when that stimulus pops up.

I think much is to be learned in the exercise of watching pain and itchiness as long as possible before reacting to them. Try it and see - do you think so?

KNOW YOURSELF through meditation.