'How to use pain in order to reach Samadhi':
It’s very important that we start investigating pain, particularly because we don’t like it. If we get concentrated on pain, it can become very, very interesting, even if it disappears after a while. It can be much more interesting than any of the other meditation objects that we use, for the breath or the word buddho become boring after a while. Pain doesn’t become boring so it is the perfect meditation object. If we meditate all day long and then pain comes up, it’s really useful because we can concentrate on it; the mind doesn’t wander off, so it’s the perfect object for investigation and concentration. At these times, we investigate the pain, we find that it disappears, and we go back to our breath or the word buddho. So you should really be happy if you are meditating all day long and pain comes up because you can concentrate on it easily. In fact, the investigation of pain can lead to appanã samãdhi, the deep state of samãdhi. If we really investigate and really focus in, we can easily become one-pointed. Don’t despair that pain is coming up, but rather be happy, thank it for appearing and accept it. In fact, pain is a whetstone that sharpens our wisdom, and it can hone our concentration as well.
For the investigation of pain, we have to sit long enough so that pain arises. Then, we have to learn how to accept pain; we have to think, “Oh, there is pain. Thank you for coming.” We have to breathe in the pain just as we would breathe in the smell of delicious food, experiencing it completely, one-hundred percent. After we’ve done this, we go to the spot where it has arisen and ask the question, “What is pain?” because we have to understand what this painful feeling really is. Where is it? Is it a point, or an area, is it deep, or shallow? Is it moving? If we assume that it is fixed, this contradicts the Lord Buddha’s teaching on anicca, that everything is changing, and it means we have not accepted the pain wholeheartedly. So, we have to go back and accept the pain and start the investigation again. If we do this exercise properly, we will see that the pain is constantly changing. Just as our breath changes all the time, so pain is always changing; sometimes it is more painful and sometimes less. We will find that we can observe it, because it’s interesting. Because our interest helps us to concentrate, we will discover that we become more concentrated and able to stay with the changing pain. Next, we ask ourselves where the pain actually is. Is it in the skin, the tendons, the flesh, the bones, or the muscles? Although we’ve had all of these body parts since we were born, the pain has developed only while we have been sitting in meditation, so we can infer that something else is going on. At the beginning of our investigation, we really believe that the pain is in our skin, muscles or joints, but if we examine the pain that comes from sitting practice, we discover that we really cannot find it. After all, if it were really in the parts of the body, it would still be there when we get up, but it vanishes as soon as we stand up. Why does it appear only when we sit and try to meditate, and disappear as soon as we get up?
The next task is to try to find the spot that is the origin of the pain. If we really get concentrated on the pain, on that spot, we find that something ‘shifts’. This shows that our investigation is becoming keen and that we are getting close to finding the spot, for the pain will shift from one place to another, e.g. from one knee to the other. We then turn our attention to the place to which the pain has shifted and do the same kind of investigation until we are very close to the spot where we think the pain arises. Again, we find that the pain jumps to another place. Sometimes the pain will go to the back, but wherever it goes, we follow it until it shows us its true origin. People who have read a lot about Buddhism assume that the origin is the citta (heart), so they go to the heart. But that is not the exercise here. The exercise is to follow the pain from wherever it initially shows itself to the place to which it shifts or jumps. We do this until it leads us to the heart, to the origin of the pain. We can only understand pain if we follow it until it shows us where it comes from, and that is the heart. At the final step, the pain jumps to the heart and creates a pain that is unimaginable. But we can stay there and try to see the nature of pain and understand it; the heart is the last place where we can investigate pain. In the last stage of the investigation, the pain becomes so strong that we believe we are going to die. Then we go through the first stage of death, and after this the pain completely disappears. It disappears instantly the moment we accept that we are going to die, even though it was very strong.
~ Ajahn Martin Piyadhammo
From the Dhamma talk “Dealing with pain and emotions” given on 30th August 2015
Available at: http://www.forestdhammatalks.org/…/ajahn_martin/readings.php
Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9XqRMjIiJI1s4jm9_kz3bA
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