Meditation (Nov 2008)

On meditaion and pains

Connecting quietly, meditatively with one's pains rather than fighting one's pains, will often gentle the pains to much more tolerable levels, sometimes even to the point of freedom from pain. This is an observation that has been made by many healers.

Softening meditation, once more exploring the pain, allowing the awareness to open all around it so that it begins to reveal its hidden nature, so that there is more space in which to make any decision that seems appropriate.

 - Levine, Stephen, Meetings At The Edge, Dialogues with the Grieving and the Dying, the Healing and the Healed. New York, New York: Anchor Press, 1984, p. 69

‘You can’t stop the waves, but can learn to surf.’

Goldstein, Joseph, and Kornfield, Jack, Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation, Boston: Shambhala, 1987, p. 51

By not running away from our pains, and by not giving them energy through fighting them, we can come into awareness of what the pain is saying about our life.

Experience with WHEE shows that this will often significantly reduce pains.