Home › Magazine › Spring 2005 › Tough Teachings To Ease The Mind
Filed in Theravada, Sickness

Tough Teachings To Ease The Mind

Do we respond to physical pain in the wisest way? Fleeing it, we get caught in it. A Thai meditation master has another answer: Get to know suffering to be free of it.

Upasika Kee Nanayon

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Dream Anatomy TricyclePeople lying in bed ill are lucky because they have the opportunity to do nothing but contemplate stress and pain. Their minds don’t need to take up anything else, don’t need to go anywhere else. They have the opportunity to contemplate pain at all times—and let go of pain at all times.

To contemplate inconstancy, stress, and not-selfness [in Buddhism, the three marks of existence—anicca, dukkha, and anatta—more commonly known as impermanence, suffering, and no-self] as they appear right to you while you’re lying here ill, is very beneficial. Just don’t think that you’re what’s hurting. Simply see the natural phenomena of physical and mental events as they arise and pass away. They’re not you. They’re not really yours. You don’t have any real control over them.

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