#70 Needle Meditation

When you pierce any part of your body, you experience pain. You then have to focus your awareness on that very place. That place is the source of the pain . This practice is unusual in that it uses pain. In fact, any body sensation can be used. There may be a part of your body that is feeling stiff. You can focus your awareness on that very part. This practice uses pain to focus the mind. When you are experiencing pain in any part of the body, it is difficult not to be aware of it. Conversely, it is easy to concentrate on because it is such a strong sensation. When you are able to maintain your awareness for prolonged periods, the mind falls silent. Then, one is liberated.

This is not a practice recommended for everyone. Piercing the body on a regular basis is not recommended. If it has to be done, a part of the body should be used, that cannot be damaged. One such place can be the lower part of the ear, which is normally pierced in women for wearing earrings.

Accepting the Pain

This meditation can also be practiced by those who are experiencing pain due to some other factor. They may be suffering from arthritis, or recovering from an operation. Pain can also help liberate us by forcing us to accept our life situation. Sometimes the pain we experience in our lives is so strong, so unavoidable, that we have no choice but to accept it. This is true not just of physical pain but also of emotional pain. There are times when life completely overwhelms us. Things go wrong and we feel we are unable to cope. The magnitude of events is such that one feels that one is no longer in control of ones life, and that there is nothing we can do to immediately change our external life situation for the better. In that moment of helplessness, one suddenly gives up – one surrenders. We suddenly accept our life situation, because we feel too overwhelmed to keep resisting it. It is in that surrender, that total acceptance that our ego suddenly disappears. There is no more resisting life, no more fighting with life, just complete acceptance and surrender. In that moment our ego collapses, and we are immediately filled with bliss. We are then grateful to our life situation for helping us reach a state of enlightenment. There are stories of prisoners awaiting execution, who have surrendered and have experienced the bliss of liberation. There was nothing they could do to change their external life situation. They then completely accepted life, and obtained the bliss of enlightenment. Sometimes, in the darkest moments of our lives, we are very close to liberation.