Physical pain, Attachment, and Judgements

One popular way of relating to physical pain is mindfulness meditation. It involves directing your full attention to the pain and breathing in and out of the spot that hurts. Instead of trying to avoid the discomfort, you open yourself completely to it. You become receptive to the painful sensation without dwelling on the story your mind has concocted: It's bad; I shouldn't feel this way; maybe it will never go away. 

When you contact the all-worked-up feeling of shenpa [attachment], the basic instruction is the same as in dealing wiht physical pain. Whether it's a feeling of I like or I don't like, or an emotional state like loneliness, depression , or anxiety, you open yourself fully to the sensation, free of interpretation. If you've tried this approach with physical pain, you know that the result can be quite miraculous. When you give your full attention to your knee or your back or your head—whatever hurts—and drop the good/bad, right/wrong story line and simply experience the pain directly for even a short time, then your ideas about the pain, and often the pain itself, will dissolve. 

Pema Chödrön, "The Fundamental Ambiguity of Being Human," Tricycle Fall 2012: 36-37.