Divya Learns How to Disassociate From Her Experience of Pain Through Vipassana Meditation
Desperate to find a solution to her chronic pain and anxiety, Divya joined a Vipassana meditation course. See how she learned to navigate through the challenges of this rigorous technique, and how it helped her decouple physical sensations from pain.
Vipassana, one of India’s oldest meditation techniques, has been taught for over 2,500 years. Vipassanā (a term from the Pāli language) is translated as” insight” or “seeing things as they are.” Today this technique is extremely popular in India, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, and Sri Lanka, and is also practiced all around the world. Vipassana has the reputation of being particularly demanding and challenging for beginners, since the course, conducted under the guidance of a qualified master, requires a minimum commitment of ten days, with at least ten hours of meditation every day (and a daily timetable from 4:30 am to 9:00 pm). Read the following story about Divya, a participant in a Vipassana meditation course, and find out how she benefitted from this experience.
For five years, Divya had been suffering from anxiety. She frequently found herself exhausted by this condition, unable to rest and recuperate. During the night, she experienced panic attacks. She was also dealing with chronic pain. A bad accident during her childhood, followed by a series of rib fractures and back injuries over the years, generated a state of permanent hurt, made worse by the lack of sleep and an excess of cortisol.
In a moment of quiet desperation, she signed up for a Vipassana course. She chose that specific course because Vipassana seemed to be about equanimity, discipline, and hard work, and those things appealed to her.
The first day of the course was challenging. A bell rang outside her door at 4 am, reminding her that despite the darkness, it was time to wake up. Her first meditation session started at 4.30 a.m. The first day’s focus was on awareness of breath, and nothing else. She was told that, whenever her mind moves away from that awareness, she should bring it back to the process of breathing. Divya had a hard time focusing on her breath due to the persistent burning sensation in her back. Regardless of how many pillows she piled under her knees, the pain bubbled up until it hit a crescendo.
She went straight to her teacher and explained that she had never meditated before. She also admitted that her back was falling apart. To make things even more of a challenge, she didn’t even know how to properly focus on her breath.
With total calm, the teacher told her to disassociate her panic from the pain. The teacher said that Divya was making it worse by focusing on the hurt, which then only magnified. The teacher finally said that she should do her best, whatever that was.
After the first three days of focusing on breathing, the course participants were introduced to Vipassana. The technique involved sequences of long body scans done in a specific order. The participants were instructed to be aware of any sensations or pain that they felt, without allowing themselves to react to what their bodies felt.
Divya had a conversation with her Vipassana teacher every day. And every day the teacher responded the same way—she told Vidya not to react to any sensation since those sensations were created by the mind.
By the sixth day, Divya felt exhausted by all the pain, sleepless nights, and the mind slowly unspooling.
On the eighth day, she was finally able to be completely still during the meditation. Yet when the gong rang, she realized she was sweating profusely due to all the effort of thinking past the pain.
By the end of the course, She felt a flow of energy through her body during meditation. More importantly, she could refocus my mind away from the pain.
Divya says that Vipassana did not cure her permanently of insomnia or anxiety. Instead, it provided her with a valuable tool, showing her that she was in control of her mind. Ten days of constant meditation created a barrier between the worry and her. It allowed her to observe the anxiety more objectively. The whole process calmed her at a deep and inexplicable level. She says that, although her neurosis has not fully vanished, she is now imbued with a sense of perspective. She feels deeply grateful for that experience and all the insights she has gained through meditation.
To learn more about the scientific foundations of pain and stress management through mindfulness meditation (including the Vipassana technique), read article A15.Pain And Stress Management Through Mindfulness. (provide a hyperlink).
Note: It could be a good idea to publish these two articles simultaneously (in the same e-digest issue).