Bhante, what is your opinion about sitting through pain?
Many teachers advocate it because it creates equanimity and you learn how to deal with your resistance and others say it is extreme asceticism and to be avoided, many things.
Anyone who says that pain, that the forbearance or the bearing with pain is extreme, extremism,
is an extreme and therefore in the sense of bad practice, is going against the Buddhist teaching, doesn't understand the Buddhist teaching, maybe well-meaning but misguided.
The Buddha said clearly in several places that true patience means forbearing against pain,
even such that it might take your life, even so extreme that it might kill you.
And to understand this or to verify this, to argue this, we can point to what do we mean by, what are we
What is the Buddha's teaching?
What is the path that the Buddha taught?
It's the path to, my understanding is that it's the path to become completely objective and let's say invincible.
to all experience such that no experience that arises could possibly be a cause for suffering, that there would be no clinging to any experience whatsoever, no reaction, no emotional reaction to any experience in the sense of being free, being at complete peace, complete peace no matter what arises.
You can't do that
for as long as painful situations disturb you.
So as long as you are averse to any type of pain, or any situation, or even averse to death,
you can't attain the goal of the Buddhist teaching.
This is only a part of the answer.
The other part of the answer is that there certainly may be, along the way to getting to that extreme state or that ultimate state of true invincibility, there may be cases where you should quite reasonably
reduce or change the situation.
So there may be situations that first of all are overwhelming.
So for a novice meditator to insist that they sit still no matter what sensations arise is unreasonable.
It is more likely to create unwholesomeness as long as one is
affected by pain so when pain a little bit of pain comes up they start going they start to get upset if you if you ask them to sit through extreme pain instead of cultivating wholesome mindfulness patience it could just cultivate aversion anxiety even a dislike of the meditation practice it can create very strong emotions strong negative emotions so for a beginner meditator you have to
know your limits and be able to push them but not try to break through your limits, not go beyond your limits.
So when the pain gets truly unbearable where you're just not able emotionally to handle it, it's fully reasonable to have the meditator move.
So be mindful, lift your foot up, move it.
eventually through repeated practice the meditator will become more patient and more able to stand with the pain.
As long as we understand that our goal is to become invincible to any situation, any state, it's up to us how quickly
we're going to get there.
So we can admit that we're not able to deal with it, the pain, without taking that as a dogma that when pain arises it is proper practice or it is the path to enlightenment to avoid the pain.
understanding that eventually you will cultivate tolerance and patience and objectivity to the extent that the pain no longer bothers you and you no longer have to move.
The second reason is that there are certain cases where pain is a sign of something, where it is a sign that you are about to break your leg, for example, you're about to sprain your ankle or your leg,
you're about to cause injury to yourself.
And obviously in those cases it's your back injury.
Some people have back problems.
If they were to continue sitting, it might actually injure them.
If you have a case for that, first of all you have to be clear that you're not just making excuses or you're not just a hypochondriac.
If you actually have some prior injury, many people come to meditation with plates in their legs or their joints or in their backs or so on, serious injuries.
These people can in certain cases, reasonably should in certain cases, change their position.
That's the other
situation where it's actually going to harm you, you can make a case for it.
Now you can also make a case for just sitting through it, letting yourself go.
There's the case of Chakupala who did walking and sitting meditation even though he was, in order to heal his eyes, he was to lie down.
Instead of lying down, he just did walking and sitting for three months and his eyes were destroyed.
He went blind as a result of his extreme practice, but he also became enlightened.
So
as a means of letting go.
One can even let go of one's own physical well-being.
There's certainly nothing wrong with that.
Now, the idea of extreme asceticism, the question is, well, then what is that?
Extreme asceticism is the concept that there's some benefit to hurting yourself, that pain is somehow intrinsically beneficial, that pain is somehow a means, inflicting pain upon yourself somehow leads to enlightenment.
It doesn't.
Objectivity leads to enlightenment.
So the ability to stay patient, patient in regards to pleasant sensations, pleasant situations, and patient in regards to unpleasant situations equally, that is what leads to enlightenment.
The extreme practice is thinking that there's some benefit in either pleasant or unpleasant situations.
Both of those are extreme.
There's no benefit in either.
There's only benefit in being objective towards them.
So it's quite a clear teaching.
I don't think there's any reason to be confused