A toothache that started in afternoon distracted my attention through out the day and it was hard to concentrate in work. After getting home it became more severe and when I looked into a mirror I found the inner enemy rising to start a “pain battle” with me. People call it a “Wisdom tooth” but its real name should be a “Pain tooth”!! My friend advised me to take some pain killer but I thought not to run away from pain but to embrace it hence I decided to hold on for a day. I saw that the pain tooth has torn the surrounding skin and still standing in a midway without clearing it completely. Its only goal was to continuously send intense pain signals to my brain and thus to make me realize its presence every moment. I couldn’t sit, I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t watch TV, I couldn’t sleep! The pain battle, full of agitation and turmoil, lasted for four long hours but after that I managed to eat some rice and milk and then went to a bed like an exhausted soldier. Fortunately the suffering became less intense and I managed to sleep.
After a brief spell of dense sleep I got up all of a sudden. It was 2 o’clock in night and I realized that a sharp blow of tooth ache had broken my sleep. Now it was more severe then before and it was 2 at night, everybody was sleeping and I had a challenge to deal with this pain alone! I thought pain is nothing but one type of feeling then why does it bring so much suffering with it? I wanted to understand this feeling in its core. I set quietly on floor and started observing the pain deeply. Up till now I was inter mingling my self completely with it which often made the pain more worse but now I was a dull witness to it. Here came the pain sensation from the corner of my jaw reaching brain and there getting in touch with my self but breathing deeply I was just seeing the pain and not indulging in it. In response to a pain signal, my mind by its very nature tried to pull me in a sea of agitation but this time I was firm. I embraced the pain with stillness and didn’t allow mind to play any active role in it. After deep analysis I found that suffering is a two step process. First is the actual pain felt by us and second is the agitation created by our mind in response to it and most of the time the later step brings more suffering so if anyhow mind’s response to pain is controlled then it really helps in reducing painfulness of pain. That 15 minute long meditation on pain gave me a deep insight on its true nature and a way to tackle with it.
That was the night I found a real pain killer.
