Question: Dear Sayadaw, I hope you will teach us how to handle pain when meditating. Very grateful to you!

Attachment on the pain is the real creator of the pain. Instead of paying on the pain, we need to pay more and more attention on mindfulness on the attachment of the pain.

Attachment is in the mind we are using now. That attachment of the pain is creating the pain in the body. Our life or our body of male or female, healthy or sick, white or black or brown, long life or short life. All these are created by our own ignorance and attachment. We should do more and more good deeds with right understanding and mindfulness and detachment. In this way, we will know more and more about our own ignorance and attachment. Now you can only understand the pain. You cannot understand attachment of the pain. We should change the object of the mind, from the pain to ignorance and attachment of the pain.

Most of my teaching is about mindfulness and detachment. Knowing about ignorance and attachment are caused by mindfulness and detachment. As a layperson, we believe in ourselves and other laypeople, especially to the doctor and fortune teller. As a meditator, we should only believe in Buddha Dharma Sangha, in order to detach from believing in ourselves or other people, including doctor and fortune tellers.

All the laypeople are not comparable with Buddha Dharma Sangha. Wisdom or knowing of Buddha is complete. There is no side effect, no mistakes. Wisdom of other laypeople are not complete, there are many side effects. With this right understanding, we should detach from our knowing about pain. For the laypeople, pain is something really bad. For Buddha Dharma Sangha, pain is nothing, just to use only, without grasping or attaching in the mind, to do all kinds of good deeds with right understanding.