Concentrate on a pain in your body

What the Method Is

The core instruction for this meditation method is: “Pierce some part of your nectar-filled form with a pin, and gently enter the piercing and attain to the inner purity.”. This sutra offers a direct, existential approach to self-realization through the experience of pain.

How It Is Done

To practice this method, you should:

  • Utilize existing pain or create a situation: You do not necessarily need to use a pin. Instead, you can use any existing pain in your body (e.g., a headache, a wound, or even the subtle sensation of an ant crawling on you). Alternatively, you can intentionally create a sensation, such as by piercing a sensitive spot with a pin.
  • Focus exclusively on the painful area: Forget your entire body and concentrate solely on the part experiencing pain. For instance, if the pain is in your leg, direct all your attention there.
  • Observe the pain shrinking: As you concentrate, you will notice the painful area seemingly shrinking, becoming smaller and smaller, eventually reducing to a pinpoint.
  • Maintain unwavering attention on the pinpoint: Continue staring at this pinpoint of pain with your internal awareness, forgetting everything else and closing your eyes.
  • “Enter the piercing” (for pin method): If using a pin, as the pin moves into your skin and you feel the pain, consciously “enter” with the pin. The instruction emphasizes not feeling that the pain is entering you, but rather that you are piercing with the pin. This means to observe the piercing without identifying with the sensation.
  • Allow the pain to disappear: If done correctly, the pinpoint of pain will suddenly disappear.
Commentaries and Insights
  • Purpose and Goal:
    • The primary aim is to transcend the identification with the body. By realizing that “you and your body are two,” you shift from experiencing pain to experiencing bliss.
    • This technique leads to the attainment of “inner purity” or “inner innocence”.
    • It is a method for centering, which is the path to cosmic consciousness or samadhi. When fully centered, an “explosion” occurs, and the individual center dissolves into the cosmos.
    • Knowing you are not the body fundamentally changes your life, as your previous existence was centered around that false identification.
  • Mechanism of Action:
    • Breaking identification: When you concentrate on the painful part, the “one who is concentrating is you. The concentration is being done on the body – that is the object”. This act creates a gap and breaks the identification between you (the observer) and the body (the observed).
    • Shift from feeling to observation: The key is to change your mode from feeling the pain to observing the pain. This shift creates the necessary distance, allowing you to become aware only of consciousness.
    • Mind as a bridge: The mind acts as a bridge that gives you the feeling of being “in the body.” If you are able to step “out of the body” even for a moment through this technique, the mind temporarily dissolves, leading to transcendence.
  • Tantric Philosophy and Context:
    • Body as “Nectar-filled Form”: Tantra perceives the human body not as something to be condemned or escaped, but as a “nectar-filled form” or a “beautiful vehicle” filled with your essence, which is the “nectar”. It emphasizes using the body for spiritual transformation rather than fighting against it.
    • Starting from “What Is”: Tantra is pragmatic and scientific, beginning from where you actually are – in the body – rather than with abstract ideals.
    • Acceptance and Non-Fighting: Tantra’s core teaching involves total acceptance of your current state, including emotions like anger, hatred, or pain. It advocates for experiencing them fully with awareness, rather than suppressing them. This non-resistant approach leads to transformation. When you allow misery to be in its totality without fighting it, it begins to disappear.
    • Awareness as the Key: Everything can become a meditation if a “quality of awareness” is brought to it. Tantra believes that being alert to any phenomenon, however small (like a sneeze or hunger), can lead to transformation because it brings you to a state of thoughtless consciousness where the mind temporarily disappears.
    • Paradox of Simplicity: These Tantric methods often appear simple, leading the ego to dismiss them as ineffective. However, Osho explains that their simplicity is their power, as they directly address fundamental realities and do not cater to the ego’s desire for arduous challenges.
  • Potential Experiences:
    • You will experience the pain seeming to shrink and then disappear, being replaced by a feeling of bliss.
    • You will attain a realization that “you are not the body”.
    • You may experience “ecstasy,” which Osho defines as “standing out” of the body.
    • In the state where the body feels “dead-weight” and consciousness is observing, the gap between you and the body becomes “crystal clear,” and the mind will be absent.
    • You will feel that “I cannot die” because you are the consciousness observing the dying body, not the body itself.
  • Warnings and Considerations:
    • Mind’s Trickery: Your mind may try to rationalize why such a simple method cannot lead to profound results, thereby preventing you from actually trying it.
    • No Verbalization: Do not verbally tell yourself that you are not the pain or not the body; this is a trick of the mind. The realization must come from a felt experience, not from thinking.
    • Authenticity: The transformation happens when you are authentic in your experience, whether it’s anger, pain, or sex. Unreality and pretense do not lead to transcendence.
    • Developing Sensitivity: Modern civilization often makes people insensitive to their bodies. This method, like others, helps to cultivate greater bodily sensitivity and feeling, which is crucial for deep meditative experiences.