Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 3-minute teaching, Choedak addresses a practical challenge in meditation: how to work skillfully with physical pain during practice. Rather than being destabilized by discomfort, he teaches a strategy of mental negotiation — acknowledging the pain while actively redirecting attention elsewhere, such as the breath or a visualized object. He explains the “diamond posture” not as mere rigidity but as unshakeable composure; he encourages practitioners to use pain as a reminder for compassion and to recognize that smaller physical symptoms can point to deeper mental suffering. Throughout, Choedak emphasizes realistic diligence: the energy and patience that arise when we are most discouraged, not when practice is convenient. The approach is practical and rooted in the experience of serious meditators.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 17 TtT.mp3
UUID: 795507e6-c02f-47c3-860d-170e57b487e9
Teacher: Choedak
Collection: Calm Abiding (Choedak)
Date: 1987 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~658
And try to downsize the pain, I call it, downsize the pain that whether you are bigger or the pain is bigger, you know, if you really look at it, as part of the body that is in pain, I use this idea all the all the time, a part of the body that is in pain is probably legitimately there is some temporal pain but is having a hard time. And then think of the parts of the body that are not in pain. Ask their opinion, what should you do? And the pain says let’s go out and the rest of the body says no, no, you can go yourself. We’re not going with you.
I have some real real true argument in the mind so that so that the rest of body also have a say and mind is negotiating, no no see my see in the left knee I told you they’re not going up and unless you’re able to win some kind of argument that is logical you’re always going to have that very very alarming mind and then lose it, rile oneself to even a very small pain. So it’s important to be very strong with oneself. That’s the meaning of the diamond posture. Diamond posture is that you’re not going to be destabilized by a small pain. And and to try to try to see the transient nature of the pain and and at the same time same time to see that you should use that as a reminder to evolve greater compassion.
If you have any self love or self compassion instead of self hatred, there it has come, there it comes, you know, there it comes for oneself to be able to practice. And then practice of patience, practice of diligence, you know, when are they best called for, You know, practice of diligence particularly. When you’re discouraged you need to practice diligence. Diligence is diligence that comes at a convenience is not diligence. Diligence that comes handy when you really nearly run out of all energy and all of a sudden you can evoke this energy diligence that can totally bring and and almost you you you give up the idea of idea of denying pain.
The pain is something you you had to have and see whether you can focus on something so that you can just learn to forget. It’s not denying though, denying or ignoring the pain, you know, ignoring the pain. If there is a corner of mind that you can just keep an eye on that pain and rest of my mind says look you just keep an eye on it or as long as it doesn’t burst, the knee doesn’t burst, it’d be okay. Just in case it does let me know. I’m just going to go to the blue flower, will I?
Just use those as strategy whether that works or not, is it? You know, because otherwise mind tends to alarm a lot as it’s going to be terrible things going to happen. And you’re saying it probably will not happen, just if it happens let me know. In the meantime I have to go and watch the blue flower or watch the breath. When you’re able to do that, I call it slowly learning how to how to prioritize whether the pain is the most important thing or something else.
Pain is important but it doesn’t deserve the full attention. So it’s not ignoring but you’re trying to see whether you can just just do something while keeping an eye on it and then you gain some concentration and with it all and therefore you’ll be much stronger too so that pain doesn’t doesn’t swell in you. And sometimes when people have small physical symptoms of pain in meditation, it becomes a reminder of their greater deeper pain in their mind. And quite a few of you said that.