Accounts of how Anapana Practice has been valuable

If you have found the Anapana Practice to have been helpful or valuable in some way, do please use the contact page to tell me about it. Please say if you are happy for me to put your story on this page.

Physical pain

The well-being brought about by Steps 5 and 6 can affect purely physical pains. One day I was in hospital recovering after an operation. During the afternoon the anaesthetic began to wear off and I could feel a deep-seated pain at the site of the operation on my upper jaw. I asked the ward staff for some painkillers, but there was a problem. The only nurse who could administer them (it seemed) had just started her medications round of all the other patients, and she wasn't going to interrupt it. Even when she had completed that task, she had to go and find a doctor to sign the prescription for me.

An hour passed from the onset of the pain until the relief arrived. I passed that hour by practising the body-scan exercise on my bed. Becoming fully aware of my whole body meant that my attention wasn't constantly drawn to the pain. The well-being it led to was so effective that I had to come out of my meditation occasionally just to check whether I still needed the painkillers.

Since then I've found the body-scan to be helpful on other occasions too. While this isn't the main purpose of Anapana practice, it's an interesting (and sometimes useful) side-effect.

GH, England