Healing Through Insight Meditation

Healing
through
Insight Meditation Printed for free Distribution by
ASSOCIATION FOR INSIGHT MEDITATION3 Clifton Way • Alperton • Middlesex • HA0 4PQ
Website: AIMWELL.ORG Email: [email protected]
Printed for free Distribution by
ASSOCIATION FOR INSIGHT MEDITATION3 Clifton Way • Alperton • Middlesex • HA0 4PQWebsite: AIMWELL.ORG Email: [email protected]
through
Insight Meditation

14 Healing Through Insight Meditation
Healing
through
Insight Meditation
Bhikkhu Visuddhæcæra10 Healing Through Insight Meditation Healing Through Insight Meditation 3they might die. However, a person with strong faith knows that to die while meditating is the best way to go. One who is mindful and has a wholesome mind at the moment of death is assured of a good rebirth. Meditation develops wisdom, which will shorten the cycle of rebirth and hasten the attainment of nibbæna. Looking at it in this way, one finds that one has nothing to lose and everything to gain by medi-
tating strenuously.Furthermore, diseases are sometimes mind related, i.e. one may become sick due to stress or depression. Since meditation corrects the mental imbalance, any psychosomatic disorder will also be cured.
After considering these various benefits, espe-cially the remarkable cures enjoyed by Sister Hla Myint, we hope that readers will be inspired to take up insight meditation. As for practising meditators, we hope they will find even more zest and enthu-siasm in their practice. Nevertheless, we should stress again that the aim of meditation is to erad-icate suffering by attaining nibbæna. The curing of diseases, should it take place, is a secondary result.May all beings be well and happy. May they discover the way leading to the end of suffering.She had several other interesting experiences at Taung Song. One night she saw a giant-like figure outside her hut while doing her walking meditation. She was going to approach the figure when it disap-peared. She believed it was not just a vision but a deity (deva). Once, for several days, she had recurrent thoughts that some people were coming from Rangoon to look for her. She reported the matter to the abbot who told her to dismiss the thoughts and to continue practice. One and a half months later, while she was meditating in her hut, she heard a knock on the door. When she opened it, she found a group of people. They were government officials who said that had been searching all over for her. She was wanted in Rangoon on some official matter. Sister Hla Myint followed them to Rangoon and returned after ten days to Taung Song. Altogether she spent about six months at Taung Song before returning to Mahæsø Yeikthæ in October 1981.Resuming her practice at Mahæsø Yeikthæ, she meditated intensively for about seven months. This time the pain was less intense and she found the practice quite smooth. She continued to report her experiences to Mahæsø Sayædaw who encouraged her to carry on noting. The tumour began to shrink the end of my stay in early 1991. I had moved from Mahæsø Yeikthæ to follow my teacher, Sayædaw U Pa¼ðita, to Pa¼ðitæræma, a new meditation centre. Sister Hla Myint also came along to stay and serve at the new centre.My health deteriorated in January 1991 and for several months I did not feel well. I had a persistent cough, and there were aches and pains in my bones and joints. Sister Hla Myint took me to the General Hospital to have X-rays taken and to consult several specialists. She seemed to have many helpful friends — nurses and doctors — at the hospital. I did not need to wait long for examination and treatment.Back at the meditation centre, she was tireless and would check on me several times a day. She cooked chicken soup to help me regain strength. I was not a very good patient because I disliked taking medicines. One day, the orthopaedic surgeon prescribed some drugs for my aches. He suspected I was suffering from some kind of arthritis. I was disinclined to take the medicine because I was told it had some side-effects. So I asked her, “Sister, tell me, if you were in my position, would you take this medicine?” She replied “No,” and then confessed that although she was a nurse and often dispensed medicines to others, she rarely took any herself. If she was sick, she would

12 Healing Through Insight Meditation 8 Healing Through Insight Meditation Healing Through Insight Meditation 5Healingthrough Insight MeditationThis is the story of a Burmese meditator, and of how she used insight meditation to cure a tumour in her throat. At that time she was the sister-in-charge of the cardiac unit in the General Hospital in Rangoon. The doctor suspected the growth to be cancerous and wanted to do a biopsy. Sister Hla Myint, then aged 37 and although herself a nurse, refused all further medi-
cal examination or treatment, and took leave to prac-
tise intensive insight meditation. For her it was