Eknath Easwaran's Commentary
I confess that I have always been sensitive to pain. When I was a little boy, I hurt my leg playing soccer. It became infected, so my granny took me to our doctor. He washed the wound as gently as he could while I winced. Then he told me apologetically, “I’m going to have to apply tincture of iodine.”
Now, I had heard many stories about how much it hurt to have iodine applied to a wound. So I closed my eyes. I felt the doctor’s touch on my leg, and then a wave of pain across the wound. I think my yell must have lifted the roof.
Then I noticed the pain had subsided, so I opened my eyes. “Is it over?” I asked. The doctor looked at me with compassion and said, “I haven’t even applied the iodine yet.”
Often it is fear of pain, and the resistance to pain, that makes pain hard to bear. When fear goes, suffering becomes manageable; and the mantram is the best thing I know for banishing fear. Whether it is a headache, a stomachache, or serious injury, the mantram always helps.