Meditation for Thursday 12 March 2026
Author Jack Kornfield* tells the story of a person in a great deal of pain with stomach cancer who asked if meditation might help to relieve the suffering.
With some assistance from a friend, she began to meditate primarily by turning her attention towards the physical sensation of her illness. This became too much for her, so the friend put her hand on the woman’s stomach and asked, how’s that? She replied that it hurt too much so they tried a few other things including the friend standing a metre away from the woman’s body.
The patient found this relaxing telling her friend it was lovely. The friend would quietly say the words, “rest in love, rest in love.’ From that day onwards the patient, whenever she felt pain would push her morphine pump and just repeat to herself, “rest in love, rest in love.”
Kornfield concludes that whether we have physical or emotional pain, anything we give space to can be transformed. Widen the space, he says, remember vastness, allow ease and perspective, this is the doorway to freedom.
In meditation, no matter what form it takes, we allow ourselves to be transformed by being in the present moment just as the patient did as she savoured the words, “rest in love, rest in love.”
For the patient, the meditation mantra together with the loving companionship of her friend was giving her some relief.
I’m sure many of our own experiences of illness will uphold this story. Of course, we don’t have to be unwell to know that these meditative practices can be so useful in helping us through difficult times.
Meditation
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*The above is loosely based on a story found in “No Time Like the Present” by Jack Kornfield, Penguin Random House 2017.