Break Through Pain: A Step-by-Step Mindfulness Meditation Program for Transforming Chronic and Acute Pain [Hardcover]

Shinzen Young (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2006

The newest treatment for pain is one of the oldest, most effective strategies for pain-free living: meditation. With Break Through Pain, meditation expert Shinzen Young teaches you how to retrain your relationship to pain through traditional meditation practices. Drawing from thirty years of results in the field, this respected teacher offers the essential techniques that have proven successful at painmanagement centers around the country. Break Through Pain adapts the core principles of mindfulness training to a practical process that can treat even extreme, chronic pain effectively, possibly reducing the need for drugs or surgery. Step-by-step techniques taught in plain language show how to overcome internal resistance-the key to transforming physical pain into a flow of pure energy. Includes Shinzen's five most effective meditations for pain.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Shinzen Young is the founder of the Vipassana Support Institute and many other meditation centers around the country. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 69 pages
• Publisher: Sounds True, Incorporated (March 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591791995
• ISBN-13: 978-1591791997
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 6.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #579,802 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars disappointed, July 1, 2006

By 

Docta Puella (Southwest, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Break Through Pain: A Step-by-Step Mindfulness Meditation Program for Transforming Chronic and Acute Pain (Hardcover)

The 1997 Sounds True cassette tape version is so much better than this watered-down, tired-sounding CD and book. After using the taped version, which has four longish guided meditations and is so inspiring and helpful, the very brief guidance for the meditations on the CD version gives the impression that the author became bored or burnt out with teaching. I will continue to use the the cassette tapes and will throw out the more recent CD and book.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A "must-read" for anyone in distress or suffering, September 6, 2005

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Break Through Pain: A Step-by-Step Mindfulness Meditation Program for Transforming Chronic and Acute Pain (Hardcover)

Enhanced by an accompanying integrated learning CD, Break Through Pain by Shinzen Young (a very experienced meditation teacher and founder of the Vipassana Support Institute and several North American meditation retreat centers) distills more than 30 years of experience in presented mediation as one of the oldest strategies for effecive pain-free living. Readers will learn how to apply the Buddhist Vipassana traditions that have delved into how to relieve pain for 2,000 years. Techniques to "melt" sensations of pain, break up pain through focused awareness, release the emotions of anger, fear, and resentment that amplify pain, and use pain as a gateway to emotional and spiritual freedom described as thoroughly as possible, for the lay practitioner to use for himself or herself. The practices of controlled breathing, guided meditation and mindful meditation especially are discussed in depth. An accompanying audio CD with easy-to-follow instructions walks the reader through basic techniques for pain relief. Written in plain terms accessible to the lay reader unfamiliar with the ancient practices, Break Through Pain is a "must-read" for anyone in distress or suffering, especially in situations where drugs and other conventional remedies just aren't working.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good material for those in pain...., June 23, 2007

By 

Patrick D. Goonan "see profile for URL" (Livermore, CA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Break Through Pain: A Step-by-Step Mindfulness Meditation Program for Transforming Chronic and Acute Pain (Hardcover)

Shinzen Young is a meditation teacher who has been around for a long time. Much of his work is in the area of transforming emotions and pain. This combination book and CD is useful for those who want to get more of a feeling of control around pain.

Specifically, this book teaches you the relationship between attention and pain, softening around pain and having a different experience of it through training the mind to hold it differently. While it won't take the place of morphine, it will certainly help people in pain to live with it more easily. It will also help them to reduce their anxiety around pain, which aggravates the subjective experience of pain.

I am no stranger to pain having gone through a back, neck and wrist surgery. I teach meditation myself and I have graduate education in biology, biochemistry and psychology. I feel I am in a good position to judge the merits of the book and the book certainly has many merits as does the CDs. If you are interested in an introduction to several types of meditation, you might also like The Beginner's Guide to Meditation. If you are quite serious about meditation, you can look at a variety of references on my listmania lists which appear on my profile.