Mindfulness key to coping with pain, suffering

WASHINGTON - Mindfulness can help people cope with both pain and suffering, says a health expert. It is a consciousness focused on the here and now, rather than brooding over past failures or future longings.

This lesson in living, based on the teachings of the Buddha, is given by Karen Hilsberg, from the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health in California, reports the journal Mindfulness.

Her moving, personal account describes how mindfulness — being warmly engaged with each moment of life — helped her cope with her husband’s cancer and the impact of his illness and death on both herself and her young family, according to a Mental Health release.

Even though her experiences were seemingly unbearable, Hilsberg knew they would not last. She concludes: “I have learned for myself that peace does not come from outside conditions, but that my true serenity can only come from within me.”