About This Answer
A long-time practitioner says that anger and greed have become fairly easy to let go of, but physical illness and pain are much harder; mild pain can be watched, strong pain cannot. They have tried contemplating death, impermanence and separating the body into parts, and ask for advice.
Ajahn Dtun replies that the practice so far has been correct and should be continued. In meditation one should see the mind as one part, the body as another and feeling as another. With mindfulness and wisdom one contemplates the body as a mass of the elements of earth, water, fire and air, not a self, and separate from the mind.
When the mind has seen this and let go for a time, one then turns to the painful feeling itself in whatever part of the body it arises, teaching the mind that feeling is a condition dependent on the body and is not the mind. When the mind sees that body, painful feeling and mind are separate, it lets go of its attachment for a while and becomes peaceful. Even if pain remains, it need not shake the mind. Mental feeling is contemplated in the same way, and he advises practising body contemplation often so that this skill develops.