In my posts on the three charteristics of existance, I wrote quite a bit about ethereal things, as if who we are is Out There somewhere and has very little to do with this ME each of us is from day to day. Nothing could be further from the truth. The whole point of the Buddha's teaching, in fact, is to emphasize that freedom is no further away than the next thought, that awareness is always quite literally at our fingertips.
The Buddha said, "In this fathom long body is found all of the teachings". To think of the body as a vehicle that carries the important parts (our soul, our consciousness, our mind) around is a mistaken perspective. It is not uncommon to think of our body as merely transportation for our heads, which is where all the important stuff happens. Awareness is present in every aspect of our existence and nothing is closer to us or more available than our bodies.
One of the primary ways in which we can deepen our meditation practice is to pay attention to the sensations of the body, to give them the same full awareness we have been devoting to the breath. One way to do this is a body scan, tuning in to each part of our bodies in turn. We can also do walking meditation, in which we walk at a pace that allows us to be aware of every sensation. Classically this is very, very slow and appears a bit bizarre to anyone not familiar with the practice. Truly, though, walking meditation can be done at any pace. One way to keep our thoughts on the sensations is to verbally (though silently) note what we are doing as we are doing it. If we are going slowly, we can note "lifting, moving, placing" as each foot is raised, moved, and lowered. At a faster pace, we might simply think "left, right, left, right". Whatever noting technique we use, though, the practice is not to focus on the noting but on the sensations that accompany the words. If you become truly adept at this, you can drop the noting and only go back to it if you feel your mind wandering back to thoughts. When you feel comfortable with it, the practice of very slow walking meditation can be very freeing. Try it some time when no one is watching and see what happens.
There is no need to do a formal practice to know that our bodies are filled with consciousness, though. We can feel what our body does when we are stressed, when we are happy, when we are calm or grieving or angry. Notice how intimately connected the bodily sensations are to the emotion; it is difficult to imagine the one without the other. The clenched jaw, the butterflied stomach, the tense shoulders, the expansive chest, the sickening drop of the stomach or the nauseating rise all attest to the connection our bodies have to everything we experience in our minds. When we are speaking of ourselves and gesture, we point to our hearts, not our heads.
In Ulysses, James Joyce noted that Bloom "lived a short distance from his body". So do most of us, don't we? We seem to be somewhat disconnected from what is going on here in this fathom-long body and much of what we do recognize disgusts or disappoints us. Yet this is the place where we live out our lives. Like so many of the teachings of the Buddha, it is vital for us to understand that nothing, absolutely nothing is rejected. This is not a practice which leads to some airy state of separation from the everyday world, but to wholesale engagement with it. "In the Buddhist way of understanding, our human body is considered exceedingly precious because it provides the necessary conditions to realize freedom and true happiness," Jack Kornfield wrote. "Mindfulness of the body allows us to live fully. It brings healing, wisdom, and freedom."The Buddha said, "In this fathom long body is found all of the teachings". To think of the body as a vehicle that carries the important parts (our soul, our consciousness, our mind) around is a mistaken perspective. It is not uncommon to think of our body as merely transportation for our heads, which is where all the important stuff happens. Awareness is present in every aspect of our existence and nothing is closer to us or more available than our bodies.
One of the primary ways in which we can deepen our meditation practice is to pay attention to the sensations of the body, to give them the same full awareness we have been devoting to the breath. One way to do this is a body scan, tuning in to each part of our bodies in turn. We can also do walking meditation, in which we walk at a pace that allows us to be aware of every sensation. Classically this is very, very slow and appears a bit bizarre to anyone not familiar with the practice. Truly, though, walking meditation can be done at any pace. One way to keep our thoughts on the sensations is to verbally (though silently) note what we are doing as we are doing it. If we are going slowly, we can note "lifting, moving, placing" as each foot is raised, moved, and lowered. At a faster pace, we might simply think "left, right, left, right". Whatever noting technique we use, though, the practice is not to focus on the noting but on the sensations that accompany the words. If you become truly adept at this, you can drop the noting and only go back to it if you feel your mind wandering back to thoughts. When you feel comfortable with it, the practice of very slow walking meditation can be very freeing. Try it some time when no one is watching and see what happens.
There is no need to do a formal practice to know that our bodies are filled with consciousness, though. We can feel what our body does when we are stressed, when we are happy, when we are calm or grieving or angry. Notice how intimately connected the bodily sensations are to the emotion; it is difficult to imagine the one without the other. The clenched jaw, the butterflied stomach, the tense shoulders, the expansive chest, the sickening drop of the stomach or the nauseating rise all attest to the connection our bodies have to everything we experience in our minds. When we are speaking of ourselves and gesture, we point to our hearts, not our heads.
It is not difficult to see where our commitment to healthy eating comes into play in all of this. We can also appreciate how unhealthy eating comes about. If we reject uncomfortable bodily sensations or reject our bodies altogether, we will do nearly anything to escape them. Though many of us have used alcohol, drugs (both legal and illegal) or other techniques, food is often the most accessible and socially acceptable avenue for the rejection of feelings. This is why I find the use of calorie restriction so helpful: it gives me the opportunity to come face to face with my impulse to bury my feelings in food; when I am facing the reality that a piece of cake will take up the remainder of my calories for the day and there is really no very good reason for me to eat it, I have no option but to ask myself why I am making that choice. Of course, the other advantage of calorie counting is that I can make that choice anyway, if that's what I decide to do. If I am being honest with myself, I can recognize that my impulse to overeat is invariably tied into antipathy toward some sensation of my body engendered by unwanted emotion. But if every emotion is a precious jewel carried in this miracle of a body, I can breathe it in and breathe it out without trying to make it go away. And when the time comes for this body to die, I can let go of it as I would a dear friend, without remorse but only a slight wistfulness that something I have come to know and love so well will be no more. After all, as Ajahn Chah says, "We only rent this house. If it belonged to us we could tell it not to get sick, not to grow old. But it takes no notice of these wishes. With wisdom, if you live, that's good. And when you have to die, that's fine, too."
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