The Body In Meditation - Episode 8

Hello,

My name is Michelle and welcome to episode 8 on the body in meditation practice.

At the end of the previous episode 7,

The idea came to me for this next episode and the following to be on silence and stillness and instead I have decided to prioritise two other topics for this and the following episode.

So this episode is on the body in meditation and the episode following this will be grounding in meditation and those two episodes will be followed by episodes on silence and stillness.

And this decision is a spontaneous manifestation and expression of a fundamental tenet in Mahayana Buddhism that states that the way out is in.

So we have to go inwards first before we can go out.

So let's start with a 3 minute silent meditation practice.

I invite you to take your seat in a quiet place where you won't be disturbed and become more aware of being present in your body.

And this can be aided by intentionally taking 3 deep breaths to begin the process of steadying your attention in the present moment.

So I'm going to be silent with you now and try my best to become more present and aware of my body,

Back or slightly more back in the present moment.

So I want to repeat a few lines from the Heart Sutra that I read at the beginning of episode 5 on emptiness in meditation.

Listen Shariputra,

Form is emptiness and emptiness is form.

Form is none other than emptiness and emptiness is none other than form.

These words signify that all phenomena including physical form are ultimately devoid of an inherent independent existence.

Form is empty of a separate existence and it's interconnected and interdependent on formlessness and the two formlessness and form are not separate things.

They appear to be two separate things but ultimately they are one thing.

I do like the word thing,

It's actually a technical word in Lacanian analysis and I think it's a great word.

So while we have the realisation of formlessness or we could call it emptiness,

The open field of awareness that I'm always pointing to in each episode,

Whilst we have the realisation of this emptiness or formlessness as the source of true nature and the source of every physical form,

To deny that the body is something real and just an illusion is ridiculous and leads to a disembodied awareness,

A disembodied delusion.

So form is not more important or less important than formlessness and the mind or put more spiritually with the word psyche,

The psyche is not more or less important than the body.

And from the perspective,

From the ultimate perspective of oneness or interbeing,

Body is mind and mind is body.

The two are not separate and in meditation practice we realise form and formlessness are one and the same thing.

So this episode is about the body in meditation and it's not the body as something to identify with but the body as a manifestation of a physical form that's a reflection of the mind of one's true nature and ultimately of emptiness.

So when the body sits in meditation,

The mind sits in meditation and ultimately there is no separation between body and mind.

In meditation the problem arises if you are self-conscious,

If you're occupied with and involved in ego identification,

In selfing and discriminating and judging yourself and the world and if you're looking at your body objectively from outside of yourself then you're not experiencing sitting,

You're not experiencing your body,

You're just creating an experiencer in your mind and an experiencer with some discerned,

Measured,

Evaluated self-identity,

Getting it right or wrong,

Getting in the way and you yourself creating that which is supposedly experienced.

But when you're self-conscious you're not experiencing without self-concern and self-referencing,

We can say without selfing.

So instead meditation is a falling away of the finite identity,

A falling away of your mind and body vehicle and an opening to unity and oneness and it's a realization and an experience of oneness with everything.

So how you experience your body in meditation practice,

Whether you experience it as tense or relaxed,

Heavy or light,

Pleasurable or unpleasurable,

How you experience your body is a reflection of your psyche and your inner state of consciousness.

So we can say that the body is none other than a manifestation and expression of the psyche and more broadly and more spiritually we can say it's none other than a manifestation and expression of formlessness or emptiness or oneness and when we're meditating our body is continuing to function and it's the vehicle through which we experience being alive,

Being intimate with what's happening in each moment.

The body is still here when we're meditating whether or not we're aware of it or can feel it or sense it or not and whether or not our mind is here now present or elsewhere whatever dissociation delusion or fantasy whatever's happening with your mind the body is always here fully present in meditation practice it can't go anywhere the mind moves but the body is here it cannot go anywhere so in meditation we borrow,

Lean on the support,

The stability,

The solidity of the body the stillness and presence of the body so I should say our mind leans on,

Borrows the presence and stillness of the body and the body in meditation may be tired,

It may be tense,

There may be pain in the body or lightness,

Ease or pleasurable sensations and as I already said our environment,

What's inside our body,

Our psyche,

Our inner world,

Our inner energy is a manifestation and reflection that appears in physical form as our body that manifests as our body so as above so below and vice versa as the mind and body are one and not separate entities our mind,

Our psyche,

Is manifested and reflected in our body as one whole unified mind-body experience so in meditation practice we're experiencing embodied awareness by engaging our senses,

Noticing our perceptions,

Our sense perceptions,

Noticing physical sensations of our body grounding ourself in an embodied awareness of sensations and perceptions moving towards a more unified experience of body-mind and I will go into a lot more depth of the of the notion or experience of grounding in meditation in the next episode and I feel very blessed to have received over many years as a Buddhist in meditation practitioner to have received the protection,

Guidance and blessing of the Goddess,

The Earth Goddess,

That sustains,

Maintains my connection with the Earth energy so I feel it's a real honor to be able to be teaching about the body and grounding and I hope to learn more about somatic experiencing so meditation is about experiencing the body as a whole interconnected organism alive in the present moment and when we're present and grounded we can more easily experience our body as expansive and permeable as a more holistic non-dual experience of mind-body that interpenetrates their relationship and their being so beingness is the ground of presence to be in the body is to be in presence it's not identifying with your sensorial experience not identifying with relaxation or pleasure seeking or pain avoiding such identifications and discriminations are on the surface level of the mind so when I talk about being in the body here I mean being inside your body and not inside your ego not on the surface of your body or on the surface of your experience not outside of your experience the ego is just the defensive surface level of the psyche and it's a boundary if you like between the mind and body if I wanted to be psychopathological about it I could say it's the schism of the mind and the body but our true nature is the body itself so let me turn now to meditation practice in the context of the body sitting meditation is simply being present in your body experiencing reality body and mind are just the wakeful act of sitting and experiencing reality as it is and sitting is not a concept or a theory meditation is not a concept or a theory your body is not a concept or a theory meditation therefore is an embodied,

Sensorial,

Real experience an experience is not a concept it's an embodied,

Sensorial,

Real thing so as I've said a few times in this episode and in other episodes there is no division between body and mind but when a person begins meditating they need an anchor to help them focus hold and still their attention they need a way,

They need some help for their mind to become more calm more still more steady and empty so it's very common in numerous meditation methods,

Techniques to use the body as an anchor for your attention so noticing,

Feeling,

Sensing the presence of your body sitting here now the most common method is awareness of sensations of breathing in your body so you may notice your in-breath and it really is irrelevant the length,

Depth,

Size,

Shape,

Texture,

Quality it's just the noticing that is required for meditation to occur by noticing I mean awareness you may be aware of your abdomen rising and falling of your chest expanding and contracting you may be able to sense the air moving in and out of your nostrils you may even be able to sense the air moving in and out of your throat your windpipe you may be able to notice your lungs expanding and contracting you may notice your nostrils moving and other facial muscles moving neck,

Shoulder and chest muscles moving and as you feel your body the presence of your body sitting here now I invite you to become more unified in body and mind a natural state of being aligned in your true nature and just noticing whatever experience is occurring for you in this moment and you don't need to worry about any ego interventions that are also natural natural so in meditation sometimes there's still the rising and ceasing of self-consciousness of the me sitting here experiencing breathing experiencing sensations in the body but with meditation practice the ego does become less prominent and yet still may come and go in freedom so we're not concerned with the comings and goings of our ego identifications or we could say ego interventions letting it be as it is smiling to our identifications allows us to naturally calm and gradually they lessen and diminish so as best you can being aware of your body connecting with your breath and creating a sense of stability and groundedness in your meditation we tend to spend a lot of time living inside our mind in our dreams fantasies thoughts feelings desires maybe we spend most of our lives living inside our mind and yet meditation asks us to shift our attention and our awareness into the tactile sensations of the body so let's gradually come to a close of this episode with a five minute silent meditation practice and I would like to invite and welcome awareness of the undercurrent tones that shape our experience the undercurrent sensations of the body and I'd also like to invite and welcome the possibility of a release of self-consciousness so that we can simply experience our body without thinking about it so coming out of a five minute silent meditation practice and maybe I'll just briefly describe my practice that I've just had with you now so yeah I was aware of my breathing not constantly but often I was aware of the position of my head and sensations of my head I was also aware of the positions of my hands and sensations of my hands I was aware of the position of my legs ankles and feet I was aware of being warm the temperature of my body perhaps overheated this warm summer evening and I was aware of my some my mind some thoughts coming how to describe it yes some thoughts coming into my mind but it's not just a matter of a thought coming it could come slowly or more fast the whole business of the manner in which a thought arrives and departs you know they they come and go in many different ways so yeah I was content with the reasonably slow pace at which a thought came and I was content with the amount of seconds it took my awareness to notice the thought come on this occasion it was very few seconds maybe half fractions of seconds so that was good often times it takes a lot longer for my awareness to notice a thought has come and not just noticing that it's come but also noticing the manner in which it's come the speed the energy the velocity the pace the amount of energy in it the drive behind it more or less lack of so I didn't count how many times I noticed a thought but I would hazard a guess within that five minute meditation practice let's say five times I noticed a thought come an interesting method that I'm just creating now in this moment would be to meditate for five minutes and count how many times you notice a thought come into your mind I haven't heard of that method before so that's just spontaneously created now okay so I'm also just noticing that I was quite relaxed whilst recording this episode relaxed in contrast to being alert so yeah that's just something to notice don't know what it means I don't know why that was the case so perhaps I'm coming to feel more awakened now as we close and I hope you found some of this teaching insightful in some way and yes I've already started reading and writing about grounding in meditation yeah and also not just for this podcast but for my own personal life I'm very much interested in grounding earthing and biomagnetic therapy so it's so wonderful that the earth energy has really come into my life in being very much present during this time of creating these two episodes on the body and grounding okay so look forward to recording for you next month bye for now