Let's take a deep breath in and close our eyes,
Just noticing the breath and how it already takes us through the body.
The inhale brings us deeper into the body,
And the exhale leads us back.
Maybe we can say leads us back to the mind or to the upper chakras.
And I remember when I started exploring the body,
There were different types of meditations,
And some were leading to lightness,
Experiencing the body in a light way,
Or finding where it is free,
Where there's less tension.
And then the meditations were focusing on the more so-called heavy things,
The more tense parts of the body.
And very soon I noticed that sometimes an area is light,
Sometimes it is tense,
And this keeps moving.
So the body is not a static thing,
Instead of calling it the body.
Maybe it's better to call it bodying,
Something in movement.
Just seeing it in this way already removes the desire of the mind for the body to be a certain way.
It is constantly moving,
Constantly changing,
Constantly evolving.
So wanting it to be fixed,
To have one feeling,
To have one state,
It's like looking at the sky and wanting it to always have the same clouds in it that are still and that don't move.
That is not the nature of the sky and clouds.
Clouds appear and dissolve and move.
No state of the sky is a problem or better than another.
It is simply different.
And still in these meditations that I did,
There is always this assumption that the body is physical.
It is only when I came across non-duality and recognized my true self as awareness itself,
And seeing that awareness has no limits,
That everything happens within it,
That every thought,
Every sound,
Every so-called physical object is made of that empty presence of awareness,
That I could begin to experience the body as not a physical thing.
And one way to experience this is to lift your hand in midair and notice your direct experience of hand.
The mind might project physicality,
Bones,
Skin onto it,
But if you go beyond,
If you just stay with your direct experience,
You would notice that it is a sensation moving in awareness.
And being with your experience now,
If you had to choose some kind of material to create this sensation,
Imagine what you would choose.
Is it something heavy and solid like rock?
Or is it something lighter like feather or cloud or cotton,
Maybe?
And then when you compare this sensation to the awareness that is in the background,
Then you can actually begin to experience that it is made of awareness,
That there is nothing there but the awareness with which you know it.
And then you can touch your thumb and your index finger and see that a sensation,
Somethingness,
Appears in awareness.
And then when you let go of this,
It disappears.
And what's interesting here is that it's not two sensations,
But one sensation.
When we explore our direct experience,
In the same way,
The sensation of sitting on a chair is not a body and a chair,
It is just one sensation in awareness.
And the same is true for feet on the floor.
You can explore this,
See if it's two separate sensations,
Or one sensation.
Where is it exactly?
Can you pinpoint it,
Localize it?
Or is it rather vague?
We can do the same thing we did with hand to the legs,
Just noticing them as sensations in awareness.
And then when we explore this sensation,
When we try to find where is it exactly,
Where does it start,
Where does it end?
All we find there is awareness.
And then the breath,
The sensation that seems to happen in the nose area most strongly.
But when that is explored as a sensation,
Once again,
All we find is awareness.
When we let go of the labels,
Breath,
Nose,
Head.
And the same is true for the upper body.
No matter how tense it seems to be,
In fact,
When this tension is explored,
When the assumptions about it,
About its physicality,
About its locality,
About what it actually is,
Are questioned,
Then the deeper truth that lies behind the body becomes revealed to also be in the body.
And in this way,
The body begins to dissolve or completely dissolves from experience.
And with it,
All the beliefs in separation,
In consciousness being created by the mind-body,
The beliefs in duality,
In something happening outside of awareness or consciousness,
All of these ideas also dissolve.
With this experience,
The truth of non-duality becomes obvious,
Unquestionable,
Certain.
And it is no longer an intellectual understanding,
But an actual lived experience.
And here it also makes sense that in order for the so-called body to keep changing,
Keep evolving,
Its nature must be empty of feeling,
Empty of tensions.
And it is this emptiness that allows all forms to appear sometimes and temporarily within the body.
It is the recognition that what is true about silence and sound,
The fact that all sound emerges from silence and fades back into silence.
And what is true about the mind,
The fact that the nature of the mind is to have no thoughts.
And that's how all thoughts emerge in the mind is also true for the body.
All feelings,
All tensions,
All lightness or heaviness that is experienced in the body is there because the true nature of the body is transparent,
Free,
Open,
Allowing.
It is the same as the nature of awareness.
And sometimes I like to speak like to say you can remain in meditation for as long as feels comfortable.
But in fact,
You're always in meditation,
Whether the mind agrees with this statement or not is another matter.
In any case,
When you feel ready,
You can open your eyes and return to our conversation.
