To begin this practice of mindfulness of the body,
Where we focus on the five elemental properties,
We first assume a comfortable stationary position,
Bringing our awareness to the sensations in the body,
And then spend some time releasing physical tension,
As we mentally go through our feet and toes,
Relaxing them,
Our pelvic floor,
Our hands and fingers,
And our shoulders.
Finally,
We bring our awareness to the facial muscles,
And then,
Once again,
Extend our awareness to the entire body,
Throughout our entire body with all of its tactile experiences.
And then,
Before moving on to the main part of this practice,
We generate a vast and positive motivation for this meditation practice,
Bringing to mind our highest psychological or spiritual aspirations,
And mentally deciding that this meditation practice,
This meditation session,
Will contribute to the realization of those spiritual goals,
For the benefit of numerous and actually all sentient beings.
And then,
With that,
We bring our attention to the body once again,
And more specifically,
The somatic or tactile experiences of the body.
And for a short while,
We just observe all the tactile sensations throughout the body,
On its surface,
In its depths,
Perceiving this vast field of experiences,
And resting with them,
Bringing our awareness back to this somatic field again and again,
Withdrawing it from our conceptual stories,
Memories,
Images,
Verbal thoughts,
And so forth,
Resting with the tactile experiences instead.
And then,
In this vast field,
In this vast domain of different somatic experiences,
We look for the properties and the experiences associated with the four elements.
Earth,
That manifests as solidity.
Water,
That manifests as cohesion.
Fire,
That manifests as heat.
And air,
That manifests as mobility.
And to begin this process,
We look for the sensations that are associated with the quality of stability and firmness.
We are most likely to find those in the parts of the body that are currently in contact with the actual ground.
But these experiences associated with the element of Earth would not be limited to this.
They would also perhaps manifest around our teeth,
Because there is some firmness,
Some solidity right there.
We can notice some firmness and some solidity in our hands,
If they're touching our knees or resting on the ground.
And so forth.
So what we're doing right now is consciously scanning the body,
Or the tactile aspect of the body,
And looking for these experiences of the Earth element,
Resting with them,
And observing them with curiosity.
From there,
We move on to the element of water,
That manifests as the property of cohesion and fluidity.
And for most people,
The easiest way to find it initially is to notice the saliva in one's mouth.
But then going beyond that,
We look for other instances,
Other examples of this property manifest in our tactile field.
And once again,
Exploring with curiosity.
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From this,
Moving on to the element of air,
Or wind,
Which in this case corresponds to the physical property of movement.
So any physical experiences that entail movement,
Most obvious when we observe the process of breathing,
But not at all limited to that.
There are other instances of the air element in our tactile field.
So we can explore those with curiosity and openness.
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And then the fire element,
Which corresponds to heat,
Experiences of warmth,
Experiences of coolness and cold.
Seeing if we can find any of those experiences in our tactile field right now,
And exploring those,
Observing them,
Resting with them.
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Now that we have explored all the four elements which form the periodic table of our tactile experiences,
We can bring our awareness to one specific part of the body.
For example,
Our face,
Or one of our hands.
And now keeping our attention there,
And observing the corresponding tactile experiences,
We can,
With a lot of curiosity,
Dissect those experiences into these individual groups of sensations.
Some would correspond to solidity and firmness,
Some to cohesion and fluidity,
Some would be fully about movement,
And some would be mostly about heat,
Or warmth,
Or coolness,
Or cold.
And so in this way,
We rest with one body part,
But we see it,
We perceive it,
Through the lens of the four elements.
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We're observing these experiences and we're making scientific observations about them,
About their elemental nature in this case.
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We then let go of this process of investigation,
And for a few moments simply observe the sensations in this body part,
Without trying to dissect them.
And then we extend our awareness throughout the body.
Just resting with all of our tactile experiences.
With that having cultivated the energy of our mindfulness,
Of our introspective awareness,
Of our discerning intelligence,
We dedicate the energy of this practice to our highest spiritual aspirations,
To the benefit of all sentient beings,
To our own highest spiritual goals.
And then we bring our attention to the body,
We introduce some gentle movement,
And we slowly conclude this practice as we invite the bell.
