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In the Kabbalistic tradition,
The body is the primary vehicle for experiencing the Divine Presence.
The human body,
In fact,
Is a microcosm of the cosmos itself.
Each individual soul incarnated in flesh is a particular individual cell in the Divine Body,
Therefore intimacy with God,
God's presence,
With the Shekhinah,
Which is the Hebrew word that refers to the indwelling presence of divinity,
Is most available to us through coming into deeper intimacy with and contact with our own physicality,
Our own flesh.
In the tradition,
The way this is accomplished most effectively is through the cultivation of the inner sense of touch.
The Torah,
The Hebrew Bible,
Describes this in the book of Genesis with a story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden,
Where it states,
V'ha-adam yadat chava ishto,
That Adam knew his wife Eve.
The word to know,
From the Hebrew word daat,
Meaning knowledge,
Is clearly not referring to intellectual knowing.
Biblical knowing is union of flesh.
The text even clarifies this by stating,
V'ha-yul l'basa r'khad,
And they became one flesh.
So to know on the level of union implies physical union.
In the mystical sense,
Adam and Eve represent the masculine and feminine principles that are inherent to creation,
To all of existence,
And are intrinsic properties of each individual consciousness.
Therefore,
To come into union of Adam and Eve on the level of physicality really means to unify these two elements of our own individual consciousness,
To fully embody and unify our own experience,
Our own beings,
On the level of physical touch.
We accomplish this by cultivating a deeper intimacy with our own bodies.
In this practice,
We will use the inner sense of touch to cultivate this more direct and immediate sense of presence,
The living presence of reality.
So begin by finding a comfortable position,
Preferably sitting with your feet on the floor.
However,
If that is not available to you,
Then any comfortable position works just fine.
Allow your spine to be vertical yet not rigid,
Natural and at ease,
With a sense of your head reaching toward the heaven and your feet grounded on earth.
Begin by allowing your consciousness to sense itself as the feet,
Sense into your toes.
Far through allowing your embodied presence to sense itself as the toes,
What's it like to sense into the bones of the toes,
The tissues that connect them?
Sense the space and the volume like of each toe when you sense into it.
Expand now into the rest of the foot,
Allowing your consciousness to sense the space that fills each of the feet,
Sensing into the bones.
Breathing freely and fully,
Allow your breath also to participate in the sensing.
Adding now your ankles,
Sensing the anatomy,
The space,
The bones,
The cartilage,
All of the connective tissues,
Ligaments,
Tendons.
Continuing to allow the sensing presence to fill the space of each of the feet from the toes up to the ankles,
We now add the lower legs,
Presence filling and sensing,
Touching from the inside out.
Sense the two bones in the lower legs,
The tibia and the fibula.
See if you can drop in between the two bones to the space in the interosseous membrane.
Notice the three dimensionality of each of the legs,
The volume and the space.
Continuing to allow a state of no mind and raw immediate sense perception,
Add now the knees,
Sensing through touching the intricacy of the anatomy in each of the knees.
Understanding the upper legs,
Sense into the powerful muscles,
The hamstrings and the quadriceps,
And also include the femur bone itself,
Really touching into it by allowing our sensing presence to touch itself as the femur.
Starting now both hips,
Continue to allow your breathing to naturally be full,
Filling both legs from the bottom of the feet and the toes all the way up to the hips.
Both legs self-sensing.
Notice the pelvis itself,
The pelvic bowl.
Notice not with the mind,
But notice through direct intimacy of touch.
Sensing into the pelvic bowl with its organs of vitality and delicacy,
The genitals,
The hands,
Sensing into the lower belly or the womb.
And now adding the hands,
Starting with the fingertips,
Allowing the presence to sense itself in each of the fingers,
Sensing into the bones and the connective tissue in the muscles.
Can you sense each of the joints in the fingers?
Presence filling the space of each of the hands now.
Notice the volume and the three-dimensionality of the hands,
And adding the wrists,
And the lower arms,
The forearms,
Each of which hold these two bones,
The radius and the ulna,
Presence into them,
As well as the space between them.
Allowing breath to continue to be full and easy,
Naturally filling the spaces of the body.
We allow our presence to continue to sense itself as the body by adding our elbows and our upper arms,
Sensing into the humerus bone,
Along with the muscles of the biceps and the triceps,
What's it like to just be in the raw immediacy of contact with the body,
As the body,
Without separation between the observer and that which is observed.
Pure,
Raw,
Sensate perception.
Sensing the shoulders and allowing both arms from the fingertips up to the shoulders to be alive with a sensing presence,
As well as both legs from the feet up to the hips.
So now we have both legs and both arms sensing themselves,
Present,
Awake,
Alive,
Knowing ourselves as our bodies through inner touch.
And now including the sensing in the lower belly,
Diaphragm,
And up through the whole torso into the chest,
Notice the dimensionality front to back,
Side to side.
The full cylinder of the torso filling with self-sensing presence.
From the perineum and the sitz bones through the belly all the way up to the neck structure,
Self-sensing,
Self-knowing,
Self-touching.
Sensing presence to sense itself in the neck,
Throat,
Cervical spine,
All the way up into the face and the cranium.
Notice again the dimensionality of the cranium along with the intricate bones and muscles that comprise the facial structure,
Front to back,
Side to side,
Sensing into the space.
Sensing through touching the top of the head and the space through the top of the head.
Notice the column of space as it opens up and connects us from our core all the way through the top of the head.
Connect into the space through the top of the head,
Allowing the self-sensing to continue to be uninterrupted through both arms and legs.
Allow the sensing presence to intensify in the arms and legs.
Now just notice what it's like to hear my words,
Not from the ordinary ears,
But from the presence of the body itself.
It's the sensing presence body that is hearing the sound.
And slowly open your eyes and include seeing,
So it's the sensing presence body that is hearing and is seeing.
Notice what it's like to perceive the environment from the perspective of the presence body.
So I'll ring the bell to mark the end of the formal practice,
But the practice can continue throughout the day or throughout the night as the self-sensing presence of the body awakens.
Our center of perception shifts more into the immediacy of what we are,
The non-conceptual nature of our living body of presence.
