We've been focusing these discussions on establishing mindfulness,
And perhaps many of you,
Like myself,
Have been practicing for many years,
And so you know that establishing mindfulness isn't just a one-and-done practice.
We're always establishing mindfulness.
This week,
We're attending to the body,
Mindfulness in and of the body,
And as we're doing mindfulness of the body,
We're being aware,
Mindful of what's happening in a very simple way.
The way that I was taught and share awareness practice,
The meditation is anchored in the breathing,
But the breathing doesn't work for everyone,
So it doesn't have to be at the center,
But some people who let the body be at the center,
They actually use the body to ground,
And that's the anchor,
The weight of the body,
The sensations in the body.
So both practices,
Mindfulness of the breath and of the body,
Support us dropping out of the mind and allow us to feel the body on its own terms from the inside out,
Free of concepts,
Free of judgments.
That's all the creation of the mind.
So we emphasize breathing if that works,
And breathing and accompanying the breath is a really wonderful and consistent object for many people,
Because the rhythm of the breathing,
It can be kind of soothing.
If you settle into your breathing and your breathing starts to get a little bit longer because you're relaxed with it,
The longer the exhale,
The more it seems that we relax our nervous system.
So as I said,
The way I was taught was that we accompany the breath,
We anchor in the breath,
And when there's something more compelling,
Something stronger than the breathing,
We learn to make that object the object of our attention.
And so for this week,
For now,
It would be the body.
So if some experience in the body is more compelling than the breath,
Compelling meaning that it tugs at your attention,
Like pay attention to me.
It could be an itch.
You know,
It could be just energy,
A restlessness,
Something that's pleasant,
Or maybe something that's really unpleasant like pain.
Then what we do is we stop focusing on the breath and let the attention go to the place in the body where that compelling sensation is.
For me today,
There was an itch in my eye the whole time I was practicing.
And so I just was with that itch,
Not scratching it,
Not reacting to it,
But just sort of like,
What?
Like getting to know it.
Like what's this sensation here?
Let me pay attention to this in a very relaxed way,
Kind of floating around the area that's compelling and just feel it,
Like feel how the body experiences the itch.
And as you do that,
You might notice that there's reacting to it or judging it or this idea that it shouldn't be there.
This is not great.
I don't like it.
And that's different.
Those are ideas.
That's how the mind gets busy and adds on all the extra to the experience.
Of course,
The mind will do that.
It's not like you can turn off the thinking switch,
Right?
But what we're trying to do is to not live in those thoughts.
They can recede into the background and live in the experience,
In the background of the experience of the body.
And then you can go and just feel,
You know,
What's this until you're more settled.
It's like whatever is happening,
Whatever's calling your attention,
It's been acknowledged well enough.
And then maybe you can just go back to the breath or take a three breath journey.
That's enough to feel it and then go to the breath,
Feel it and then go to the breath.
If it's longer or really compelling,
Kind of,
You know,
You can stay with it.
Like let's say,
Let's say your knee or back is aching because that's a typical common experience for many people,
Back pain or knee pain.
And some people find it really helpful to imagine that they're breathing with or breathing through that place in the body.
So the rhythm of breathing kind of gets relaxed and related to that part of the body that is feeling discomfort.
And then it,
Then it becomes a little bit easier to stay there and feel it and be with it,
To sense it on the level of energy and vibration,
Not just it's painful,
But to describe it like,
Oh,
It's actually more like heat in this area.
And after it's been acknowledged well enough or no longer compelling,
Then the practice is to come back to your breathing and continue with breathing.
Relax with the breathing,
Relax on the exhale.
The exhale is the breath that helps us relax.
So we let go of the thinking mind on the exhale until something else arises.
So if you think of,
Um,
You know,
Being a human being is like living in these concentric circles,
Almost like there's a mandala inside of us.
And we start at the center and we put the breath at the center and we use the breath to stabilize ourselves at the center of our being.
And then something happens.
And then we kind of go out of that circle and visit the next circle.
So we place our attention on that next circle of the body,
And then we kind of come back.
And then something else happens and you go out and you come back,
You know,
Without any protest or complaint or I have to's,
I should,
None of that,
Just,
Oh,
Let me pay attention to this and then come back.
It's just kind of like the next thing to be aware of.
And what we're learning is to be present in a non-reactive way without the judgment.
The body is kind of the foundation for how we're going to be able to expand awareness to these other areas constructively,
Like the other areas being mindfulness of emotions,
Of thinking.
So we want to establish mindfulness,
This kind of wise attention to the body and the breath so that when we enter into emotions and thinking,
We're not captivated through our stories and our ideas and our memories and our judgments,
All the other kinds of things that complicate our attention.
So this way of including the body,
You know,
When the body speaks up and it's more compelling than the breath,
The sensations of the body,
Then turn to it and take that in,
In this meditative way,
Like,
Oh,
What's that?
And over time,
Maybe over months or years,
Sooner or later,
The whole body gets met.
We meet the whole body.
Your whole body gets filled with awareness and attention.
And slowly the body wakes up more and more so that as mindfulness deepens,
What happens for us is that something can be happening in the moment in our life.
And the first thing that we are aware of in that happening is the way the body's responding to it.
Mindfulness is strong.
And so we pay attention to that.
And that stops us from reacting to whatever that happening is.
When I first began on this path of practice,
I was pretty disconnected from my body.
And slowly,
The practice brought my body more alive.
You know,
We cultivate this sensitivity and it becomes a greater field of attention and really information.
This may be your way to slowly wake up.
My teacher is fond of saying that if you're only free when you're comfortable,
Then you're not really free.
And I really love this because sooner or later,
We're going to have to work with discomfort in our body.
You know,
There might be a situation where doctors don't have pain medication for you.
And you can say,
Okay,
I know,
I know how to work with this.
I've done this before.
I'll practice with this now.
So meditation is this laboratory where we're discovering how to be,
How to be with challenge in our life,
In very challenging situations.
In a way,
We're preparing for death and sickness.
So when you feel ready,
The idea is to learn to ride the edge of where you're comfortable to be with things that are difficult and to see if you can find a different way with them.
Many times people discover,
Like with pain,
It's not just pain that's there.
But because we're reacting with tension,
There's more pain because we're experiencing the tension,
The not wanting of the pain.
And so we're building up the tension around the pain.
And when the tension begins to dissipate,
As we attend to the pain,
The pain hasn't changed,
But it's more manageable because the tension,
We've met the tension.
There's something about the tension that creates some more reactivity.
So we're learning to just hold it and to be with it.
And you still,
You know,
You might still be making commentary and judgment.
But kind of,
Oh,
I see that I've got a whole story running around this to see it and not be fooled by it.
You know,
Realizing there's a difference between what is happening and the judgment about what is happening.
You know,
What's happening and the thinking about what's happening.
At least in principle,
Understanding that mindfulness and meditation is choosing not to live in the thinking mind and the commentary and the judgment,
But instead living in the awareness and the attention to what is happening in this present moment.
So these are my thoughts.
Thank you for your kind attention.
