Non-Dual Body Meditation

In this NonDual Body Meditation, move through the body from its mental life, to its bodily sensations, to its resonance with the earth. We soften our sense of separation from our own bodies, one another, and the natural world. We grow more able to meet life with Love, Awe, and Wholeness.

Transcript

This mindful biology meditation will guide us to connect first with the individual body and with the bodies of other beings,

And finally with the large body of the Earth,

The planet herself.

Settle the body,

Your personal body,

Into a comfortable posture,

Whether that's seated or lying down is up to you.

As the body settles,

Feel the points of contact that reassure the body that it is held by the Earth,

Supported from below.

We're used to feeling the weight of our body pressing into the Earth.

Equally,

This is the Earth pressing up into our bodies,

Holding them in position.

So feel in all the points of contact that connect the Earth to your body,

That remind you that the Earth is holding you right now.

And isn't it interesting how you can so readily feel these points of touch,

Points of pressure.

You can feel perhaps some pressure under your bottom,

Maybe some pressure in the back,

Against a chair,

Or if you're lying down,

Against the surface you're lying upon.

Anywhere else you can feel the pressure is very easy to detect because our bodies are so intimately linked to our human consciousness.

Notice how easy it is to feel these points of connection.

It just takes the decision to notice,

To attend,

And we find the feeling in our awareness.

So feeling how the body brings you this information about its connection to the Earth,

The same consciousness that we live within and as.

You can feel many other bodily sensations quite readily.

You can feel your body breathing right now.

So perhaps you'll notice the sense of airflow right at the nostril,

The opening to the nasal passages,

That subtle breeze of air flowing in and out.

You might notice some airflow over the upper lip or the space between the nostrils and the lip.

You might notice some airflow just within the nostrils,

Right at the entrance to this nasal passage that connects the nostrils to the throat and the lungs.

Perhaps you notice how the air coming in feels a little different from the air flowing out,

Maybe a different temperature.

Often the air flowing in is slightly cooler than the air flowing out.

The air flowing in is also drier than the air flowing out,

Very often.

This tends to be experienced as a slight sharpness or freshness on the inflow and more of a softness and a fullness on the outflow.

Cool,

Fresh incoming air,

Warm,

Soft outgoing air.

Isn't it interesting how the consciousness can so readily feel these sensations?

Follow the breath down,

Down your body from nostrils to throat to chest.

So you can track the airflow all the way through the nasal passages,

Very subtle down the throat.

And then the lungs fill with air.

We can feel that sense of filling as the chest expands,

Belly expands,

The lungs fill with each inhale.

And they empty,

Chest and belly settle with each exhale.

So you're taking in the whole breath from nostrils to belly,

An entire space of breathing.

Just follow several breaths now,

Inflow and outflow,

Feeling the spacious quality of breath.

The breath is spacious around the nostrils.

You can feel that space around the nostrils,

The skin above the lip.

You can feel the space within the nasal passageways as air flows from the nostrils back to the throat on inhale,

And then from throat back to nostrils on exhale.

So there's space in front,

Space within the nasal passages.

You can feel the space as the lungs expand,

The space in the torso.

That air flows into a space we can feel between the front body and back body,

Left side and right.

So there's a spacious quality to breath,

Especially here in the torso.

There's a spaciousness of consciousness also.

Notice how the process of listening to a voice,

Having your own images and thoughts that flicker in awareness.

There's a sense that that's happening in a kind of vague space,

The space of consciousness.

Sometimes above and behind the eyes,

Sometimes lower in the body.

But there's a spacious quality to awareness,

Consciousness,

Sentience.

It's happening in a volume within and around the body,

Feeling the space of consciousness.

We could call that consciousness that contains the thoughts and the imaginings,

Mind.

So there's spaciousness of mind.

And we could call the spaciousness of the lungs and the torso and the whole space of breathing part of the space of body,

Feeling the spaciousness of body.

Now going back to the spaciousness of mind,

Feeling the space where thoughts and imaginings,

Memories and plans flicker in awareness.

And then feeling the space of body,

Of lungs expanding and settling,

The space of breath.

Body space goes beyond lungs,

Of course.

It includes the belly space,

The pelvic space,

The space of the arms and legs,

Hands and feet.

You can feel all that space in the body.

In fact,

The body space includes the space of the neck,

The mouth,

The nasal passages.

It even includes the space of the head,

The space behind and above the eyes.

Isn't it interesting how that space of the head overlaps with and maybe even feels the same as the space of consciousness of mind?

Noticing how space of mind and space of body are one space in experience.

And this is true neurologically,

Neuroscientifically.

The regions of the brain that do a lot for thinking and remembering and planning and imagining are not walled off from the parts of the brain that give us a sense of touch,

A sense of bodily experience.

There's a flowing garden-like quality,

Like an ecosystem or an ocean.

So that space of mind and space of body flow together and are one space.

With wave after wave of experience,

Feeling how space of body and space of mind flow together.

Waves of feeling lead to waves of mental response.

Mental attitudes affect feelings.

And they all flow as one.

Other bodies,

Other humans have the same experience.

Right now you can imagine someone you know.

Someone perhaps you know and like.

Perhaps someone you speak with regularly or live with.

That person right now,

Wherever they are,

Has the experience of space in body,

Space in mind.

You may know about that person enough to imagine their inner space a little bit.

We can't share that inner experience directly or completely.

But you know how tall the person is.

You know where they might have chronic discomfort.

They're used to their energy level,

How they move in the world,

How they talk.

You know a bit of their life history,

What matters to them.

Perhaps what fears they have,

What they've suffered even.

And you can generalize your own experience of space in body and mind to that other person's mental and bodily space.

You can imagine what life is like for them right now on the inside.

You don't even need to know where they are or what they're doing.

You know they have a body.

You know they have a mental experience.

Just imagine what that person feels,

Just being who they are,

Regardless of what they're doing.

With that body,

That person,

Personality,

Mental habits and so on.

So we can use our own experience of body and mind and spaciousness to connect with the body,

Mind and spaciousness of a loved one.

At least in our own imagined experience.

Having that tender,

Compassionate feeling of what it's like to be this other person.

We could go further and connect to other people,

Other loved ones.

People that we like but aren't terribly close with.

People who are rather neutral acquaintances.

Maybe even people who cause us some discomfort,

Conflict.

We can imagine that each of them is having right now an experience of spacious body,

Spacious mind.

I'll leave that as a practice for another time for you.

But let's move on instead to connect more with the earth.

There are lots of ways we connect with the earth.

The breath that we're breathing right now is from the layer of the earth we call the atmosphere.

A layer that surrounds us.

A layer we live within.

And we bring it into our bodies with every breath.

Connected to the earth.

The foods we eat daily bring the earth within.

The food grows from the soil of the earth.

So our bodies are made of the foods we eat.

And so our bodies are the earth.

And we're connected in that way.

Feeling the substance of the body,

The mass and heft of it.

This is the earth.

And the waters we drink come from rivers and streams and lakes and underground aquifers.

And ultimately it comes from rain.

The water we drink is flowing through us right now in our bloodstream,

In our lymph vessels.

We can feel the water in our mouths.

The moist interior of the oral cavern reminds us that the water of the earth is the same as the water in our bodies.

Connecting to the earth.

And in fact we can feel the spaciousness around us.

Even with our eyes closed we can feel the space of the room.

This is the earth.

And we live within this space of the earth.

And as we feel that space we know it's our body giving us this experience of spaciousness that extends beyond the skin and fills the room.

It comes a bit from what we hear and from the sense of airflow on our skin.

And from what we know about how the space around us looks.

Either because we're seeing it right now or we saw it before.

We have memory of the room.

And all that vision and sight and touch and memory,

All of that is very intimately connected with activity in our biological cells,

In the body,

In the brain.

If we couldn't hear right now,

If our ears were plugged,

The quality of the space would change.

The feel of the auditory space would change.

That experience of space varies according to whether the eyes are open or closed.

The experience of tactile space,

The subtle breezes,

The sense of where the clothing is and where we're exposed to the air.

All of this is a resonance of our bodies with our environment.

And so our bodies are connecting us very intimately with the earth by providing a sense of sight and sound and touch.

Building up the sense of being on earth with this space around us.

And the inner space of mind and the inner space of body flow quite seamlessly,

You'll notice,

With the space of earth.

All of this biological.

A garden of interior experience,

Garden of exterior experience.

A single garden of life.

Reviews

From the open space of my mind and body ThankyouandBless for such beautiful meditation 🧸❤️🧸

This meditation was very calming. I’m saving it and will enjoy it regularly

Gorgeous to inhabit my body more fully and feel all those connections with the earth. Thank you 🙏🏼