Cultivating
body awareness
We seldom ponder about being present in our own bodies
because we already know that we are. Therein lies the
problem. So many aspects of our lives have been put on
automatic pilot that we have come to rely on habituated
thought patterns to sustain a stable, predictable world. We
know that we are in our bodies so that we do not have to be
aware of being in them. While daydreaming, planning,
speculating, and so on, we effectively have an "out-of-body
experience" as our minds are projected away from our bodies
into the realm of thought.
In reality the mind and body
are inseparable and, to a large extent, indistinguishable
from each other. We normally think of the body as the
physical, tangible "stuff" of which we are made, and the
mind as the nonphysical faculty of consciousness,
perception, thought, emotion, and memory. In reality, every
thought or emotion arises from an electro-chemical change in
the brain or nervous system. That is, every mental event is
made possible by a physical event involving bodily
components-- without the body, there can be no mind. Vice
versa, the mind contains the cosmos of information that
directs every aspect of the complex biological machinery
that is the body-- without a mind, there can be no body.
In fact even an inanimate
object, such as a rock or kitchen table, needs some sort of
"mind" to exist. We normally think of a kitchen table as a
lifeless, mindless physical body. However, the atoms of the
table are held together by the same electrostatic forces
that hold the atoms of our bodies together. These
electrostatic interactions are not random; they follow
certain patterns that ultimately impart structural integrity
to the table. We may call the body of information that is
responsible for the table's shape and form its "mind".
Granted, the "mind" of a table is far less complex than that
of a human being. But without the nonphysical organizing
intelligence that makes a table a table, there can be no
table.
Buddhism maintains "oneness" of
mind and body, which is not to say that the mind and body
are identical and synonymous. By "oneness" we mean that the
mind and body are merely two aspects of the same reality.
In a similar manner that light exhibits both particle-like
(physical) and wave-like (nonphysical) qualities, human
beings exhibit both body (physical) and mind (nonphysical)
qualities. Thus, mind and body come from the same source
and are different expressions of the same reality. The
mind-body duality, the root of many of our persistent
struggles, is largely an artificial separation that arises
from conditioned ignorance of one's true nature.
The oneness of mind and body may
be better appreciated through the cultivation of body
awareness. Like the breath, the body is an obvious object
of attention. Our bodies are always available to us; we
just have to remember to be aware of them. The mind has a
tendency to wander away from the body as it attaches to
thoughts, feelings and impulses. Mindfulness tethers the
mind to the body, keeping the mind from straying too far.
When we sit, we should be mindful of our posture and general
mental state. When we walk, we should be aware of the
movements of our limbs and of being present in our bodies as
we walk. In anything we do, we should make a point to
deliberately inhabit our bodies and have a sense of bodiness
as we do it.
Unless our minds and bodies are
linked together in this way, we have no reliable frame of
reference from which to perceive reality as it unfolds in
the present moment. Our present state of being is
ordinarily defined by our current mental preoccupation-- we
are what our minds are doing at the moment. When I am
thinking, I am thought itself. When I am remembering, I am
memory itself. When I am angry, I am anger itself. While
my mind is preoccupied with thinking, remembering, and
feeling angry, there is one aspect of me that gets shoved
into the background: my AMness. My amness is who I really
am. It lends my presence to my mental processes. The mind
has a tendency to become so consumed by a mental
preoccupation that it forgets who is doing the mentation.
The goal of mindfulness is not to suppress thoughts and
feelings, but to bring the amness back into the forefront of
consciousness. When I am thinking mindfully, I am not
merely my thoughts-- I really am thinking. Mindfulness
connects the mind to the body as we think, endowing our
mental activity with our Presence.
Tethering the mind to the body
leads to expanded awareness. It may seem counter-intuitive
to speak of expanding awareness in terms of restricting the
mind's freedom. However, we must not confuse expanded
awareness with mental hyperactivity. Expanded awareness is
the sublime quality of being alive. The only way to be
alive is to become one with that which is living. The body
is a living reality. By consciously anchoring our minds to
our living bodies, we become more alive. Mindfulness is the
practice of vitality.
To deliberately inhabit the body is to make
it our home, our habitat. The living body is the true home
for the mind. Warmth, comfort, security, and tranquility
are the qualities that we associate with home. It's no
wonder that these are the same qualities that we experience
when we are mindful. Through this process of homecoming, we
appreciate the wholeness that is the source of all dualities
and separations.
