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Guided Meditation: Trusting the Body

I was reminded that Martin Luther King Day is one of my favorite holidays, and Martin Luther King is one of my heroes. I appreciate him so much. There are all kinds of reasons to celebrate him. For myself, I put tremendous value in the people who have advocated for nonviolent change. They are dedicated to nonviolent civil disobedience, and the courage to do that against tremendous odds and violence is a powerful lesson for us that there is an alternative to violence. It takes a lot of courage. I would rather not live in a world where the first choice to settle disputes is violence.

Hello everyone, and welcome to this Monday. It's a holiday here in the United States celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. I think it's one of my favorite holidays for all the tremendous good that he represents and the values that Martin Luther King stood for. I wish we could have more celebrations of such values.

These weeks, the focus on these 7:00 a.m. sessions is how to practice with challenges, and we're still laying down the foundation for doing so. Today for the meditation, I'd like to suggest that one of the very important foundations for living with challenges—dealing with challenges—is our physical body. Well, I shouldn't say physical body; I should maybe say the experienced body. I say that because the way we experience the body is a cooperative enterprise of the mind and the body. They participate in our sense of the body. The way we experience our bodies is not separate from how the mind processes it and registers it.

This experienced body that we can feel, sense, and know is not static. It's not a lump of flesh; it's something that's dynamic and wise. It's not just the recipient of challenges, like a victim of challenges. Its instinct, its nature, is to respond, process, and work with whatever is coming. There is a tremendous movement in this body toward homeostasis, to healing, to wholeness, if we allow it.

When there are challenges, it's quite powerful, especially in meditation, to keep coming back to: How is the body experiencing this? And not only experiencing it, but how is the body processing it? I like the expression composting it—feeling what the challenge feels like in the body. Trust the body. Don't just be the recipient and the person who's burdened by whatever is happening. Trust how the body makes room. Feel it in the body.

There are a number of things that can happen. One is that it can be very grounding. It's very easy to get ungrounded, uncentered, and disoriented by being in our thoughts, stories, and ideas, spinning around. Being in the body is an alternative to being repetitively lost and caught up in the spinning mind. So, being in the body is grounding. Being in the body gives us more sensitivity to what's really happening there. If that sensitivity to what's happening is too much for our degree of capacity, then it's useful to move the body. Let the body's movements allow things to be easier to be with.

For people doing mindfulness practice, the two meditation practices that are embodied practices are sitting meditation—where we really feel it's all here—and if it's too much, then stand up and do a walking meditation. Let the walking be the movement that holds it all. Perhaps there's more to be said about this, but these are the basic ones. Keep referring back to the body. Let the body be the center. Don't ignore everything else, but see if you trust the body, if the body can somehow make space and room for the challenges you're feeling within.

There is huge training in mindfulness: training in mindfulness of the body, embodied awareness. That's what we'll do today.

So, taking a meditation posture. This posture we take is such an important resource and support for how we can be with challenges. Take a posture that expresses confidence, that expresses a kind of "I can do this" dignity. Value confidence in the posture. Even if you don't feel confident, it's possible to assume a confident posture, and that makes a difference.

And then gently close your eyes, and begin inhabiting the body, discovering the body. Take long, slow, deep breaths. Feeling the rib cage stretch and expand as you breathe in deeply. Maybe expanding of the belly. Maybe a lifting and expansion of the back rib cage. And as you inhale all that air, then as you exhale, let it all relax.

Letting your breathing return to normal.

Continue to relax the body on the exhale. And as you relax it, let that be an occasion for sensing and feeling more fully the area that relaxes. Feeling it and sensing it with a silent mind.

On the exhale, relaxing muscles of the face.

Relaxing the shoulders.

Relaxing the belly.

Relaxing your legs, thighs, calves, so that you're not fighting gravity. You're going along with gravity, so your legs and feet feel more grounded on the surface that supports them.

And then gently become aware of the body breathing. Imagine the sensations of breathing in the body as the center of all things, and you stay close to that center. Staying close to breathing.

Around the edges of that center, through your body, feel your way into how you are right now, while being centered, breathing in and breathing out. In whatever way you are, feel how it is in your body to be this way, with breathing being a gentle massage or a gentle stroking, touching how you are in the body, but staying primarily with the breathing, so you don't get lost in concerns about how you are.

And if anything takes you away from your breathing—a concern or preoccupation—is there any correlation, any way that it has shifted how you feel in your body? Know the distracted mind physically. Know your emotions as they appear physically. Trust the body. Feel how it is in the body, whatever is happening. Sounds outside, what's happening in the body. Feeling the body while continuing to breathe mindfully.

Trust that the most important thing now is to experience your life as felt by your body. And perhaps that's a protection from spinning out in thoughts, even a protection from fear becoming too strong. And if there is fear or distress in the body, feel it as long as it's comfortable to do so. Or feel elsewhere in your body places of stability, spaciousness, calm, that can support you with a challenge.

Imagine for the last five minutes of the meditation that your body has a tremendous confidence to be present for itself, to feel its embodied existence and all the sensations, emotions, and activities. The body can sit still and quiet, process it all, allow it all to be, allow it all to move. Sit with this embodied confidence, with the mind starting to become more quiet and still.

And as we come to the end of this meditation, bring your attention in your body to where there might be a tenderness or a gentleness, maybe where there is love, care, or goodwill. How does that live in you? How do you feel this in your body?

Is there some way that you can, for a minute or two here, make room for kindness and goodwill towards others? An embodied sense of kindness, gentleness, attentiveness, and to have well wishes for others. No matter who they are or where they are, it would be nice if they could be safe and happy. Even our enemies might be nicer to everyone if they were safe, happy, and peaceful.

May we share this human life together, offering our goodwill, sharing it with everyone. Perhaps we never know, we might be planting seeds of goodwill and kindness all over, wherever we go. Who knows how they will sprout after we're gone?

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings everywhere be free.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Challenge Check-In (1 of 5) Mindfulness of Body

Good day. We'll continue this ongoing series on practicing with challenges—any challenge at all, from the minor to the extreme. Though the extreme might need extra care, attentiveness, and a special approach (maybe we'll get to that later in this ongoing series), we're laying down the foundation now. These are the elements that are really helpful for being able to address whatever challenges we have.

This week I want to focus on what are called the Four Foundations of Mindfulness^[1]. I think most of you know what they are, and I've taught about them here before: the body, feelings, mind states, and mental processes. I want to discuss how they can be a tremendous support, foundation, and a kind of grounding for working with challenges.

To introduce this idea, I want to tell you a Buddhist fable, a Jataka tale^[2], that's kind of like Chicken Little and "the sky is falling." There was a rabbit in the ancient world who was sleeping, taking a nap under a mango tree. At some point, a big mango from high up in the tree fell on the ground right next to the head of the rabbit with a big bang and a shake. It woke the rabbit up, and the rabbit immediately assumed that the sky was falling. So the rabbit jumped up and started running away yelling, "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"

He came across a whole herd of rabbits, and when they heard that the sky is falling, they started screaming and running along too: "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" They went further and came across a whole bunch of deer. The deer heard about this, and they started running too. They went further along and saw the water buffaloes, and the water buffaloes started running. And the elephants started running. Everybody started running, all of them thinking they had better run fast because the sky was falling.

High up on a mountain, on a cliff overlooking all this, was a lion. The lion could see that this huge mass of animals was running right for a cliff and would fall right off if they kept running at that speed. So the lion quickly jumped in front of them, roared, and said, "Stop!"

Then he asked, "Why are you running, elephants?" "Oh, because the water buffalo said the sky is falling." And the water buffalo said, "Oh, it's because of the deer." And the deer said, "Oh, it's because of the rabbits." "Why were you running?" the lion asked the rabbits. All the rabbits looked at the first rabbit and said, "Well, we heard him say that the sky is falling."

The lion said, "Well, let's go investigate. Where were you sleeping?" So they went to investigate and went back to the tree. And there, right next to where the rabbit was sleeping, was the big mango. Everyone realized that there was no sky falling; it was just a mango that had fallen.

In this Jataka tale—this birth story—of course, the Buddha was the lion in a previous lifetime. But the important thing was this idea of knowing to investigate. If we don't have the mental capability to investigate what's happening, then with challenges we're sometimes caught up in the swirl, the agitation of it all, and the preoccupation. More importantly, we get caught up in the assumptions we have around what's happening: the concepts, the abstractions, the future planning, the predictions, and the fixed ideas about who we are and what's happening to us.

The ability to stop before we go over the cliff and investigate, to take a good look at what's happening here, requires knowing where to look. Where is the grounding? Where are the useful places to bring attention? The Buddha offered these four areas, called the Four Foundations (or establishments) of Mindfulness. When we are in challenges, we can check in with ourselves: How are these particular areas being experienced? How is it being felt in the body? Is this pleasant or unpleasant? What kind of mind state is operating when I'm caught up in, or involved in, this challenge? What are the mental processes that are reacting to the challenge? And what are the mental states that are supportive of being with this challenge in a better way?

Those four areas are an alternative to the abstractions we live in—the big stories, predictions, and ideas that are generated by fear, anger, and confusion. It's a particular subset of the total gestalt of it all, a gestalt which is often infused with imagination, assumptions, predictions, thoughts, beliefs, and ideas about self.

Some of the ways that we enter into challenges actually limit our ability to engage with them wisely. Part of what makes the challenge so much more difficult is the way our inner life responds to it, lives with it, is confused by it, or gets caught up in it. Because that's so much of the challenge—the challenge is not just the challenge "out there," but rather how we are in relationship to it—it is incredibly powerful to do the mindfulness check-in. Check in with ourselves. Go through the checklist if you like such things.

Okay, this is challenging now. How is this being felt in the body? What is activating the body? Where am I tense in the body? Where am I contracted in the body? Am I even connected to my body, or am I disconnected from my body with all this? What's happening here with the body?

What's happening with the feeling tone? Is this really unpleasant? Is it really pleasant? Beyond just a physical experience, the predominant experience is the unpleasantness of it all.

What's happening with the mind states? Is the mind confined, contracted? Is it filled with desires, greed, and wanting something so desperately, needing something so desperately? Or is the mind angry, blaming, upset, guilty, or experiencing forms of aversion? Is the mind confused, perplexed, lost? Is the mind narrow and tight? Is it expansive and open? How is the mind state?

Then, the mental processes: Are we operating with the hindrances^[3]? Is there ill will? Is there sensual desire or covetousness? Is there sloth and torpor? Is there agitation, restlessness, or remorse? Is there doubt? Or is there calm? Can there be calm here? Is there mindfulness? Can there be mindfulness here? Is there curiosity and investigation? Is there joy? Is there tranquility? Is there some ability to stay focused and concentrated here? What about equanimity?

As we do this check-in, we can discover which of these predominates. Sometimes what predominates is what needs the most attention. We're gathering information about how we are so that we can know how to wisely respond to the situation.

This presupposes we do this check-in not in the middle of a traffic accident, when we have to take immediate care of things. We do it when we can, like in meditation, or when we're not right in the middle of the fire of a challenge where we have to put out the fire. At other times, do the mindfulness check-in and notice which of these four predominate, and know how they operate. Then you're in a better position to respond and know what to do after the check-in.

The check-in can go quite quickly. The response might be to go for a walk, call a friend, or do something really nice. Or it might be to go to bed and pull the sheets over your head. It might be to go meditate. But you're gathering the information to see how it's happening here. You're breaking the trance of the mind's overall picture, fear, and concern about what it is. You're beginning to break that caught-up-ness in the assumptions and the "sky is falling" attitude.

It's very respectful to do this kind of check-in, to really get underneath the surface of the assumptions and beliefs that are operating, so you can find out what's really happening and then, based on that, decide what to do.

If what you're doing is mindfulness meditation, then as we see which foundation is most predominant or most in need of presence, one of the useful defaults is to stay close to how it is in your body. Feel the embodied nature of it. What's happening in your body? Trust the body. Don't treat the body as a static victim or just a receiver of experiences. It's a participant in experiences. It has its own wisdom. It has its own goodness to bring to what's happening, if we allow it—if we make room for it, if we're willing to drop into the body, get centered, grounded in the body, and then let the body process what's happening.

When we're challenged, there can be a lot of reactivity, tension, tightness, and contraction in the body. By feeling the body, the body wants to relax. As we allow ourselves to feel it, it's kind of like we get out of the way. We're not continuing to direct agitated attention from the mind to the body. The mind is lightening up so the body has a chance to relax.

The mindfulness check-in is a way of changing the perspective of what's happening for us, and it's useful to do at the right time. As I said earlier, when we're not right in the middle of having to deal with something, but when we take it home with us or when we're in a more quiet situation, there's a time and place to do the mindfulness check-in and see what you learn from that.

For this week, we'll go through this checklist. We'll go through and see how to use these Four Foundations as a way of bringing a useful perspective to our lives when we're challenged. It's an alternative perspective to the one we usually bring. By using the checklist approach, this alternative might highlight for you the perspective you were bringing. You might then see it more clearly, and maybe see that some of the assumptions and beliefs that go into how we respond to challenges are optional, provisional, not needed, and actually interfere with our ability to be wise in how we take care of things.

So, the mindfulness checklist. For the next few days, we'll go through these four and emphasize the value of each one. Tomorrow we'll cover a very important topic: the second foundation, which has to do with mindfulness of the pleasant and the unpleasant, where the pleasant actually has a very important role.

Thank you, and may you go through the checklist today periodically and see what it does for you in different circumstances. Thank you.