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Guided Meditation: The Embodied Mind

Greetings friends. Greetings from Mountain View, California, unceded Ohlone^[1] land, where I am in this moment in time. It's lovely to be with you. It's lovely to sense your presence from around the world, this blue planet of ours, joining each other in this moment and practicing together.

So, this week we've been exploring the Dharma of improv, or the improv of Dharma. There are so many relationships. Today in the meditation, we will explore something that is both very important in our practice and in our lives, as well as being key in improv. Absolutely key, and that is embodiment.

We need to be embodied in our bodies, not in our heads, to be present. To be present with whatever is arising in the present moment, and the idea of embodiment—really feeling the body, sensing the body. Not being the head, not doing mindfulness from the mind, assuming that it's somewhere up in our heads, but actually bodyfulness, bodyness. Be present with whatever is arising without judgment, without fighting against it. We need embodiment. Similarly, you need to be embodied when you're improvising. Really think about what you're going to do or say, but allow your body to sense and lead and meet the moment. I'll say more about it later in the Dharma talk^[2], but to plant the seed for really bringing attention to how embodiment can support us to meet this moment, instead of jumping forward or being in a reverie of the past, and there's more that I would add to it.

So with that setup, let's begin.

Let's begin and arrive in our bodies. Sensing, sensing our bodies. Greeting our bodies. "Hello, body. Good morning, good afternoon," whatever the time is. Good moment.

"Hello, dear body. How are you? Thank you."

Checking in. Checking in with your toes. "How are your toes this morning, in this moment in time?"

"How are your feet? How are you at the bottom of the feet? What are you sensing?" Hmm.

What is being sensed by you right now? Not from the control tower of the head, but what's being felt, sensed, in the feet themselves? Contact points, touch points. Being curious, with lightness.

As if your awareness was the king of this town, going around and meeting and greeting, looking after all the residents of this whole village that is your body. This community that's your body. A sense of care. Imagine the benevolent king going around. "Hello, feet."

Awareness. Awareness checking in with the ankles. With the lower legs. Awareness filling, filling out, touching internally. And this awareness is filling. Senses in your lower legs. Maybe you notice more sensations, as if you're becoming more filled out.

As if you were a pop-up balloon or pop-up doll. Oh, feeling more air, more awareness. Awareness, oh yeah, feeling more filled out, this leg. That was just an idea. So many sensations. Moving up to the knees. The upper legs and sit bones. So many sensations, contact here. Letting your awareness rest here for a little while.

Moving up your awareness, your knowing, from your lower abdomen. Also so many sensations. Breath, expansion, contraction. Maybe a release is needed here to make more space. Maybe a release at the out-breath. Letting go with this, letting go with a sigh. Ah.

Moving awareness up, brushing the upper abdomen, lower diaphragm. Awareness of the sensations in your chest. This chest.

And your back. Lower back. So many sensations. Mid-back. Upper back. Your entire trunk, front to back.

Especially your shoulders. Feeling the sensations, and if there's any release needed, allow it to happen at the out-breath.

Upper arms, let them relax. Feel the sensations brushing the elbows^[3]. Lower arms. Wrists, hands. So much sensation in the front, the back of the hands, your palm. Let yourself enjoy, not as a grim duty, but with lightness, curiosity, interest. Enjoy the sensations.

As long as we don't get attached and cause ourselves suffering, there is no problem with enjoying what is. It feeds the heart to become calmer, more settled. It's part of the path of practice.

Gently moving up. Neck, shoulders. Shoulders and neck, up to the head and face. Softening, relaxing, releasing any tightness, and sensing so many sensations.

Now allowing awareness to fill the whole body. The entire body. This body here, sitting, breathing. Alive, pulsating, filled with sensations. Heaviness, lightness, cold, and warmth. Tingling, movement, flow. Let the awareness be content and happy, enjoying resting in the body. Nowhere to go, no need to go into the future or past. Right here, meeting this moment. It's so rich.

And we have the refuge of the body, coming home. Resting in the body, joyfully resting. Sensations, pulsating sensations of the body.

And let there be a smile. Give it a try. Greeting this body. This living, breathing, amazing anchor. Meeting, meeting our bodies with a smile. With lightness.

Let the body breathe. Simply be with the breath. Be with the sensations. There is such contentment and happiness unleashed. Just this breath. In-breath in the body. In the abdomen, the out-breath. So much comfort, ease, unleashed with just this.

If the mind is racing towards the future, planning, or reaching out into the past, can we release? Smilingly release. Let awareness rest. Know the sensations of the body breathing, meeting this moment. Grounded, embodied.

In the last minutes of this practice, can we return into the lightness, the joy? Or simply the quiet peace, the simple joy, simple happiness of just being here with the body in the moment. A light of peace, of just this, here for a moment. Taking refuge. Resting, releasing into the body.

And however this practice period was or wasn't, without attaching to outcome, but knowing, trusting that we have planted seeds of presence, embodiment, peace, delight. And appreciating ourselves for having shown up as best as we've been able to. Yay!

Many practices take time to ripen. It's okay. Pay attention the rest of the day to the body. Resting in the body. And for now, appreciating the co-created goodness. With moments of embodiment, groundedness, peace. May these cultivations serve us to awaken, to live without suffering and causing suffering. Both our lives and the lives of all beings everywhere. May all beings everywhere be well, happy, and free, including ourselves.

Thank you for your practice, friends. And as we take a moment to transition with the recording, if you feel moved to put a word or two about what's arising for you in this moment with this practice of cultivating embodiment, and the peace, the joy, the delight of embodiment, or whatever might have arisen for you.

Life as Improv (4/5) The Importance of Sensing and Leading with the Body

Greetings everyone. Greetings friends. Thank you for your practice.

And just as we ended our sit, I asked if you wanted to put some words, so I'll bring those into the space. Just a few of them, there are so many beautiful ones: alive, rested, calm and peaceful, healing, comfortable, distracted^[4], and sleepy all of a sudden. Yes, when the body gets really comfortable we can get sleepy. It's there, especially if you're sleep deprived. They can be each other's neighbors. Serenity, mettā^[5], invigoration, container, calm, softening.

Yeah, not mindful. Yeah. Energy of life, precious body. Connected head to the body. Simply here, grounded, self-compassion.

Thank you all for voicing what's in the space, and so many other things in addition to distraction and sleepiness. It's all okay. It's whatever is here, it's perfectly fine. It's whatever is arising in this moment.

So as I mentioned at the beginning of our practice today, the theme that we're continuing to explore with the Dharma of improv, or the improv of Dharma, is groundedness, is embodiment. As you might have heard before—Gil^[6] speaking, other teachers, myself speaking about embodiment—feeling the body, the mindfulness of the body. The first satipaṭṭhāna^[7] really, the first establishment of mindfulness is about the body. Most practitioners, when they start practice, they want to go to the mind, the third satipaṭṭhāna, mindfulness of mind.

The Buddha taught about mindfulness of the body. Being mindful and resting in the body first is really important. It's a foundational practice. Only later, after feeling tone, we get to mindfulness of mind. So in order to awaken, we really do need to explore and really make friends with, understand how important embodiment is for our practice and for our daily life.

And for me, it took some time when I was a beginner practitioner. It took me some time to really understand, to really grok how important mindfulness of the body was. And then it just opened up my practice, deepened it, and opened up more. It was quite profound, actually, when that unlocked.

So since then, mindfulness of the body teachings have been so important both to me and also in my teachings with others. They seem so basic. "Oh yeah, embodiment. Yeah, yeah, the mind is where it's at." No! No, believe me, it's the body where it's all at. To be grounded, to sense the body, and also to allow the wisdom of the body to lead. Instead of being in our heads and trying to think and figure it all out, let the wisdom of the body lead.

Similarly, in the Dharma of improv, it is important. It's a primary rule, a teaching of improv, that you need to be embodied, not in your head, not disconnected, thinking about what you're going to say in a scene, what you're going to do, and especially as you're interacting with others in this relational field.

In fact, the basic rule, the basic teaching is: be embodied and let your body lead. Let your body lead your choices, your thoughts, your actions, your interactions. Really use the tuning fork of the body. When you're embodied, use the tuning fork of the body. Let the body lead, sensing the emotions, all the thoughts in the body, and again, not the control tower of the head, but in the body.

In improv, the scenes where people are really embodied—and actually, as an improv player, when you are playing relationally and you are in your body, you let your body lead—it's so satisfying. It's such a satisfying co-creation. Then when you realize, "Oh actually, in that scene I was really in my head. I was trying to figure out what to say or what to do," it was hard, it was tight. Whereas in the body, there is both the ease of resting in the body—stable, grounded, yes—and the body leads, really leads, and gives you the cue as to what is needed.

There's so much more wisdom to the body than just our head thinking. In fact, I'm going to be silly for a moment: what do we ascribe in the West to be our mind? Just this much, whereas there's so much wisdom to the rest of us. In fact, there's this seminal book years ago in psychology called The Embodied Mind, really an amazing Dharma book by Francisco Varela^[8], the famous dharmic neuroscientist, and Eleanor Rosch, and Evan Thompson. Amazing book for those who are inclined that way. But really that wisdom, the wisdom of the body, embodied mind, is that the entire mind is really in our bodies, not just in our heads, and there's so much research and philosophy to support that.

So the invitation as we practice both on the cushion and as we improvise our lives—we're all improvising our lives—is to be in our bodies, not in our heads. To be in our bodies, to keep coming back to the body, to keep coming back to the body.

I'll give you an example. When I teach mindful leadership, one of the things that I teach leaders is that when you are, for example, sitting at your desk, when you are about to send an email, you're about to do something, check back with the body. Before you're about to send an email, check back with the body. Ideally you'll be embodied the whole time, but you know us, right? We get distracted. Check back with the body. How is it feeling? What's happening? Check back in with the body. Feel grounded, feel your feet on the earth, feel your hands on the keyboard, feel yourself present. Step back into the body. Be embodied, take a breath.

Embodiment is really the key to awareness. It's the key to awareness of what is arising, what the appropriate response is at this point. Is it really wise, is it kind to send this email you're about to send? Oh, the body will tell you! And if the body is so agitated, then you can^[9] get up, go for a walk, become embodied again, and land in the body.

So embodiment is so helpful, both on the cushion as we're practicing... And you might have noticed—and again, I notice this in my own practice—that when I am embodied, it seems like if there are balloons of thoughts, swinging in the wind this way and that way, the same way that with helium balloons we attach a weight to them so they don't go off everywhere, the body is that weight. It's that lovely, light... not heavy or a grim duty, but this sense of coming into our own in our practice. Unmoved, unwavering, not being pushed over by this thought or that emotion, but actually having the resilience, having the stability to be with everything that arises, with this sense of integrity of the body.

I love the statues of the Buddha in all these different postures, but mostly we see the seated posture, and there's just such a sense of integrity. You can be sitting on a chair or on the cushion, it doesn't matter, and yet as we look at his statue there's a sense of stability of the body. Grounded, stable, upright. The sense of dignity, integrity of the body is so important in our practice on the cushion.

Actually, as you're listening to me, in the relational practice of relating to others—mindful listening and mindful speaking—the primary trick, or the primary way of deep listening, is to be embodied. To really be in your body and listen to others. So as I'm listening to you, you can be practicing embodiment. You can be feeling your feet on the earth, your legs, your sit bones on the cushion. Your breath: is it tight? Is it loose? Ah, so much wisdom in the body.

And of course, relationally in improv, you need to be in your body to be actually light and responsive. You be in your body, not in your head, to be responsive. And improv can be pretty fast. If you've done improv yourself, or if you've watched it—you know, Whose Line Is It Anyway? for example—it can be quite fast, and sometimes people are intimidated. "Wow, how are they thinking about all this?" It's actually really a lot about embodiment. That's the trick. It's like The Wizard of Oz, I've pulled back the curtain. It's about embodiment. There's so much Dharma in improv; it's about meeting the moment. Meeting the moment not from the cleverness of your head, but bringing your whole self, your body. Letting the body lead.

So thank you, thank you friends. May you be embodied today as you're moving, cooking or eating or walking, going to the bathroom, sitting at your desk typing emails. Embodiment. Come back to the body listening, especially interacting with others, the relational field. And again, it's not that you just check out and you're in your body, but you let the body lead. It's both the stability and also the tuning fork. The body tells you whatever is needed. If there's upset, anger, if there's anything that's like, "Oh, that's not quite right," before it develops to full-blown anger, it's like, "Oh yeah, something isn't quite right here. Let me check in."

Anyway, so much to the mindfulness of the body, so much to embodiment, both relationally and on practice on the cushion. Thank you all, thank you so much for your cultivation, for your wholehearted, whole-body dedication. Take good care, be well, be embodied today. Observe, plant seeds, and looking forward to seeing you tomorrow.