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Guided Meditation: Feeling Pleasure

Hello everyone, and welcome. The topic of this week is different ways of experiencing our body, and one of the purposes of this teaching is to encourage your mind to be less interested in its thinking while meditating. Be less interested in thinking about anything else but just really what's happening here in the present moment in your meditation.

One of the things to be focused on is the body. Some of what we'll become aware of is the karmic body^[1]. The body has a lot to do with our holding patterns, our tensions that we carry with us, and learning how to relax and release those. And if we can't relax and release them, to learn a wise equanimity, a wise non-reactivity in relationship to our physical discomfort. Not all our physical discomfort is karmic; some of it is just raw pain. But we can develop a lot of karmic tension around the raw pain.

Learning to be wise and work with this karmic body is part of practice. But one of the ways to support us to find this non-reactivity, to find equanimity, to find a different way of being, is to start becoming attuned to the pleasures of the body—the subtle ways in which there are feelings of relief, well-being, and pleasure as we meditate. Dharmic^[2] pleasure.

One of those pleasures is the pleasure of relaxing the body, the subtle sense of relief, freshness, openness, or lightness that happens when we relax. It's a kind of release of energy. It's a kind of release of potential that's all bottled up in our tension. There starts to be a little bit more of a flow, a little bit more of an opening, a glow, or a warmth through the body that begins to knit the body together. Tension and holding in the body tend to divide the body, and the release of that tension tends to begin unifying the body.

The same thing happens as we learn to let go of our undermining thoughts. Much of our thinking can be depressing or discouraging. It can reinforce the tension in the body and reinforce a kind of orientation to life and to our body that doesn't make room for the emergence of a sense of well-being, health, and healing through our body.

So for this meditation, I would like to direct your attention, as much as it's available to you, to the feelings of well-being and pleasure in the body. Not to discount or pretend that there isn't discomfort, but maybe to bring our attention into a kind of balance where we're not only focusing on our discomfort or on the thoughts about life and the world that are difficult. We begin finding a refreshment through mindfulness of the body.

Begin by assuming a posture that is alert but also gives you feelings of good energy, vitality, or even a sense of appreciation to assume this posture. Maybe sitting a little straighter, maybe relaxing in some way.

Lower your gaze, looking down at forty-five degrees so your eyes begin to rest, not looking at anything in particular. Then gently let your eyelids close.

In a way that's nice for you, take a deeper inhale—slow, long, deep. Maybe almost as if in your mind's eye you say "ah," exhale as you relax the body on the exhale.

Let your breathing return to normal. As you inhale, see if you can find a place in your body where there's any tension. As you exhale, begin the process of relaxing the tension, releasing it, softening. Feel if there is any pleasure, goodness, or rightness in the relaxation.

As you relax on the exhale, maybe also calm the exhale itself. The calming of the body and the calming of an exhale. Softening the belly.

When the body is tense, the tension kind of defines the body and contributes to boundaries in the body. In meditation, the edges of the body begin to relax as well. As you exhale, you might soften the edges of your body, the way you experience them.

Perhaps feeling whatever vitality or well-being might be present for you in your body. Breathing with it, breathing with that well-being. Relaxing with it.

Another way that we diminish the free movement of our vitality is with a lot of thinking, reacting, judging, and wanting. As you exhale, if possible, relax the thinking mind. Calm the thinking mind. Feeling whatever pleasure there is with the calming of the thinking mind.

Thinking also defines our body, the boundaries of the body. Thinking also divides the body. To relax into the body without thinking. Quiet mind, and feeling the pleasures, however small and minute they might be, that exist in your body sitting here.

Whatever sense of well-being there is, whatever feelings of pleasure there are, breathe with it. Maybe expanding it as you inhale. Relaxing into it as you exhale.

If there is pain, discomfort, or emotional distress, it's okay, allow it to be there. But see if you can not be preoccupied with it, defined by it. Be occupied with whatever sense of well-being, pleasure, happiness, or joy is found in your breathing, is found in the humming of your body.

On the inhale, expanding, spreading the pleasure, the well-being. On the exhale, relaxing into it. On the exhale, letting go of your thinking so there's more room to feel the well-being of the body.

Remember to feel the pleasure and well-being in the body. Let it spread as you inhale. Let yourself settle into it on the exhale. It might help to make a very small little smile with the corner of your lips.

See if you can move out of your thoughts into the pleasure of your body, the joy of your body, the humming well-being of a relaxed, soft, open body. Where there might be a part of the body with a glow. Where there's an appreciation for being alive in this body. And the mind is quiet and peaceful, feeling that joy.

When we are centered in a joyful body, a body with well-being, there can be a kind of glow that spreads outwards from us. That's both a protection—a little bit like a force field—and also a channel for our goodwill. The more well-being in the body, the more natural it is to feel kindness, love, care, and friendliness for others.

Imagine what it would be like to meet someone in the state that you're in now. To meet someone where nothing is needed, nothing needs to be said. It's okay just to sit together like you're sitting on a park bench. Companions in goodwill.

And then saying these words to yourself in your mind, but as if they're messages that can float outward on your goodwill into the world:

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

Dharmette: Kāya (2 of 5) The Joy Body

Continuing the theme of this week: the different ways we can experience our body. Because they can be so dramatically different depending on the circumstance and the state of the mind, we can almost refer to them as different bodies. Yesterday, there was the karmic body. I think that's where most people live most of the time. If they're paying attention to their bodies, they're experiencing the body that's very much under the influence and impact of our thinking, wanting, not wanting, or fear. All this kind of volitional force is operating, and if used chronically, it builds up a very strong feeling of the body and a sense of what the body is about.

Meditation begins to quiet down two things. First, it quiets down the ongoing karmic formation—the ongoing karmic force that is shaping our experience of our life, but especially our experience of our body. Second, we begin to recover from the legacy of that karmic shaping. Very simply, if you spend your days with your shoulders up to your ears because you're tense or afraid, that continuous fear is the karmic force. As we stop the fear, the shoulders can relax, but the tension might be so chronic that they don't relax all the way. Sitting and meditating, slowly the shoulders might find a way to relax more and more, and the legacy of that karmic anxiety or fear begins to abate.

That gets replaced with time—not automatically—with a sense of pleasure, well-being, ease, lightness, openness, or softness in the very same shoulders. It's easy then to go on to the next concern and not linger to pay attention to the shoulders. But it's possible also to feel how there's a kind of release of energy. The tightness and definition of the shoulders softens, and they become more porous, softer, or more in flow with the rest of the body. There's a release of energy, and it might not be noticed because it may not be much. But the opposite—staying chronically tense—is exhausting and can really create a lot of weariness through the day. Without that tension, our energy is more available in a cleaner, easier way and doesn't get so tired.

As we sit in meditation relaxing the karmic body, there starts to be available to us not only a nicer flow, glow, or vitality of energy, but as we start getting settled in more and more, pleasant experiences begin to show themselves. They might be very subtle, but starting to pay attention to them allows them to grow and have a different influence on us than if we continually take in the karmic pain, karmic thoughts, and all the ideas of what's wrong about the world, ourselves, or our situation.

These thoughts have a huge impact on us, and if those negative thoughts are chronic, they can have huge karmic repercussions. It's not cost-free to spend a lot of time with angry, depressing, or undermining thoughts. Part of what meditation can begin doing is to quiet down all that thinking. If we pay attention to the subtle pleasure and well-being, it begins showing us a different orientation. It shows us there's more to the story of our life than our challenges. Part of the story of our life is our capacity for well-being, for a feeling of a healthy body, a flow of a body. Even if there's illness, injury, or pain in the body, it's possible that the overall atmosphere of the body that holds that pain is one that's soft and pleasant with joy.

This sense of pleasure and joy makes it much more interesting for the mind to want to be present here and now. It supports the mind to want to be in the present moment with the body and the breathing. There starts to be a unification process. Maybe around the breathing and the mindfulness practice, the mind is less scattered and less interested in other things. Our interest becomes more and more centered here, which creates space for something to begin to emerge.

The karmic mind is a reactive mind, and a reactive mind doesn't make room for the wellsprings within to flow freely and emerge. One of the emergent qualities that begins to arise in meditation is a feeling of joy and delight. I liken it to a child letting go, sliding down a slide and squealing, so happy. We're not squealing in meditation, but letting go into breathing and into our experience here—at some point, there does feel like there's a little bit of momentum, joy, and pleasure from that letting go.

There's also some mysterious way—maybe not so mysterious for people who know the neurochemistry of the brain—that as we begin to get concentrated, settled, and focused here, there starts to emerge, as a wellspring from within, more and more joy and happiness. Over time—and it might be years for some of us—this happiness and joy in meditation begins to suffuse the body. It begins to spread until, at some point, it dominates. My experience is that somehow it lifts me out of the karmic body, and then when the concentration is no longer there, I come back into it. As it lifts out, there's a pervasive feeling of well-being, a glow, a warmth, a joy, and a lightness that can have all kinds of different intensities, from mild to sometimes quite strong. We start feeling a whole different sense of what the body is, and this is sometimes called the joy body or the bliss body.

It's an emergent experience of the body that is a paradigm shift for the mind. It's kind of like, "Wow, is this possible? Is this my body?" It involves almost a shift of identity where the boundaries of the body are not so strong, where there is a sense of safety, confidence, openness, and joy. We start experiencing ourselves in a very different way than the karmic body will ever let us know. If we only have the karmic body as a reference for how the body is to be experienced, we think it is the real body. Remember, these are the bodies that we experience; they're not the corporeal, physical body. All experience of the body is mediated through the states of the mind, and as those states shift, the experience of the body shifts. The karmic body is just one more way in which the mind predisposes us to experience the body. It's not any more real than the joy body or the bliss body.

They both have their place and value. Begin settling and relaxing into the sense of pleasure, joy, and happiness. Maybe at first there are only hints and traces, but these are things to relax into, open into, allow to form, and have as a support—a toehold in the present moment—so that toehold can grow. Inevitably, people who experience this joy, delight, and pleasure in the body will become attached to it. They will prioritize it, try to make it happen again, and try too hard. Of course, there's no crime in doing this. Maybe it's a developmental stage that most people have to go through. I went through it until I realized it wasn't working. We have to go through the attachment, clinging, wanting, and trying to make it happen with too much force and expectation. Once we start seeing that, we can begin working with it and letting it go. If we stay with the attachment and the demands that it should be a certain way, we're just contributing to more of the karmic stream, and the karmic body gets reinforced.

Chances are, if you start opening up and experiencing this joy body in meditation, you will get attached. You've been warned, so that now you can be mindful of that, hold it lightly, and find your way through it.

I certainly understand that this teaching on the joy body might be very distant from some of you. You might have no idea what I'm talking about, and it might even feel like an offense to the challenges and difficulties you have with your body. However, there might be something here for you even so. Maybe through the day today, give yourself extra time and pauses. Put your smartphone on a timer, and every thirty minutes or every hour, have a real, extended pause, the only purpose of which is to feel embodied physical pleasure and joy. Go for a walk, sit and have some tea, look out the window, and relax. See if you can use joy, delight, or pleasure in your body as a touchstone for a few moments, and see what happens through the day. Use these touchstones as check-ins to your body's capacity for pleasure, joy, and happiness.

May you have greater well-being today than you would have otherwise. Thank you.