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Mindfulness of the Body (2 of 5) Calmness Surfaces Goodness

So the topic is mindfulness of the body. As an introduction to this, there is a teaching that there are two wings or two sides of Buddhist practice—meditation practice—and they are called samatha^[1] and vipassana^[2] (shamatha and vipassana in Sanskrit). Here, samatha means tranquility, being peaceful, calm. And vipassana can mean clarity. The word passana comes from the word "to see," and vi is emphatic: to see well, to see clearly. This combination of tranquility and clarity is the real balanced, or magic, ingredient of what this practice involves.

The idea of being mindful of your body—one of the purposes of paying attention to your body—is to notice the tensions of the body, the holding patterns in the body, and to spend some time letting that relax. As the body relaxes more—not to the point of going to sleep, but the direction we're going is to be relaxed with clarity, with a kind of relaxed alertness. That's the art of it: how to allow a calming, peaceful movement within the body and to have clarity at the same time.

Now, some people might feel that it's not really what meditation is supposed to be, just to relax the body. But the body and the mind are not so separate from each other. The tensions of the body are there because of the activities of the mind. As we relax the body, the mind has a chance to relax. As we relax the mind, the body has a chance to relax. These two work closely together.

If we really want to drop deep into ourselves, then we have this idea of calming, letting ourselves become more tranquil. Wherever we can feel, sense, or smell the tranquility, that's the door to greater tranquility. The Buddha talks about tranquility as the food for tranquility. In other words, tranquility is the very thing that promotes more tranquility; peace promotes more peace within us. So we relax, not just to relax and be calm, but then to really appreciate the value, to rest in that glow, the afterglow of the relaxing, of the peace, to allow us to receive it and feel it.

It's a conditioning force. Even if it's a very teeny bit that we feel a peacefulness or tranquility, feel that fully, receive it, and let it be a guide to how to grow that in a gentle, calm way. Don't be in a hurry. Don't be greedy. Don't be pushing for it.

As this body becomes more tranquil, and as we develop more clarity and we're more mindful of the body and see what's happening here, it brings a lot of benefits to us. One of them is that the body then protects us. The primary thing that protects us is against ourselves, in the sense that when we're really sensitive and attuned to how we react, contract, and pull back, how we build up tension in the body—if we're attuned to that and really pay attention to it, we get the early warning sign that there's the danger of going into some of these mind states and motivations that require us to be tense. We might get angry, we might get greedy, we might spin out with fear in ways that are not really useful for us. To stay grounded in the body and get the signals of how we're reacting, then we maybe don't have to react that way. We can relax.

Also, the more we can be familiar with our body and at peace in our body, there is a kind of stability in the body as well. We're less likely to be pushed over by our reactivity, our reactions, and our reactions to what people do. We can stay grounded, and that's a protection.

The body is also a way the Buddha talks about how the body protects us from being unethical. I think he doesn't say this explicitly, but I think the implications are that when the body is not calm and at ease, and we're not clear and mindful of what's going on in the body, we won't notice how we get more tense. Being unethical involves tension. Something gets kind of contracted and tight in order to want to hurt someone.

If we take refuge in a relaxed body, a peaceful body and mind, we'll get the early warning signs that something is off when we start feeling tension. But more importantly, we start feeling the kind of self-harm that unethical behavior does: the tensions that close up, the way we close up. It's kind of grating, it's kind of painful to be angry, to be greedy, to be hostile. The more sensitive the system becomes, the more we get the clear indication, the clear experience that we're harming ourselves as well.

On the other hand, the more we're connected to this body in a sensitive, good, calm way, the more we'll also become attuned to these good qualities within. The things that have more room to show themselves more almost need a receptive feeling, an open, receptive, calm, non-conceited, non-aggressive kind of stance. Generosity, loving-kindness, friendliness, care, forgiveness—all these beautiful interpersonal qualities have more of a chance to be recognized, more of a chance for us to be attuned to them.

Sometimes those can be scary to have. We feel the fear, we start feeling tense. But if we learn to trust the tranquil, relaxed body, what we find is this is a fantastic support for living what in English we would call an ethical life. A life that is for the welfare of others, the welfare of ourselves, and a life that wants to avoid causing harm, because that's the nature or the quality of this relaxed state, this clear, relaxed, open state.

This movement of relaxing, calming, settling the body, and relaxing and settling the mind, has ethical connotations, ethical consequences. It makes us better people. It makes us more careful and conscientious people. It's a beautiful thing to do.

To practice mindfulness of the body, one of the aspects is not simply to be aware of the body, but actually to take the time to calm the body, settle the body, bring some peace, let go, relax the body. This is a teaching and instruction that goes all the way back to the Buddha. The Buddha talked about settling into the body, feeling the whole body, and then relaxing the bodily activities, relaxing the tensions, the active ways in which the body is tense and tight. To calm the body. Like last week, I like the expression "cool the body." If the body is overheated, let it become cooler, calmer, more peaceful, more settled, more at ease in this body.

It's a beautiful thing. It's a profound thing to really center one's practice in this body. Perhaps there is no real deepening into the path of harmlessness, the path of liberation, without being well attuned and connected to a body—a body that slowly learns how to relax deeply, how to be peaceful, how to be at ease.

Reflections

May you enjoy your body. If you want to do a little bit of reflection about something during the next 24 hours, you might reflect on what I said: that things like anger, hostility, greed, craving, being perplexed, being confused, being deluded—all involve some kind of tension, some kind of tightening up or contraction.

In and of themselves, motivations and emotions like love, generosity, kindness, and friendliness don't involve tension. They arise from a place where there is no tension. Why don't you reflect on that topic? See if that's true for you, how it might be true, and the implications of it. Maybe talk to some friends about this distinction. What does it imply that there are certain things that arise with tension, and some things arise without? What does that teach you? What do you learn from that? That might be an interesting topic to reflect on.

So, be well and take good care of yourself. May these reflections help the best of you to come forth for the world. Thank you.