Putting attention on the body redirects misspending, scattered energy back into our experience, right now, creating a powerful focal point and the spaciousness to live at ease, here for life.
This is a zen practice new monks engage in for a year and it's a purely body awareness meditation. After practice, allow the experience to live in you as long as it does. Don't rush ahead as you develop. You are perfect, just where you are, there isn't a better moment. Putting attention on the body throughout the day will expand and prolong presence until it becomes comfortable, natural to be in the body fully here for life, resisting nothing.
Pointers:
Read these instructions and pointers and then lay it all aside. Do not allow any kind of instruction to obscure your actual experience.
Do not complicate this simple practice. The mind may want to pick up the experience and make comments. This is common. Allow this to happen yet do not follow these thoughts. Just rest your pure awareness on the breath, on the body.
Holding gratitude makes this practice more comfortable. Having said that, don't try to change what is here. Be with what is here. If you are reading this, you can do it! Honestly, if I can do it, you can do it.
If you are a person with a racing ahead mind, set a timer. There is nothing to do but be here. Give yourself permission to not consider the clock or clock time for the whole of the timed period. Just suspend time. You won't die. You will come to life. For this amount of time, you are just not trying to get anywhere at all. You can surrender completely to the experience of your body. Breathe. :)
The body is here, there is an environment the body is in right now, there may be aches and pains in the body, there may be emotions. We sit with what is here right now, allowing whatever is here to be here with ease.
Notice any enticing thoughts to get up and do something else. Notice the mind activity and notice how it shows up in the body and let it go.
If you lie down down for this practice, try to elevate your upper half to some degree so you do not fall asleep.
Directions:
Sit or lie down
Close your eyes
Breathe deeply with a 4 or 6 count breath. So inhale for a count of 4, exhale with a count of 4, hold the exhale out for a count of 4. This evens and deepens the breath, invites presence with the body and redirects attention from thoughts and puts you into the body. Do this for at least a minute.
Rest your attention on the feeling of the physical body
Notice if the mind is commenting on the body or the experience or anything else. Just notice.
Feel the weight of the body
Feel the temperature of the skin
Notice any tension or pain in the body (if the mind is commenting, all the comments to be and also, let the thoughts go completely)
Breath into the experience of being in the body and into this tightness or tension
Put your attention either on your hands or feet. (How do you know your feet are there if you are not looking at them?)
Hold your attention on each part of the body, working from your hands and feet up to the top of your head.
Rest in the awareness of the body and the breath coming into and out of the body, the heart beating and the simplicity of this moment.
Now still resting attention on the whole body, put your attention on the whole moment. Experience with curiosity. Experience without expectation. Experience without the mind moving at all. Rest in this experience for an hour but even a glimpse is wonderful growth. Quietly. At Ease, serene. Fully in the body, this moment.
Do this daily for some weeks or months.
Much love,
Parker
