Thoughts I've thunk while sippin' at a cup of tea and reading something provoking, often get dropped here for the benefit of humanity and my own hubris.
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Read an interesting article this morning in the January 2003 issue of Shambhala Sun entitled, To Touch Enlightenment with the Body by Reginald A. Ray. He talks about an experience he had while trying to meditate with all of the aches and pain from his body trying to distract him. This, he said, inflamed his mind even more to the point where the pain in the body and the pain in his mind was like “a nuclear reactor that had attained critical mass and was about to explode.”
And then something shifted for him. “All of a sudden,” he writes, “I was utterly free of physical discomfort. I had not dissociated—in fact I was much more fully in my body than before—but somehow I let go of my resistance and struggle. I surrendered to the pain rather than continued to fight against it. My body responded by relaxing. I sat in utter peace, feeling the contentment of having a physical body.”
Interesting idea … for I have often been frustrated by my inability to meditate because of this distraction of pain from the body. For me, it is the leg falling asleep, the lower back pain, the kink in my head and the tightness in my fore-head. So I tried it.
What I found was that the body helped me focus on meditation better than when I was trying to ignore it. I mean, I have always read about focusing on the breath … but not about focusing on the entire body at once. As soon as a little pain crept up, I “looked” at it, and almost enjoyed it as I experienced the pain objectively as any other sensation. The pain sometimes would go away because my mental state was then so much better, but even if the pain stayed for a while, it didn’t bother or distract me.
Lovely. A practical idea that also doubles as a far more deeper concept when you look at pain in the body as warnings. The medical community is finally accepting that stress is a major factor in many diseases … well, at least a trigger of the body’s inability to combat the diseases that surround us.
But surely the body would just say one day, “I’ve had it with this stress, I’m going to have a heart-attack!” I would think that it would start with more subtler nudges of pain first. A little tightness in the neck over that heavy work-load. A throbbing in the lower back over that project schedule. A bad cold to make you take one of your sick days to relax …
It seems that paying attention to your body may give you indications that your life needs some adjustments, and that taking care of your body ends up taking care of your life.
© 2003-2005, Howard Abrams • Except where otherwise noted, all original content is licensed under a Creative Commons License (see details).
Hi Bud.
Thanks for the musings. I’m glad you take the time to read and reflect from time to time. I always enjoy them.
My thoughts on this one I had to pass on while its still on my mind.
It seems most of those who have left organized religion and are still searching for something, usually gravitate towards this idea of a spiritual life. Best stated by a mantra we hear too often, (We are spiritual beings in a physical world.) Your musings reminded me of one of my mantras, (we live in a physical universe, on a physical planet, with a physical body and before you take the time to understand any of it you want to get outa here?)
We can’t even have this so called spiritual thought without the physicial body, which perhaps translate to-when we turn to understanding the physicial we may find our “enlightenment”, our pleasure, joy, all we ever desired and it will be physicial…… Its like, before you learn your ABCs, you want to enter graduate school!
Seems a little backward folks!
Love dan.
Comment posted on Wednesday, 22 January 2003“The soul is here for its own joy.” is the quote that comes to mind for me. This somewhat parallels Dan’s (I like his philosophy and him - Hi Dan) thoughts on figuring it out here before we look to move upward and onward.
We are the physical manifestation of our soul or at least our physical awareness of this incarnate. It should be enjoyed and pleasures should be taken. But alas Yin chases Yang….
Balance must exist. Knowledge must be drunk. The corpus callum not only connects left and right but the third part of our “brain” - self actualization of our soul.
Ha! The physical world takes on such importance to us. Why? Because we are lazy and it offers the easiest perception to focus on. All religions point this out and seek to help us out. I believe the soul to be like liquid; it pools in low spots becuase it is easy. It can do two things; One, stay there and become stagnant and changing only into smelling cespool whos very being is defined by what lives amongst it or expels from it, or, Two, it evaporates and reaches upward in a much freer state. Here it is free to blow with the breeze, to mingle with like free souls, to gather in the cloud of its choosing, to look upward, spaceward, or downward. To laugh, to change shapes, to change clouds, to play with the lightning and thunder or to honor the sun. Here to it may choose to return, to visit a different plain or to simply hide in the barren glacial cold.
To believe this is it is wrong. To worship only this realization is shallow. Religion makes it all to narrow. I think that the soul is here for its own joy but hopefully we are all truly just one aspect or drop of something bigger and thus “here” to help each other reach a nirvana or joy.
Peace
Comment posted on Wednesday, 24 December 2003
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