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On Monday, Marie will facilitate. She shares:
Dear Thay, dear friends,
When it comes to my body, I have a habit energy of attending to the “squeaky wheel” - the part that is not working as I want it to and/or is causing me pain. Over the years, I’ve tried to inhabit my body more fully, but somehow a gravitational force (aka - something in me) keeps pulling me back to my “equilibrium”. Recently, I’ve been experimenting with a radically different approach: bringing compassion and gratitude to different areas of my body that were not troubling me. As Thay might say about practicing with a “non-toothache”: “When we’re having a toothache, we know that not having a toothache is a wonderful thing. Yet when we don’t have a toothache, we’re still not happy. A non-toothache is very pleasant.”
This shift was prompted by my husband having been diagnosed with bladder cancer and the emotional and intellectual roller coaster that ensued. One night, I was lying in bed in the wee hours, awake and reflecting on how lucky we were that his asymptomatic cancer was discovered early enough to be treated. I was struck by the contrast between how much my body does relative to how little I’m aware of. So, I decided to try an experiment.
I generated the energy of mindfulness and then invited different parts of my body, one by one, to bask in that energy for as long as they wanted. Then, if it felt right, I brought compassion to the body part, and spaciousness, and gratitude. Taking as much/little time as the body part seemed to need, and then moving on to a different part. Fingers, blood, bone, bile, hips, mouth… You get the idea. I didn’t try to cover the whole of my body - instead, I invited whichever parts seemed to want a drink of mindfulness as well as some body parts that I could not feel, although I knew they were there.
This felt restorative and generated what felt like a healthy hangover of body awareness & gratitude. On Monday, we’ll explore this topic in a body-felt way. We’ll start with a guided meditation bringing “rays of mindfulness” to different parts of our body, and we may listen to a short Dharma talk by Thich Nhat Hanh about mindfulness of our body.
If you’re moved to explore this topic before Monday, here are some questions you might consider:
To what extent are you aware of your body throughout the day/night?
When you feel sore, tired and/or unwell, what happens in your head, your heart and your body? How about when you feel vibrant, healthy and/or strong?
What causes you to exit your body? To inhabit it? Are there patterns?
How does inhabiting your body, or holding it with compassion, affect your feeling of interbeing?
I hope you will join us.
With love and a bow,
Marie