2021-06-14 The Dharmic Life (1 of 5) The Body as Your Monastery

8:10PM Jun 14, 2021

Speakers:

Gil Fronsdal

Keywords:

body

sensations

zen

practice

embodied

connected

dharma

monastic life

life

tightness

aware

hands

live

tremendous benefit

zen teacher

mind

feelings

mindfulness

happening

attitudes

As we begin this week, the theme I had in mind is practicing in our lives. You could say that all of Buddhism is about practicing in our daily lives. So many of the teachings are completely connected and relevant to how we go about living our lives. But the orientation for the talks this week is for people who would like to live a more Dharmic life. Sometimes they consider that it would be nice to go live in a retreat center or in a monastery for a while, or find some way to live more fully in the Dharma. Maybe it's not so easy to do in daily life, where there's work and family and busyness and things to do.

So what is it we can do to receive some of the benefits from a life absorbed in a contemplative life, a renunciant life, a monastic life? How could we have some of those benefits in ordinary lay life?

So for that purpose, I want to talk about five different ways we can bring more practice into our lives or live more in the Dharma. I would like to believe these are available to all of us, and if you were to really pick these five areas up, you'd find tremendous benefit. Not only would you find the Dharma, the Dharma would find you. And you would allow yourself to be a receptive vessel for the Dharma, and it might fill you in a wonderful way.

The first of these five is to be more connected to your body – to practice mindfulness of the body, to center yourself in your body. One of the things that I – delightfully and surprisingly – discovered while practicing in different Buddhist traditions, was that one way or the other, the traditions I practiced seemed to all emphasize being grounded and connected to your body. Sometimes it was not explicit, but it was clear you had to bring the body along and practice with your body.

When I was practicing Zen, I don't know if there was really an active discussion about mindfulness of the body. But so much of the practice was embodied. You sat in a particular posture that really required you to be embodied. If you were eating, you did it in a way that was embodied. We ate formally in Zen practice. We would walk in ways that encouraged more embodiment and connection to our body. When we were working, we were instructed to really put ourselves fully into it – to be connected, involved, and absorbed in the work in such a way that our body was really there for it. There was a strong emphasis on being in your body.

I learned so much about being embodied by working in the monastic kitchen when I was a Zen student – really being present with my whole body as best I could. It wasn't always easy. I tried to be connected to whatever physical work I was doing in the kitchen. It was all physical work. We did it with both hands – the full body – really connected to our work and absorbed in the physicality of it. I did this for a whole year. The way we practiced did wonderful things for me by teaching me how to be in the world in an embodied, engaged way.

When I was doing Zen in America and also in Japan, they taught me to do things with my body enthusiastically. I had a tendency to use one hand – to "kind of" be there for it. Part of my body was involved in other things – other thoughts – and I would do things kind of half-heartedly. That did not go over well in Zen. You had to be really there wholeheartedly.

One way that was emphasized in Japan was that you always did things with two hands. So if you picked up a pot of food, or picked up a tool, or gave someone a gift – whatever it was – you would always do it with two hands, so you were fully in it. It feels different to give someone a gift with two hands. Rather than just, "Here you go!" – giving something with only part of who you are – you do it fully.

I love the añjali – putting the hands together and bowing. Because it brings together the two sides of who we are, in a sense – the left and the right – so that all of us is involved. Añjali is different from shaking hands, in which, as you know, only part of our body is involved. I think shaking hands is a wonderful thing. It has its own value. I don't want to diminish its value. But there's also something valuable about really coming together and offering all of ourselves in that greeting – with that respect.

Then we become more attuned to the sensations of the body. These sensations of our body are not senseless – as if there's no sense, no meaning, or no value in being involved with the senses of the body. In fact, that attitude makes the body senseless. Then we get disconnected from our sensations. Rather, to value them, because they are the carriers of so much information. They are the expressions of our attitudes, emotions, and feelings. They are the expressions of our reactivity and our response to what is happening in the world around us.

There are layers and layers of subtlety that we can be aware of when we are really connected to our body. Even if we are not so connected at all, then just a little bit of connection to the body will provide the early warning signals of feelings, sensations, attitudes, and information about what is happening in the world around us. That information is often there before our thinking mind is aware of it. The first sensations of anxiety, anger, love, kindness, or warmth toward someone – all these different things that can come through the body – which, if we are busily thinking, wanting, reacting, being, or thinking about what's wrong – we don't really pick up.

One Zen teacher I studied with talked about the body being an antenna. The more you attune yourself to that antenna, the more information you pick up. And I would emphasize that this is not just the antenna for information outside of our body, but also for what is inside.

We are not really divided between the mind and the body. The body is a really rich repository of intelligence, responsivity, feelings, emotions, and information – and this is so helpful for our lives. So spend more time being sensitive to sensations: sensing what is happening in the body.

This begins to shift the emphasis from thinking that the mind is going to solve everything to allowing the body to participate, receive, experience, and help process what is going on. Some of the difficult emotions we have can be well processed in the body, if we allow the body to feel them. This can be difficult. Sometimes we feel all these things acutely, and this can be painful.

But there is an art to learning how to keep opening into the body. Opening into the body in a way that is wise, supported, and compassionate. In a way that allows the body to support us to become free. To free up things and to release things.

Any holding in the mind – any attachment or clinging we have – often gets expressed as the body becoming tense, becoming held. The muscles are held tight. And that tightness tends to numb the body.

But as we become more aware of the body, this tends to free the places of tightness. First, we may become aware of the tension we hold in our body. But that's a stepping-stone for the body to begin to release itself and open up.

So we practice being in our body while we do things – really being present. And we become more aware of and sensitive to the sensations and feelings of our body – to what's going on in the body. That practice of presence in and awareness of the body is a way to learn to live a more Dharmic life.

We let the Dharma – all the benefits of mindfulness and wisdom – begin to show itself and accompany us through our body and our life. The less we are connected to our body, the less the Dharma accompanies us through our life – unless we are quite good at the cognitive aspects of keeping the body in mind and thinking about it. That can be useful, and for some people maybe that's the primary vehicle. But for most people, I think there is tremendous benefit to being rooted in the body and connected to what is happening in this body of ours.

So if you would like to avoid having to become a monastic to live a monastic life, or even a full-time Dharmic life – if you would like to live a contemplative Dharmic life in your ordinary everyday life, then your monastery is your body. And your temple is your body. Keep coming back to being in your body.

I'll continue with this theme tomorrow with a whole other area that you could focus on, if you'd like, which is part of daily life. In the meantime, in these next 24 hours, maybe you can experiment with giving more emphasis to your body and what is happening there – how you use it and its feelings and sensations. What happens if you allow your body to be in a more receptive mode, feeling all the sensations that you have?

I hope you enjoy that. I hope that mindfulness of the body will bring you great enjoyment – great delight in having this physical body. Thank you.