2022-06-01-Kāya (3 of 5) The Tranquil Body

5:01PM Jun 1, 2022

Speakers:

Gil Fronsdal

Keywords:

body

fingernails

tranquility

mind

activated

tranquil

puppeteer

centers

quiet

calm

concerns

image

experience

part

activity

refreshment

peaceful

brain

ideas

sense

Here we are. And the topic is tranquility, then, in the theme of the week have different ways of experiencing, experiencing our body, it's possible to have had the body be felt as a tranquil body, a peaceful body. And this is a remarkable feeling of health, of well being, that everything is kind of right here. Now. It's a experience of the body that comes when we're not disturbed by anything in conflict with anything. And we're not spinning out thoughts and ideas. It's a quieting of the mind, of the mental activities that used to relate to the body. And because these different bodies, I'm talking about having a lot to do with the state of the mind, the activity of the mind. So I've seen diagrams of the brain kind of kind of diagrams, where they're showing what parts of the brain are most or biggest or most active or something. And, and they show that people who do the same activity over and over again, that part of the brain grows, I don't know if it physically gets bigger or just more activated. So that someone who is, you know, their whole profession of AB is typing there spend a whole day typing, that somehow the brain centers having to do with the fingers grow bigger. And, and so these brain centers that are involved with different parts of our body can grow and shrink depending on the usage in which we have it. And so as the activity of that center grows, then there's more maybe orientation to feel and sense and experience and know that part of the body. But if those mental activities, if the mental activities, the mental centers get quiet and calm, then the ways in which the mind constructs remembers, the body fades away as well. So, you know, we can have a very strong body image of some part of our body. The, you know, I recently I clicked my fingernails, and, and so I might be self conscious that I didn't clip my fingernails just right, maybe it's a little bit uneven. And here I am with a few 100 people, you know, watching me and maybe noticing my fingernails, and so my whole world starts thinking about my fingernails. And so that fingernail part of the center of the brain, maybe gets probably other centers to becomes bigger and more activated. And so in my mind's eye, I kind of have an image of my fingernails, my fingers. And, and I'm just, you know, oriented around the image of it, and what the impact that has on other people. And so, my, my I have a, I have a, I'm operating under an image of fingernails. But if I let my mind become quiet and calm, and that part of the mind that's busy and activated to think about fingernails to imagine what they look like to to be concerned about, you know, their shape and their smoothness or whatever. That's all God turned quiet. And in my experience, fingernails kind of disappear from awareness. I, you know,

I sit here quietly meditating with my breathing, and meditating my torso, grounded feeling centered, quiet. And the app for 30 minutes, I wouldn't even think about my fingernails in this set in a certain kind of way. In experience, they don't exist. Of course they exist, but I'm not experiencing them they fade away from from attention. In the same way. As the mind gets quieter and quieter. The body begins to recede from its defined definitions from its image that we carry with us. Subconsciously, we carry images and ideas and projections and priorities about the body. We're in conflict with the body we're adjusting it we're reacting to the pain and pleasure in the body. There's a lot of kind of sub liminal subconscious conscious activity going on in the brain, in relationship to this body that we have. As that, that mental activity is quiet down, the body begins to feel more calm and peaceful. It's almost like the puppeteer in the brain has taken a vacation and is not pulling and tugging and directing and, and awakening and, and being note noise nosy into all the different things going on, you know lots of things going on in the body, the body is just left radically alone. And this not obstructing not interfering, not activating, not thinking about the body. Leaving the body alone in a nice meditative way allows the body to move towards a kind of health. The body has tremendous kind of movement towards homeostasis, this thesis, to harmony to settledness to release the body itself just wants to relax wants to relax the tensions that are being held there. And and so as the mind gets quieter our relationship to the body shifts and change. And then the way we experience the body changes, and the body can have a very refreshing, peaceful feeling to it. The tranquility can be a feeling of suffused tranquility through the body or suffuse coolness or refreshment, that exists somehow nice, peaceful. It's a more peaceful state than the bliss body, the joy body that we talked about yesterday, that because that's still a little bit activated, compared to now that quiets down as well. And, and there's not exactly any place we can, you know, anything solid or too much solid in the bodies, it's more like a glow of peace, glow of tranquility, of refreshment. And it's a, it's a very different way of experiencing ourselves. It's a tremendous gift to the body. When we can no longer have the mind preoccupied by it, or reacting to it or defining it or having an image of it. Some people find that the edges of the body begin to dissolve. And there's no clear sense of the boundary between the body and the air around it. Because the boundary itself, that's the shape of our body, the boundary we have is part of the mental construct the ideas, the mind does that, that based a lot on memory. But if we so drop into the feeling body, without all the ideas and reactivities the feeling body moves towards settledness and peacefulness and calm. It only gets activated if the puppeteer pulls the strings. If the day if the cook stirs the pot and if we're not pulling strings or stirring the pot, the body can go quiet and peaceful. And it's a remarkable to feel the the tremendous value the wealth in a sense, that comes with this very deep sense of peace and tranquility. It's and from the vantage point of that state of tranquility and peace calm. It's possible to have a clearer sense that many other ordinary pursuits we have in our life

especially if they involve tension or anxiety or, or ambition or greed are so much less valuable than the richness, the wealth, the peacefulness, the richness, the texture of this, tranquility and peace and calm that can exist. This doesn't mean that we have to kind of stay stuck, and always be tranquil and calm. But it does mean that we have a lesson, dramatic kind of contrast between different ways of being and we can begin appreciating how the puppeteer works, how the mind works in activating the body and prioritizing the body or defining the body or concerned with the body in such a way that you know that the tranquil tranquility is lost so

It's a beautiful to really marvelous thing to have this the shift in the body from the karmic body, to the joy body, tranquility body, where the experience of the body, the energies, the sensations, the these qualities of well being and of tranquility, seem to emerge from the inside out, and are not dependent on the ways that we relate to the body from the outside in. We have individuals, families, societies have tremendous ly painful, attitudes, beliefs, behavior, relationship to the outer body, kind of how it looks, in terms of size, and shape, and color and race and, and all kinds of things that people can have a lot of suffering over. But the body is experience of itself from the inside out what emerges peacefully, when when we're not tamping it down or constricting it with all these outside in kind of concerns and preoccupations, and obstacles. What comes in the merge is what flows what kind of be there from the inside out, is it can feel like it's really independent of the outside in concerns. If there's a liberation from outside in, there's a liberation from the societal pressures on the body and judgments and ideas. Just to have the body have its own experience from the inside out, where its own flow of energy, its flow of sensations can settle and open to joy and to tranquility is a powerful lesson in freedom, powerful lesson, in alternative way of living, that's not outside in, it's not caught up in thoughts and ideas and images of how the body is what should be. So tranquil body. So you might over this day, see what you can do, as through the day, to let the body be more tranquil. Maybe it's how you sit in a chair, you can sit in the chair in a way that the body is more settled and easier to relax. And in a tranquil way, it's it's not necessarily slouching in a chair. I don't know if that gives us the most tranquility. But where do you feel the most calm and settled its were settled and rooted and grounded. And as you walk as you do some work as you talk as you drive, look and look and see how you can do all these things with some modicum of calm or peace or tranquility. And see what you learn in the process. And and certainly what you can learn about what takes you away from the tranquility, but maybe for this exercise today, what you learn about the benefits of living a tranquil life so thank you very much. And and I look forward to continuing this series tomorrow.