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2021-01-14 Mindfulness of Breathing (9) Breathing with the Body: Otter Voice Meeting Notes

2021-01-14 Mindfulness of Breathing (9) Breathing with the Body

Insight Meditation Center12min

Gil Fronsdal

00:01

So we're continuing with the third step of this 16 steps of breathing that the Buddha taught. And these 16 steps are divided into what's called tetrads – groups of four. And there are four steps in this first tetrad. And we're now in the third one. This step says that one trains oneself to experience the whole body when breathing in, and while breathing out experiencing the whole body.

Gil Fronsdal

00:42

One of the ways to interpret this is, in fact, to have a global awareness of the body. And the body, kāya, is very important in Buddhism. The body that we 'have' is not quite the right language in Buddhism, but rather the body we experience. The kāya is the body we experience. And it's a little bit distinct from our physical body. In ordinary life, the two are completely connected, of course. But the body that we are experiencing is dependence on how the mind operates – on the selection process of the mind, the concerns of the mind, the states states of mind, the level of concentration level or of mindfulness we have.

Gil Fronsdal

01:44

It's possible to have some kind of concern about one's body. Once my attention keeps going to that part of the body, just focused on that, is a selection process. Some of that might be that part of the body ails us. Or it might have to do with our physical appearance – that somehow our forehead is too high, our nose is too big or too small, or all kinds of things we do. And so we experience our body through the filter of our concerns about appearance. And so there's a kind of body consciousness.

Gil Fronsdal

02:29

If we get afraid of our body, and have anxiety about it – the very fear that the mind has the projections, the fantasies about the future – the body ever so slightly shifts and changes in response to that. It tightens up. If we're full of desires, or want something, or there are moods, emotions, desires, or motivations – it's like all have tentacles, threads that reach out into our muscles. And the muscles respond and react in all kinds of ways, depending on what's going on in the mind.

Gil Fronsdal

03:02

So, we start becoming aware of this. When we sit and meditate, we're working with this – the interface between the mind and the body. So as we start settling into meditation, we start encountering the body more and more fully. But it's not, as I said, the physical body. It's this interface between the physical body and the mind. Or it's how the mind influences the body – the effect the mind has on the body.

Gil Fronsdal

03:36

I used to have very high shoulders when I was quite young, I had anxiety and fear. And, and so I held it in my shoulders. And that tension in the shoulders is a mind source. The fear in the mind and the heart impacts the body. And as I sat and meditated, I became acutely aware of these shoulders of mine. There were times I would sit in meditation with a lot of pain in my shoulders. Not because anything was wrong, but because I was encountering the chronic tension there. And it was beginning to work itself out, and relax, and let go. It took a while to do that.

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