All my life I have had the key and didn’t know it. It’s beginning to make sense, and now I think I had the answer with me all my life. Everything seems to fall into place if I reach for the key, something I’ve had with me all along. My body is the key. When I experience my mind and body joined, everything is joined. Everything is also released. I experience a freedom more than I could have imagined.
Learning to experience my breath has been so important. It has put me in touch with my body in a most intimate manner. Actually feeling the energy and sensation in my hands when doing Tai Chi Chih has also allowed me to form an intimate relationship with my body. Realizing this connection has allowed me to go back to my body.
The irony is that so much of my culture has either encouraged me to fear my body or indulge it. There truly has been a middle way.
While I am amazed at what I have discovered, I am not totally surprised. All my life I have resisted those worriers who tried to teach me the dangers of the body. I have instinctively pulled away from mindless excesses as well. Now I am starting to understand why I was so wary.
I am also finding it interesting that I don’t have to “do” anything. I just have to allow myself to experience what my body tells me. There is no effort. Breathing is not effective as an action. It is effective for me only if it allows me to experience, to intimately feel my body. It “works” only if it brings me back to my body, joins mind and body.
My body is actually an easy key to use, like using my fingerprint to unlock my iPhone. I experience intimately what my body knows, and all barriers disappear. My feet touch the asphalt of the parking lot, and I melt into what my body knows. I move my hands through the air like thru pudding, and the energy inside of me rises. I feel my breath, and it is like placing my finger on my iPhone. A whole universe is opened in an instant. Tension disappears, freedom surges through all of me.
My body is a pretty amazing key. I’m learning how to use it better.