This is a talk I gave to the Blooming Heart Sangha on April 21, 2022. It was titled “My Body, My Bedrock of Intimacy”. It was followed by a discussion among those present of how the senses are part of their practice.
As we begin, I invite you to touch the wooden frame of your chair
- Feel the hardness, the texture of the wood, the coldness or warmth.
- Then touch the fabric of the seat, noticing the softness, the uneven texture.
- Then touch your cheekbones, the flexibility of your skin, the warmth, the softness. Lightly tap on your cheekbones.
- Be attentive to touch.
- That is the essence of what I have to say.
- My Body, My Bedrock of Intimacy
A few months ago, I shared with you my aspiration to become intimate with the world.
- I counted off seven observations about becoming more intimate, and I’ve talked about a couple of those observations.
- The third observation is that intimacy relies on my body, on my sensory experience as a bedrock,
- Intimacy is built on a concrete sense of self , the self as present and that relies on the body.
- What I experience with my body, with my senses is foundational for experiencing intimacy.
- This is a bit abstract: Being mindful of the experienced sensation, such as breathing, gives me an internal object of concentration, an experience of intimacy. The sensation experience becomes the object of concentration, intimacy.
For me, no sense is as powerful as touch.
- I see my whole body as a sense organ, my whole body becomes a foundation of intimacy.
- There are many ways of experiencing sensory awareness with my body. Outside and inside the body.
- My practice makes great use of the sense of touch in my hands
- My mindfulness bell rings every hour and invites me to touch anything with my fingers.
- For a moment, I focus on what something feels like; my fingers touch, but my whole body senses. Then I may experience intimacy with that object.
- I think I am slowly developing a growing habit of sensory awareness, and that makes it easier to be open to intimacy as a habit.
- It can involve anything I am touching……touching mindfully.
This is not much of a surprise: I think that our senses remind us we are naturally intimate with the world
- Intimacy with the world is the reality, and our senses remind us of that.
- The body is integral to the practice taught to us by Thay.
- Our senses are foundational to mindfulness; they are front and center.
- Walking meditation is highly encouraged.
- We quiet our body into a feeling of relaxation for meditating.
- Sometimes we do hugging meditation.
- The sensation of breathing induces an experience of mindfulness and that awareness opens deep concentration.
For me, nature calls me into my senses…….all of my senses.
- Mindfulness arises when I yield to that call from nature.
- Remember all the experiences you have had; how, thru the senses, nature invited you into awareness and deepening mindfulness.
- For me, I think of the view of vast landscapes, mountains, gullies, trees.
- I think of the sound of flowing water, chirping birds, booming thunder.
- I remember the fragrance of fresh dirt, blooms on flowers,
- I know the taste of so many natural flavors of food.
- Above all, I remember the feel of rough bark, the soft wetness of grass on my skin, the touch of plants as I walk thru my garden.
- Nature awakens the senses, and mindfulness can follow.
This pivotal, foundational role of the senses is not without conflict, not without questions.
Conflict
- Seeing and employing body sensation as an avenue of mindfulness is somewhat counter-cultural.
- So much of our culture seems caught up in the senses as an end in itself. Sensation is the object, the goal. Not mindfulness.
- I was brought up in a culture where senses, the whole body, was suspect, to be feared, to be avoided. Sensation was even wrong and even sinful.
- This sounds like an echo of the Second Noble Truth. Both grasping and avoidance are a root of suffering.
- There is a middle way of building mindfulness and intimacy on a foundation of sensory experience.
Questions
- Pain: Mindfulness and Pain; how are they related?
- Can imagination have a role in mindfulness, in intimacy?
- I think that Imagined sensation has some value, but even that seems to rely on actual, realized sensation. What do you think?
- I sometimes find it insightful to imagine a time when I no longer have a path to follow, when I have reached the other shore. I imagine what it would feel like. That imagined experience significantly opens my mind.
What about you?
- How do you use your senses, your body?
- Can mindfulness manage pain sensation?
- Does imagination serve as a foundation for mindfulness, even intimacy?
- How do you use your senses?