Community- Library- Awareness
Awareness of the Body
"All our reactions to people, to situations, to thoughts in our mind-are actually reactions to the kind of sensations that are arising in our own body."
Meditation practices in all traditions typically use postures, like sitting up cross-legged as we did in the yoga class, to enable the body to be stable and still. When we are quiet, we can more readily notice our changing stream of experience: of vibration, pulsing, pressure, heat, light, tastes, images and sounds. Yet, as we quickly discover when we close our eyes to meditate, this inner world is often covered over by waves of emotions-excitement or anxiety, restlessness or anger-and an endless stream of comments and judgments, memories and stories of the future, worries and plans.
The Buddha called our persistent emotional and mental reactivity the "waterfall" because we so easily are carried away from the experience of the present moment by its compelling force. Both Buddhist and Western psychology tell us how this happens: The mind instantly and unconsciously assesses whatever we experience as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. A titillating thought or tingling sensation-pleasant. A bad smell or sudden, loud sound-unpleasant. Noticing our breath-usually neutral. When pleasant sensations arise, our reflex is to grasp after them and try to hold on to them. We often do this through planning, and with the emotional energies of excitement and yearning. When we experience unpleasant sensations, we contract, trying to avoid them. Again the process is the same-we worry and strategize, we feel fear, irritation. Neutral is our signal to disengage and turn our attention elsewhere, which usually means to an experience that is more intense or stimulating.
All our reactions to people, to situations, to thoughts in our mind-are actually reactions to the kind of sensations that are arising in our body. When we become riveted on someone's ineptness and are bursting with impatience, we are reacting to our own unpleasant sensations; when we are attracted to someone and filled with longing and fantasy, we are reacting to pleasant sensations. Our entire swirl of reactive thoughts, emotions and behaviors springs from this ground of reacting to sensations. When these sensations are unrecognized, our lives are lost in the waterfall of reactivity-we disconnect from living presence, from full awareness, from our heart.
In order to awaken from this trance, the Buddha recommended "mindfulness centered on the body." In fact, he called physical sensations the first foundation of mindfulness because they are intrinsic to feelings and thoughts and are the base of the very process of consciousness. Because our pleasant or unpleasant sensations so quickly trigger a chain reaction of emotions and mental stories, a central part of our training is to recognize the arising of thoughts and return over and over to our immediate sensory experience. We might feel discomfort in our lower back and hear a worried inner voice saying, "How long will this last? How can I make it go away?" Or we might feel a pleasant tingling, a relaxed openness in our chest and eagerly wonder, "What did I do to arrive in this state ... I hope I can do that again:" We practice by seeing the stories, letting them go and dropping under them into the living sensations in our body.
Reprinted with permission from, Radical Acceptance, by Tara Brach, Bantam Books ISBN 0553-80167-8