Body and Mind

In our group, when giving meditation instruction, we typically split it into two parts, the physical posture and what to do with the mind.

For the longest time I tended to devalue the physical part. I used to think it was just to give bodies something to do. I thought enlightenment happened between the ears so when it came to sitting meditation, I always prioritized the ‘meditating’ over the ‘sitting.’ When I sat, I arranged myself in position, gave my attention to my brain, and let my body dangle.

Sitting meditation might not be exercise in any meaningful sense of the word, but it is a physical act. Furthermore, it is a continuous process. Remember that pesky -ing at the end of the word ‘sitting.’ It’s not ‘sit meditation’ You don’t put your body in position and then stop. The sitting is an ongoing thing. It doesn’t need to be forced, but just as you are aware of the ebb and flow of the voices in your mind, you can also notice the ongoing conversation between your muscles and skeleton as they subtly work to keep you balanced. You can pay the same attention to your weight on your sitbones and the expansion and contraction of your lungs, as you can to the arising of greed, fear, compassion, or equanimity.

Our bodies are also more than just a way of experiencing. They are also the way we touch the world. Our senses are the only way we can interact with it. Eyes see; ears hear; brain interprets; hands reach out. The body is the gateway to reality.

And that gateway flows in two directions.

In other words, our bodies experience, and they also express.

Our body is built to communicate with other beings. It’s in the sound of our voice, the shuffle of our feet, the raising of our shoulders. From head to foot, our bodies are broadcasting messages to the beings around us. I was introduced this idea in comedy, had it reinforced in pro wrestling, but I only really started to understand it when I became involved in the burlesque dancing scene.

Burlesque is to sex what pro wrestling is to violence or stand-up comedy is to risqué speech. It takes a source of ambivalence and anxiety and transforms it into public entertainment. Burlesque, wrestling, and comedy are all arts of making the unsafe safe, of giving us a way to experiencing the consequential without experiencing consequences.

The lesson I learned again and again watching and being taught by these performers was the importance of expression. You can tell an entire story about yourself, what you want, and what you’re looking to get in the way you raise an arm, an eyebrow, or a steel chair.

I like the idea of bringing that into my practice, that I am expressing something of myself in every movement, whether it’s offering incense, closing a door behind me, or simply sitting still.

I like the idea and it also troubles me. I feel like by wanting to express my training physically I am posing or cheapening it into a kind performance art.

When I breathe into this troubled feeling, I realize the obstacle is wanting to possess the experience or to make my expression of it something to about me…MY understanding, MY depth of practice.

In truth, none of this belongs to me. I am not experiencing MY anxiety. I am not expressing MY truth. There is anxiety. There is truth. They are visitors passing through; I have no ownership of them.

We often speak about mind, body and speech as though they were ours. It helps distinguish our experience from that of others. But those things are not mine. I didn’t invent this language or how to speak it. Many of my most personal thoughts and ideas are things I learned from watching others. I’ve absorbed my values from my parents, from my culture, from my class so completely that they feel as though they are a part of my being.

Yet they are not mine.

This body doesn‘t belong to me. I didn’t invent the heart or will my bones, blood, and lungs into existence. I can’t take credit for the genes I was born with that have kept me healthy, not  I can I prevent my hair from greying or my hands from shaking as I age.

This extends beyond my body. We often think of our feelings as our own, but even they are not things we possess. Many times, I‘m surprised by my emotions. I didn‘t choose this feeling and I have limited control over how it started or how quickly it goes away. How then can it be mine?

I am just as easily fooled by my thoughts, opinions, and beliefs, seeing them as belonging to me when they are just as often things I read or picked up from family, friends, or the culture around me.

When I make things that are not mine about me, I put my self between experience and expression. I create an artificial and arbitrary division just like when I split meditation instruction into the physical and mental. It makes for easier explaining at the expense of reality.