Week 2 – Mindfulness of the Body

“The body is always in the present. When we take our attention to body sensations, we’re naturally drawn to the here and now. You can’t feel yesterday or tomorrow, only right now. The body thus is a natural anchor for mindfulness, when we pay attention to it” Ed Halliwell

“When you sit down to meditate, you might expect to become peaceful and quiet, but often the first thing you actually experience is tightness and pain in the sensations of your body. You become aware of all the tensions you are carrying” Jack Kornfield

Why bring mindfulness to the body?

1. The human body is a staggeringly wonderful thing, and yet we so often take what it does for granted—we move around, carry things, make things, see, hear, speak, feel and taste, often without appreciating how this all happens. When things feel right with the body, we take it for granted. When things feel wrong, we get frustrated. And yet, just by breathing, the body is performing magic every moment. Alive, the body is a miracle. This is true, even when we’re not feeling how we’d like to feel. Practicing mindfulness enables us to appreciate the remarkable reality of being a body.

2. In our bodies, we can feel the sensational joys of living, beneath the dulling layers of concept that can cloud their vividness. When we practice mindfulness, we’re opening ourselves to the full experience of being alive, with all the joy that can bring. I

3. The body is always in the present. When we take our attention to body sensations, we’re naturally drawn to the here and now. You can’t feel yesterday or tomorrow, only right now. The body thus is a natural anchor for mindfulness, when we pay attention to it.

4. Attending to the body has a grounding effect. When we bring awareness to the body, we’re getting down to earth. The body has weight—it offers a good counterbalance to the flighty mind that’s continually zooming off into ideas and ruminations. Mindful of the body, we’re recalibrating our centre downward.

5. The body experiences by feeling, so by becoming familiar with patterns of physical sensation, we can more easily work with them. If our body is in pain and we try to ignore it, resist it, or ruminate on it, we’re trying to live outside physicality. This is a recipe for fractured living. Mindfulness of body invokes a peace that doesn’t depend on things being pleasant.