Being In This Body

I can't tell you how many times that I have sat down for Zazen (Sitting in Unification) and after a few breaths, my mind was a thousand miles away from my body. Sometimes my mind can feel plain old sleepy. Other times, my mind seems like it's set in planning mode and I'm sitting there going through tasks, looking at possible resolutions to challenges, problems and whatever. And then in other moments I'm could be running through mental video tapes about things that I did and didn't like from the day (in some cases week, months and years) before. I may be physically in my body, but I am not be mentally.

Though I'd like to make excuses and say, "It's not a big deal, it happens to everybody," that's not good enough for me. The truth for me is that when my mind is not present within my body, I could very well be avoiding myself and running away, from some things that I don't want to face. The mind or part of me that I am not always aware of, sometimes like to create smoke screens, to avoid painful mental and emotional confrontation. There's an old Tibetan expression that goes, "Just like dogs don't like to be hit with the stick, people do not like to be hit with the truth."

The clear truth is that in order to wake up, We have to stop running from ourselves. In order to wake up, even in the slightest, We must learn to be inside our own body. Without being fully present, we can remain adrift and lost in our innumerable distractions and fantasy worlds. The body is in the real world, but the mind is not.

The good news is that there is a path or trail that will lead us into our body. One solution is Zazen, even if it's only 10 minutes at a sit, counting each breath clearly - one to ten and then starting over again. And when we lose the count, just retuning gently to one. When we are fully present and our whole body is just one, just two, just three, that is in fact at that instant, the whole Universe. One little tip I can offer, if to be so bold is to suggest that we lay our "focus" on the count, not concentrate. Contraction and focus are two different things. It would be helpful to remember that.

Learning to be in my own body has been helpful to me. It has changed how I deal with not only myself, but others. This could be because when I'm with myself, I'm really with myself. When I'm with You, I can really be with You. When I'm working, I am the work. When I'm at the movies, I am really with the movie. When I'm with the lawn mower, I am really there, cutting the grass. There is not gap, no distance, no separation and no time. There is just "Being in This Body."

Love All - Serve All and Be Well,

Jaye Seiho Morris, Curator
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