MCM ¼ - Meditation course, middle level – the body

MCM ¼ - Meditation course, middle level – the body

Entering the world of the body!
Mindfulness of body is foundation of all meditations. Why?

What it is not: Bells, mantras, chakras, yoga, getting what you want, my meditation is…,

In general meditation is:
Raising level of awareness
Higher state on consciousness (not Krishna consciousness)
Understanding > wisdom (and compassion).
Value of communication for developing our awareness

How do we raise our level of awareness?
Not a big abstract?
Give more attention to specific objects,
Open up to things we usually ignore.

Start with being more aware of the body
And leaving world of ideas.

Ideas are valuable.
Basis of human civilisation.
Sets us apart from the animals.
But by themselves they limit us.

We receive ideas about ourselves from:
Parents, school, friends, CMI from different countries.

Different theories, religions, therapies.

Ideas like what’s cool and not cool,
Good to be independent,
Good to love your family,
Strong people never cry etc ….

Q What are our ideas about ourselves?
Ideas can include plans and strategies.
Q Are they enough?

They are limited because don’t include all of us.
Start with awareness of body.
Sensations in hand different from idea of the hand.

What do we get from being more in touch with the body?

Pleasure
Energy
Stability
Confidence
Relaxation
Contentment
Положительные эмоции
Physical dexterity

But awareness also opens up other parts of our experience.
Simply sitting eyes closed and being aware,
opens us up to other aspects of our experience.

Bits gets hidden or ignored.
We often try to ignore responses that are painful,
Or we don’t know how to deal with.
Or try to forget them.
And we lose energy.
We’ll come back to this theme later.

Or maybe sexual attraction to a married woman.
Выход есть?

1/ get in contact with more parts of ourselves.
Useful mindfulness of the body to do this.

2/ get into relationship with these parts of ourselves.
Called integration in psychological sense.
Energy gets freed up.
We don’t really know what they are.
We fear them, like a wolf at the door.
Our unconscious mind.

3/ change our relationship to these parts of ourselves.
When they’ve come to light.
We have reclaimed their energy.
We’ve become whole.
We are able to concentrate.
We can act with energy and power.

So this is what we’re trying to do.
Trying by meditation practice in general
And by starting to give more attention to our body.

The purpose of this course is starting to practice in everyday life.
What can we do?
A/ practice the mindfulness of the body meditation each day.
B/ try to maintain awareness of the body throughout the day.
This is very difficult.
C/ have times when we focus on the body.
Not a coffee break but an awareness break.
D/ look to enjoy simple activities performed with awareness.
Feeling the sensations in the feet, With each step.

Try all these next week. We’ll start with a review of what you did, And what effects did you feel.

Next week we’ll look more at the ideas,
The world we are trying to leave.
1/ stories we tell ourselves.
2/ ideas we have about ourselves and others.
3/ where these ideas about ourselves place us in hierarchies.
4/ our identity. Who we believe ourselves to be.
5/ the strategies we use in life, the habits we cultivate.

Enough for now.