Name: Bhikkhu Anālayo | An embodied mindfulness | April 2020
Uploaded: 2024-08-26T02:54:56.000Z
Duration: 24 min 49 s
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Welcome. This is a short talk I wanted to give on the topic of embodiment. And this learning to be fully rooted and grounded in the presence of the body is a key aspect of mindfulness and lay Buddhism. And it has a very significant relationship to the current situation, in particular to learning how to deal with fear, anxiety, which is something that naturally, in view of the pandemic that we are experiencing, comes up. Before I get into the actual exercise, however, I would like to take a little tour, in a way, setting the background, by talking about the early Buddhist attitude towards the body, positioning things a little bit in the background, so that we have a clearer understanding of the context within which this practice, that I'll be talking about later, stands. First and foremost, in Buddhism, early Buddhism, there's no mind-body duality of the Cartesian type. I have heard some people think there must be a mind-body duality because of the teaching of rebirth, but that's a misunderstanding.

Adverbs of degree

The relevant teaching here is an aspect of dependent arising, bodhicitta-samuppada, where we have on the one side consciousness, and on the other side name and form. I'll talk briefly about what this means. Consciousness is just the knowing part, the process of being conscious.

Name and form, form is the experience of materiality, and name are the mental factors, activities, that make sense out of things, feeling, perception, etc. Early Buddhism sees these two as standing in a reciprocal condition, relationship to each other. Consciousness, depends on name and form. Name and form depends on consciousness. This basic model is how early

Buddhism understands the continuity of subjective experience in life and from one life to the other.

This means, first of all, the body as experienced, and moreover, the dividing line is not being mind on the one side and body on the other side, but much rather body comes together with those aspects of the mind that make sense out of matter. And on the other side stands this more passive, receptive type of knowing. Another aspect I wanted to briefly touch on is how to relate the mind to a particular physical location. Nowadays, when you speak of the mind, almost everybody immediately thinks of the brain, which is understandable because of all the very interesting research that we have in modern psychology on different aspects of the brain, how they relate to the mind. And there can sometimes be a tendency of equating mind to the brain. I've got something on my brains. This is a no-brainer. But actually, this can also be somewhat limiting, because the mind is something larger than just functions of the brain.

And here I find it interesting that early Buddhism, they have almost no interest in the brain. They just don't care about it. Even in the list of anatomical parts in the Satipatthana Sutta, you get all these different parts of the body, the brain is not mentioned. We find it mentioned in the parallels and also in later Pali texts, Patalunga. But from the viewpoint of early Buddhism, it seems that the brain was just not something they had particular importance for. They know about the brain. It's mentioned somewhere in the Suttanipada. And in the Vinaya, we even have an account of a successful brain surgery. This was done by Jivaka, the personal attendant of the

Buddha for medical issues. He was a doctor, the doctor of the king. And he was a very skilled doctor. And so he did this brain surgery. When some sort of usage is found that corresponds a little bit to when we say, I've got something on my brains, the early Buddhist texts refer to the heart. There's one scene, there's like two people. One is a former cartwright, and one is actually a cartwright at his work. And so this former cartwright is watching the other one is thinking,

I wish he would do that job in such and such a way. As he thinks, the other one does it exactly that way. And so it's like, wow. One would think that he knows my heart with his heart. It's basically saying the sky is doing it as if he would really be reading my mind. And other usages are, for example, when we say the opposite to harsh speech, the speech that goes to the heart, kind speech, friendly speech, peace of heart. So if there is any kind of relationship to a physical part, it is the heart that will be used. But the idea that the mind is actually based on the heart is a much later development. We only find it in the late part of the Abhidharma collection.

There's just mentioned that form based on which the mind arises and then the commentary tradition speaks of the heart element. Now, the body is an important dimension of the four Satipatthanas, the four establishments of mindfulness. In there, the first of these four covers a range of different exercises. Pretty much the same basic set occurs also in another discourse, the Kaya Veda Sati Sutta.

And this entire discourse is just on mindfulness of the body. We don't have a comparable large discourse for the other three Satipatthanas. This itself already shows that from the viewpoint of mindfulness practice, the body is a particularly important dimension. And if we look at this Kaya

Gata Sati Sutta, 119 in the Little Long Collection, it's a listing of exercises. And it pretty much corresponds to Satipatthana Sutta. So we have mindfulness of breathing, postures, body activities, anatomy of the body, elements, cemetery contemplation. And we also have the embodied experience of the absorption. In fact, in the Chinese parallel, we only have this description of the bodily effect of the absorption without the actual standard description of the attainment of the absorptions. And I think this is probably more to the point. The idea is simply to show us very different dimensions of bodily experience that can be experienced with mindfulness.

And the bodily dimension of jhana attainment of absorptions 1 to 4 is one of these. And if you look at this discourse, at this whole array of different practices presented to us there, this is very helpful because it helps to counterbalance the somewhat disconcerting or somewhat shocking impression that can come if we look only at one of these, the contemplation of anatomical parts, or only at the cemetery contemplations. In fact, the contemplation of anatomical parts comes with an explicit element of evaluation, which sees the body in a negative light. And the cemetery contemplation is about looking at the body that is gradually decaying, which is also somewhat stark practice. And there has been a tendency in early generations of scholars on Buddhism to kind of, I assume, take these practices a little bit out of context, and then draw the conclusion that the early Buddhists, they hate their body, and they don't know anything better than to get rid of the body and want to get out of bodily experiences. And this is really an unbalanced assessment. If you look at the array of practices in Kāyāgatā Siddhi Sūtra, in this discourse on mindfulness of the body, we see that this, let us call it more negative type of attitude, has its counterbalance in the intense happiness and bliss experienced at the bodily level through absorption. And the two stand in a connection with each other. Particularly, contemplation of the anatomical parts is really meant as a tool for those who have strong sensual desires to counterbalance the type of perception that leads to the arousal of sensual desire. And to be able to handle sensual desire is an indispensable condition for being then able to cultivate the mind such that one can attain absorption. So the two stand in a very clear relationship to each other. And on the next, on the other side, absorption yields such refined and intense types of joy and happiness that it automatically divests sensuality of its attraction. And when we see this cross-connection, then we can understand the purpose of this sometimes a little bit negatively formulated attitude towards the body. In a kind of middle position between these two, well,

I don't want to call them extreme, so let me say these two sides, these two perspectives, then is this a very simple practice of being in a way of the postures of body activities.

And the practice of being with mindfulness and clear knowing, sati sampajanya, doing various bodily activities is also the one exercise that we find in accounts of the gradual path. Accounts of the gradual path are usually given to outsiders of the Buddhist traditions, and they depict the kind of practices that lead someone who is a layperson to going forth as a monastic, to doing all various kinds of practice until eventually becoming a fully awakened one. And in this trajectory that this gradual path depicts, the one exercise from the different mindfulness practices is this clear knowing and mindfulness doing various activities. And what it stands for is a kind of a circumspect and centered type of behavior at the bodily level. And this in turn has its basis in actually being aware of the body. And this takes the form of the four postures, walking, standing, sitting, and lying down. And it seems to me that this basic awareness of bodily postures is a very central dimension of kāyāgatāsati, of mindfulness directed to the body. Because even though in this discourse it stands in a whole array of different practices, in other discourses we get illustrations of kāyāgatāsati, of mindfulness of the body.

And the way these are formulated really fits very well into this case of mindfulness of postures and activities. One of these is very dramatic. It describes somebody who is given the task of carrying a bowl full of oil. And since in India and most of Asia they carry things on their head,

I imagine they have to carry it on their head. And this person with this bowl full of oil has to go through a crowd. And this crowd is watching a dancing and singing spectacle.

And behind this person carrying the bowl of oil, there's another person with a drawn sword ready to cut off that carrier's head if even a drop of the oil is spilled.

So if you imagine yourself in that situation, you have this crowd and beautiful singing and dancing performance. And maybe the crowd, at least in India, I imagine they're moving forward and backward with the music. And you have to get through there. And you have to keep complete balance.

Just a slight tilt, drop of oil spilled, the head is off.

In that situation, we will need to be very, very centered.

Centered away of the whole body. But we would need to do that in a way that we don't get narrow and close down. Because if I'm only concerned with my body, then I won't see what's happening outside. I might stumble or somebody might move in my way and bump into me. So I have to have this rootedness in whole body experience and a very open mind.

In fact, in another discourse, we get a direct relationship between mindfulness of the body and a broad mind. Mindfulness of the body is said to lead to a mind that is upper mind, boundless, which is actually a qualification of the Brahman.

The other simile describes different animals and they are bound together.

And so whatever animal happens to be stronger pulls the others along.

But then there is a strong post in the middle. And once they are bound to that strong post in the middle, these animals can no longer pull each other. They will pull a little bit and then they will sit down. This is a simile that I understand to describe the fragmentation of experience that we normally go through and how being embodied, yes, in the body, we can withstand this pull and push of the senses in any direction.

So these two similes of the carrying of oil boom and of the animals pulling in different directions, the type of mindfulness of the body they illustrate, I think, would really fit very well the case of the postures and body activities.

And so this is why I think this gives us a very nice practical flavor of this type of practice.

And the tapping into this form of practice is what relates to something that in psychology we call proprioceptive awareness. Proprioceptive awareness is my ability to know the posture of my body without having to kind of look it up. Normally, I will not be paying much attention to that. But let us assume that there would be an earthquake. Oh, very suddenly it would come to the forefront of my attention as I feel that I'm losing balance.

And the task of mindfulness here is to find a middle position between ignoring the sense of proprioception and it coming fully to the forefront when we lose balance.

So having something that can continuously accompany us, even now as you're listening to me, you could listen and at the same time be aware of your body.

If you do that, you will feel that it kind of gives a certain settledness.

It is broad enough not to compete with your attention to what I'm saying.

It can support it. It can give it continuity.

It's a way of having us to stay in the present moment with an open mind.

And the Kayagatasatis, the discourse on mindfulness of the body, gives us a whole list of different benefits that we can expect from practicing this type of mindfulness. And one of these benefits is facing fear and anxiety.

And this benefit ties in with another discourse that is only on this topic, the Bhaya Viharavasutta in Middle-Long Discourse Coalition No. 4, the discourse on fear and dread, fear and anxiety.

In this discourse, the Buddha describes his own way of confronting fear.

He describes how before his awakening, he would go out and stay in the jungle to meditate.

And you know, when you're out in the forest, something always happens, suddenly some sound, there might be a branch from a tree breaking off, or there might be some animal sound coming by.

Usually these are not really something you need to take action.

But the mind, of course, wants to know what's happening there, what's happening there.

And so these kind of unexpected and frightening sounds might cause a lot of fear.

And what the Buddha would do is he would make it a practice that in whatever posture fear arises, I would just stay in that posture and be with that fear until it subsides.

So the discourse describes this very beautifully, like when I was walking, if fear came on me, I kept on walking. I didn't stand, sit or lie down. And I was.

Another example, I was sitting, fear came on me, I wouldn't get up.

I would also not lie down, but this is quite obvious. I wouldn't get up and do something,

I would keep sitting until the fear subsided. And I think this is really a key potential that mindfulness of the body can give us to work with fear, particularly in the present situation.

Fear is something that needs to be met with mindfulness. We don't want to suppress it.

We don't want to act it out. And to get this middle position of balance, of being with fear, just being with fear, is really very helpful to use this whole body awareness, to rest in the posture of the body in which we are in and just be with it.

It's like we have the beautiful potential we have through mindfulness to be with things.

And for those of us who have a heartfelt connection to the Buddha, this practice can in addition also come with the understanding that what we are doing right now is actually what the Buddha himself did. This is part of his own progress to awakening, to learn to be with fear.

And that can be a very simple but very powerful practice to help us to face fear and anxiety.

And in the guided instructions, I will lead you to do a body scan.

Body scan is not found in early Buddhism. This is a later development, but I find it just very useful. And just gradually going through the body helps us to get a better sense for how we can feel the body, different parts of the body. And sometimes when the mind is distracted or we feel overwhelmed, it's helpful to go through it part by part, move to the whole body. But then again, come to this whole body awareness and really see how much of our daily life we can be with this embodied form of mindfulness, the whole body, aware of the whole body, resting in the whole body, finding a refuge in the whole body, I would say.

So this is basically the first practice I would like to offer. And this practice can then lead on to cultivating the brahmaviharas, the divine abodes, the bottom states, the upper manners, which I'll be covering in the next talk and the next meditation instructions.

And they tie in on this topic of the broad mind, through mindfulness of the body or through the brahmaviharas, the spread of the mind, this ability to be firm, stable and unshaken, but open, broad-minded and receptive. So I think this is about what I had in mind to share with you and just to wrap up again by way of setting the background, no body-mind duality, no specific location physically of the mind. If there is one, it would be the heart.

The different practices related to the body are not just about being disgusted with the body, but they're also about deep joy and happiness. A central aspect of mindfulness seems to be this postural wins, proprioceptive wins. And this is what the Buddha himself before his awakening used as a way of facing fear, settling into the bodily posture, being rooted in the whole body and thereby being able to have an open mind and just be with fear and anxiety when they arise.