Mindfulness as we have learned and discussed is the quality of being aware, of knowing our experience in this present moment. It is not the same as consciousness as we can be conscious but not really paying attention to what we are experiencing. So awakening to our present moment experience is our goal in practice. In Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Jon Kabat-Zinn added that there is a quality of non-judgement to mindfulness. Joseph Goldstein, esteemed meditation teacher and one of three founders of Insight Meditation Society (IMS) goes even further to say that mindfulness has a compassionate quality to it. And mindfulness is about seeing things clearly, as they really are. A judging mind is distorting that seeing.
So the first foundation or Satipatthana to be explored is mindfulness of the body. The mind can find stability and a sense of calm in mindfulness of the body. When we cultivate mindfulness of the body and integrate it into our daily lives, we inhabit our whole bodies with awareness and can find a refuge and also a more intimate connection with what our present moment experience is - moment by moment.
And the very first practice the Buddha taught was mindfulness of breathing. From Access to Insight, the English translation of the relevant passage in the "Sattipatthana Sutta: The Foundation of Mindfulness":
And how does a monk live contemplating the body in the body?
Herein, monks, a monk, having gone to the forest, to the foot of a tree or to an empty place, sits down with his legs crossed, keeps his body erect and his mindfulness alert.[3]
Ever mindful he breathes in, mindful he breathes out. Breathing in a long breath, he knows, "I am breathing in a long breath"; breathing out a long breath, he knows, "I am breathing out a long breath"; breathing in a short breath, he knows, "I am breathing in a short breath"; breathing out a short breath, he knows, "I am breathing out a short breath."
"Experiencing the whole (breath-) body, I shall breathe in," thus he trains himself. "Experiencing the whole (breath-) body, I shall breathe out," thus he trains himself. "Calming the activity of the (breath-) body, I shall breathe in," thus he trains himself. "Calming the activity of the (breath-) body, I shall breathe out," thus he trains himself.*
The Buddha advised practicing this breath awareness practice internally and externally, arising and passing away, with a clear mindfulness that there is a body "to the extent necessary for knowledge and mindfulness,” and without clinging to anything in the world. So the purpose of this meditation is to bring awareness to our internal experience of breathing, our awareness of the experiences of others breathing (external), the impermanent aspect of the breath (arising and passing away), with bare awareness of the experience of the breath (without add ons) and with detachment toward the breath and the experience of the breath. The breath arises. The breath passes away. Without judging or desire for a certain kind of breath, the breath arises. Without clinging, the breath passes away.
The Buddha then urged mindfulness in all the four postures - sitting, standing, walking, and lying down - meant to cover all the postures of the body. And he urged mindfulness in all activities - eating, resting, caring for the body, moving around, lifting an arm, talking with others.
Then the Buddha introduced practices that would address various attitudes we all have or develop toward the body. Perhaps the most pressing for teaching young monks was a practice to counter sensual desire. Sensual desire is like a flame that pulls the meditator away from practice and into a fantasy world of the mind. If only this, then I would be happy. The fantasy is that true happiness can be found through sensual desire.
So the Buddha taught the practice of meditation on the anatomy. This is called The Reflection on the Repulsiveness of the Body.
This meditation on the anatomy has the purpose of countering the fantasies one might have about the beauty of the body when in the grip of sensual desire. The anatomy is broken down into 32 body parts. Venerable Analayo simplified this practice into a body scan of three major body parts - skin, flesh, and bones - from which the rest can be added or not. The body scan is familiar to MBSR grads as the first three weeks are spent engaging in a scan of the body part by part from toe to head or head to toe.
The purpose of the body meditations contained in the Sattipatthana Sutta is several fold. The mind can become trained to focus on first one area of the body and then the next improving the ability to stay present. The mind contemplates different areas of the body and becomes more sensitive to sensations that are experienced there. And the mind can experience the different experiences of liking or disliking, approving, judging, fantasizing about, elevating the body within the context of this meditation. One might become aware of aversion to one’s own body. Mindfulness can help us see these judgements as distortions added by messages from the outside world - media especially. Or conversely one might become enamored of the body of self or another. This meditation brings a more balanced view of beauty and repulsiveness to our view of the body so that we can become more detached, not clinging to anything in this world, not clinging to the beauty of our own bodies or the beauty in the bodies of others. But also not gripped with revulsion toward the ordinary, messy processes that keep this body alive even into aging and sickness. We can learn to let go of these judgments and simply see the body as this functioning foundation of our existence, similar to other bodies in that regard. Comparisons to other bodies begin to fall away. The body is simply a body.
Ven. Analayo quotes the Buddha as urging us to see our bodies as dispassionately as one might study a collection of grains in a bag, simply, There is a shoulder, there is an arm…there is a body just as one might say, there is a grain of rice, there is a grain of wheat, there is a grain of millet.
Tonight we’ll listen to the first guided meditation on the body - the anatomy of the body - offered by Ven. Analayo on the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies website.
Initially, the add-ons, the judgements, opinions, wishes, frustrations, desires we have about our bodies may surface in an active
way. But with repetition, our minds settle, extraneous thoughts become less frequent and we begin to see the body as just a body, the skin as just skin, flesh as just flesh, bones as just bones. The experience will tend to become more neutral and perhaps more interesting as we open to what is actually there in this examination of the skin of the foot or the leg rather than the distortions of beauty ideals.
We may become more aware of sensations in different parts of the body that are pleasant or unpleasant or neutral. We can become more accepting of these differences - there is discomfort here, there is a pleasant sensation there, there is no sensation or only slight sensation in a third location. We become more accepting that our feet might not be model perfect but they are feet and they get the job done. Or if we are missing a body part, we can become more compassionate to the suffering of the body, more accepting of the loss and grateful for our continued existence. We will also surely become more aware of the impermanence, the vulnerable nature of the body, and learn to be more accepting of that too.
And with the repeated practice of mindfulness of the body, we will learn to inhabit our bodies more fully throughout our days, in touch with our experiences through the sensations of touch, feeling, emotion, moods that come through the body. This embodiment helps us stay grounded and not so easily pulled, enticed, cast down by the quick silver passing of thoughts in our minds.
For some, the body scan may be more problematic if, for instance, there is considerable pain or injury in one area or if there has been trauma in the body that activates when the body scan is practiced. Here it is important to use our mindfulness to tell us how we are doing with the practice and, rather than blindly soldiering on if it becomes difficult, to discern difficulties and make a compassionate assessment about whether the practice is beneficial or not. The practice can modified or omitted in favor of one of the other body-centered practices if meditation on anatomy is triggering.
*https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.010.nysa.html