13) Embodied awareness
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- Category: Connect
- Published: Wednesday, 05 May 2021 15:45
- Written by Cherry
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'We have grown far from ourselves' - this line from Kae Tempest's 'On Connection' (p 15) is a powerful assertion about loss of connection .. both from ourselves and those around us.
In his short story collection, ‘Dubliners’ (1914), James Joyce's Mr Duffy (‘A Painful Case’) 'lived at a little distance from his body, regarding his own acts with doubtful side glances. He had an odd autobiographical habit which led him to compose in his mind from time to time a short sentence about himself containing a subject in the third person and a verb in the past tense. He never gave alms to beggars and walked firmly, carrying a stout hazel.'
'Mindfulness of the Body' is the first of the Four Foundations in Buddhist mindfulness teaching and is commonly first practiced through mindfulness of breathing, followed by 'mindfulness of the postures' - applied to all postures - walking, standing, sitting, lying down, as well as transitioning from one posture to another. Following on is the application of mindfulness of the body through all aspects of living, through indeed to death - and beyond. (Ven. Bhikku Bodhi https://www.lionsroar.com/the-buddhas-four-foundations-of-mindfulness/)
For decades now, alongside mindfulness meditation, other traditional eastern body/mind practices such as Qigong, Tai Chi and yoga have become increasingly popular in the west, and more recently, are being researched and sometimes adapted (such as TMW - Tai chi Movements for Wellbeing) for their health and wellbeing benefits. An underlying principle in all these disciplines/practices involves 'embodiment' whereby, through practice, we learn to (re)inhabit our bodies - to literally sense that inherent, intrinsic connection of body and mind - a connection that has been absent in much of traditional dualistic western healthcare practice.
One hundred years separate James Joyce and Kae Tempest, yet their voices speak of the same separation. In 'On Connection' Kae Tempest goes on to say:
'Numbness, or disconnection, is a lack of true feeling. Maintaining a surface engagement with whatever is going on while at the same time being entirely elsewhere. So consumed with the concerns of the day, the actual events of the day pass unnoticed or are so unbearably precise they are experienced in the hyper-real close-up of a perceived threat to your life.' (p.15).
The following short practice focuses on an aspect of meditation - posture - that is sometimes skirted over, but has the potential to directly (and fairly immediately) shift attention from our usual 'headiness' into our bodies where we can - through gentle balancing and easing - ground, relax and uplift our bodies to help reconnect the often fractured relationship between body and mind, so opening us to greater awareness.
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