My personal meditation practice is based on two principles, mindfulness and awareness. Mindfulness is the grounding element that brings us back to the present. Awareness is the environment around mindfulness that lets me know when I should return, or when to let go. Awareness is seeing the trees and hills, it is feeling the wind, and noticing my thoughts like clouds drifting and reconfiguring in the space around me. If I get lost, distracted, or caught up in thinking, my meditation training reminds me to return to my feet on the ground, or my breath in my practice.
Of all the distractions in my life, my mind is the most seductive. I am perpetually engrossed in my thinking to the extent that if I was not a meditator, I likely would reside full-time in my head. While our minds are amazing tools, being lost there keeps us from accessing its power and potential. When I am lost anywhere, I am sucked into a part of my mind that cannot see beyond itself. This is to say I lose awareness. When I am unaware I am missing the beauty of my mind and my life. By cultivating UNawareness, I am putting my head in the sand, making myself vulnerable to danger. When I am not aware, a deep inner part of me becomes frightened. My reveries take on a paranoid hue as I succumb to anxiety about the future and regrets of the past.
The remedy, of course, is to return to the present. This is hard to remember when my mind is lost in its internal momentum, so the practice of mindfulness awareness reminds me that I can be aware of distraction and return to mindfulness in the present. This is a great gift. In the present I am less anxious and more capable of dealing with challenges in my life. Awareness creates the present space that reminds me when I’m stuck somewhere that is not here. Mindfulness is the ground to which I return. In meditation I return specifically to the breath, as the breath is reliably in the present. Awareness of breathing also grounds me in my body. While my mind is plotting, scheming and imagining my life, my body is actually experiencing that life. Becoming aware and willing to return to my body breathing is grounding my practice in the present. The body, like the breath it holds, is happening now.
However, in everyday life, it is very easy to ignore reality and become seduced by the world we create in the mind. Walking down the street it may be helpful to remember my feet on the ground so I can be part of the world that is actually happening. This return to my feet as I walk on the sidewalk is grounding. While it is impractical to concentrate solely on the sidewalk, it is helpful to remember to return now and again. This keeps the mind grounded enough to be aware of life around us without becoming distracted. We can use any object in the present as an object of mindfulness so long as we are not imagining it, but we are feeling it. Rather than concentrate or focus on the present, I think it is more helpful to rest my mind on the present. LIke placing a loving hand on my body, I am coming into gentle contact with now. The body offers an experiential base to ground me in the present. Coming back to the breath, I am resting in the body.
Becoming aware of our body in practice allows us to further ground our experience. Embodied practice is more sustainable and secure than simply playing ping-pong between my thoughts and the breath. When I return to the breath, I have trained myself to feel the breathing and to make it a full body experience. Embodied practice is the ground for an embodied life. In our everyday life, we can return to the body as a full resonant container to ground our experience. When I coach folks on public speaking or performance I teach them to ground themselves on the earth and center their energy in the abdomen. Diaphragmatic breathing is deeper and more efficient than our casual shallow breath. And speaking from the belly is more grounded and resonant than our superficial head voice. Speaking fro m the gut, we can be heard more clearly and we don’t need to shout. When people are unmindful of the body, stuck in the head they will shout to make a point, acting on anxiety. The voice becomes strangled and shrill. It is not resonant and is emotionally hard for others to trust. We are being spoken at. But, when I remember to come into the body, I naturally remember to realign my posture and open my channels. I speak from the body with authority. And when I am in authority in my body, I am less inclined to be hijacked by my brain. I remember my lines. I know where I am heading because I know where I am. I am here. I am here in my body now.
This is also practical off stage and off the cushion. When I am in my body I am home. I feel safe and secure. My life has more resonance. And the body has many experiences happening now as reminders to return. I can return to the breath, or my feet on the ground, or my belly. I can become aware of holding tension in places and use that as a reminder to let on and come home. While I am experiencing my world, I am also in conversation with my embodied experience. This keeps me present and keeps me sane. My body is happening now. It is the earth I return to. My body is my home.
Mindfulness of body is resting on the foundation of mindfulness. From there we radiate out in awareness to our life with confidence and authority. Embodied awareness is knowing life as a fully present experience.