Body scanning
 

Inspired by Just Be's new thread, I'm back to discuss the principles of mindfulness again.

In Buddhism they say there are 4 pillars of mindfulness: body, sensation, mind and mental contents. In meditation we are concerned with the direct observation of sensation and mental contents, whereas 'body' and 'mind' are more like abstract concepts for contemplation.

Needless to say all bodies will grow old, die and decay and that's fate, which is handy for facing the truth of life, but it isn't an immediate perception. The immediate perception is the feelings and mentalities that are momentarily manifesting.

This means when we start off with breath awareness we are actually aware of what breathing feels like, as opposed to merely having the intellectual knowledge 'I am breathing'.

When you practice breath meditation you will automatically notice your mental contents in the same practice. In the texts, the feelings and mental contents are discussed in separate categories, but in practice they cannot be separated. Similarly, issues we categorise as psychological are part and parcel of feelings manifesting in the body.

I don't want to complicate it. I'm just saying this because it might not seem to make sense that consciously scanning the body is psychologically/emotionally healing.

It seems counterintuitive at first, but body scanning is a way of spiritually self-healing physically, psychologically and emotionally, bringing deeper insight into the universal nature of mind and matter and discovering all aspects of yourself on every level.

I have done the body scanning a few times now I can do it at will
it is helpful and Healing


Namaste

As usual, I go online to find some information, but as someone who practiced mindfulness in depth, I can say the 'information' easily accessible online is OK at a very superficial level, and I find it really hard to fins something worth linking.

There is a whole process which starts with the hard physical body along with the crude, chattering, emotionally reactive mind, and it progresses to subtler levels that people might call the subtle body, emotional body, vibratory body, energy body, light body or something like that... which is really just means the level at which you perceive feelings in the body.

Initially you would scan by just feeling one part at a time, like start to feel the crown, then move to forehead, back of head, eye area, nose, mouth, cheeks, ears, neck, throat, shoulders, etc all the way to tippy toes. That would take 10 or 15 minutes or maybe a bit longer depending, but it allows you to closely examine every inch of the body, being conscious of what it feels like.

Before that it is best to just do breath awareness for a few months because we'd need a mind capable fairly acute perception and able to stay on task without getting distracted for too long. If the perception is kinda dull and the mind wanders off for long periods of time, you don't really feel much going on and you lose track of things halfway through.

I feel like I'm going too detailed, and people want a 'just do this' for today, and it is fine to body scan and find tensions and relax them, that's great, but I'm trying to talk about a healing process that goes further and unwinds really deep knots and blocks so there's more of a free flow.

It takes time, and some people like to imagine it like layers of an onion, peel off the solid outer and then the next, and the next, healing the psychological content of each layer as you go. It will heal to the level your perception is capable of penetrating. Beyond that capability things by definition remain unconscious, but with continued practice they too 'come to light' in conscious awareness where they dissolve away.

Many people will say it's for beginners because people want to be 'more spiritual' than someone else, but people go to great heights spiritually without full body awareness, and all that old stuff is still caught in the layers. If people want the high spiritual experiences and bypass the 'physical' sure there is a 'God experience' or other ultimate attainment, but you end up physical and regenerate and carry old trauma from moment to moment, from life to life.

The aim of this is purification or what we like to call 'healing'. There are many aspects to that, such as remaining neutral, no-ego, etc, which we understand better with growing wisdom...

Anyway, it make no sense unless you 'see it for yourself', and thread-philosophy is pretty useless without real-life discovery and insight, so I merely suggest maybe give it a try and see what happens.

Ahhh yes that’s exactly what I do, fairly regularly as well. Didn’t realise how beneficial it was. Thanks for that Gem.

hi Gem happy to see you here,
I also doing mindfulness meditation
become a neutral watcher of body and mind
aware to what happen on the six sense at present moment
still practicing though, not always aware, but I try

and also mix with contemplating them with anicca, dukkha, anatta,
how heavily conditioned, temporary, no substance, everything is
I feel that when I contemplating, also useful and give me peace
especially when I can't concentrate or mindful to watch the object

I believe the Goenka way of vipassana mainly revolves around body scanning as a technique to wisdom.
Somehow in my experience Body scanning makes me relax fairly quickly and more totally/deeply than say concentrating on the belly or breath, Making it ideal as a jump of point for samatha..
there's a few down to earth basic body awarenes techniques / meditations as guided meditations by Thanissaro Bhikku cirkling the web
.

This refinement starts with breath awareness and later extends to the whole body. Going layer by layer, the physical densities dissolve as the life-form purifies. The activities of mind materially manifest in the body, and physical phenomena affect reactions in the mind. Body consciousness enables these reactive dynamics to cease and reach equilibrium.

Start with simple breath awareness and feel what breathing is like. No controlled breaths, no counted/timed breaths or belly breaths etc. Just normal breathing. As bodymind settles, breathing gets lighter. Let it be as it is, and focus on what it feels like.

Undertake this daily for maybe 40 minutes up to and hour or so. It probably takes about about 3 or 4 months to be ready to start examining the body all over.

The key to the method is just watch. Breathe normally, don't try to change anything, control anything or imagine anything. When you get distracted and mind wanders away - no worries - simply resume. Be indifferent, but persistent.

The healing will start straight away, so be prepared and take care.

Short & Simple....
 

https://www.spiritualityandpractice....8468/body-scan

Body Scan
Spiritual Practice by Thich Nhat Hanh....

Because in the West we have a dominant mental health narrative and click bait branding, online media pushes our anxiety to make us click and buy. Hence, the Thich page which we might might consider a teaching is actually designed to make you buy the book. I'm not saying it's a good or a bad, but the motive is wrong. They want something from you, whereas proper motive is giving without expecting anything in return.

We don't know it because everything is like that, everyone is doing it, and it just vanishes into normalcy. However, it's better to be discerning about what is rightly intended, because if we can't do that regarding the world out there, it means we we can't discern it for ourselves either.

This is the reason most material searched on line is so banal when meditation itself is about the whole purification, healing all sorrows, staying with the truth and being liberated. "Smiling at your eyes" is a superficial veneer when considering the real gravitas of the topic. It practically belittles the depth of human suffering because it's being used by the publishers like a catchy jingle to tempt you into a compulsive click-and-buy. That is contrived, but we take it as 'Oh so wise' that's the water we are also submerged in.

I know I'm in my own private Idaho about this. It's just that I searched quite a while to find meaningful discourses about going through the body to paste on thread, but assuming the participants here are mature and sophisticated, as yet, search results have all been sub-par. One day I'll find something and be, like, "Yes! Everyone has to hear it," but the search algo is geared for a purpose precisely the opposite to that of meditation. Still, sincerity and truth will end up shining through.

You do not need to 'buy' any of Thich Nhat Hanh books, His Teachings are all 'free' of charge and available at Plum Village. Body Scanning can be found under the heading 'Experiencing the Body in the Body', obviously it is also part of Buddhist Suttas, all available 'free' online or at a Buddhist Sangha.....

[quote=Catsquotl]I believe the Goenka way of vipassana mainly revolves around body scanning as a technique to wisdom.
there's a few down to earth basic body awarenes techniques / meditations as guided meditations by Thanissaro Bhikku cirkling the web[QUOTE

I enjoy Thanissaro Bhikkus Teachings, He is indeed very 'down to earth' :smile:

Body Scan.
 

Doing a body scan allows us to take some time out in our busy lives, we can be with our body and give it kindness, care, and love, use the energy of a kind :smile: which we freely give to others to offer each part of our body compassion.
We are worth it, imo.....

I’ve gotta say I LOVE Thich Nhat Hahn!

I’ve done a lot of research on this man and listened to heaps of videos and found him to be a very sincere, honest, humble and genuine person.

I do understand where you are coming from Gem regarding click and buy. There certainly are plenty of those about and for the reasons that you state as well. However, I don’t feel that this monk can be put into that category because of the amount of free things that he has done. Perhaps because he is dead now, there are other people trying to cash in on his name.

Just my opinion tho.

Yes as do I :smile: I imagine He was of those people who lit up a room with His ' Smiling Eyes'....

Exactly. Thich is OK, but the people who published that page are twisting it into an advert so you click the 'buy book' thingy. Hence the twisted motive and 'baby voice' content. Of course it gets pushed to the upper search results because the algo serves advertiser dollars, and it's all engineered to incite the craving whereas meditation itself is designed to bring that to an end.

Nothing against Thich, so don't misinterpret it that way. I personally don't like him but that's just a personal taste. I encourage people to hear what he has to say, regardless, and I always link his video on 'wrong views' and nirvana. It's brilliant.

Anyway, he says smile at every part of your body, but other teachers don't instruct that. Another teacher beside TNH won't add on the smile bit, but he'll add on something else. Since they all add on different little things, we can surmise that none of the add ons are necessary. I like the principle that less is more, so of course I'll say don't add anything on.

Feel it and examine the whole body closely. That's it.

Because feeling the body needs a bit of stable attention and a modicum of acute perception, it's better to stick with breath awareness for some weeks before starting on the whole body. Maybe 50 or 60 hours is enough to do the trick.

This approach to mindfulness has healing effects which add ons actually impede. I know we like light things like smiling at our brain but the reality is, This is not nice and light. It's the most serious thing in the world.

If you have nothing against Him how can you not like Him. Equanimity Gem, then you would neither like nor dislike Him, simple.


[Quote=Gem) "mindfulness has healing effects which add ons actually impede"

Mybe for you personally but you obviously cannot speak for others....
The Buddha was very wise when He said 'Ehipassiko'-come see for yourself, what you call add ons actually may be extremely helpful for some and I personally would advise everyone to see for themselves, that's the only way....

I tend to agree with you re- distractions can take the form of positive smiles etc..
In the end you’ve got to walk through the depth of your suffering regardless. So it makes sense that if you’re less distracted, more mindful of what is as it arises you’ll progress and move through what you can’t avoid anyway.

This is from someone who has been so distracted through my own processors over 30yrs and now I’m aware, upon reaching the simplicity, the breath, my centre, how much you don’t need them. They are distractions and the real work doesn’t need them.

I can focus on the uplifted state now, ( it’s not really focused, more natural) but that’s without the imbalance in me. I see this as the potential more so once you’ve done the work and built your equanimity and balanced being.

Yep. The smile thing is a TNH theme. It's 'nice', but it's a tiny bit off the mark - no biggie.

The meditation is based on the principle of 'mere awareness', just observe. You're not supposed to do anything.

I've sat with literally thousands of people in my time, and I know it's not easy for people to understand not-doing/just-watching. Teachers don't necessarily understand properly in depth, so they typically add on a lil' sumpm' for you to do. This is because ego gets interrupted when 'you' stop and the demons inside are cut loose. Not many people really want 'to walk through the depth of their suffering' like you say, let alone drop the one they've been living as, so they reserve just a lil' sumpm' that they get to control. It's part of the clinging which interferes in just letting the process unfold.

It's simpler. Feel from the crown, bit by bit every part, down to the toes (and/or the other way). Nothing else. It's that easy (but also harder).

Nuances and refinements include you have to look more closely and stuff, but rather than add a lil' sumpm', what you do is taken away so you have no other recourse but to be aware while nature does things her own way.

I take is as if your life depends on it, and other people will think that's intense, but it actually is, and I'm just being realistic about it.

You are the arbiter who discerns on merit, entirely alone because you ultimately determine your own pathway. Everything in life depends on that. You don't get to alleviate that responsibility by turning to an authority of the order and following false hope with docile obedience.

Living like you're on your own in this way necessitates high degrees of honesty and integrity. People think it's how we should be and tell us to be like that, but start living it for real and you find it's taboo, transgressive and disruptive. The rest of the world is conditioned to be 'nice', but it's a world that egos construct to pretend to be 'me' in. When we drop the veil and shine for real, that world turns out to be not-so-nice when it's exposed. Little wonder considering how the exposure of your own ego reveals a horrific phantasm and you understand they're all living as something like that. The beautiful thing is no one judges it. You're aware and it's fine as it is.

If you get the sense, yes, I'm on my own discerning for myself, even if that comes with a deep sense of uncertainty, as well it should, the positive is, you are fully self-determining. It's essential to be that free. There's always temptations because responsibility can be hard, lonely and uncertain, but full responsibility is also full empowerment, and you wouldn't want to hand that off to anyone.

'Our life is shaped by our mind: we become what we think'.
The Buddha......

To each their own.... I've been practicing 'Body Scanning' for many moons and I can personally say it enhances one's life but my life does not 'depend' on it as it didn't before I began to practice.....

Just gonna rattle on because I even though I know it would be more comfortable to live less truthfully, I can't even fool myself to that degree anymore.

I still have teachers, but my teachers don't have any authority and I don't follow them. If I have an issue or obstacle they might explain the thing. I have to listen by testing it in myself. If I get that 'I see it' moment, then I continue under my own improved understanding. That's why I treat TNH as a human being without a fabled status.

The whole structure that creates mystical impressions of TNH is constructed within in the larger interplay of false identities. I get it because I've seen my own ghost and understand how people live and interact as that. For me the whole illusion is transparent because I'm also see through. Though-to-be-great figures are a person just like me, as is the degenerate sitting across on the bus. TNH wrote a poem about this many years ago, but I can't remember what it's called.

Since you can see how it's formed in your own imagination, you realise there is no one to follow and your ability to discern becomes absolutely necessary. Indeed, it is being able to discern between what's observable and what's added as fabrication in the mind that causes the entire charade to collapse.

Gem……..” take is as if your life depends on it, and other people will think that's intense, but it actually is,”

Can you expand on this a bit more?

I copied that saying from Jon Kabat Zinn, but from my perspective it means it's the most important thing and it's the hardest most arduous thing. People suffer in ways that aren't just superficial, and undergoing the purification is going to raise things that are hard to go through. Even after much the gunk is cleared out, there's more energetic forms of intensity that are difficult to endure. People get taken to limits that they cannot surpass and start getting overwhelmed so they can no longer 'just be'. Their reactive tendency becomes too strong and they can't bear it 'as it is', and return to their old habit of 'making it as I want it to be'. Not mindfully and intentionally, but because they are completely compelled.

In practice, when that happens, you still remain and understand, this mind going wild, and try to keep attention on the feelings 'as they are' in the body. You have to teach yourself that you are not caused and the passing phenomena cannot affect your compulsion. You have to be willing no matter what, which is hardest thing of all.

That is not advanced advice or anything like that. It's the same reality for a novice or an adept. If the adepts come for a chat we'll talk about more refined aspects of it, and for the novices it's about being precise. I claim just doing breath awareness for a number of weeks is best. The body scan is feeling what's going on physically. Breath awareness establishes the 'way of observing' that leads to feeling 'the whole body'. It's done in the particular way that is pertinent to how one examines their physical sensations in say 6 months from now, and how to approach the subtler body, energy flow, heart opening and all the rest.

The approach I talk about gets uncomfortable physically, but training equanimity at that grosser level makes you ready to resolve old trauma and overcome sorrows. Currently we don't have the strength to endure the depth of it, so if it were to come fully into consciousness it traumatises us even more. If we can cultivate more stable equanimity, we are able to take much more and resolve deeply seated harder life issues. If we resolve things that are currently stuck, they cease to manifest their density in our physical sensations, and our entire lifeform starts to open up. Then it keeps getting harder just because our limits are a lot higher.

The reason I sound quite mad with all the intensity, and no-authority, and the imaginary mystical impressions, and full self-determination, which is a very radical narrative, is, you really have be serious about it. Because it's arduous, you have to be ardent.

Just for an example. Intend to yourself, 'I will sit up and remain motionless for a full hour'. Set a strong intention 'I'll not move no matter what,' then see if it's a 'walk in the park'. Typically, it starts to get uncomfortable, you start reacting and the mind goes wild. For most, the last 10 or 15 minutes will require a lot of determination.

After a number of weeks, just sitting there for an hour or so becomes fairly routine, no problem, but the levels of difficulty don't get less. People say they do, but when you practice right, you get to the point where it requires full determination, only the 'test' is harder. If a novice was taken to that level they'd be scarred by it. It means you're better established in the equanimity of mere awareness and will continue to grow stronger. In time you reach subtler and subtler aspects of the body, and when it opens up to an energy flow you understand why it was you trained in such a particular way, in equanimity, all this time - so you can continue to undergo the process to subtler levels and to extremes that you couldn't previously comprehend.

Taking it back to beginning, we know exactly what we train for. The first sitting is pretty intense, it immediately kicks the purification process into gear, and the process gets more intense as it unfolds. The ability to maintain perfect equanimity enables you to take more than you could before, which is an ongoing process. Hence, there's only two aspects to practice: ardent awareness with equanimity of mind. That's what we train.

Ok I understand what you mean now.

Thanks.

I would link to Jon Kabat Zinn (JKZ), because he's quite good, the best I can find online, and worth checking out. I'm not linking in this thread because after a certain point he goes off track and starts taking from typical mindfulness teachers things that I too have heard them say. For example, in his breath meditation narrative he does a nod to 'noting' instead of remaining with the pure way of 'just observing', and when he gets to the body scan, he goes way off into imagining the breath extending to the distal reaches of the body and maybe other things that stray from mere awareness.

For the most part, JKZ is right on the money, but from my perspective, it is great and will do a lot of good, but it's not really refined enough to encompass the intricate nuances of purification, so I'm not linking it here. But, if you are going to source information about this topic online, JKZ is up there with the best.

It's very hard for people, including the teachers, to resist adding an action or imaginary element because it's exceedingly difficult to not-do that in practice. There's reasons for that. It's just ego holding something to do because if it ain't doing, then who's steering the ship?

The purification is unleashed because you disrupt that 'self' at the most fundamental level. If you 'do' with the smiling, counting, imagining etc, sure it will be easier and more relaxed and calmer, but that's because ego knows it is firmly in the drivers seat, completely unthreatened, and has no reason to force you to become unsettled. If you don't-do, it will start rattling the cage.

When you start out with breath awareness, you're just aware that it 'feels like this'. Nothing else added. When you notice you've drifted away, you know you were lost in the mind and simply resume awareness of what breathing feels like.

Instead of adding a secondary contrivance to that, start looking more closely and feeling more clearly the subtler details of how it feels.

Just watch, examine and know. If you start actions, reactions and imaginations unintentionally, then fine, but intentionally adding your own thing to what 'just is' is the complete opposite of what this meditation is supposed to be.

Anyway. I am recommending JKZ (but not linking him here). I don't recommend just anyone, but this guy is top notch. Just remember he has no authority whatsoever and you have to discern for yourself.

That’s really good info Gem.

You touched on a few things of real importance. Namely these distractions some meditations take up, do put you in the drivers seat, which can become a distraction, layering over what is already distracted.

I notice now with any meditation those guiding in this way, can add noise and distraction to my mind where it no longer craves either. So sitting with a teacher guiding in more silence than doing, is more what my mind/body requires. I don’t need a teacher of course, it’s easy now to just sit and notice, observe and let my breath be my guide.

That has come through developing my inner balance.

It’s a bit like the 79yr local lady in my town who’s been lifting weights for 40 yrs or more. I was chatting to her recently about her practice, she was sharing how she doesn’t need a personal trainer now, she knows how to train herself, train well and still compete ( when she feels like it) and take out the winners prize. No huff and gruff, no ego leading, just a lovely dedicated lady doing her thing, she has dedicated her mind/body/health too..��