Body scanning

[Gem]

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.

[Native spirit]

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


Namaste

[Gem]

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.

[Redchic12]

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