The Role of the Body in Waking Up
El papel del cuerpo en el despertar
A question about whether physical practices are necessary for awakening, and how much attention one should give to the body in spiritual work.
The Role of the Body in Waking Up
A question about whether physical practices are necessary for awakening, and how much attention one should give to the body in spiritual work.
I asked you about this before, and I'd love to hear more about it. I've asked you in the past about the role of the physical in waking up: how much attention is worth putting on that. It doesn't always occur to me to put attention there, so should I try, or should I just attend to what is already present? It's an aspect that still isn't clear to me.
The thing is, it's not a clear matter. It's something very mysterious, and that's why there are so many kinds of practices. There isn't a universal, straightforward, simple answer.
You asked whether it's a requirement, and I said no. But at the same time, certain teachers have created very intense active meditations that involve the body profoundly. This isn't unique to any one tradition. Yoga, pranayama, many Tibetan Buddhist practices, shamanic traditions like the sweat lodge: all of these involve, in a sense, preparing the body for a shift and bringing it to certain limits.
But it's not a requirement, and it can get really subtle. What I was doing just now, for example: you're staying still, but you are exploring the body in brief moments. The key is to find a way to look at the beliefs around what you are, because the strong attachment happens with the body.
Why practices like whirling work
The Sufis do whirling. Why? I would say they whirl because it blurs the boundary of the body. The experience of sitting down or walking is very localized. It allows for a focused, localized experience of "I am this body and not the rest," and so it won't challenge that belief. But when you go to a situation where you're whirling for two hours, the mapmaking aspect of the mind will start to have trouble maintaining its map, because the current experience becomes so diffuse. The mind will have less ground to stay intact, and it will have to adapt. The sense of self will have to expand.
When you do a sweat lodge and everything is dark and very uncomfortable, the darkness creates a sense of a lack of boundary. Where "I am" and where things end blurs into a kind of void, an empty space that feels infinite. Bringing the body to a certain degree of discomfort also requires the mental aspect, the belief structure, to find a way to expand in order to stay intact. It will have to expand because it becomes too uncomfortable to be constrained to the body. The false belief is "I am this body and nothing more." If the body is in a lot of discomfort, that discomfort releases when the sense of self expands to include other aspects of experience. The part of "I" that is uncomfortable becomes smaller, not because the body shrinks, but because the sense of "I" expands.
Being danced by the dance
Even dancing: when music takes you, there is a way in which one can dance where you start to be danced by the dance. The music takes you, the body does its own movement, and you become a non-controlling presence. It's the same with whirling. There's a sense of loss of control, and that again expands the sense of self, because the sense of self is attached to a few beliefs: I am this body, I am this mind, I decide, I control. Working with the body will help loosen all of these. So I recommend it, but it's definitely not a requirement.
That's interesting, because I think that's one of the great pleasures of making music, but I don't think about it consciously. It's something I'm attracted to and keep doing, but I'm not really aware of why. Hearing you describe it this way is very illuminating. I was just thinking: does this happen only when I play in a group with other musicians, where I disappear and we become one thing, or with an audience? Does it also happen when I'm on my own? I think there are moments of making music when it becomes everything, even if I'm alone. I disappear because the music is the thing, even by myself.
What we're actually chasing
What I'm pointing to is that when the belief that we are something very localized, limited, and small starts to blur, any practice or situation or experience that enables that will bring more well-being, more connection, more love for life. Those are just words, my descriptions, but that's what we're chasing: situations or processes that create that expansion.
What we're trying to do here is to notice that we can go there even more directly. That doesn't mean we stop creating music or doing any of these other things, but what we experience in those moments is available always. It has to do with a way in which we can start softening or dissolving these really strong beliefs about what we are.
That's why working with the body is quite helpful. But many people have woken up without doing that. Still, if you look at the great teachers, they all had some form of process with the body. Jesus went to the desert for forty days. He was fasting, going to an extreme. We don't even know what practices he did before that. Siddhartha Buddha did all kinds of practices. There are so many examples. But they are not a requirement.