Now we will work with a short meditation on body or touch, as we’re calling it. This is about physical sensation. It’s also about our sense of proprioception, the idea of knowing where our body is in space, feeling our nervous system pervading or our awareness pervading our body. Whether you feel that as an external sensation or an internal sensation, there is a difference there.
We’re working with the external right now, the sense of temperature, the clothes on your skin, the weight of your body on your seat. These things are temperature, texture, touch and weight, and we’re really working with the whole body. You could focus on one part, like your hands touching your thighs and the warmth there, or you could include wherever you notice a sensation in the body, relaxing and including that.
Let’s start with the sense of touch in terms of our hands. See if you can add in the sense of temperature around your body on your skin, acknowledge your clothes. What is unique about the sense of sensation, physical sensation? What about it overlaps with other senses?
We’re noticing, as always, when does the mind start to congeal into a thought about the physical sensation? And we just notice that with love and appreciation, that thought is so welcome! It’s family! The attention seeking Little One known as Thought, has tons of energy and tons of desire for connection and communication and Grandmother Touch is just hanging out, unfazed and welcoming. Grandmother Touch doesn’t forget who she is when the Little One, Thought, comes in the room. She doesn’t lose herself. She is still the adult, the grandmother.
So we can see how just resting with the bare sensation of the body is honoring the particular qualities of that sense field, and as we go throughout our day we can focus on the five senses, flashing on 5/5/5. Remembering to flash is one of the hardest things. It’s not hard to do, it’s more challenging for us to find a way to remember to do it. We have some tips we’ve given about that, but it also requires something from our side, a genuine passion and longing to connect with the presence of our senses and appreciate them.
So rouse that heart and mind and good luck with your practice.
This is part of a whole series! Have a look…
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