First
Foundation
Mindfulness of “the body within the body” is the First Foundation of
Mindfulness. This phrasing reminds us that we are not distant observers of the
body, with awareness located in our heads observing our body as an object, but
rather awareness permeates the whole body, like a sponge saturated with water.
The Buddha’s first instruction is to bring mindfulness to breathing.
We’re encouraged to simply know an
in-breath as an in-breath, an out-breath as an out-breath, free of all
manipulation. We become intimately familiar with the experience of breathing,
noticing the various and varying qualities such as deep or shallow, fast or
slow, rough or smooth, even or uneven, long or short. As mindfulness is a
friendly, non-judgmental, fully accepting kind of attention, we are already
cultivating a transcendence of the pairs of opposites.
Take some time to establish a meditation practice with this simple exercise:
Sitting comfortably, eyes slightly open or closed, jaw relaxed with some space between upper and lower teeth, and the tongue relaxed, it's tip just lightly touching above the front teeth.
Take a few deep breaths, noticing where you experience the movement of the breath. Many people feel it as the rising and falling of the belly or chest; others feel it at the nostril and upper lip as the breath moves in and out. Once you note where you feel the breath's movement, just rest your attention there free from strain -- as a butterfly rests on a flower -- and let the breath be natural.
Every time you notice that the mind has wandered away from the breath, just bring it back. That's all there is to it. If you'd like, you can use the technique of "noting" where you mentally "whisper" to yourself: "Rising; Falling" if that's what you're feeling or "In; Out" if that's your experience.
Then, expanding our awareness to include the whole body including its
posture, and movement, we deepen our sense of embodiment. The body and breath
do not get lost in the future or the past, so if attention is fully absorbed in
the body, there is a fully integrated sense of presence. The body and breath
keep us anchored to now. Only when we
become entangled and identified with thinking can we feel distant from life.
When practicing postures, we
stay fully present through mindfulness of the breath. When noticing the mind
leaning away from our experience of an asana, we can remember to come back to
the breath. In this way, the breath becomes the sutra – the thread – upon which
we weave our practice. We see for ourselves how the posture and movement of the
body “conditions” the breath. The qualities of the breath are conditioned by
whether we are in a forward bend, a backbend or a twist. While maintaining a
posture, we will see a change in the breath. We can also see how the breath
conditions the body, affecting both movement and posture. All this points to a
core teaching of the Buddha: as all phenomena are conditioned, there is no real
autonomous “thing” to speak of! We say “breath” or “posture” as if these were
things separate from the flow of experience, but through this practice we see
they are processes caused and conditioned, selfless and constantly changing.
Bringing attention to the parts of the body, we become cognizant of any
reactivity to the various parts; which parts do we like; which parts do we
dislike? We may feel revulsion contemplating our earwax, bowels or lymph and
prefer to contemplate our hair or our eyes. Yet those eyes free from their
sockets might provoke revulsion and fear; that hair clogged in our shower drain
may seem disgusting. All reactivity is conditioned.
An exercise based upon the parts of the body has the practitioner systematically bringing attention to various parts of the body, giving equal attention to each part and noticing if there is any reactivity that arises as one does this exercise:
Hair on the head; Eyes; Nose; Ears; lips; teeth; arms; hands; torso; genitalia; legs; feet; brains; heart; lungs; liver; kidneys; bladder; skeleton; circulatory system; lymphatic system; muscles; fatty tissue; blood; mucus; urine; feces etc.
Another exercise on the First Foundation is the Contemplation on the Five Great Elements (earth, water, fire, air and
space):
We bring attention to the solidity of the body; its composition of
various elements such as carbon – the very same carbon that gives us coal and
diamonds. The liquid element, manifesting as blood, interstitial fluid, and
other bodily fluids, is not separate from the water flowing in our rivers and
streams. Our bodies generate heat, and we subsist upon the solar energy
captured in the vegetables and flesh of animals we consume. The air we breathe
sustains our life, and all experience arises and passes away in space.
Through
contemplating the elements of the body the yogi begins to understand that life
is not isolated in her own body; that there is no “self” separate from the the
elements. The First Mindfulness Training[i]
of ahimsa or non-harming reminds us
to protect the lives of people, animals, plants and minerals. As our bodies and our life cannot exist without these
minerals, we begin to see that the distinction between organic and inorganic is
ultimately conceptual – there is no real separation. In protecting the elements
from degradation we protect ourselves. Before you “throw away” your garbage,
ask yourself, “Where is away?”
The final practice of the First Foundation is contemplating the
decomposition of the body, the existential truth that this body is of the
nature to die. Looking deeply into the impermanent nature of the body, we are
motivated not to take life for granted, not to lose our life in distraction and
dispersion. For those ready for this practice, the effect of this meditation is
liberating, understandable in light of all the effort we make, the tension and
strain we create, in attempting to deny the only thing we know for certain –
that we will die!
