Body And Mind Together

Each of us has a body, but we aren’t always in touch with it. Maybe our
body needs us, our body is calling us, but we don’t hear it. We’re so
caught up in our job, our computer, our phone, or in our conversation,
we can forget we even have a body.
If we can get in touch with our body, then we can also get in touch
with our feelings. There are many feelings calling to us. Every feeling
is like our child. Suffering is a hurt child crying out to us. But we ignore
the voice of the child within.
The process of healing begins when we mindfully breathe in. In
daily life, very often our body is here but our mind is off in the past,
in the future, or in our projects. The mind is not with the body. When
we breathe in and focus our attention on our in-breath, we reunite
body and mind. We become aware of what is going on in the present
moment, in our body, in our perceptions, and around us.
When we bring our mind home to our body, something wonderful
happens; our mental discourse stops its chattering. Thinking can be
productive, but the reality is that most of our thinking is unproductive.
When we think, it may be easy for us to be lost in our thinking.
But when we use our breath to bring our mind home to the body, we can
stop the thinking.
When you come back to yourself and breathe mindfully, your
mind’s attention has only one object, your breath. If you continue to
breathe in and out mindfully, you maintain that state of presence and
freedom. Your mind will be clearer and you will make better decisions.
It’s much better to make a decision when your mind is clear and free
rather than in the sway of fear, anger, and worries.
When I was a young monk, I believed that it took a long time to get any kind of insight. The truth is, there are insights that can come
right away. When you practice mindfulness of breathing, you know
right away that you are alive, and that to be alive is a wonder. If you can
be aware that you have a living body, and notice when there’s tension in
your body, that’s already an important insight. With that insight, you
have already begun to diagnose the situation. You don’t need to practice
eight years or twenty years in order to wake up.
Breathing mindfully isn’t something hard to do. You don’t have to
suffer while breathing. You’re already doing it all day long. You don’t
need to struggle to control your breathing. In fact, breathing in can
become a real pleasure. You just allow yourself to breathe in naturally
while focusing your attention on your in-breath. It’s like the morning
sunshine on a flower that has closed overnight. The sunshine doen’t
interfere with the flower. The sunshine just embraces and subtly permeates
the flower. Embraced by the energy of the sunshine, the flower
begins to bloom.

Generating Mindfulness

The way we start producing the medicine of mindfulness is by stopping
and taking a conscious breath, giving our complete attention to
our in-breath and our out-breath. When we stop and take a breath in
this way, we unite body and mind and come back home to ourselves.
We feel our bodies more fully. We are truly alive only when the mind is
with the body. The great news is that oneness of body and mind can be
realized just by one in-breath. Maybe we have not been kind enough to
our body for some time. Recognizing the tension, the pain, the stress
in our body, we can bathe it in our mindful awareness, and that is the
beginning of healing.
If we take care of the suffering inside us, we have more clarity,
energy, and strength to help address the suffering violence, poverty,
and inequity of our loved ones as well as the suffering in our community
and the world. If, however, we are preoccupied with the fear and
despair in us, we can’t help remove the suffering of others. There is an
art to suffering well. If we know how to take care of our suffering, we
not only suffer much, much less, we also create more happiness around
us and in the world.

Healing Medicine

The main affliction of our modern civilization is that we don’t know
how to handle the suffering inside us and we try to cover it up with all
kinds of consumption. Retailers peddle a plethora of classic and novel
devices to help us cover up the suffering inside. But unless and until
we’re able to face our suffering, we can’t be present and available to
life, and happiness will continue to elude us.
There are many people who have enormous suffering, and don’t know how to handle it. For many people, it starts already at a very
young age. So why don’t schools teach our young people the way to
manage suffering? If a student is very unhappy, he can’t concentrate
and he can’t learn. The suffering of each of us affects others. The more
we learn about the art of suffering well, the less suffering there will be
in the world.
Mindfulness is the best way to be with our suffering without being
overwhelmed by it. Mindfulness is the capacity to dwell in the present
moment, to know what’s happening in the here and now. For example,
when we’re lifting our two arms, we’re conscious of the fact that we’re
lifting our arms. Our mind is with our lifting of our arms, and we don’t
think about the past or the future, because lifting our arms is what’s
happening in the present moment.
To be mindful means to be aware. It’s the energy that knows what
is happening in the present moment. Lifting our arms and knowing
that we’re lifting our arms—that’s mindfulness, mindfulness of our
action. When we breathe in and we know we’re breathing in, that’s
mindfulness. When we make a step and we know that the steps are
taking place, we are mindful of the steps. Mindfulness is always mindfulness
of something. It’s the energy that helps us be aware of what is
happening right now and right here, in our body, in our feelings, in our
perceptions, and around us.
With mindfulness, you can recognize the presence of the suffering
in you and in the world. And it’s with that same energy that you
tenderly embrace the suffering. By being aware of your in-breath and
out-breath you generate the energy of mindfulness, so you can continue
to cradle the suffering. Practitioners of mindfulness can help
and support each other in recognizing, embracing, and transforming
suffering. With mindfulness we are no longer afraid of pain. We can even go further and make good use of suffering to generate the energy
of understanding and compassion that heals us and we can help others
to heal and be happy as well.