Time: 8:03am
What: 25 minutes asana / 20 minutes seated practice
Focus: First Foundation / Exercise 7 - 8 (Sati-)
Experienced "morning body" - all stiff, sore, with limited movement - differently this morning. Frustration. "Am I going to be like this forever?!" Watched the aversion, the movement, discerning the difference between morning and afternoon practice, and continued onward. Funny how the same type of experience can ignite different emotional responses depending on the moment.
Sat with the body as elements. Feeling each element in the body or (rather) the parts of the body as each element. Like searching for something in the dark. Or dividing up a pile of skittles based on colour. Recognizing parts of the body as elements evolved into how the body would decompose back into the elements (earth, water, air...). Got a little stuck on fire. Feeling fire as movement, heat, energy. The decomposition of the body led me into planning my PRY intention... Plants needing resistance to grow strong... That resistance requiring an element of risk... How fear shows up when resistance or risk is involved... Kleshas... Abhinivesha... How all fears stem back to the fear of the death of self... Noticing fear in practice... Fear of a posture or fear of the death of an idea...
1 comment:
I LOVED your image of dividing up skittles based upon color. Perhaps a more contemporary image than the one used by the Buddha in the sutra? (Here is brown rice; here is mung beans, these are kidney beans etc.)
As for the dissolution of the body according to the elements, one traditional account has the sense consciousnesses as the first to dissolve, with images losing clarity, sounds growing indistinct etc. THEN, the body loses strength, complexion fades, cheeks sink etc. as the Earth element dissoves into the water element. As we lose control of our bodily fluids, our tissues begin to dry out as the Water element dissolves into the Fire element. Our mouth and nose dry up, the warmth of the body seeps away, often from the feet towards the heart. It becomes difficult or impossilbe to take in water or digest anything. The Fire element is dissolving into Air. Breathing becomes labored, we rasp and pant. The intellect begins to dissolve as we grow ever more unaware of our surroundings; the feeling of contact with the environment ceases as Air dissolves into Space.
This is the shortened description....
:-)
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