Mindfulness of the Body

"Mindful, he breathes in, and mindful, he breathes out."

BREATHING
First comes mindfulness of breathing; to be mindful of short or long breaths (or sudden or quick or peaceful) to be mindful of how the breathing is - whatever sort of breath it is - without controlling it - "clearly comprehending and mindful, having overcome covetousness and grief concerning the world : this is right mindfullness."

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POSTURES
the postures of the body are straight forward

- walking standing sitting or lying - are given as rough guides ... and implies all the postures and degrees and etc between these 4

The text includes : bending down standing up etc etc eating chewing tasting ... falling asleep - speaking ... I mean these are simply indications ... Buddha is talking simply about everyway we move - everything we do.

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PARTS
Oh dear - now - are we really meant to believe that our impartial Buddha gave such a value judgement as "Repulsive"... havent all the titles crept in later? ... the title always given to this section is:
"The Reflection on the Repulsiveness of the Body"
So then to the 32 parts of the body "There are in this body hair of the head, hair of the body, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, sinews, bones, marrow, kidney, heart, liver, midriff/pleura, spleen, lungs, intestines, mesentery, gorge, feces, bile, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, solid fat, tears, grease/liquid fat, saliva, nasal mucus, synovial fluid, urine."
we must ask is this really necessary?
we must ask is this not simply what Indian medicine believed around 200 BC. ?
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Lets review body-mindfulness in modern terms

"Mindful, he breathes in, and mindful, he breathes out."

"breathing in aware of the in breath
breathing out aware of the out breath
breathing in letting go of the in breath
breathing out letting go of the out breath

breathing in aware of the body
breathing out aware of the body
breathing in letting go of the body
breathing out letting go of the body"

then the same with
crown of the head
region of lower brain

entire body
the 10,000 nadis or acupuncture channels
the 99% emptiness where the electrons are spinning
peripheral nervous system
blood system
lymphatic system
bones
muscles (tendons etc.)
flesh to skin
skin outside (nails hair clothes)
genitals
digestion system
lungs
heart
central nervous sytem
eyes and seeing (open eyes - notice shapes and colours new without naming them)
ears and hearing
nose and smelling
mouth and tasting
again the brain
again entire body

This is the central meditation and practice.
Often I reduce the sequence to:
"breathing IN, AWARE ...., breathing OUT, LETTING-GO ...."
Or simply use the 3rd depth without even an attempt at coordinating the breathing ... alternatively, with my (unhealthy) lungs where I take 3 or 4 breaths ... and I find this is all part of a creative flexible mindfulness meditation.

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ELEMENTS
Then comes the reflection on the fundamental material elements ... The text suggests being aware of our body and the outside world in terms of earth water air and fire ... its worth the experiement

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BIRTH and DEATH
the nine cemetry contemplations ... (surely some of these passages have been inserted by an over zealous ascetic). Simply I feel the repeated insistence on origination AND dissolution factors illustrate clearly that the interpretation lies somewhere else, and somewhere nearer reality and common sense.

for example: I imagine myself as 3yrs old child and on death bed - or in womb and dead ... or again I find it interesting to imagine myself (and others) at 0 , 20, 40, 60, 80.

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You need to read the original to appreciate the gruesomeness of this section ... we are asked to be aware of the worms eating the flesh - then - the skeleton held together by tendons - then the dust ---- - apparently there were corpses all over the place in ancient India ... I can imagine that some parts of this meditation would provide a good anatomy lesson - when we remember the stories of de Vinci and others needing corpses to study anatomy ... the subjective senses are often very deceptive eg. I felt for many years that my breath went into my belly ...

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