Those who thoroughly engage
in mindfulness of the body,
who don’t practice what shouldn’t be done,
and regularly practice what should be done,
conscious and clearly comprehending,
their toxic impulses fade away.
– Dhammapada, Verse 293. Translated by Christopher J. Ash
After my stay in hospital for the removal of my cancer, in 2014, when I returned home, a friend wanted to know how I had practised mindfulness during my stay in hospital. I replied by detailing a number of methods by which I had stayed in my body continuously, so as not to dissociate from present-moment experience.
I told her of methods I was able to call on, learnt over decades. After talking with my friend, I reflected to myself that all of them awakened space. I had used every means possible to be in spacious awareness in a loving way. Inviting the experience of space was a core thing, because with space comes enhanced sensitivity.
(And vice-versa, of course. Opening to the senses as they are, and to one’s whole-body sensing, brings space.)
Where am I going with this? I have been asking: what do we need to cultivate, to ask the big questions; and to hold the big terrors that can come with illness, death and dying? The broad answer is: mindfulness of the body, with specific attention to the feel of being.
When I was in hospital, most of the time, mindfulness of the body was in union with simple resting in Being. The experience of the body was rarely pleasant, with all the pains; but there was, nevertheless, a pleasant abiding in the heart of being alive. Resting in unsupported awareness, in union with mindfulness of the body, these each supported the other.
To be conscious of what I was experiencing – needles entering my skin, sending love and gratitude to my condemned prostate (for its years of healthy functioning), being wheeled on the gurney, receiving the anæsthetic mask (while hearing Mozart in the theatre), waking up in the recovery room, being woken in the dead of night, swallowing pills, painful trips to the toilet carrying the catheter, receiving the care of the attentive nurses – to be conscious and to clearly comprehend my situation with a positive heart, all I needed to do was be present without any desire for another world (of experience) than the one that I was experienceing.
This gave rise to the experience of space aware of space. It was all space. The needle and the flesh – space to space. It felt, most of the time, like a blessing, to be so present, and clear that I was present. And so peaceful. There was nothing for me to do, but to be there.
However, let me be clear about being there. Despite what I say about space – or, perhaps because of it – being present is a feeling thing. It’s a knowing from the inside of the body, in a felt way. It’s the aliveness, the warmth, the felt presence of a bodily existence. This kind of space is not dissociation.
One can be mindful of, and clearly comprehend, any experiencing – the body, the feeling-tones (pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral), the states of mind or attitudes, and the dynamics of your experience – if you welcome the whole felt world (loka), without possessing any of it.
Comprehension can occur, then, in different ways: about your being in the situation, about others being a part of your situation, and of what there is to learn about the functioning of your mental habits in the situation, and so on. This is the field of your responsibility – the clear comprehension which is present in Buddhist mindfulness. But this comprehension – in its more obvious and its subtle forms – is inseparable from unlimited space.
How does such comprehension happen? By some imposition of a rule, or conformity to a pattern made by others? No, by the felt bodily knowledge of one’s situation. Clear comprehension is not a dry ‘thinking.’ It’s knowing from inside the known.
And, sometimes – and this is, for me, the most precious experience – sometimes you are just effortlessly present, and you comprehend presence itself for the miracle it is. Mindful in the sense of being awake without effort or purpose; and, intimate with wakefulness itself. You are completely resting in a pure, total, warm presence whose light leaves nothing out. Conscious and clearly comprehending by being conscious awareness, without separation.
So, for the growth of our capacity to be intimate with living process as it occurs – for our ignorance to fade away – we need to cultivate spaciousness, which is a bodily-felt space. To do this, it helps to awaken mindfulness of the body – whole-body awareness – and, specifically, attunement to that band of experience called bodily-felt meaning.