Listening to Ajahn Achalo’s talk earlier about meditating on body parts got me thinking. True i find it easy to drop into a quieter space when i feel the body. The body contemplation is a bit like that. When we look at the body and think it is beautiful or ugly for that matter. Then we are operating on the realm of thoughts and conceptual thinking. Meaning we are receiving the visual or tactile stimulus and then through that we are diving into our conceptual map of it. The moment we do that then we stop seeing the energetic non corporeal aspect of the form. In Iyengar yoga the repeated drawing of attention to parts of the body especially to feel areas of the body that is not visible to one, causes the mind to break down the conceptual model of the mind. Because the conceptual model creates the feeling of self and other.
Yet if we sense the body as the body or simply spread our awareness be it through the practise of meditation, or through the practise of Iyengar yoga, we can touch the same space. And absorbtion in a pose when the pose becomes effortless is when the mind drops its conceptual fabrication to come in touch with reality. And as reality is, self correcting and as long as we stay close to this reality the mind can go beyond the surface level five elements and actually drop into the base element of the nibbana dhatu.
I am learning through this practise what my intention as a teacher is. To guide the practitioner to sense that conciousness or awareness, and I see it in people’s eyes, momentarily when they fall into these spaces where the mind stops its chatter, yet they are aware. So through repeated practise more patterns get broken. The only way to go deeper into Iyengar Yoga asana practise is to penetrate the attention beyond these five sheaths.
Also when we actually see the body for what it is without the story then it does not become an object for the ego. So there is no question of attraction or repulsion. For both reside in the realm of the self, the false construct, the ego. I remember having an insight that the ‘body is innocent’ it is what it is. Nothing Subha or Asubha about it.
However if we take the body as an object of meditation, which is what we are actually doing in Asana practise, we realise the part-like nature of the body, so which part is the me. Where in the body, is the me? You can search but there is no me. So more we can sense experientially that which is aware is not the body, yet the body arises in the field of awareness. And then again the so called solidity of the body can only be sensed through fluctuations, ever changing series of sensations. Just a dense field…the only thing keeping it together is this weird sense of knowing it all.
So much for some random musings after listening to a fantastic dhamma talk by Ajahn Achalo! For more of his teachings visit his Youtube channel.
It is but a rare and precious moment when we are able to drop into a pause , and fall into that awareness where all inner chatter stops , and the only thing that remains is being present , in your Iyengar class, in that pause