Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 72-minute session, Venerable Kaye Miner explores how mindfulness can be woven through all spiritual practice, beginning with the physical act of making prostrations. She explains how a prostration becomes meaningful not through empty motion but through understanding and appreciation of the Buddha’s enlightened qualities—the thirty-two major and eighty minor marks of the body, the sixty-four melodious qualities of speech, and the omniscient wisdom and compassion of mind. She then unpacks the broader foundations of mindfulness drawn from Buddhist teachings: mindfulness of the body and breath as the anchor for concentration, extending this awareness to include feelings, mental states, and phenomena. Throughout, she emphasizes that mindfulness is not a technique confined to the meditation cushion but a lived practice that integrates body, speech, and mind into daily life. She addresses Western resistance to ritual forms, arguing that understanding the purpose behind practice transforms it from rote gesture into genuine transformation. The session closes with guided meditation on body and breath awareness, grounding practitioners in the simplicity of present-moment presence.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 2011 01 08 day 1 session 3.mp3
UUID: f1ffe9ce-86a2-4295-a179-0329c62cd93b
Teacher: Ven Kaye Miner
Collection: Mindfulness with a Heart (Ven Kaye Miner)
Date: 2011-01-08
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 71.8 minutes
Words: ~7,903
You will excuse me drinking my cup of tea, won’t you? I’m out of time. It’s all your fault. So at this point is there any questions? Here, heart.
Do four. Yeah. I do four, but here is heart. Here. We call it a prostration.
There are short and long versions of prostrations. The long version versions are really good exercise. Okay, but that’s not the reason that you would do these things. It’s a way of sort of paying respect or paying homage but also a way of it’s a mindfulness practice actually. We can bring mindfulness into all aspects so we can be mindful of what we’re doing.
So when we do a prostration like this there’s several things that we have to think about. First, what it is that we’re going to do? Do I keep repeating myself or what? Why are we doing it? And so we’re thinking, okay, I’m going to make prostrations.
Well, why are you going to make prostrations? To whom are you going to make prostrations? And so it’s a way of showing respect to the enlightened qualities, that’s what I think and I think about the qualities of a Buddha and the qualities of the body because it’s all a result, the Buddha’s body is result, all the beautiful qualities of a Buddha’s body. There’s actually how many? Oh thirty two major, eighty minor marks.
You know there are all these different qualities of a Buddha. These physical qualities, what’s that thirty two eighty, that’s one hundred and twelve? Isn’t that one hundred and twelve? Sorry, I had a little stroke in two thousand and nine and so my mental arithmetic is not as good as it used to be. But anyway, so one hundred and twelve physical qualities and these physical qualities are a result, they’ve had causes that have led to that and the causes are good behaviour and good actions.
Okay, so think about these incredible qualities and that have come from so much positive, you know. Then think about the qualities of speech. There’s sixty four melodious qualities of a Buddha’s speech. You know a Buddha can speak and everybody hears it in their own language. I’d like that.
I tell you, learning Dutch was not easy. Know? They have this sound in Dutch? The first I learnt was ‘cheselech’. It’s kind of ‘ch’, you know.
So this is Buddhist quality of speech, know, and many other sixty four qualities. And then there’s the qualities of the Buddha’s mind which is the fully perfected wisdom and the fully perfected compassion and all the other positive qualities and a Buddha’s mind is omniscient, it knows everything, It knows the nature, it knows everything. And so when I think about these qualities I think wow! You know, naturally. You know, just with your hands you go wow!
And so when you think that the qualities of Buddha’s body, speech and mind have come about through the development of their realizations and so Dharma the Dharma is that which protects from suffering that is the Dharma, the methods that actually lead to these realizations then you think, oh, the dharma. It’s not just the texts, not just the books and things but the realizations and you think, oh wow!’ And then you think about the Sangha and the Sangha are those like the spiritual community or those who are also practicing those those methods to develop those realizations in their mind. So we can talk about relative Sangha and ultimate Sangha but I’m getting too detailed but I’m called Sangha because I have the vows but here we’re talking about those who have realised already correctly the way things exist. So they’ve got incredible realisations and then you go ‘wow’ and so as a result of this wow there is this natural feeling to pay respect to that. You admire develop those qualities within yourself you know and so then there is this form of paying respect.
So when we do these bows or prostrations the idea is to do it mindfully and not just some empty physical action because if you don’t know what you’re doing and you don’t know why you’re doing it, it’s just like an empty military salute. Know, it’s just empty. There’s no kind of real point to it but when you do it mindfully you’re remembering these qualities, you’re recognising them, you’re remembering them, you’re admiring them, you’re developing a wish to embody those qualities for the benefit of all and so it’s an action of body, speech and mind and so with your speech I mean I say some things under my breath you know like I prostrate or I respect, I pay homage to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha recognising these qualities, admiring them, wanting to develop them myself and may I be able to be of benefit. So it’s a mindful action of body, speech and mind. But you can do it unmindfully.
Is that such a word? Unmindfully? Non mindfully. We do it non mindfully and then, you know, there’s not much to it. But by doing something like that mindfully, it really helps you to become much closer to to those qualities.
Helps you to become much closer to embodying those qualities yourself. So it’s very powerful. Yeah. Okay, so that’s alright. So generally we put the hands together but we put the thumbs inwards in towards the palm so that it’s not like we’re empty handed you know and so it’s like an offering.
And so we do it above like I pay respect with my body so this is like symbolizing body and if you notice with the Buddha statue here, it’s got the crown protrusion and it’s said that this is a result of paying homage, you know, like this. You know, us doing this would create the cause for the Buddha’s top knot or the Buddha’s crown protrusion. I’d like it to be on a remote control. I’ll pop it up when I want and put it back, you know. Anyway, I’m being facetious.
But you know it’s to create the cause for that and that is the result I forget exactly because I can’t remember the exact cause for each of the qualities but there is a cause and the result. And so it’s the body and then here is the speech and here is the mind. Heart is mind. Also sometimes do it here, I mean you don’t have to and here is sort of also like wisdom you know. And also with a Buddha, a bit higher here but you know a Buddha has this hair here that’s all coiled back that if you pull it out it’s a really, really long hair that springs back.
Yeah, different culture, different time. As I say, each of those features has a particular cause and all of these are described in the text. Actually I think it’s the Ornament for Clear Realizations. I think it’s thoroughly described in those texts. So we think I’m prostrating my body, my speech and my mind, you know.
I’m paying respect. So then there’s long prostrations which I’ll do it, I’ll do it. You have to do it after lunch. Yeah, it’s alright. Otherwise you have to do it after lunch, don’t you?
Both of us have to Pardon? Have you seen my lovely little maroon shoes? But that’s an interesting perception too, isn’t it? It’s just an outer perception. It’s so outdated.
What are you doing? She’s changed a bit now but that was the very first time. But it’s understandable. It’s like anything. When you do not know the full facts then it’s very easy to make a judgement and to make a criticism.
I mean, you know, I also think oh gosh all of these people dress like this doing all of these kind of prostration things. Yeah, I mean just from the surface it looks weird. It doesn’t fit with our culture and everything but when you know what it’s all about and it’s something that those people choose to do and they’ve chosen to do it hopefully by full awareness of the facts and the reasons and the advantages and the disadvantages, it’s a very different matter. That’s why we’re just having that conversation at lunch about burqas and again you can say from the outside, Oh, that’s weird! But, you know, when it’s something that somebody has chosen with full awareness of all the facts and the advantages and the disadvantages, because let’s face it, you if you walk down the street in funny clothes, you’re going to get reactions and it’s not something that you would do willingly choose to walk down the road and get funny reactions from people.
So you do it for a reason and okay some people it’s because that’s what their family expects them to do and maybe they don’t have that much choice or whatever but you know there are also those who do choose. Actually my sister who said it was all very medieval about twelve years ago at a Pooja, she came along to check it out. She’s now volunteering here. So Alright. Nothing’s changed.
Interesting. Is that right, yeah here? Yes. When you’re flat on the floor, you raised your palm. Yes.
What would that mean? That’s like, again, this kind of prostration. And sometimes, know, like paying homage. And, you know, sometimes I just go like that with the hands or sometimes I go over the top. So it depends if I’m doing many and many fast, then I just go like that, just with the hands.
And sometimes, because there’s a visualization process that goes on as well. And so that I would be visualizing one Buddha or many Buddhas. Because there’s not only one Buddha, there are many Buddhas in the past. There will be Buddhas in the future and I hope to be one of them and I hope all of you are too. Especially this white one here with eleven heads and a thousand arms, this is the manifestation of compassion.
One thousand arm Chenrezig, eleven heads that see all, one thousand arms, you know, hands ready to give help. I’d love that. Mean, how many times have you said, I wish I had an extra pair of hands? I reckon a thousand make a difference, don’t you? So that’s a manifestation of compassion but you’ve got to really understand what it’s really about.
So Chenrezig standing there on a lotus and a moon disc because they’re like cushions. So I kind of imagine that I’m touching the feet, touching the feet. Yeah, so sometimes I’m probably a little bit silly with all of this but You are wowed and you can’t really get longer, can you? And you’re humbled by Yeah. It’s a really good way to overcome pride.
Know, because often I’m not bowing down my pride and, you know, to think of something that is so, yes, wow and yeah, I’m not that you’re no good, okay, because we’ve all got the potential to be like that but to actually sort of acknowledge that this false pride that thinks you are better than others, that causes you to feel superior to those that you perceive to be under you or less than you in some way, that causes you to be competitive with those that you think are on the same level as causes you to be jealous about those that you perceive to be better than you. This false pride is a delusion. This is what really can screw us up. So prostrations are a way to help us overcome this false pride. And false pride is different to pride in the sense of having confidence, of having courage, you know, that you can do something.
You need that pride you need that form of self confidence and this courage to progress to be successful in anything spiritual path or just you know job or a family relationship but the false pride gets in the way. False pride screws up the mind. So prostrations are a good antidote. We’re more irreverent and we’re uncomfortable with that. Yeah, look I do think but I don’t think it’s East and West so much anymore.
I do think that yes in the West and especially in Australia we don’t easily respect. We have the tall poppy syndrome and stuff like that and I found it very difficult to naturally respect others and I can remember actually working for a company and I called the managing director by his first name and there was an older lady that was working there and she took me to task about it. She said you should not be calling Mr Grant Malcolm and I said why not? And she said because he’s the managing director’ and I said ‘but he shits every morning just like me’ Sorry, and that was very much who I was before I met Buddhism and I can remember doing these psychological tests, management tests and one of the things was that and I was very proud of it actually that I did not suffer fools gladly. You know and this was sort of very sort of strong within me and I think the current generation is even more maybe?
Yeah? And when I met Tibetan Buddhism and I started hearing about respect and thinking about the qualities and the faults of this false pride then because I didn’t want to prostrate in the beginning I thought it was pretty damn weird you know but when I started to understand more then I could see the faults of my own way of thinking but then to think that this is just a Western thing is not really accurate because I have met many Easterners who are so arrogant you know who feel so superior and even within Buddhist circles, within Tibetan circles as well, the fact that you are a woman and a nun means that you are the lowest of the low and that’s really good for the ego but at the same time it’s not accurate. I think that can be the case. Think especially, let’s face it, in our culture we’ve grown up mostly in a Christian culture where certainly my generation everybody went to Sunday school and you had religious education at school even if I didn’t go to a religious school. Everybody had that kind of thing and so you went through the motions.
You went to church on Sunday or you went to Sunday school. Your family went as well. You’d sing the hymns, you’d say the prayers but really knowing what they were about you were never taught. And you’d ask the questions and no one could ever explain it. And so I think there’s a lot of things that are just habit and when I go in Southeast Asia and I go to a lot of Chinese temples, I mean even in Australia Chinese temples, there’s a lot of people that go in and burn the incense and they’ll ring a gong or do something like that.
I can’t see what’s going on in their mind exactly but I suspect there’s not a lot of awareness and knowledge behind what’s being done. I think Westerners are extremely fortunate due to the intelligence and the level of education and the freedom that you don’t have to blindly swallow everything that you can think for yourself, you think you’re very, very lucky. Whereas in some of these Asian cultures you just have to do although that’s also changing. Gosh. Welcome.
Any other questions? I used to be a Buddha House member some fifteen years ago and what stopped me from doing the prostrations was inhibition. I didn’t want others to have a wrong impression of me being Mhmm. Being a devout Buddhist, which I was not. So I didn’t want to give that impression, so I never did frustrations.
I was being inhibited because I thought I’m misleading people by looking Yep, very good. I think you did the right thing then. I think it’s a choice and if you know this is what I keep saying I think I’m trying to get this through. If you know clearly what it is you’re doing and why you’re doing it, then fine. But just imitating somebody else and going through the motions to belong is not so wise.
But later I came to know that by doing that you become what you want to become. So if you don’t start doing it, you will never become that. But you may be faking it in the beginning, but you need to fake fake it. A lot of athletes do this. They do what they want to become better without reaching that stage.
They start doing it, and then they reach that stage. Because of my inhibition I stopped doing that and I stopped myself developing. Okay, I think it was better if you didn’t really understand and fully accept and not be inhibited by what you thought others might think of you then it was better not to do it. So when you know clearly what it is that you’re doing and why then fine. But I mean, yeah, I can’t condone just doing something because everybody else is doing it.
I think for me it would be like why are they doing it? But why would I? I have to be very clear in my mind why I would do something something first. But still, it’s true, there are some things that like developing bodhicitta, the bodhicitta motivation. In the beginning, you know, trying to fulfil your potential in order to be of benefit for all beings, I mean is that really meaningful for you in the beginning?
Not really meaningful but they say that this kind of motivation, this kind of attitude even if it’s fabricated in the beginning, even if you kind of make it up, by fabricating it, by making it up as your motivation then the mind becomes familiar with that idea and that’s what meditation is about, becoming familiar with things that are positive. So even if you’re going through the motions, even if it’s just words in the beginning, it’s making some kind of imprint, helping you to become familiar with such an idea. So therefore it’s worth doing. It’s worth doing. But I think something that is kind of more obvious and more to fit in and to do what everybody else is doing, I think we should be careful about doing that.
There is that thrust though in Tibetan temples, isn’t there? Because the whole thing is taken from one culture to another And, you know, well I thought everyone was being rather stupid when I first heard of Purgatory. I thought they were just, you know, lifting that old cultural thing into this, why do it, you know, why bother doing it. But I also now I’ve reached that conclusion that I don’t think we should throw out all the Tibetan habits and culture because they worked. I think there’s a difference between Tibetan culture and Tibetan Buddhism and I think we need to be very clear what is Tibetan culture and Tibetan superstition and what is Buddhism.
I think it’s dangerous to throw the baby out with a bath water and I think there are things but it’s knowing. I mean you walk into a room like this there are all these images and this color and stuff like that. I often think Tibetan Buddhism is like the Roman Catholics of Buddhism. Just like the Roman Catholics of Christianity there are more images and stuff like that and I come from Protestant background you know. So at first it’s sort of like oh gosh all these deities and things like that But when you understand and that’s what I think for me was important is like not to reject it straight away, you know the back burner business again, but to then actually investigate well what is this about and why and why would it be like that?
And okay with the thangkas for example, Rooskilde Rai in Dutch which is the you know and they’ve got all the brocade around the picture. Now that’s Tibetan culture. That’s Tibetan culture. You don’t have to do that, okay? But the actual form, when you understand that form is like, it’s manifestation of qualities and that there’s so much symbolism like this one here, he’s holding his arm up, that’s Mañjuśrī and he’s holding a sword.
Oh, that’s a bit frightening isn’t it? I thought Buddhists were about peace and love and light and then they’ve got a sword. Well that’s symbolic of cutting through ignorance with wisdom. You know, so when you recognise this symbolism and it helps you to become familiar with the qualities and therefore you can see that meditating on a form like that, with that form as a visualization and visualization practice, with the recognition of the symbolism and of the qualities that are embodied in that form, then it helps your mind to become familiar with those qualities. Okay?
So it’s a different form of meditation. It’s a different kind of meditation technique. So these are like aids, if you like, to help us develop our Buddha qualities and to become familiar with them. Anyway, was that mindfulness? Well in a way it is because unless you don’t know what it is, you can’t really be mindful in meditating on one of the Buddhas or anything because a part of my mind used to, particularly in the past, used to go, why why blue?
You know? Actually, I liked him. He was a good dude. But it was that white one that never I could never get Chenrezig, I thought it was ugly and I’d all my time looking at it artistically. And so I needed that knowledge to be able to be mindful of what So there is that whole judgment.
Okay. Anything else? I just wanted to say something that happened to me. I had a Buddha and I had it outside and A Buddha statue? Yes, sorry.
So a nice Buddha, hey mate, you’ve to stay outside. Yeah, was one of those that had a light and the light thing didn’t work for the lotus. And I put it next so I could see it at the window, and I could look at it, and it looked really nice. And I thought, oh, but if I put it the other way, then everyone else can enjoy it. Mhmm.
So so I’m doing it you know what they’re saying to society? Mhmm. Well, anyway, lo and behold, someone went and my neighbour told me Kate, like a kid came over and jumped over the fence, grabbed it and jumped over the fence with it and broke it. Aw. And so I’m going to get another one but I don’t, I’m just wondering, perhaps just turn it around now.
Put electric zaps in there. Oh, but I was thinking about my meditation, when I did the meditation, but now I’ve answered it because I think if it faces me then it’s beneficial for me. You can radiate out. Also they radiate out from their back as well? Oh they do.
And I guess he got his calmer too, didn’t he? That’s not being very compassionate though, is But I think from the Buddhist perspective there’s not this kind of grasping onto how it should be and stuff like that. I have some friends in Amsterdam that have the most beautifully sculpted stone Buddhas, really perfectly done. And they have one out in the garden just on the edge of a pond. Really what should happen is that there’s a bit of a canopy over because the birds come and sit on it and poop which is not so nice.
It can be nice if there’s the garden and there’s the flowers, it’s like an offering so that’s okay. It depends on the mind. It all depends on the mind. If you think that it’s something very holy and that it’s being treated badly then this is not good for your mind. I think we in the West need it more too because we get so distracted with the materialistic word.
Tibet is so much part of the culture and Northern India as well. Yeah, I don’t know. There’s all these huge sauna complexes in Holland. They’ve got swimming pools, saunas, steam rooms, hot tubs because it’s so cold you’ve to go somewhere to get warm. Everything like that, sports school, beauty salon, they have a Buddha statue.
Now it’s not because they think that Buddhism is so fantastic or they know what a Buddha statue represents but there’s a very good reason. It’s because when you look at a Buddha statue and when you look at a Buddha the impression that you get is peace. If it’s a statue in your garden or in a sauna or a beauty salon or whatever and people get a feeling of peace then there’s some benefit. But I mean in these sauna complexes in Holland everyone goes naked. They’re not worried about bodies over there, not like here.
And so it’s kind of funny these Buddha statues and them people wandering around naked in front of them. You know from a Tibetan perspective that would be like oh! But again depending on the motivation. Because you have Satus in India who are naked. Yeah.
I mean gosh it’s a body. I think it’s probably the best way to develop renunciation. But look at other people’s bodies. All your your own! So I don’t do that either!
Okay, so let’s move along. We’ve only got two hours haven’t we? We stop at four today? And then tomorrow we’re going from ten till four. It was ten till five and tomorrow was Yeah but I think they changed it. They didn’t tell you?
Okay, so is it okay if we finish at four today? Okay, and is it alright if we finish at four tomorrow? Yes. And if anyone We start at ten. But we start at ten because there’s a meditation group at nine here, so we have to go in after.
So if that’s alright. Because actually there’s a lot to cover and we haven’t really covered very much because as you see I get distracted, I’m not very mindful. Okay, so we’ve just been talking about mindfulness of the breath and this is actually one of these four foundations of mindfulness. It’s the first one to do with the body and to do with physical sensations. Mindfulness of breathing is also mindfulness of the body and we can also extend this sort of mindfulness of breathing to fully experience what the Buddha used to call the breath body and this refers, it’s a term that refers to the whole body of subtle energy, subtle energy movement within the body.
So that it’s almost like the inner circulation of breath this one you know you’re meditating on the kind of obvious breath but there’s a sort of an internal sort of more subtle circulation. So we can actually extend our awareness of the breathing to include the whole body breathing. So yeah this is this is something you know another way of the mindfulness of breathing also includes the mindfulness of the body. But the Buddha also explained the mindfulness of breath actually in terms of all of these four types of mindfulness. He showed that actually you can be mindful of the breath and at the same time you can be mindful of sensations like the feelings that are arising from the six senses.
Senses. So you could be mindful also of the breathing but you could also be mindful of the different levels of mental absorptions because mental absorptions has to do with the deeper your concentration the mind sort of absorbs and it absorbs into you know like a physical joy and a mental joy you know absorbs into analysis. So you can be mindful of the breathing but then it’s also this kind of other mindfulness of feelings can be combined. But being mindful of these doesn’t mean you have to cultivate them. It just means that you’re aware of them.
So you’re aware of a sense sensation. You’re aware of a meditative absorption of joy or something like that. You’re aware of these things. You don’t go grasping after them. You don’t go clinging them, but you are aware of this.
You use your awareness of these different experiences to open up your wisdom which helps you actually not to cling onto them but to actually go past them. So you can also meditate on the breath and what I’m trying to show you is that with these four foundations of mindfulness, being mindful of the body, being mindful of the feelings, being mindful of the mind, being mindful of phenomena, then it’s also possible to include the mindfulness of the other foundations while you’re being mindful of one. So when you’re mindful of the breath you can combine it with a mindfulness of the feelings, mindfulness of the mind, mindfulness of phenomena. So, you can be meditating on the breath and you can also be mindful of the mind. So, to just experience the mind, know, the states of the mind, not to be distracted.
You can be I’ve got an ant. Hello. He’s going crazy. It’s a rain, yeah. Anyway, he’s got off the computer now.
So, you can be mindful of the breath and also mindful of phenomena so that you can be mindful or aware if you like while you’re meditating on the breath of impermanence, okay? Of the letting go, sort of how it arises and how it goes, sort of like the cause and result relationship. So you know meditating on the breath actually can serve as a foundation to develop all the other four foundations of mindfulness. So So that’s good to remember that mindfulness of the breath doesn’t have to just be focused on I must just be aware of the sensation coming and going that’s it. The mindfulness of the breath can be cultivated so that one develops the mindfulness on the other foundations of mindfulness, the other aspects.
So if you were truly mindful you would be aware of all of those four aspects? Probably. I don’t know if it all occurs simultaneously that you would be mindful of those different things. Yeah, absolutely. And of course the key would be when you are mindful without having to sit on your cushion and say I’m practicing.
It’s that you’re mindful all the time of these things. As I said, mindfulness of the breath we can include under this foundation of the mindfulness of physical sensations or the mindfulness of body. So this first foundation of mindfulness, the foundation of the body, it expands our attention, our awareness to include all physical experiences. So mindfulness of breathing is a good beginning because that helps strengthen our ability to concentrate. Mindfulness of the breath helps to steady our attention, concentration, helps us to become more aware of the present moment.
Mindfulness of the breath helps us to lessen our ability to be so easily distracted. It helps to stop us immediately getting caught up with the emotions and the reactions from our emotions. Like I said before, helps you to stop being so caught up with a particular problem or something that preoccupation. So with time this attention to the breath helps us to develop a very clear non reactive awareness which is really positive in our lives and then that, like I was talking before lunch, that ability, that strength in the mind, that non reactive awareness then we can start to use that use that power of the mind, you know, and shine it upon all of our human experiences. So we basically, we develop our skill to apply mindfulness to all the different areas of our lives.
So it becomes an embodied practice. It’s not just something that you do when you’re sitting on your cushion. So learning to be mindful of bodily experiences is a very useful aspect of mindfulness. By having mindfulness of our body experiences, it helps us to be much more balanced, to be more healthy so that we’re in touch with our bodies. I think that many people are not in touch with their bodies.
Know, too much in the head, not so much in touch with the body. And that’s also like an imbalance, know, we tend to ignore our bodies and I think the busier you are, the easier it is to ignore your body, to be out of touch with it, to not recognise how it feels. Some people are oversensitive but it’s true. Often when there’s something wrong with your body that’s a sign that there’s something wrong with your mind and that it’s gone quite a long way. So I think when people aren’t able to listen to the signals that their body gives that’s also why people burn out and they have a lot of problems.
Some people are very conscious of their body but it’s really only the external aspect of it, how good it looks. Somebody was telling me the other day about people that the couple both had facelifts at the same time. Oh yes, that’s that TV play thing. Gene Simmons. Oh I haven’t seen that one.
That’s the guy from But I think somebody was telling me about real life people. No, real life people in Adelaide. Not in Adelaide. Probably it was in Sydney, hey? Okay.
So yes, some people are very conscious of their body but it’s really from the external appearance. Mindfulness of the body is attention to the body from the inside out rather just from the outside. So we notice what the body is feeling in and of itself and so we give quite a bit of time to be with this felt sense of the body and not only does that help the body to relax, but it also helps you to it helps protect you from getting too caught up with your mind again and the preoccupations of your mind. So it’s got several benefits being mindful of the body. First, it helps you to become more familiar and familiar with how the body responds and how the body responds to stress or to different emotions so from an internal perspective but also with our external life so when we’ve got so many things to do or too much weight to carry or something like that.
So being mindful of the body helps us to be much more familiar with how our body responds to internal and external situations, events around us. And also the Buddha saw that the body and mind are unified and when we suppress or we ignore aspects of, you know, our internal aspects, like our emotions, like we’re suppressing anger or something like that, then we tend to disconnect from our body from the physical manifestations of those experiences. So also on the flip side, when we distance ourselves from our physical experiences then we lose touch with our emotional and inner lives. So you get screwed up, don’t you? You become really quite imbalanced.
So the mindfulness of the body helps us to discover not only any emotions that we’ve got repressed but it also helps us to respond to life more positively. So also when we cultivate mindfulness that we don’t react then that helps stopping us because how can I put it? What’s that saying? Flight, something with flight. We don’t like anything with flight?
Fight or Fight flight. Fight or flight? Well okay. Usually we have that habit don’t we? We fight or we fly.
We fight or we flee. We fight or we flee to experiences. Sometimes we resist change or we don’t like things the way we cling on to pleasant things and we have aversion to things that are not so pleasant. These kind of automatic reactions of judging and reacting actually interfere with our ability to be just present with what’s actually happening. So being able to respond wisely requires us to have the space, I guess, the space in the mind to be able to look and just be present with the situation instead of just automatically fighting or fleeing.
Okay? So being able to be non reactive, to be present, to be aware of our physical experience goes a long way to helping us deal with the rest of things that occur in life. And it also of course being mindful of the body can help us to relax and to reduce the tension that we have in the body and to understand also what the causes of that can be. You’ve heard of Chogyam Trungpa? Chogyam Trungpa was a Tibetan teacher.
He’s one of the first Tibetans that really brought Buddhism to the West. He wasn’t a monk and he actually was quite wild, really quite wild. He died many years ago. He died in when was it? Nineteen eighty six I think.
And he said you know when like he was talking about mindfulness of the body he said you should ask yourselves do I want to dream or do I want to be present? He said if you want to dream don’t practice mindfulness of the body. It might wake you up. He said, however, if you want to be present, then practice mindfulness of body because being mindful of the body means to really come into contact and to really establish a connection with your body. He actually said that it means to sit on the earth and walk on the earth instead of being in the clouds of your imagination.
So it’s grounding actually isn’t it? It’s grounding. It brings you back. It’s quite simple, you know, there’s a certain simplicity of being present to the physical experience which actually helps you find some way out of all of these concepts because you know the mind is amazing. They talk about monkey mind, you know running off this and that and all, but the mind is really quite complex.
There’s such a web of concepts and ways of thinking and it’s always happening. The mind is going from one thing to the other, always constructing and conceptualizing and fantasizing and stuff like that. Mindfulness of the body helps to calm all of that down. It brings you down to this simple presence of walking or of sitting on your cushion. So it means to just really relax into the body just to walk or just to breathe without wanting anything, you know, without wanting to go anywhere.
It’s not the destination that counts but just the physical act of walking. That’s enough. Actually the Buddha gave us the permission to just be, you know, you don’t have to be anything or go anywhere, just to be. So you know here on this first level of mindfulness there’s not the intention yet to analyse or to understand anything it’s just about being present and being present helps you to be more open and that’s a very good start. That’s very, very useful.
This also being mindful of the body, mindful of the breathing. This is really good when you can’t sleep at night. Someone said the other day that they couldn’t sleep and so they told themselves you just have to go to sleep because you have to get up at this time in the morning. I thought, oh, that wouldn’t work for me. I’d probably get more stressed and lie awake all night saying, I’ve got to go to sleep, I’ve to go to sleep.
But trying this mindfulness, especially of the body, just being aware of the body, that can help to relax you and that can help you to go to sleep. Yes, of course maybe that’s not what you want to do in a meditation session all the time, is it? So this is really quite important, this mindfulness of the body because it helps to ground us, you know, helps us to get a little bit out of the head because we’re so much in the head. We can also practice mindfulness of the body in terms of Mahāyāna vajrayana tradition or the practice of tantra because in the vajrayana practice there’s also a lot of work that’s done on the mindfulness of the body and in the vajrayana practice the idea is to come to a total integration of the body and the speech and the mind and to have a deeper understanding of the reality of body, speech and mind. So this is a whole other subject and I just kind of mention that for anybody who already has experience with this Mahāyāna vajrayana tradition form of practice because you can include, you can combine mindfulness with that practice.
I mentioned earlier, you know, the prostrations. We can combine mindfulness practice with our doing prostrations. Does anyone have a mala? You’ve got a little one. Okay, now you can hold on to us but everyone can see.
This is a mala or a rosary, it’s the English word, the Christian word we’d use. And you use a mala to actually count the recitation of mantras. So mindfulness training is to synchronize the recitation of a mantra and the counting of the beads. Okay, so mindfulness is included also with that. When we do any other kind of more ritualistic practice that you find within Tibetan Buddhism like offering a mandala or performing mudras, hand gestures, when we’re reciting mantras, when we’re doing visualization practice, mindfulness all comes into that the mindfulness of what the body is actually doing with these practices.
So mindfulness of the body means to be in tune with the body. It also means not to abuse your body but to be able to notice when you’re tired. You know sometimes we don’t notice that and we just push the body until it can’t go any further. So to be aware of when we’re tired, when we’re stiff, when we’re cold, whatever, when we’re hungry, when we’re thirsty, to be aware of that and then to adjust our practice, you know, so that we might need to change posture or we might need to eat something or we might need to drink something or we might need to rest. So mindfulness of the body is really important for our spiritual practice.
So they say to a great meditative yogi means that you really need to be aware of what your body wants to tell you. To be able to be really successful in meditation you need to be aware of what your body is telling you so that the body is not just a slave to your practice but actually a very precious and subtle tool that can help you develop your awareness and even experience enlightenment. The body is so, so valuable. Now in some traditions it is about becoming quite ascetic, you know but that’s not really what the Buddha was talking about. He’s talking about being aware of the body and what its needs are, not going overboard, not so aware but becoming more aware of what the body needs, cherishing the body in the sense of seeing it as a very precious and subtle tool that will help lead you to your aims.
So there’s a lot more I can talk about all this stuff, but it gets maybe a little bit too more advanced about the vajrayana tradition. So would you like to do some meditation on the mindfulness of the body or are you too lethargic after lunch and need to have a quick tea break? Mindfulness of the body. Yeah? How about you stand up and shake yourselves a bit?
You can have a pee pee break. It allows the energy to flow more freely in the body and when the energy flows more freely in the body then the mind is able to concentrate better. And then the other reason is that it helps remind us that we’re doing something special. That this act of meditation, that we’re not just sort of sitting in front of the TV or sitting in a comfortable chair. So we ensure that the shoulders are even and relaxed.
The hands can either rest comfortably on our thighs with the palms facing downwards Or in the meditation gesture, is with the palms facing upwards, the right hand rests on top of the left, the thumbs gently join forming a triangle. And then we rest our little fingers against our abdomen, and our arms bow out slightly away from the side of our bodies. So you choose what’s most comfortable for you. Mouth is closed with the jaw relaxed. The tongue can naturally rest on the roof of the mouth.
It helps to reduce the amount of saliva that comes into the mouth while you’re meditating, and that reduces the need to swallow, which also reduces the distractions. The lips can just be a slight slightly apart. And as I said before for most of us it’s more comfortable to have the eyes closed, but, if you find that by closing the eyes you start to fall asleep, try opening them just a crack enough to allow some light in, but not so much that you’re able to see anything. So we just remind ourselves of our motivation for meditating and even if it’s fabricated, something we have to make up, try and generate as broad a motivation as possible thinking that we’re taking the opportunity now to become more familiar with our body and our mind, to develop the awareness, so that we can eventually transform ourselves into a being with all the qualities and skills that can be of greatest benefit for all beings. And then we begin by bringing our awareness to our breathing, and we try to keep the awareness of our breathing foremost during this meditation time.
But we don’t force that. We don’t feel any kind of strain. We try to stay relaxed, open, alert, and attentive. Just being aware of this natural coming and going of the breathing, and we can do that by focusing on the sensation of air as it enters our nose, the rise and fall of the chest or the abdomen. We can try the mental noting in breath, out breath, as a slight whisper if that helps.
We can even count the breaths if that works for you. Each in and out being one, and we count the breaths from one up to ten, and then begin at one again. Or we can even focus just on one breath at a time, being fully aware of breathing in, that there’s a slight pause, and that we breathe out. So just try to focus, to be aware of the natural rhythm of the breathing.