Posted By Mahabodhi on Feb 16, 2024 | 0 comments

Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book…

© Mahabodhi Burton

11 minute read

This excerpt is from the chapter ‘Buddhist Practice’ and it explores a physical warm-up for meditation followed by a grounding meditation. Link to led meditation on video.

Grounding meditation

When a Zen monk dressed in black robes walks slowly down a gravel path, he is practising walking meditation. He feels the contour of the rock pressing though his sandals; the sensations of his robes fluttering about him in the breeze, deliberately sensing everything tangible in his experience. Moving slowly helps him limit the amount of information coming in, thus he can pay close attention to the details of his experience, sink deeply into what he is experiencing and come into an intimate relationship with the world around him.^[1] Grounded in our present moment experience in this way, life tends to be pleasurable; of course, the monk spends long hours sitting in zazen^[2] without moving, which requires great discipline.

In most secular mindfulness eight-week courses,^[3] body awareness is central. The idea of mindfulness is introduced as coming into more intimate contact with our experience; in week one people practise the ‘raisin exercise’, spending five minutes or so investigating every aspect of the experience of a raisin; putting it into their mouth, sensing its texture; its smell; its taste; savouring how it feels in their mouth, and so on. The theory is that our western lives are so driven, we are so obsessed with ‘doing’, that much of the time we run on ‘automatic pilot’, ceasing to notice just what we are experiencing, and missing a large part of our lives. We might imagine that we are getting things done and this may sometimes be the case, but certainly on automatic pilot we abandon a level of colour and richness to our lives. The eight-week course encourages us to wake up from automatic pilot and purposefully bringing awareness to our present moment experience, while holding back from making judgements about it, thus experiencing the ‘being’ mode, where our life is grounded in lived experience. In this way mindfulness gets our mind back on our side. In this way Buddhist and secular mindfulness practice begin with an attempt to ground ourselves in our experience; that is, in the experience of sensation. A feeling of grounded-ness is the effect of being in touch with the tangible, leading to an increasing feeling of confidence.

Meditation is the most efficient way of working on the four foundations. In meditation we cease doing our normal activities, retiring to a quiet place where we won’t be disturbed, in order to look carefully into our experience (the foundations of body and feelings). Unless we know what we are experiencing, how will we know whether we need to do something about it? We won’t know whether we are stressed, or happy, or anything else. At the same time, we need to look carefully at our responses to our experience (the foundations of mind and views), since they have future consequences for our own happiness and that of others.

We begin the meditation process by systematically bringing awareness to our situation, in what I call the ‘Grounding Meditation’, the basis of all further Buddhist meditation.

Meditation posture

In the Satipatthana Sutta the monk is instructed to find a place to meditate, away from the hurly-burly of everyday life. This means going to the forest, to the foot of a tree, or to an empty place, sitting in meditation posture, the sitting posture being the simplest situation in which to develop mindfulness. And although it is routine to consider meditation posture solely as a bodily position (the one that best supports an effective meditation practice) this can be misleading. Bodily posture is important, but I prefer to view meditation posture broadly as that background structure and energetic state of the body that facilitates mindfulness and awareness. In this sense having a salt bath or attending the gym may be aspects of meditation posture. The point is that, both within and outside of meditation practice, physical vitality and relaxation are essential to the project of happiness.

I regularly teach meditation courses at the Manchester Buddhist Centre in the UK, and these days I almost never lead a meditation (or at least the first of a session) without first leading the class through some bodywork. I usually teach them a mixture of Do-in; Japanese self-massage designed to stimulate the energy of the body, and Chi-Kung; designed to calm and smooth that energy. But before leading participants through this meditation ‘warm up’ I try to help them set up a reasonably comfortable meditation posture.

Setting up a meditation posture

Find a pile of firm cushions to sit on, or a chair. Don’t worry yet too much about adopting a particular meditation posture. Just find a way of sitting, in which your body will be relatively comfortable and balanced, so that you don’t need to think about it too much, and which is conducive to developing awareness. Ideally your body can just sit there–it knows how to sit down, and doesn’t need any help from your mind to do that. All you have to do is concentrate on it being balanced, so the weight of the body goes down through the bones into the ground. You might sit astride a pile of firm cushions–or a solid base with a soft cushion on top, with some padding under your legs. The cushions need to be neither too high nor too low. You might even sit with your legs in a cross-legged position if you are confident that you will be comfortable. But if you find your knees are hovering in mid-air, you will have to devote attention in the meditation to hold them up, and it will be much harder to let your body support you, so if your knees cannot reach the floor support them on some cushions, otherwise you won’t be able to forget about your body. It is better to sit than lie down, but if you do suffer from a bad back, or are very tired at the moment, by all means lie on the floor on a mat. If you are lying down keep your eyes open, looking at a point on the ceiling, and letting whatever you are looking at lightly ‘come to you.’ This will gently stimulate your mind so that you don’t fall asleep.

Once participants have a posture set up, I ask them to stand up and then lead them through the meditation ‘warm up;’

Meditation ‘warm up’–Do-In and Chi-Kung 

Stand with your feet firmly planted on the ground with your knees slightly bent. Really sense the contact of your feet with the ground, and relax down the back of your body. Begin tapping lightly on your scalp with your fingertips.

Listen to the sound that the drumming makes. Try to get away from the world of thought and enter instead into the world of your senses. Cup your hands over your ears and listen to the sound of the sea, then move your palms in and out and listen as the sound changes. Shake your hands out–and your feet–and take a few deeper breaths.

Cover your eyes with the palms of your hands and just hold them there. Enjoy the feeling of shutting out the world for a while. Your eyes don’t have to respond to anything but can just rest. Then ‘wash’ your face with your hands. Slowly drawing your hands down your face, gently massaging as you go.

Make sure that you do everything at a pace that suits your body, which is usually slowly. Your mind usually wants you to do things quickly, but your body needs time to get used to things, and prefers things to happen slowly, and it is our bodies that we are trying to work with here. Shake out your hands and feet. Take a few deep breaths.

Cup your right elbow in your left hand and lazily ‘flop’ your right hand over your left shoulder, slapping yourselves on the top of the shoulder for two minutes or so. Most importantly, do this at the slow pace, and intensity, that your body is both comfortable with, and desirous of. It won’t help your body very much if you gently tap yourselves on the shoulder, going through the motions in the exercise. You need to sense the level of stimulation that your body really wants, and give it that, which may mean that you are quite vigorous. Change to the other side, flopping your left hand over your right shoulder. Shake your hands out.

Slap your right hand down the outside of your left arm to wake it up, continuing onto your hand, and then up the inside of the arm. Repeat five times. Do the same with your right arm.

Thump your chest with closed fists ‘Tarzan-style’, including the sides of the chest, for two minutes or so.

Place your palms one on top of the other and gently and slowly circle in a clockwise direction around your stomach for a couple of minutes.

Lightly drum your hands on your kidneys for a couple of minutes, then slap your buttocks and hips vigorously, again, looking for the required level of stimulation that your body needs. Shake your hands and feet out.

Slap your right hand down the outside of your left leg to wake it up, continuing onto your foot if you can reach it, and then up the inside of the leg. Repeat five times. Do the same with your right leg.

Follow the Do-In with some Chi-Kung: Rest your body in standing position, with your knees slightly bent. Put one hand one on top of the other on your stomach and wait, until you notice the natural rhythm of your breathing. When you have tuned into your breathing, at a point where you notice you are breathing out, gently bend your knees. Notice when you are breathing in, and gently straighten your knees. Follow the breath by bending and straightening your legs until you feel you have established a rhythm over several minutes.

At the end of the next out-breath place your hands palm upwards in front of your hips. As you breathe in, raise your palms as far as your chin. Turn your palms over, and, as you breathe out, lower your palms to your hips. Turn your palms upwards again and raise them to your chin with the next in-breath. Carry on for several minutes, synchronizing your breathing with raising and lowering your palms.

The next time you are raising your palms on an in-breath carry on raising them past your chin until they are above your head. Stretch upwards, and then out to the side, opening your chest. Then lower them back to your hips on the out-breath. Turn your palms upwards again, and repeat on the next in-breath. Continue for several minutes. Finish with your hands by your sides.

At the end of the meditation ‘warm up’ I ask people to take up their seat, moving slowly and mindfully, so as not to disturb the energetic connection with their body they have established, and begin leading them in a grounding meditation:

A Grounding Meditation

If you are sitting, close your eyes and feel the earth supporting you. What we are going to try to do now is to bring awareness to our situation.

What actually is that situation? We are a living being, existing in time and space.

Awareness of time

First of all become aware of the dimension of time, aware of your life in time. Be aware that your life has had a past and hopefully will have a future. Be aware of all the moments in your life that have led up to this moment. (Spend several minutes doing this).

Now be aware of your life in the future. Be aware of all the moments in the future you will hopefully experience. (Spend several minutes doing this too).

Next be aware that right now you exist in a particular moment, the present moment. And that this is where your experience is happening, and nowhere else. Again spend several minutes ‘arriving’ into the present moment. Let your situation in time slowly dawn on you.

When we want things to happen in meditation we sometimes just have to give them time. Remember the phrase ‘time is a healer.’ Be patient. Just let the fact of your existence in time will dawn on you.

Awareness of space

Now that you have become aware of your existence in time, reflect that it is also the case that you exist in space.

You are sitting on a huge great ball of matter called the Earth. Above your head is the atmosphere, which is about 10 miles deep, then beyond that is empty space, consisting of huge distances, every now and then there being a star or a galaxy. (Let this dawn on you over several minutes).

And on the Earth there are oceans and mountains, and ice-caps and deserts, and farmland and jungles and towns and cities. And within all of that you are in a village or a city or a field, in a building of some kind or outdoors, maybe with people, or maybe on your own. Again, over several minutes, slowly ‘arrive’ into being aware of your situation in space. Be patient. Time is a healer!

Awareness of body

What else is the case? Well, you also have a body, a physical body which exists in the physical world. And your body has a particular structure to it. You have a skeleton which is designed to support your weight, and muscles to move you about, and organs that keep you alive in various ways.

Take in ‘the truth’ about your body. See things from your body’s perspective (rather than from your mind’s). Your body is at home in the physical world and you don’t have to hold it up through an act of will. It knows how to sit down. This is what your body does! It doesn’t need any help from your mind to do that. You can just let your body sit there and support your mind and emotions (and not the other way around).

As your body sits all you have to do is pay attention to the alignment of your skeleton so that your weight naturally goes down to the ground. If your muscles feel confident that they will be supported by your skeleton they can then let go of any unnecessary tension and continue to let go through the meditation. Reflect that relaxation is a physical thing, like the unfurling of a fist. Your skeleton being aligned, just let the tension in your body unfurl as the meditation progresses.

It may be that your mind wants to ‘take back control’, but don’t let it do that. Imagine instead putting your thoughts on the other side of the room, and just keep coming back to your body. Slowly scan through your body relaxing each part in turn. (Do this for 5 minutes or so).

Meditation is not about shutting the world out. It is more about being in the world and making choices about what we pay attention to. Your body is embedded in the world and is nourished by the senses. Reflect that all of the time there is information coming in through our senses: we are experiencing sights, sounds, smells, taste and touch sensations. Imagine that when these impressions impact upon our sense organs they turn into electricity, which moves down our nerves and into our brains, and that this is a completely natural process. Practise receiving the world into a soft awareness.

Reassurance

Now you can take your relaxation even deeper. Concentrate on your sense of touch. Feel your body touching the ground, and the cushion or chair that you are sitting on. Feel the sensation of the air and your clothing as they touch your skin.

Now, take your attention inside of your body. See how every part of your body touches all of the parts around it. Remember a time when you felt upset and a friend placed their hand on your shoulder, and how with their touch your shoulder relaxed and you felt reassured.

Bearing this in mind, pick any point inside your body, perhaps in the centre of your chest; be aware of how it touches all the points around it. Imagine that the touch of all those points on the first point is like your friend’s hand on your shoulder. And imagine that with the touch of those points, the first point relaxes and feels reassured. Take your time to establish this. Don’t rush. Imagine the same process happening throughout the whole of your body, so that your whole body feels relaxed and reassured, supported by its own presence.

If at any time during the exercise your thoughts crowd in and interfere, just gently urge them back over to the other side of the room. Imagine the tension in your body draining away down though the floor. Remembering to keep your body balanced and at ease, sit feeling a sense of reassurance in this way for as long as you wish.

VIDEO LEAD THROUGH

I then review how people have got on, checking if they were comfortable enough; if they weren’t I review whether they were following the instructions and offer suggestions. Sometimes people do struggle to be comfortable, or to let their body support their mind and emotions, especially if they are stressed or tired. But when they do free their mind from being concerned with their body, a corresponding feeling of calm and reassurance can come.

The mind will keep trying to come back in, especially if it was quite busy before the meditation, and will want to carry on being active during it; even long term meditators experience this; we just have to keep working through the instructions, and the mind eventually will settle.

The fact that when we let the body support the mind and emotions this leads to a calm and quiet mind is no accident, it reflects the operation of the Law of Conditionality. As does the reverse; when frustration in the mind manifests as tightening and tensing in the body, and a resulting pain and stress there.

The chapter goes on to talk about meditation posture.

^[1] Likewise, the Theravada Buddhist monk alternates slow walking meditation–mentally noting each physical movement whilst walking backwards and forwards on a path, with mindfully watching their abdomen rise and fall–the mindfulness of breathing meditation.

^[2] Zen meditation.

^[3] The vast majority of which are based on the Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction that Jon Kabat-Zinn developed in the 1980s to help patients suffering from chronic pain but tailored to address specific conditions.