_____________________________________________________________________

This step is focused on helping you to see the sensory input of your body, in your mind. 

Step 3, Observing Body in Mind

As you sit still, body relaxed... are you aware of your physical body? Can you feel where your arms are? Your fingers, legs, feet, toes? If they're tense - relax them. The first couple minutes of sitting you can spend progressively relaxing your body. It's naturally tense, as the mind is tense. When you first start meditating your body doesn't realize yet that when you sit - it's the ultimate in relaxation. Soon you'll be over the pain of sitting in one spot and the body will really know it's time to relax when you sit like this.

A great exercise to make part of your practice - if you need it is to run through your body from top to bottom - and focus on each body part - head, neck muscles, trapezium muscles, shoulders, biceps, triceps, forearms, wrists, hands, fingers - the whole way through your entire body. As you think of each part - focus on relaxing that part to the point of being ultimately relaxed - with no stress and tension. No discomfort. If you need to stretch a little bit - go ahead and move around and stretch a bit then go back to your sitting position. Run through each body part from head to toes and relax everything. Don't forget your face.

The body is comprised not only of the parts of the body - but, you receive input from the body in the form of the sense organs: eyes, nose, ears, mouth, and nerves all over your body that respond to temperature and touch.

Your eyes are closed during meditation, most times. Later you can open them - or open them immediately - everything is up to you. What I say are only suggestions for what I've found to work. What you find to work might be different. Quite different. If you want to practice opening your eyes in the early stages of sitting - feel free!

When your eyes are closed during meditation it helps you knock out a large amount of stimuli that comes pouring through the eyes. The eyes are the gateway to the world, assuming you're not blind. If you're blind and can hear - the ears and nose and your sense of touch are the gateways to the world. Most information comes through the eyes. When they are closed the mind has only the 4 other senses to focus on.

What we want to do during meditation is limit the amount of sensory input that's coming in - so we can focus more clearly on the breath. This is the reason it's probably a good idea at first anyway to start out sitting in a position that is stable, in a room or area with a comfortable temperature. If the room is very quiet - even better. If the room has no changing smells - better still.

The more you can eliminate input from the senses, the better because it will enable you to focus on your breath easier.

Should you put a nose plug, ear-plugs, black mask over your eyes and shave all the hair on your body so you can't feel air moving about in the room?

Why not? Really, not joking. Meditation is experimental. If you want to really knock yourself out - make it a real experiment and do everything you wish to do in order to find out about it on your own. This site is supposed to be a starting point. Where you go from here is up to you. How you decide to meditate is up to you.

So, as you're sitting you'll notice that various things are popping up in your mind. Some are sounds. Sometimes smells. Sometimes you may see something bright in your field of vision. It might have been created by your mind. It might have been a car that passed with the headlights shining through the window in your room. While your eyes are closed you still may 'see' things. Your mind may show you thoughts in the form of a picture... a mind picture, different from a photograph. Your mind may show you a photograph type picture pulled from your memory. It may show you a video. These are visual, though you may not need your eyes to see them - but, your mind's eye can see them.

One little experiment you can try is to notice what happens when sensory input from the various organs happens over and over.

The easiest one to look at is the sense of smell. If you are smelling the most fragrant rose or as I do in Thailand, Jasmine flower... and it's the most wonderful smell you can imagine. It's almost magical it smells so great... and the more you smell it - the less you smell it. Right? Don't listen to me - try it for yourself. I think you may already know this truth - but, try the experiment. Doesn't matter if it's something you like or don't like. Once I was in my home when I was young. Everyone was away. I was feeling sleepy on the couch. I layed down for a nap in the middle of the afternoon.

When my family came home they were yelling at me to wake up. Apparently the natural gas was left on and the entire house was filled with fumes. I didn't notice because after I first smelled the gas - the smell went away. Soon it had built up to a very dangerous level - and yet, my nose was saturated with the smell and didn't really smell it anymore. Something would have had to change in the smell for me to smell it again after that point.

What happens with taste? If you hold something in your mouth for a long time or eat it over and over and over... what do you find?

If you hear something over and over? There are chickens all over outside my door here in Thailand. At first, after I moved in I wondered - "Am I going to be able to live here with the chickens crowing outside my window starting at 3:30am?" I was angry at first - chasing them away when I was awake enough to move. I chased them a few days and then the mind got used to it. I don't even notice them now!

Same for people that live near an airport or next to the railroad tracks - the sound becomes so common that it's ignored.

What about touch? When you hug someone - and neither of you move, what happens? Does it feel like a hug? If the touch doesn't change - nobody moves, neither squeezes hard and softly on and off - what happens? Try it.

If you put your hand on your leg, how long do you feel it for? Really feel it? Try it.

What about your eyes? If you stare at one place and don't move your eyes at all. The scene in front of you isn't changing at all. What happens? Try it!

So, sense input is paid attention to as long as it's novel - new. If it's repeated over and over and over - eventually it's ignored. There's little attention paid to it.

step 1, sitting    step 2, observing mind    step 3, observing body in mind    step 4, observing pain
step 5, observing thought    step 6, observing feelings    step 7, observing breath    step 8, mindfulness

KNOW YOURSELF through meditation.