The Body As Object Of Mindful Observation
Mindfully seeing or witnessing with the inner-eye is integral to the embodied practices that have emerged in the subcontinent over the last 2,500 years. The Buddha revolutionises the idea of spiritual practice by proposing "mindful seeing" as a mode of enlightenment. After six long years of arduous self-mortifying practices, he realises that: 1) Depriving or arresting movement of the body does not in fact arrest the compulsive flux of the mind; and 2) Spiritual experience is a pleasant one, imbued with sukha and prapti. He proposes Vipassana, a method of observing involuntary movements on the screen of the mind, but in a manner that is "special"-detached, unengaged, and non-judgemental, as though witnessing from one-removed. Drawing heavily from the Buddhist canon, Patanjali, a few centuries later, offers the model of abhyasa with vairagya-literally meaning, "practice with detachment"-in the Yoga Sutras. The aim is to disable compulsive turnings of the mind so the "inner-seer" may regain its original and autonomous condition within, unperturbed, unengaged and uncoloured by fluctuating tendencies of the mind. And to this purpose he includes within his model the practice of pranayama, the tempering plus observing of the breath as though it was that of another, seeing from the position of a pari-drishtau. It may interest practitioners of (hatha)yoga asana, intensely preoccupied with the body, to be introduced to another model proposed by a Kashmir Shaiva text of the 8th century CE, the Shiva Sutras, in which Vasugupta offers the body, sharia, aste object for detached-spectating, or dirham The "body" here does not imply the body alone but encompasses all phenomena, the objective, perceptible world, that constitutes "our"vishwa. Swami Lakshmanjoo says, there are "two ways in which this sutra is to be translated. One, this whole objective world is his own self and two, his own body is an object." While the object of observation shifts from the mind, to breath, and finally to the body in the Buddhist, Patanjali, and Tantra traditions respect perceiving subject, even if they are maybe essentially the same! Yoga, by definition, is the practice of reigning in or disabling the projective tendencies of perception, resulting in, as the Shiva Sutras say, vishwa samhara, or the destruction of out "perceived “universes. Somatic practice includes yogadance, inspired by both the Yoga Sas well as the subsequent Shaiva of sensitively facilitating and witnessing the body as it mindful negotiates the external forces of рty, gravity, buoyancy, fluidity, airimspace and time, with the aim to let body exercise and reveal its sensointentions, subtle forces and dire pulls within the present moment. Somatic practice is of both gentobserving as well as moving authenfrom the inside; it does not subscrilthe more popular "purity" model of being self-correctional and perfectiin pursuit of an external ideal, ever spiritual. It is the practice of first stoning "self-will" within thephysicaland then moving autonomously fro “within" with sensory clarity, awarrespect. This inturn is a result ofthsubtle, self-accepting, pleasant and sonorous capacities of the inner-eyes’
DISCLAIMER:
The views expressed in the Article above are Navtej Johar views and kashmiribhatta.in is not in any way responsible for the opinions expressed in the above article. The article belongs to its respective owner or owners and this site does not claim any right over it.
Courtesy: Navtej Johar and Speaking Tree,Times of India
The Body As Object Of Mindful Observation
Mindfully seeing or witnessing with the inner-eye is integral to the embodied practices that have emerged in the subcontinent over the last 2,500 years. The Buddha revolutionises the idea of spiritual practice by proposing "mindful seeing" as a mode of enlightenment. After six long years of arduous self-mortifying practices, he realises that: 1) Depriving or arresting movement of the body does not in fact arrest the compulsive flux of the mind; and 2) Spiritual experience is a pleasant one, imbued with sukha and prapti. He proposes Vipassana, a method of observing involuntary movements on the screen of the mind, but in a manner that is "special"-detached, unengaged, and non-judgemental, as though witnessing from one-removed. Drawing heavily from the Buddhist canon, Patanjali, a few centuries later, offers the model of abhyasa with vairagya-literally meaning, "practice with detachment"-in the Yoga Sutras. The aim is to disable compulsive turnings of the mind so the "inner-seer" may regain its original and autonomous condition within, unperturbed, unengaged and uncoloured by fluctuating tendencies of the mind. And to this purpose he includes within his model the practice of pranayama, the tempering plus observing of the breath as though it was that of another, seeing from the position of a pari-drishtau. It may interest practitioners of (hatha)yoga asana, intensely preoccupied with the body, to be introduced to another model proposed by a Kashmir Shaiva text of the 8th century CE, the Shiva Sutras, in which Vasugupta offers the body, sharia, aste object for detached-spectating, or dirham The "body" here does not imply the body alone but encompasses all phenomena, the objective, perceptible world, that constitutes "our"vishwa. Swami Lakshmanjoo says, there are "two ways in which this sutra is to be translated. One, this whole objective world is his own self and two, his own body is an object." While the object of observation shifts from the mind, to breath, and finally to the body in the Buddhist, Patanjali, and Tantra traditions respect perceiving subject, even if they are maybe essentially the same! Yoga, by definition, is the practice of reigning in or disabling the projective tendencies of perception, resulting in, as the Shiva Sutras say, vishwa samhara, or the destruction of out "perceived “universes. Somatic practice includes yogadance, inspired by both the Yoga Sas well as the subsequent Shaiva of sensitively facilitating and witnessing the body as it mindful negotiates the external forces of рty, gravity, buoyancy, fluidity, airimspace and time, with the aim to let body exercise and reveal its sensointentions, subtle forces and dire pulls within the present moment. Somatic practice is of both gentobserving as well as moving authenfrom the inside; it does not subscrilthe more popular "purity" model of being self-correctional and perfectiin pursuit of an external ideal, ever spiritual. It is the practice of first stoning "self-will" within thephysicaland then moving autonomously fro “within" with sensory clarity, awarrespect. This inturn is a result ofthsubtle, self-accepting, pleasant and sonorous capacities of the inner-eyes’
DISCLAIMER:
The views expressed in the Article above are Navtej Johar views and kashmiribhatta.in is not in any way responsible for the opinions expressed in the above article. The article belongs to its respective owner or owners and this site does not claim any right over it.
Courtesy: Navtej Johar and Speaking Tree,Times of India