Latest / Gabriel Ellis, PhD | The Curious Mind Podcast / Buddhist Psychology - Body Awareness

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Buddhist Psychology - Body Awareness · Gabriel Ellis, PhD | The Curious Mind Podcast

0:01
Hello everyone, my name is Gabriel Ellis.
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I'm a psychologist, psychotherapist or the scholar
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and I have running some sort of a series where I introduce a
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connection between original Buddhism and psychology and
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psychotherapy. Now in previous episodes I
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focused on 2 interesting aspects in that intersection.
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One was ethical conduct as the basis for regaining a healthy
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intuition and feeling of self. And the 2nd is that I focused on
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the machine aspect of being a human being.
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And I introduced the basic concept, very fundamental
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concept in Buddhism, that it basically wants us to enhance
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our possibilities, our degrees of freedom, the degrees of
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freedom so that we move away from being a machine that is
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always doing the same thing in a habitual way, in a very
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predictable way. And allows us to choose to
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choose what to choose to do the right thing in important
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situations, good for us, good for others and healthy and more
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and more healthy in a subtle way for our own mind.
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Now there is a three-step development in Buddhism, which
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is overly simple because there are many steps in between, but
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it's still good as a crutch to keep in mind what the
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progression in Buddhist development looks like.
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The first is ethical conduct. This is what I focused on in the
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episode on intuition and feeling of self.
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Then we have the step of samadhi meditation.
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The third one is Panya, which is wisdom and allows us to really
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free our mind in a very fundamental way.
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Today I want to focus on an in between step between the ethical
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conduct, the ethical purification and before We in a
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very normative normal way sit down to meditate.
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So we are just before meditation and we are doing this pre
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meditation step. When I say we I mean Buddhism
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and Buddhist development in order to prepare us for
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meditation. A very important aspect of the
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preparation was the ethical purification already with
2:39
process. When an enduring, endured
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process of ethical purification, we can pacify our mind, we can
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purify our mind, purify our mind and let emerge spontaneous good
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feelings, peacefulness and so forth.
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Today I want to talk about the following steps on the Buddhist
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path. And those steps are the
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mindfulness of sensory perceptions on the one hand and
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the mindfulness of body feeling on the other.
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And it's important to emphasize that even though it sounds very
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meditative, this is before we formally sit down to meditate.
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OK, let's look at the first step, the mindfulness of sensory
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perceptions. Now many of you might already
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associate the term mindfulness with more formal meditation
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practice. And yes, the same term in Pali
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Sati, which is usually translated as mindfulness,
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appears later on and more advanced because on our insight
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meditation aspects and even in normal samadhi summertime
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meditation practice. And yet this term appears also
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before formal meditation, here in this context of the
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mindfulness of sensory perceptions.
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So what is meant for that? What it means is that we learn
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in situations to focus on the pure aspect of our sensory
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perception. When I see something, not to see
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a door, but to see a shape, to see a color, to see patterns, to
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see reflections, to do to see those very fundamental aspects
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of the cognitive process. When I hear, not to hear a dog
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barking, not to hear a car, but to hear a swelling of the sound,
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a harshness, a frequency, a tone, a harmony, disharmony, so
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a very basic processing that is not yet developed into the
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recognition of an object. We do this, recognizing this
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categorizing, with this identifying in a very
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unconscious way. It's only in some contexts that
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we become witnesses of what the mind is actually doing, which
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is, for example, in situations when what we perceive is
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ambivalent, when we don't fully understand what the sound is,
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but at the same time we deem it important to understand what it
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is. When we are in a twilight
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situation and we're a little bit anxious, when we move forward,
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we see shapes. If you see something moving, and
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it is of vital importance for us to identify if this is a random
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movement of leaves, or if this is an animal and this is a human
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or a human standing somewhere, or this is a pillar.
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And then the mind flips between identifying, you know, the
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pillar or the human to to see an animal moving or just leaves on
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the ground moving. So then we'd become aware of it,
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Conscious of it. Usually we're not conscious of
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it at all. Usually this happens without our
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asking. The identification of the object
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pops up in our mind, and we are not given the opportunity to
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interfere, to stop, to change, to question this process.
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And yet, what is practice asks us to do that exactly, to
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understand what is the process of cognition, not in a
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philosophical way, but just to be able to perceive the
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components that then are put into more complex processing
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computations by the mind. So when I touch something, for
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example, when I touch my hands, not to let the image, the mental
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image of a hand come up, but rather to stay put, to stop the
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cognition process by recognizing that there is a softness, there
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is a hardness, there is this pattern there, there is a
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certain temperature there, the most fundamental building blocks
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of our cognition. Now now, why would that be
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important in the Buddhist process?
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When we ask ourselves when was it that I as an individual
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Organism or when we as humans build the skills of identifying
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and further processing objects, human beings and so on, it goes
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very far back into our development as humans.
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Babies already, when they come out of the womb, are using
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cognition as building blocks. This is what then you know, the
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basic conditioning of the newborn builds on to be able to
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recognize a voice, the touch, the face of the mother, the
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touch of the mother's breasts, the tone of the father and so
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on. Very fundamental things.
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For example, touch, of course touch, but also sight Babies are
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able to do from the first days on, and we build on top of that.
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Everything that follows is built on the very primary central
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cognitive perceptions. But why does it still make
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sense, in the context of a Buddhist development to go back
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to that very primary state of mental development?
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Because our development took place in a very different
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context. Babies are not free, they are
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driven. They are very helpless.
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They acutely depend upon identifying, for example,
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parents for identifying something that might be hurtful.
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And they are in. They are thrown into.
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They are born into a world that they don't understand.
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And they are not just, you know, abstract observers, curious.
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Oh, it doesn't matter if I recognize something or not.
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No, it's of vital importance and we might not see it on the
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facial expressions and so on of the babies.
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But later on, when they can articulate, when they can move,
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we see how much urgency there is in children to understand the
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environment, to learn to manipulate the environment, to
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process it on a more and more complex way.
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So when we go back to the level of purifying our very basic
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sensory experiences, we go back basically to a time, to a mode
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that has been, we can say from a Buddhist perspective, polluted
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by drives by the forming and budding ego, by needs, and it
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was anything but free. Now, as adults, we can do this
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exercise and we can hear without any afterthought, without any,
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without functionalizing what I'm hearing, without having to use
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this knowledge for anything. I can just listen.
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When I touch, I can just touch. I don't need to like it.
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I don't need to derive sensual pleasure out of it.
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I don't need to understand if I hate it, if I want to push it
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away, I can just let it be so. There is a stopping there.
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I stop myself from further processing.
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I keep it pure. I keep it simple and this purity
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and the simplicity goes back to the very foundation of my
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information. I go back to the earliest
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stages, not in a narrative way, not in a symbolic way, not in a
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psychological way. But I go back to the basics, to
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where narration, psychology, further processing comes from.
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I go back to the roots. So we can say that at the roots
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of the Buddhist mind development, we go back to the
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roots of the development of our mind to begin with.
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OK, so I hope it makes sense for you to understand how much
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impact there is in this level. If we can actually do that in
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situations where we don't need the full processing power of our
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mind. When we go along, our daily
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activities, when we walk, when we stand, we'll listen to
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something, we'll sit on the bus. All those sensory experiences
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are there. I don't need to think about.
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Let's assume it's not a situation where I need to figure
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something out, where I don't need to solve a problem.
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I just don't distract myself. I don't need to put on a
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podcast, music, watch a TikTok or a video or something.
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I don't need to do that. I can use this time for
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purification, for simplification.
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It's an exercise in stopping the mind from doing something
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habitual, something that comes under the influence of our
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drives, of our impulses, of our needs, all those complex aspects
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of our mind that creates problems for us in the long run.
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So I purify and see how I experience what it does to me,
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how it feels like, what it does to my system when I just
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experience the basic building blocks of perception.
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OK, the next step is the awareness of bodily feelings.
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And here I would like to it's not a full quote, I simplified
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it a little bit, but this is basically coming from the oldest
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Buddhist scriptures and it describes this practice and I
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think it's makes clear what it has in mind with this practice.
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It tells us to pay attention to the body, to be mindful when we
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walk, when we bend and stretch our limbs, when we eat, drink,
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chew, swallow, taste, when we move the body, when we walk,
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stand, sit when we fall asleep, wake up when we talk, when we
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remain silent. So if you pay attention to what
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aspects of body awareness this is mentioning, this is not the
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body experience of someone who just is.
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Still. These are movements, and
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movement is an aspect of the body that babies, toddlers, kids
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have to learn to take control off.
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So when we purify our vision of our bodily experience in
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movement, we are paying attention.
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We are mindful of the bodily functions that we had to
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acquire, that we had to learn, we had to learn to control.
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And for those of you who are a little bit versed in the history
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of psychology, psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, you know that
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Folit for example, paid a lot of attention to those so-called
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phases, the oral phase, when children learn to control the
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swallowing function, the taste, the food, the lust of this
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process, the last of the control of this and the so-called anal
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phase, which is the period of time when small children learn
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to control their the system of defecating and peeing, to hold
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it back, to let it go and so on. And he already rightly observed
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that those bodily functions, the control of a bodily functions is
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heavily conditioned by the surrounding parents, have been
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in the past. Maybe this is changing now, but
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usually they're not completely neutral when it comes to that.
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They like it when the kid learns to control the bodily functions,
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the kid itself. It doesn't need to learn that
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it's good to crawl, that it's good to stand up, that it's good
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to walk, that it's good to run. It wants it by itself, and this
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is an expression of the basic helplessness that babies are
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born into. It cannot move, but it sees
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everyone else moving. Even animals are moving.
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Certainly the siblings, the parents, strangers, everyone can
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move and the children see that the freedom of movement comes
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with many benefits. I can go away from a situation
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that I don't like. I can move towards a
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circumstance that I like. I can go and get my food.
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I can run away from heat, so oppressive situation.
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I can move away from a boring circumstance, a boring room that
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I am in and so on. So this is an aspect that
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doesn't need to be taught. The kid wants to control its
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bodily functions basically with or without the sanction of the
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surrounding of the parenting. So again, we have here a good
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example of how the development of our mind, the development of
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taking control of our own body, was not happening in an
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emotionally neutral space. It was heavily functionalized.
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I want to do this in order to get something, avoid something.
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I want to use my own bodily skill in order to achieve
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something. There was no space for neutral,
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introspective, meditative exploration there for toddlers
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and kids. They want to take control over
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themselves and the environment because they have to.
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So learning to control was not happening in a pure, clear
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environment context. This is what we can do.
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We as adults, as grown-ups we come, can go back to a mode off
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our being, for example the control of our physical
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functions. And we can observe that with
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interests, curiosity, openness, equanimity, neutrality, and thus
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purify something that we have been thrown into existentially
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at as a not pure experience. We can purify it now.
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So we can go back and learn to purify our sensory experience,
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which is the most fundamental one.
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And as the next thing we can go back to a field of our everyday
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life, our bodily experience, the control over our bodily
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functions and purify that as well with curiosity, with
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neutrality. And to just experience that.
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And again, I read what we are recommended to pay attention to,
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to be mindful when we're walking, when we're bending and
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stretching our limbs, which is when we walk.
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When we walk, we move our joints, the knee, the foot, the
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hands and so on. When we eat, drink, chew,
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swallow. When we move the body and
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walking, standing, sitting and fall asleep, when we wake up,
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which is already more of a mental thing, it's leaves
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already the purely bodily realm. And lastly when we talk and
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remain silent, which is also a more complex cognitive function
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than just the bodily movement. But this is what I want to focus
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on. We go back to something very
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fundamental to ourselves. This is not psychological, it's
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not narrative, this is pre psychological.
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This is a stuff that is unconscious within us that we
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usually don't have access to. And as methodical as Buddhism is
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and it's development points us to that bring develop degrees of
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freedom in something that you have not even considered to
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bring degrees of freedom into into the most unconscious stuff,
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the basic building blocks of our sensory perceptions, the basic
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building blocks of controlling our bodily functions.
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And this is what you can do in daily life, whether you want to
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just purify your experience on a more mundane self-care level or
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if you really want to prep yourself further on to get into
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more formal meditation. And I can tell you from
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experience, the more you invest into these aspects, what I
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described before, the ethical correct conduct conduct, the
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purification of our sensory experience, the purification of
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our bodily experience. The more you put into that, the
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easier and more natural the development in meditation will
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be. But if you're not inclined to
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meditation, it will serve you very well as a purification of
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your mental states on a more everyday, distressing, mundane
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level. And with that, I want to close
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this reflection on this step of the Buddhist development on this
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Buddhist path, and feel free to send comments to ask questions
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if it pertains to my field of expertise and I will happily
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comment on them in the next video.