Going Into the Body

The danger, as is so often the case, lies in our heads.

In a dharma talk earlier this week, priest Beata Chapman spoke to us about experiencing grief as a body experience. Far too often, we disconnect, go into our heads, spin off into emotions that float unattached, when what we really need is to center ourselves in our physicality. A very Zen directive, exactly what our sitting practice guides us towards each day.

Beata said when we learn to witness our own suffering, by being present with it, it develops our capacity to witness the suffering of others. She said staying with the body sensations gives us the empathy for all the implications of existing in the form world - aging, pain, hurt, death. She admitted that what she was asking us to do was a paradox - expansively reach out right when our inclination is to close up and shut down. She refers to it as "opening the heart in hell."

But paradox is exactly what Zen is all about. It is a practice of things which cannot be done, and yet, each day we vow to do them.

Beata said we speak of "taking refuge," but for her, that does not mean "taking shelter." Instead, it means going into the body, into the present moment. The "namu kie butsu" phrase we recite when doing our sewing practice of the rakusu, said with each stitch, translates as "I take refuge in Buddha." But another translation is "I release myself into the now."

Darlene is facing her death with grace and equanimity because she is staying in her body and in the now. I could see it in her face when I looked upon her yesterday morning, as it shone in her eyes. That is the latest teaching from her. I, too, must remember I have a body. I, too, must settle into the now, into this moment. As the grief comes, when it comes, I must allow it to sink down into this body of mine so I can experience it fully, and then release it, going on to the next moment, until it arises again.