Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World (13 page)

It’s important to set the stage for this meditation, so it might be worth rereading the section from pages
61
to
64
on the practicalities of meditation. During Week One, you will have discovered which times of day suit you best for meditation. It is best to set aside fifteen minutes a day at two of these times and dedicate them solely to the Body Scan, aiming to meditate on six days out of the next seven, so that by the end of the week you will have completed twelve Body Scans. Remember that this is
your
time, set aside to replenish the inner you—your soul, as it were. You will find it most helpful to support your meditation by finding a place and time that excludes as much of the busyness of the outside world as you can, by switching off your phone, for example, and finding a quiet spot at home or at work.

There will be times when you’ll feel that it’s impossible to allocate the time for this. You’ll simply feel too tired or busy. This is understandable, but you should remember that meditation is here to nourish you, so those days when it feels as though there is simply no time to squeeze in a fifteen-minute Body Scan may be just the ones when it’s most important to persist with the practice as best you can. This is your investment in yourself. And this investment will reap ample rewards; as the days pass, you may come to realize that you are becoming progressively more efficient at home and at work. This is because old habits of thinking and feeling consume large chunks of time and produce few, if any, beneficial returns. They can make you dither and run over the same ground time and time again. They are like a dog frantically chewing on a dry bone with no nourishment in it. If you are able to dissolve these habits by becoming more mindful, then this time is liberated for other uses.

Lie down on a mat, or a thick rug or bed. If it feels comfortable, allow the eyes to close. Let the hands lie alongside the body. The feet, uncrossed, can fall away from each other.

Notice the sense of the body as a whole and the contact between the body and whatever is supporting you.

Remind yourself that you’re not trying to get anywhere, or striving to achieve any special state. The intention of this practice is to spend time with each region of the body in turn, cultivating awareness of what’s already here. So you’re not looking for anything special to happen, but are allowing things to be just as you find them. See if it is possible to let go of the tendency to want things to be a certain way, or to judge how you’re doing. Simply follow along with the instructions as best you can, and, whenever the mind wanders away, as it will tend to do, bring it back, without giving yourself a hard time.

Now bring your attention to the sensations of the breath in the abdomen. Notice the stretching of the abdomen wall on the in-breath, and the falling away on the out-breath. Allow your attention to remain here for a short while, resting on the sensations of the breath.

When you’re ready, gather the attention, and move it like a spotlight down the body to the feet. Notice the sensations in both feet when the attention arrives. Notice the sensations in the toes, the soles of the feet, the heels, the top of the feet. What’s here right now?

If there are no sensations, then simply register a blank. If they are very subtle, then simply notice this. This is your experience right now; there’s no
right
way to feel. Simply allow the attention to remain here for a few breaths.

Now, taking a deeper breath, let go of the feet on the out-breath. Let them “dissolve” in awareness. Shift the attention to the ankles. What sensations are here?

Again, taking a deeper breath, let go of the ankles on the out-breath and shift the attention to the lower legs. Stay here for a few moments. Notice any sense of contact with whatever you’re lying on. Be fully alive to any and all sensations, from the surface of the skin to inside the lower legs.

Now, taking a deeper breath, on the out-breath release the attention from the lower legs, and shift to the knees, letting the attention rest here. Don’t
think about
the knees, but sense what’s here right now. Notice which sensations change and which stay the same. See what’s true for you, right now.

At a certain point, take another deeper breath. On the out-breath let go of the knees and shift the attention to the thighs. What do you notice? There may be sensations of contact between clothes and the skin, sensations of heaviness or lightness, pulsing, vibration. Notice these and any other sensations.

And now, when you’re ready, on an in-breath imagine the breath coming into the body, flowing all the way into the legs, right down to the feet. Imagine it flowing back again on the out-breath up and out of the body. You’re imagining, or sensing, what it would feel like if the breath could fill the legs as you breathe in, and empty from the legs as you breathe out. If you choose, just play with this sensation for the next few breaths.

Take a deeper breath, and as you breathe out let go of the legs. Allow them to dissolve in awareness, and shift the attention to the hips and pelvis. Notice sensations in the right hip, the left hip and the whole basin of the pelvis and the organs in this region. Imagine, if you wish,
that the breath could flow into this region on the in-breath and out again on the out-breath.

Now, taking a deeper breath, on the out-breath let go of the hips and pelvis and shift the spotlight of attention to the back. Start with the lower back for a few breaths. Then, on an in-breath, expand the field of awareness to take in the middle of the back. Do the same to take in the upper back including the shoulder blades. You are now holding the whole of the back in awareness, “breathing with” the back.

Now take a deeper breath into the back. As you let go of the breath, let go of the back as well. Move your attention to the front of the body, to the lower abdomen, observing what sensations are waiting for you, as your attention moves into this region. Feel the changing sensations as you breathe.

From time to time, you may find yourself getting distracted by thoughts, daydreams, worries or the feeling of wanting to hurry up—to move on. Feelings of boredom or restlessness may come, sometimes pulling quite strongly. When this happens, it’s not a mistake. Nothing’s gone wrong. Simply take the opportunity to notice these feelings and distractions. Acknowledge them, perhaps noticing how they are affecting the body. Then, without judging yourself in any way, bring the attention back to where you had intended it to be—in the lower abdomen, breathing.

Take a deeper breath. On the out-breath let go of the abdomen and shift the attention to the chest. What sensations are here, moment by moment, as you cradle this part of the body in awareness?

Take a deeper, more intentional breath into the chest. When you’re ready, as you let go of the breath, let go of the chest as well, and shift the attention to the hands and arms. Hold them “center stage”
in awareness for a few breaths, fully alive to all the sensations in your arms and hands.

Take a deeper breath, and on the out-breath let go of the hands and arms. Shift attention to the shoulders and neck—what sensations are here? Be here for them, whatever they are. Breathe with them, reminding yourself that you don’t have to control anything. Simply allow things to be just as they are.

Then take another deep breath. On the out-breath let go of the shoulders and neck. Move the attention to the head and face. Start with the lower jaw and chin, then the mouth and lips, the nostrils, the surface of the nose, the cheeks, the sides of the face, the ears, the eyes, the eyelids, the eyebrows, the space between the eyebrows, the forehead, the sides of the forehead and the scalp.

Now see if it is possible to imagine that the breath could fill the whole head, that you could feel the breath on the back of the face as it comes in, refreshing and renewing with each in-breath.

If you wish, you can extend this to imagine that the breath could fill the whole body, breathing in to the whole body, and out from the whole body, for one or two minutes.

Finally, let go of any intentions for the breath. Simply lie here. With a sense of coming home to the body, allow the body to be just as it is. Allow yourself to be just as you are—complete and whole, resting in awareness, moment by moment.

As you bring this period of meditation to an end, perhaps congratulate yourself for taking this time to nourish yourself in this way. Remind yourself that this practice—to be more fully in the body—is a gesture of deep healing for yourself, available to you at any time. It is a way for you to find peace and wholeness, as your life unfolds from moment to moment and from day to day.

Many people get to the second week of our course expecting to be able to clear their minds miraculously of all thoughts (still believing that this is the ultimate “aim” of meditation). They desperately want meditation to calm their troubled thoughts and soothe their frayed edges. Take Benjamin, who found that he could not focus. “My mind would not shut off,” he said. “I didn’t enjoy it at all.” Fran agreed: “I was so restless; I found it difficult to lie still. It was better when I moved past my legs, but I couldn’t really get relaxed until we were nearly finished. I thought of everything: work, shopping, paying the bills, difficulties I’d been having with a colleague.”

These experiences are perfectly normal. Many of us find an endless stream of thoughts competing for our attention. At times, it may feel as if it is doing us no good at all. After all, surely if it was doing us any good, we’d be able to enjoy it. Isn’t that what meditation is all about?

Once again, it is important to keep in mind that there isn’t necessarily a connection between how much you are enjoying the practice and its longer-term benefits. It can take time for the mind to reconnect fully with the body as countless networks in the brain have to rewire and strengthen themselves. This process doesn’t have to be difficult, but it often is. Why? Here is one way of looking at it:

When you are training your attention, it’s like going to the gym after a long time away. It’s as if you are exercising a muscle that has been underused. As with resistance training in the gym, in which you push your arms or legs against a carefully chosen weight so the muscles can redevelop their strength, so in the Body Scan you are asking your attention to focus for longer periods than usual on something that you usually ignore—your body. So if you become restless or
bored, you can welcome these feelings because they are providing the very “resistance training” you need to enhance your concentration and awareness. If it does not feel a little strange or uncomfortable to focus your attention for such long periods, then it’s quite possible that you’re not exercising it enough. Any mind-wandering, restlessness or boredom that arises can be acknowledged as allies of your attention training. So when these distractions crop up, as best you can, gently acknowledge that your mind has wandered, perhaps by silently giving them such names as “thinking, thinking,” “worrying, worrying” or whatever seems appropriate; or you might like to acknowledge feelings by mentally saying to yourself, “Ah, here’s restlessness,” or “Boredom is here.” After you’ve acknowledged your wandering mind, gently shepherd your attention back to the part of the body you drifted away from.

There will be some days when you’ll find it difficult to meditate—when you’ll feel angry or frustrated with yourself. When this happens, there is no need to be harsh on yourself. See if it is possible to let go of such ideas as “success” and “failure,” or such abstract notions as “trying to purify the body.” It is easy to think,
This is not the way it should be
—as if there is a
right
way for you to feel. Then you may notice tension in the shoulders, neck or back, which will seem to confirm that the meditation “isn’t working.” On the contrary, these signs are indications that the Body Scan
is
revealing something important. For maybe the first time in years, you’re noticing in
real time
how the mind creates tension in the body. Soon you’ll notice that the body also creates tension in the mind in a self-sustaining loop. Awareness of this is a major discovery. As you spend more time observing these tensions,
you will gradually realize that the simple act of awareness helps to diffuse them. You’ll have to do nothing more than observe with friendly curiosity. All else follows.