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The Body That Rests in this Present Moment (responding to Medium’s Unruly Bodies)
In the middle of the fourth decade of my life, I find myself in the third week of an introduction to mindfulness class. My wife and I are leading the class, a class that I have taught alone a number of times, material that I have taught with groups large and small. In these first few weeks, there’s a strong emphasis on body, on the body scan meditation, on mindful movements that feel like tai chi or easy yoga. In these moments you feel every click and pop, every tightness, every weakness.
And in my own body, I feel middle-aged.
I have been thinking about this as I have read through some of the recent articles in Medium’s Unruly Bodies collection.
One of the principles of an introduction to mindfulness is this beginning emphasis on the physical, on being embodied. There is an explicit attention to the physical sensations as you find them, wherever you find them. In this way you notice a feeling in the knee, for example. You try to find the knee just as it is, not thinking “about” the knee, but merely attending to what you find when you bring your attention “to” the knee.
So for me, someone who has run multiple marathons, many half marathons, triathlons, and too many 10ks and 5ks, for me to attend to my physical self at my current…
