Energy Body: Instructions (1)

Good morning, everyone. Just a general word about the instructions on this retreat, on this course, before we get into them. So there's a lot of material. I think I mentioned that yesterday. A lot of material in the instructions. Part of the reason for that is because people are different, and people need different things. Different things, different ways of working work for different people, better or worse, or at different times. I want to be quite generous in what I'm putting out so that hopefully everyone can find ways of working that work for them, that are useful. Also, the material, it's not only that there's quite a lot of it, it's also quite different. Some of you, at least, will be encountering the kinds of material that we're working through for the first time, or quite new to it, and so just the fact of it being new and unfamiliar also makes it seem like quite a lot, can make it seem like quite a lot. So please don't get overwhelmed with the instructions as we go through. I'll be repeating quite a lot, so put stuff out and recapitulate it at some point, perhaps the next day or later on or something. Do ask questions, and do take notes as I mentioned last night, if you like to. There are also the recordings, so you can listen again in due time and glean more as time goes by.

I mentioned last night that we're going to start with and really establish as a basis for the work that we're doing what I'm calling practising with the energy body. So let's talk a little bit to set that up, put it in a context, talk a little bit about mindfulness of the body, which the Buddha emphasized so much. Just to put this in context. We could delineate three modes of mindfulness of the body, three kinds or types of mindfulness of the body. They're actually not really separate, but let's separate them now just to try and make something clear about the direction we want to go in. Three possible modes of mindfulness of the body:

(1) The first is what we might call mindfulness of sensations. This is, in the Insight Meditation tradition, by far the most common when people talk about mindfulness of the body, and also in the sort of mindfulness movement. Mindfulness of sensations is the first one. For example, if you take your hand right now and gently reach down to the floor by your side, and just press gently, just touch and then press gently into the floor at your side, bringing your mindfulness, bringing the attention to the sensations that that gives rise to in the hand. What does that feel like right now, in terms of the sensations of warmth, or coolness, or pressure, the way if you slightly move your hand around, or at least move at the wrist while keeping the hand in place, there's a shifting texture, almost kaleidoscopic shifting of the sensations in the hand, through the fingers, in the palm, etc.?

So it's very simple and what most people can very easily relate to, or have a lot of experience with, mindfulness of sensations. Or for example, if you're familiar with the raisin exercise, you put that raisin in your mouth, or some other food in your mouth, and the sensations of taste, but also texture in the mouth, touch, etc., also are something that we can bring the mindfulness to those sensations. Or washing your hands, the hands under a running tap of cold water or hot water, what does that feel like? The coldness, the heat of the water, the liquidity, the wetness, the sensations there. Another example: you're walking barefoot in your bedroom, and you stub your toe, perhaps against the foot of the bed or something. Again, mindfulness can come to those sensations, that throbbing, that pulsing, those unpleasant sensations. Most people are very familiar with that first type, mindfulness of sensations.

(2) The second type of or mode of mindfulness of the body, we can talk about mindfulness of the materiality of the body. For example, I mentioned this yesterday as well, in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, the Buddha talks about contemplating one's death, or actually the decomposition of the body at death -- this body or other bodies. Or also in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, the mindfulness sutta, the Buddha talks about contemplating one's body parts. So again, this is to do with materiality. It's contemplating the hair on the head, the hair on the body, the teeth, the bones, the liver, the blood, the spleen, the bile, all the different body parts -- the muscles, etc., the tissues, the fat -- that make up the body. So contemplating the materiality of the body in terms of its parts.

Again, also in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, the Buddha talks about contemplating the materiality of the body in terms of what was then known as the four elements (earth, air, fire, and water), and their presence in the body, throughout the body, the element of liquidity, the element of solidity, etc. Now, in this second mode of mindfulness, of the materiality of the body, this is actually a contemplation, if we think about it. It's different from the contemplation of the mindfulness of sensations, the first mode. It's a contemplation that actually includes the imagination and conceptions of the body. So it's a contemplation; it's less, if you like, direct in some ways than the mindfulness of sensations mode. It includes the imagination and conceptions of the body. And those conceptions might include, within them, might include conceptions such as 'unclean.' So the body parts in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta are generally, most people interpret what the Buddha means there as contemplation of what's unclean in the body, and this serves the function of reducing clinging and attachment, and also lust, etc. -- clinging and attachment to the body, and also lust in terms of other bodies.

This kind, this second mode of mindfulness of the body, materiality, will include conceptions of the body. Sometimes it's the conception of something like unclean or not unclean, but it could also be the conception of beautiful and holy. That would be quite a different spin on it than what you're generally used to in the Theravādan tradition, the Pali Canon. So with regard to the four elements (earth, air, fire, water), again, what's the sort of tone and direction and conception of that? I know someone who every morning gets up and part of her practice, it's almost a quasi-shamanic practice, is to go outside and bow to the four elements present in nature, throughout nature, throughout the natural world, and also in one's body. There's a sense in that practice of reverence, of holiness, for these four elements. But one can also spin or direct that practice in a very neutral way: it's just a kind of deconstruction of the body into its element parts, much as we might these days deconstruct -- instead of talking about four elements, more modern science would talk about molecules or atoms, and that would be a similar sort of scientific materialist deconstruction. It's more neutral, and again, it's designed to let go of attachment or identification with the body.

(3) So there's the mode of mindfulness of the body of sensations, the mode of mindfulness of the body regarding materiality, the materiality of body, and then the third one is what we're going to focus most on on this retreat, and that's the mindfulness of the body, the mode of mindfulness of the body, it's the mindfulness of what I'm going to call the energy body, the space of the energy of the body. Now, to some of you, that will sound very abstract, and a bit like some kind of hypothetical thing that you're being asked to believe in, or some kind of New Age concept. But actually, I really do not mean it in that way. What I'm talking about is just a way of sensing, a way of sensing body and bodily experience, something we can shift in and out of, but that with practice can become very, very familiar to us, this way of sensing this energy body, very accessible and actually very normal. Philosophically, we're talking about a phenomenological reality, if you like. This is a way of experiencing the body. It's actually how we experience [the body] if we don't necessarily layer too much on in terms of concepts. It's a style of attention, that's all, that reveals, opens the experience up in a certain way. So rather than a whole, big construct and hypothetical sort of New Agey thing, it's not that.

Actually, if we just think about this for a second, the mode of mindfulness of the body in terms of materiality actually needs, for example, years of high school biology to know all the body parts and all this. It's quite culturally determined as a view. For instance, whether we tend to see matter and materiality in terms of the four elements as they did in the time of the Buddha, or whether we see matter and materiality in terms of molecules and atoms, etc., as we do culturally in our time and age -- which is just something that we've received from the culture, from our education. I'm not saying it's wrong or right. It's important. It certainly has its truth. But the point is that it's actually informed by conceptuality, this contemplation of materiality. So when I talk about this third mode of mindfulness of the body, mindfulness of the energy body, I'm really talking about experience. I'm not talking about some elaborate sort of religious belief or something like that at all.

And when I talk about the body, the energy body, I really mean the whole space -- actually a little bit bigger than the physical body. When I say the whole body, the whole body space (I'm going to use this over and over and over in this retreat), I really mean a little bit bigger than the body. If, for instance, you're sitting on a chair, it would include even, funnily enough, the space underneath your bum, beneath the bottom of the chair, between the floor and the bottom of the chair. So there's a whole almost like oval, or ellipse or something, or an egg shape. It doesn't necessarily have fixed borders. It can be quite amorphous or nebulous in terms of where it ends. But the experience then is this region, this area, of what we could call -- let's call it energy; that's the name I'm giving to it. What I really mean is the kind of tone of that space, the tone of the whole body space, the vibration, the feel, the texture of it, if you like.

As I mentioned last night, this is something we're going to emphasize and keep as a basis for the work of this retreat, throughout the retreat. We're going to really emphasize it at the start, and then we're going to keep it as a thread and a foundation for all the other work that we do, this sensitivity to the whole body space, its energy, its vibration, its feel, its texture, its tone. Why? Why place so much emphasis on this energy body experience and the sensitivity to the whole body energy? There are a few reasons.

(1) The first is that we can practise relating to this energy body in a certain way, which I'll explain and go through today, to cultivate what we call samādhi. It's a Pali and a Sanskrit word, samādhi. Oftentimes that word gets translated as 'concentration,' but I don't really want to use that English word. I want to keep it in the Pali or Sanskrit, samādhi. What I really mean is not simply a focusing of the mind, a steadiness of the attention, a concentration on some small point of something. What I really mean is an awareness, a sensitivity, to this whole body space, a little bit bigger than the whole body.

And when the samādhi is developing and cultivating, there's a whole range of experience of the way that energy body feels. Well-being starts to permeate to different degrees -- maybe not that remarkable. To different degrees, it penetrates that energy body space. Restfulness permeates it. This is an aspect of samādhi, but also energization. So it feels a very restful kind of space, but it's also energized and bright, and the energies may feel sometimes soothing and healing and harmonized. So the whole body is involved. There's some degree of comfort or well-being or pleasure even. Why is that important? Because then, not only is that a very lovely space to hang out, it's also very good for the mind. This samādhi -- and to whatever degree, and there's really a very, almost, you could say, infinitely deep potential there -- but it forms a resource, a deepening resource for the whole being. To cultivate that samādhi, to have that direction in practice at times, that intention to develop this well-being, this sphere of harmonized, comfortable, perhaps even pleasant energy, bright, awake, energized but restful -- this is a really, really important resource for the whole being. So that's one reason why we're going to emphasize it, and that resource pays off in all kinds of ways in one's practice, and in one's life, all kinds of ways.

(2) The second reason is that we want to develop just a general deepening sensitivity to the energy body and the feel of the energy body, so that this kind of experience of an energy body, of the energy of the body in that space, becomes more and more familiar to us. We're developing our sensitivity to it and its experience, its changing experience. Why? Because that sensitivity to the energy body will form another kind of resource to us. (2.1) It allows us, it's one way, one very, very helpful way, to be aware of our emotions, because they reflect in the energy body, and also ways of working with difficult energies or difficult emotions through the energy body. So the sensitivity is important itself because it brings awareness, which is very important, and it also enables us to work skilfully with all emotions, but especially the more difficult ones.

(2.2) Secondly, the sensitivity, the gradually developing sensitivity to the energy body, which we can cultivate in practice, is very important as a basis and a kind of mainstay, a thread, in regards to imaginal work, imaginal practice. I'll explain all these different parts as we go through the retreat, but it turns out that sensitivity to the energy body allows us to pick up on the resonances of different images, and how they resonate in the being, both emotionally but also energetically, which allows us to navigate with images, navigate the practice in different directions, and also discern which images are helpful for us, helpful for the being, for what I'm going to call 'soulmaking.' Sensitivity to the energy body as we practise imaginal work, in the imaginal practice, also keeps us connected. So there's always a kind of mindfulness of the body involved in imaginal practice. Without that, it's daydreaming. What's characteristic of daydreaming is I'm not in touch with my body; I don't feel the body and the energy body. The sensitivity to the energy body also just allows a greater degree of sensitivity in general with regard to images. Again, that differentiates imaginal practice from, let's say, just daydreaming.

Today, we're going to focus on samādhi, on this aspect, this deepening resource in terms of shaping, if you like, the energy body. We could easily spend a very long retreat just on that. It's a huge thread of our path, I would say almost, you could say, infinitely developable. It could be a very long retreat. But this is the primary focus for today's practice, and again, if you're listening and doing this at home and have longer, you may want to spend longer developing the samādhi, or keep coming back to it.

So again, what does this word mean, samādhi? It doesn't just mean focusing the attention or steadiness of attention or concentrating on one point somewhere. A steadiness of attention, a focusing of the attention, is one element of what I'm calling samādhi, but it's just one element. What's more characteristic or more important in the samādhi, or as important, is this whole-body awareness, this space. So awareness is permeating this energy body space, and there's some degree, to some depth, a lot of range here, some degree of comfort or well-being or pleasure, even, in that space. And then the mind wants to fill that space because it feels relatively comfortable, there's well-being, there's a little bit of pleasure, or a lot of pleasure there sometimes. And the energies in that space feel harmonized and bright and energized and restful. This is not an on/off thing: I have samādhi or I don't have it, I'm in it or I'm out of it. It's more a spectrum, a range of deepening possibility that shares those characteristics for much of that range.

So, can I, can we, practise tending to, just gently shaping and caring for and nourishing and tending to the body energies, the feeling of the body energies, and tending to a sense of well-being? What is it in our way of practising that will, which I'll explain soon, that will tend to and nourish and support a sense of well-being through the body or somewhere in the body, a sense of energy, the sense of pleasure, even? And can we tend to that in practice? This is the intention of samādhi practice, to tend to this well-being, this more open energy, the pleasantness. Can we do that tending? Can we take care of that and have that direction of intentionality without grasping, without getting tight? One of the things that really helps us not to get tight is just to really be playful with that. So we're playing with this experience of the energy body. We're playing with the energies, if you like. It's very creative. It can be very creative. There's not a right and a wrong way of doing it. You can experiment. That playfulness and experimenting has many, many possibilities. That helps to lighten the whole thing, keep it more playful instead of being this tight success/failure thing. It's one of the things that helps.

I think what's probably best right now is if we do a guided meditation, and I'll in some ways fairly briskly take us through some of the possibilities of tending to, being aware of the energy body and tending to the energy of it, as I mentioned. So let's do that now.

[24:24, guided meditation begins]

Take a few moments to come into your meditation posture, and we can talk about that at some point later if anyone needs some help with posture. What's important with the posture is that you're relatively comfortable. The body feels relatively comfortable. The body is upright, without being rigid. So it's upright and balanced, and at the same time open. There's a kind of ideal balance of the whole being, of the mind and the body, that we're setting up through the posture. It reflects, it expresses uprightness, wakefulness, brightness, and at the same time, it expresses openness, softness, receptivity. So this ideal balance of the heart and mind is reflected, is expressed and manifested through the body. We just set things up that way.

You may want to just very gently roll the pelvis forward, and very gently the ribcage lifts up and out. But nothing forced here. It's very subtle. Just to open up the posture and bring a bit of uprightness in. It's really relaxed, soft, nothing forced or tight or rigid there.

You can take a moment, if you like, just with the first mode of mindfulness of the body, feeling into your hands and the sensations in the hands right now, flickering, dancing of sensations, perhaps heat or warmth in certain areas, or the coolness of your hands, how they feel if they're touching each other or touching your legs. How does that feel? Tingling perhaps in the fingers or the palms. Still staying with this first mode of mindfulness of the body, how do the sensations in your backside feel, touching the cushion or the chair or the bench? Perhaps warm or cool, pressure, hardness. How does that feel? Then your legs or your feet, or whatever it is that's contacting the floor right now. What are those simple sensations of contact there? Can you feel that?

You may want to just scan down the body and the face and the head. Just notice any tension, any holding or tightness there, and just with the mind, relax. See if you can relax as much as possible, perhaps around the eyes, or around the mouth, could be holding, or in the jaw. Just feel it, feel that and relax. Perhaps the throat and the neck. Again, just tuning into the sensations and relaxing, relaxing with the mind, letting go, letting be. It doesn't matter if all the tension goes or not, just relaxing. The shoulders, similarly feeling if there's any tension or holding there, and letting them drop towards the floor. The arms, the upper back, sensing into the sensations if there's tightness or holding, and relaxing. The upper chest, similarly. The belly. Sensing in, tuning into the sensations, if you can feel some tension or holding, and just relaxing as much as you can.

Now, is it possible to open up the awareness so that it stretches to fill a region or a space that's just a little bit bigger than the whole body? So the awareness is expanding. It's not going to one point here or there in the body, but it's expanding to fill a whole space a little bit bigger than the physical body. Perhaps within that you can feel the tone of the uprightness of the body. It's a very subtle feeling that pervades that space, a tone of uprightness.

Now, the awareness will keep shrinking. Over and over again, it will keep shrinking. I'll talk about this later. It will keep shrinking, so just notice when it shrinks, and keep stretching it back out. Some people have the image of filling a balloon, expanding, filling it with air. Filling it with awareness. You're really stretching the awareness, and then permeating that whole space with awareness, with sensitivity. This will happen many times, the awareness will shrink. Just open it up again, stretch it out again, fill it with awareness. Fill it with bright mindfulness, presence, sensitivity. How does it feel? How does that whole space, the energy body, how does it feel? The tone of it. The vibration of it, in it. The feel, the energy, the texture.

So is it possible for the awareness, the delicate attention, to pervade that whole space? The whole body, a little bit bigger than the body. It may feel body-shaped, it may feel more amorphous, more oval, egg-shaped, ellipse, circular. Pervading that whole space with a kind of sensitivity to the way it feels, the texture, the vibration, the energetic quality of it. Bright mindfulness, sensitivity, alive awareness, filling that space. Sensing the whole space. Open to the whole space. Sometimes the feeling is really quite subtle. In fact, it's often really quite subtle, so just very delicate with the attention, not forcing anything, just being present throughout the space of the body, sensitive to that whole feeling of energy there.

For some people, it helps to imagine or feel that the awareness is actually centred somewhere in the body, perhaps at the heart centre, in the centre of the chest, the upper chest. From there, the awareness expands and fills, or that's the centre of this space of awareness, this space of energy. Or it could be a little lower in the solar plexus. Some people like to feel or are helped by feeling the awareness centred there and then permeating the whole space. Or perhaps down in the hara, the dantian, a few finger widths below the belly button. Some people, that's a helpful place to feel the awareness centred. What's helpful for you?

Now, is it possible to stay with this whole body, this whole space awareness of the energy body? Just stay open. Keep stretching it when it shrinks. It will shrink, many times. Just keep opening it up again, stretching it out to cover that space. Staying with that, and then beginning to become aware of the breath within that space. So how does it feel with the breath, the in- and the out-breath, how does that ripple through the whole space? How does the breath, the in-breath, the out-breath, feel, affect the energy of the whole space of the energy body? It can be really, really helpful to gently lengthen the breath, both the in- and the out-breath, slow, comfortable, long breaths, as long and as slow as is comfortable. You don't need to move a lot of air necessarily. So, very gentle breath, but slow, and long, and smooth. Not forcing, just encouraging the breath to open up. Keeping this whole energy body in awareness, this whole space, sensitive to the way the breath feels, ripples, affects the whole space. Long, slow, smooth in- and out-breath, whole-body awareness, whole space. Filling the energy body with the energy of the breath. Filling it with awareness. Filling that space with bright awareness.

Some people notice with the in-breath that the whole body, the whole energy body, expands a little. They can feel it expanding, the whole body. In a very subtle way, perhaps, the whole body is kind of expanding, the whole energy body. With the out-breath, there's a kind of opposite movement, a kind of collapse or contraction, if you like. One can just remain sensitive to the whole space, the whole energy body, and feeling this expansion and contraction with the in- and the out-breath. How does that feel? Really alive and sensitive to that.

[39:54] Keeping the breath long and slow and smooth and comfortable, as much as you can, without forcing, and aware, sensitive, filling that whole space with bright presence, sensitivity. So tuning into that expansion and contraction, that feeling in the whole space, may be very helpful for some people. Or, as well, some people might notice that with the in-breath there's a feeling of energization. The whole body space feels energized with the in-breath. How does that feel? Can we tune into that feeling in the whole body? Notice, become sensitive to what that feels like, this energization of the whole space with the in-breath, and with the out-breath a kind of organic, natural relaxation that happens, just by itself on the out-breath. How does that feel? Sensitive to that energization, relaxation, letting go. Tuning into these qualities in the whole space with the breath. It could be the expansion and contraction, could be the energization and relaxation, could be a mixture of the two. Filling the body. Filling that space with awareness, stretching it every time the awareness shrinks.

For some people, or sometimes for some people, it can be helpful to feel, or imagine, even, and then feel, the breath as if it's originating, for example, in the heart centre. So that there's a point in the centre of the chest, doesn't matter exactly where it is, and the breath expands from there outwards. It fills the whole body, and then just retracts a little bit back to that. So instead of a sense of the breath coming in and out of the body, it's as if the breath is centred in the body at a certain centre, for example the heart centre, and that's expanding. The energy expands with that. Perhaps the awareness is centred there as well, and contracts and expands, and one's feeling that, sensitive to that, rippling through and affecting the whole body, the whole space.

Doesn't matter at all if you feel "I'm just imagining that," or rather, if you're imagining it, but we want to feel it too. So you can use your imagination, but see if you can really get a felt sense, a kinaesthetic sense, of that breath energy and how it affects the energy of the whole body. You may feel, if the breath is centred like that, that it no longer wants to be very long, or it may want to stay very long. Just see if you can get a sense: what kind of breath, long or short or smooth or very subtle, how does it want to be breathed? What kind of breath wants to occur when I feel it centred there at the heart centre, the breath centred at the heart centre and expanding from there? Be playful. See if you can sense what breath feels the best, feels the most comfortable, the most enjoyable, even.

Maybe you want to experiment with the breath energy being centred in the solar plexus, just a little bit lower, in the centre of the body. Again, sensitive to the whole space, the whole energy body. What kind of breath expands from the solar plexus, fills the whole space with its energy, and then draws back there, collapses down there again? What kind of breath? How long, how short, how smooth, how coarse or subtle? Feeling the whole body, the whole energy, the whole space.

[47:15] Just moving quite quickly, just to give you an idea of the possibilities, is it possible to feel the breath originating within the lower belly centre, the hara, the dantian? Down a few finger widths below the navel. Just feel that as the centre of the breath energy, expanding from there to fill the whole space, and then collapsing again. What kind of breath feels the best there? How does it feel to imagine and conceive of the breath being centred there?

How about trying in the centre of the head? That becomes the centre of the breath. One's still filling the whole body space with this awareness and sensitivity to the feeling, the energy, the tone of it. Just noticing: how does it feel if the centre of the head is actually the centre of the breath, the breath expands from there, through the whole space of the body? What kind of breath? How should the breath be, might the breath be, so that it feels most comfortable, most enjoyable even, when it's centred there?

Let's try something else just to give you an idea, a sense of things you can play with. How would it be to imagine the breath coming in and out from the heart centre? Again, sensitive to the whole space, sensitive to the whole energy body, but the breath is coming in and out through the heart centre, in the centre of the chest. How does it move, how does it fill, how does its energy expand or affect the whole energy space, the whole energy body? What kind of breath feels good, feels comfortable, or right, or even enjoyable there? In and out. Imagining it, but feeling what it feels like to imagine it that way. Sensitive to the whole body.

We can play with all kinds of points in the body this way. For example, how would it feel to imagine the breath energy entering the body at the base of the spine? Right down there in the lower back. Again, feeling how that breath energy, imagined that way, coming in and out there, affects the whole body space, the whole energy. Feeling what kind of breath feels good and helpful there.

How about imagining the breath coming in the top of the head, the crown centre at the top of the head? Imagining that breath energy entering and going out there, but then feeling what that feels like, what that feels like in the whole space, the whole energy body space. Sensitive, alert to the whole tone, texture, vibration of the whole space. What kind of breath feels best there? Be light, be playful with this. The whole body involved.

[54:43] Now, let's try something else. Still keeping this whole-body awareness, this sensitivity to the whole energy body experience, let go right now, keeping that wider awareness, but let go of the breath or any attention to the breath, any deliberate attention to the breath. Just let the breath be; don't focus on it or make it prominent in the attention. Let go of the breath. Still with this whole energy body. Let's play with the imagination a little bit with regards to the energy body. So is it possible, within this sensitivity to the whole space of the energy body, to imagine a line of energy from deep down, almost in the perineum, or right down in the lower belly, all the way up the centre of the body? A straight line up the centre of the body, and perhaps from there, from the perineum or the lower belly, all the way up to the crown of the head. Perhaps even out beyond the top of the head, beyond the crown, and even lower than the perineum. So does it want to extend in either or both directions, or does it want to just stay in a certain space? Imagine that line of energy. Maybe you see it visually. Maybe it's a certain colour, perhaps white or gold. Maybe it's more kinaesthetic. You're just imagining a line of energy. How does that feel? So there's that line there that we're imagining, and we're noticing how the presence of that image, whether it's visual or kinaesthetic or whatever, how that affects the tone, the feeling, the energy of the whole space.

Keeping that wider awareness as always, stretching it out when you need to, keeping that vertical line of energy, can we add two more lines from that point down in the perineum or right in the lower belly, a line from that point where it meets the vertical line that we've just described, a line going out, radiating out, through each leg? So we now have three lines meeting at a point in the lower belly or the perineum. And these lines that go through the legs, they don't need to necessarily bend at the knee if your knees are bent right now. They might want to extend more in a straight line beyond the edges of the physical body. How does that feel? Those three lines of energy imagined. How does it affect the feeling of the whole space? Sometimes, for some people, imagining or feeling certain flows of energy in or out of those lines or, for example, in through the legs and out through the vertical one, through the top of the head, or the other way around, or out through all of them, that can be helpful, or feel it just arises by itself. How does it feel? What's helpful with this imagination?

Maybe you want to stay with that; that feels helpful and supportive to the whole energy. Or maybe you can also try -- again, sensitive to the whole space, this more open, stretched awareness over the whole energy body, the whole space, and actually imagining that that whole space is a cloud of light, a cloud of energy. It's luminous, perhaps white or gold or golden-white light. The whole energy body as really a cloud of light. How does that feel? How does that feel in the whole space? So this cloud is, by nature, quite amorphous.

Or we could try a third thing, and imagine a body of light, that your body, your energy body is a body of light, of light energy. So this time it actually has contours similar to your physical body. What colour does this body of light want to be? Imagining it, but feeling what it feels like to imagine the body this way. A body of light, perhaps white or golden, perhaps blue, perhaps red. But it's the feeling of the energy, the feeling of the space that's important, significant. Is it possible to imagine a body of light, and to feel what that feels like throughout the body, throughout the energy space?

So these are some of the possibilities. We've moved through very quickly, throwing out different possibilities for you to play with, for you to try. Right now, just staying with this whole body, whole energy body awareness, sensitivity. Just return to whichever felt the easiest or the best for you. Perhaps it was just being with the space of the energy body, and sensitive to that. Perhaps it was with the breath, in a certain way of relating to the breath or feeling the breath, or the breath centred in a certain place, or in and out of a certain place. Or perhaps it wasn't with the breath, and it was just more with the images of energy, lines of energy, a cloud of light, or this body of light. Just, for a few minutes right now, go back to whichever attracts you the most, whichever felt easiest or best for you.

Whatever it is, awareness is stretched through to permeate, to pervade, the whole space. Really inhabiting that whole space with bright sensitivity, alive awareness.

Then, whatever you've been playing with, see if you can just go back for a few moments to just the awareness pervading that space, just inhabiting, filling that whole space of the energy body with this bright, luminous sensitivity to the energy, the feeling, the texture, the tone, the vibration of that space.

When you're ready, slowly opening your eyes, seeing if you can stay in contact with the experience of the body, of that space, just as much as possible.

[1:07:07, guided meditation ends]

Okay, so, just to be very clear, what we just went through in the guided meditation was really some options, a few of the options that it's possible to play with. It's not that one would go through all that in that order in a meditation, or even all of that in any order. All of what we did was really a survey, a taster of possibilities. But I hope it's clear that the breath may or may not be involved. So it's actually not necessary, in terms of this meditation on the energy body, to involve the breath, attention to the breath, at all. You can if you find it helpful at times, or you may not at all.

So, to review, we started, in fact, with just this awareness of the energy body, of the larger space, its tone, its texture, its vibration, its feel, its energy, and we didn't involve the breath at all. Perhaps the awareness wanted to be centred or felt better if it was centred at the heart centre or the belly centre or the solar plexus, wherever, somewhere else. But it's just that region, just that space, that we were sensitive to without really involving the breath. And then for some people, or some people at some times, it's helpful to involve the breath in that meditation, in the meditation with the fuller, wider awareness of the energy body. Making the breath long at first can be very, very helpful; I would really encourage that at first. It could be that one is tuning into the sense of the whole energy space expanding and contracting, and the feel of that, the energetic feel of that. It could be more the feel, this sense of energization and relaxation with the in- and the out-breath, and how that permeates the space or runs in certain ways in channels or whatever through the space. Really whatever one feels is useful and helpful to tune into in terms of the feeling of the energy of the space with the breath, in and out, the in- and out-breath.

We also briefly touched in with a possibility of imagining the breath centred, so to speak, originating from a certain centre in the body -- the heart centre, the head centre, solar plexus, belly centre; could actually be anywhere -- and expanding from that to fill the space with its energy, and contract again. No problem if I feel that we're imagining that, but I want to feel it, too, to actually sense it energetically -- that's quite important. Another possibility, many possibilities here, another possibility is, rather than centred and expanding from a certain centre, we can imagine and then feel the breath, the breath energy coming in and out from any centre in the body, really anywhere. There are sort of more classic centres, if you like -- the crown centre as we explored through the top of the head -- but it could also be through the feet, breathing up from the earth and back down, or in and out at the belly centre, or the back, the base of the spine, or the back of the neck, or the throat centre, in and out of the throat. Many possibilities there. And with all that, imagining it, but really feeling how it feels energetically. And in each case, what kind of breath feels the best? What feels the most comfortable -- not just the default breath, but what feels the most comfortable, brings the most sense of well-being and even of pleasure sometimes?

And then there's the possibility of, again, not involving the breath at all, but rather using the imagination a bit more actively. We can imagine these lines of energy. So again, probably quite standard would be the vertical line up the body, perhaps out the top of the head, or even lower down, extending lower and higher perhaps, and then out through the legs to form a kind of -- not a triangle, but a three-lined structure there, that sort of thing. But really, you can play with this, anything that's helpful. Or feeling or imagining the energy body as an amorphous cloud of light, and just what does that feel like? No breath necessarily. Or you can combine these with the breath and the imagination, these imaginations. And then there was the possibility of imagining the body, still as a contoured body, having the same contours as the physical body, but being a body of light, and what does that feel like?

So lots of possibilities, and you'll have your favourites, but go ahead and experiment. See what is it, which ones give rise to some sense of well-being, some sense of also being able to sense, to become sensitive to the feeling of the energy body, and actually to enjoy it a little bit. Now, you could also bring the mettā practice in, the loving-kindness practice, for those that know it. I'm not going to go into it on this retreat; we don't have time. But if you know it, then similarly, one can begin with this whole energy space, the energy body, and really feel that space. And maybe the mettā is a kinaesthetic imagination of the energy. That energy is radiating out as kindness, as well-wishing and healing energy. Or you're wrapping yourself in it, in that cloud of energy that's healing, or it's a light, an imagined light. Again, we want to really feel it as energy. Maybe use the phrases, maybe not, with the mettā practice. But the principal thing is really that it's integrated into the feeling, the sense of the energy body. And similarly, you may use visualizations like Kuan Yin, or Avalokiteśvara, or Tārā, or Jesus, or whoever, but primary is to feel the energy body, the energy space. "Sensitive to the whole body," as the Buddha says.

If you're using the imagination in some ways like we described before, with lines of energy, those lines might really want to extend much, much further, so out the top of the head, maybe extending quite high, and deep down, maybe much further down, out of the perineum, or out of the feet if you're standing up. So really to be open and playful, and see what works. Sometimes it can feel very good for some people for the lines of energy to extend out the crown of the top of the head and curve back in a big arc, actually forming a circle, a big circle with a big circumference, curling back and entering the bottom of the body, the perineum or somewhere like that, or the feet if you're standing up. And that forms an energetic circle in the imagination, which again, we're tuning into how does that feel. It's not just a visual imagination. I might play with that imagination, but I really want to feel how it feels. Maybe I imagine that's fire, that's a circle of fire -- the energy is actually fire running through the centre line of the body, out the top of the head, and back all the way down. And that might be helpful. So if it's helpful, go for it. But to feel into all this, to play, to feel into it, and to see what feels helpful.

Sometimes you can turn things completely around. Usually we feel and sense consciousness sort of facing forwards because the eyes face forward, etc.; we're used to that. But actually, in the meditation, you can play with the whole feeling of, so to speak, facing out of one's whole back, the whole back of the body, and sort of feel the energy body turned around that way, whether with the breath, breathing in and out the back, or a centre in the back, or without the breath. So it really can be very playful, and it's not always predictable what will feel good at any time, what will feel helpful at any time, but always there's this sensitivity and tuning, an awareness, sensitizing to the texture of the energy body space. Sometimes we won't have a word for the texture: "It feels like this." It doesn't matter. The labelling is not important. What's important is that whole space, to feel it, and if there's something enjoyable in feeling that, then to enjoy it if possible.

Now, of course, sometimes in meditations, probably everyone knows, it's definitely not enjoyable. There's discomfort of some kind in the body or pain. Very, very common. So there are a few things I want to say about that. Six things, in fact, that you can go through as a kind of list when there's discomfort or pain with this kind of meditation.

(1) First thing is that when there is discomfort or pain, the awareness will shrink. Very normal part of what goes on there. So the awareness shrinks when there's some discomfort, and really just to notice that's happened, and open it out, widen it, stretch it, like that balloon stretching, so it's really the whole body. This in itself will help, and sometimes that's all that needs to happen. And you keep the awareness wider, and then it shrinks again, you keep it wider. Sometimes that's all that needs to happen. Sometimes we need more. But anyway, that will be helpful. So opening out the awareness, number one.

(2) Number two is, sometimes we have discomfort or pain in one area of the body, and we get kind of sucked into that, the attention gets sucked into it, and we fail to notice, we neglect to notice that some other area of the body may feel actually relatively okay, relatively comfortable, sometimes even pleasant. So what can be very helpful, still in this kind of samādhi meditation, this tending to the energy and the well-being in the body, is to stay a little more with the area that does feel okay. So for example, maybe something in my heart centre or around my throat feels tight and uncomfortable, but I see that down in the belly it feels quite okay. I relax, and actually that feels quite warm and comfortable. So I just keep the attention centred more in the belly where it feels good, instead of getting so sucked into where it feels difficult. That's number two. That can be very helpful. Without fighting the dragging of the attention towards the difficult, just gently trying to keep it more centred in what feels more okay.

(3) The third option would be to imagine the breath, or the breath energy, or just energy, moving through the area of discomfort or pain in the body. So for example, I might have a pain in my knee when I'm sitting, and just to imagine that the breath energy moves through that place, down through the length of the leg, through the knee. Or I might be contracted in the throat, and I imagine the energy freely, unobstructed, flowing through that, perhaps even out the top of the head, or the other way, down, down through the top of the head, through that constriction in the throat; imagine the breath energy moving that way, or just energy, these lines of energy. That can be really helpful: imagining the breath, or the breath energy, or the energy through the area of discomfort.

(4) A fourth possibility is imagining the breath energy, or just energy, moving in and out of that area of discomfort. So again, if it's, let's say, tightness in the throat, discomfort in the throat, something's contracted painfully there, just imagining the breath energy coming in at the throat. You say, how does it get in? A bit like the guided meditation. Well, it's okay; don't worry about the anatomy of this. It's just coming in and out, the energy, the breath energy, of the throat where it feels contracted. Can sometimes be very helpful. Or if you are doing the mettā practice, you can actually, and this seems like it may be counterintuitive, almost station the centre, the origin, the source of the mettā right there where it feels contracted. So this tightness in the throat, imagine that that actually is where one is radiating the mettā from. It's radiating outwards from that. Or you could do it the other way around and imagine the mettā radiating towards that point of discomfort.

(5) A fifth possibility would be to imagine a white or golden-white or golden light, like a ball of light, centred at the centre of the discomfort or the pain, and radiating its light through the whole body. So again, one is aware of the whole body -- not letting that awareness shrink, or when it does, opening it out again. And then, just with the imagination, imagine a ball of light centred where it's difficult, and see how that feels. Feel it's radiating through the whole body. You're feeling the whole energy body, the space, and feel how that feels.

(6) If none of those work (opening the awareness, staying where it's a little easier, imagining the energy move through that place of discomfort, or imagining the energy, the breath energy coming in and out there, or mettā radiating from it, or light centred there in the middle of the discomfort and aware of the whole body), if none of that works, you can actually just bring a very light, steady attention on that area of difficulty in the body. So just holding it in the attention as steadily as you can, but with a real lightness to the attention, and then, as you do that, really allowing. So really, as fully as possible, allowing the feelings there, the feeling of discomfort, the unpleasantness, just to be what it is from moment to moment, again and again, holding it in the attention lightly, steadily, and just allowing it: this moment, this moment. Just let it do its thing. And really, really emphasizing the allowing as fully as possible, 100 per cent opening the doors to this, moment to moment, opening the doors, allowing, welcoming the actual sensations, the difficult sensations. That can be very, very helpful. We'll revisit that probably tomorrow.

And again, actually, not just discomfort and pain, but also emotions and mind states, both lovely ones, pleasant and positive emotions and mind states, and also more difficult ones, negative ones, afflictive ones, hindrances, all this affects the energy body. This is part of what we want to investigate. I'm going to get into this more tomorrow. It's something we really want to give attention to, notice, and also learn to work with. I'll come back to that.

So there's discomfort or pain, and what to do with that. And then there's also quite the possibility, as many of you will know, that this energy body can feel quite a lot of pleasantness, or even just a little bit of pleasantness at different times. So this is something, if that's the case, there's a feeling of well-being or comfort or ease or pleasantness somewhere, or in the whole body, or just one region, we really want to include it. It may not be remarkable. It may be quite a subtle sense of well-being or comfort -- not sort of ecstatic, but it can be the whole range, in fact. But even if it's not remarkable, we want to include it in the awareness, and actually become a little bit intimate with it. This is especially the case if that pleasantness or well-being is not just in flashes. If it's just in flashes, like a flash of pleasantness or well-being, you just have to kind of open to it and let it wave through.

But if it's a bit more steady, like it's around for some minutes, there's this comfort or well-being somewhere, or pleasantness, then we can begin, in the whole body space, still keeping that larger space, we can begin to focus on the feeling of the pleasant energy itself, wherever it is. And kind of nuzzle the attention into it, get close to it, penetrate it with the attention. Really get inside that pleasantness, trying to enjoy it. Open to it. One modality might be to penetrate it with the attention. Another modality might be to open the being to it, open the body to that pleasantness. So we're not just talking about focusing the mind, if we say "focus on the pleasant energy." We're also talking about opening the body to it, dissolving the body in it sometimes -- a sense of dissolving that into the body, or dissolving the body into the pleasantness sometimes, dissolving the mind into it. All these are possible. But ways of being intimate, and really getting into the pleasantness if it's there, or any pleasantness if it's there and it's a bit more steady for some minutes. The key thing there is really to just enjoy. So for some of you, that will be a very new instruction, the permission and the encouragement, even, to enjoy well-being when it's more than momentary, to really incorporate it, literally incorporate it, open to it, feel it, enjoy it, relish it. Very important.

One last thing: just again, by way of setting this in a larger context, I suppose we could talk about three sizes of attention that we can employ at any time. The mind has this capacity to sort of set its aperture, like a camera lens or something. So we can certainly employ at times as human beings:

(1) A very narrow attention. Many of you will be familiar with concentrating on the breath, say at the tip of the nose or the upper lip or just inside the nose. It's a very small point, and we narrow the focus, the attention down there, and pay attention to that, or some point in the abdomen where we can feel the rising and falling of the abdomen. It's a spatially narrow focus of the attention. Or when you sweep the attention through the body, for instance if you know the Goenka practice, the attention is moving, but it's moving in a narrow way. In other words, a narrow focus of attention is mobile through the body -- still narrow. Or like when we began the guided meditation, and I said to pay attention to your hands, and the tingling in your hands, or the sensations in your hands, that's quite a narrow area of attention. So that's one modality, one size of attention that we can employ in practice at times, very helpful.

(2) A second is this bigger attention, the whole body and even a bit bigger than the whole physical body. That's what I call the energy body. We're really sensitive to the tone, the feeling, the texture in that. Of course, I could be sensitive to that in terms of the sensations, as well, but we're emphasizing that size, and also a kind of sensitivity in there that's more about energy. But that size, that sort of medium size, this whole body and a bit bigger, is the second one.

(3) The third one is very, very big, vast attention, a vast awareness, like the sky or the size of space. Sometimes it can feel infinite, just huge. And with practice, that's something that one can get very skilled at as well. Also with practice one can get very skilled at just moving between these sizes of attention, these modes of attention, the apertures, and very skilled in all of them. They each give something different. They're each helpful in different ways.

On this retreat, we're mostly practising that middle one, the whole body and a bit bigger, that size. That's the size of attention that we're mostly employing for this retreat. And again, awareness will tend to shrink from that size. From that medium size, it will tend to shrink. And typically it shrinks because of certain things or with certain things. When there's an afflictive emotion (for example, fear or ill-will or sometimes even sadness, although that's a more complicated emotion), those afflictive emotions have in common that the awareness shrinks. They shrink the awareness. The awareness shrinks with those kind of emotions. Awareness will also tend to shrink, as I mentioned earlier, when there's pain or discomfort physically. That will also result in a shrunken awareness. It will also shrink whenever the mind is distracted or caught up in a thought or in thinking. Have a look: what's become of the awareness? It's shrunken when that happens. More generally, the awareness shrinks from that slightly larger, that middle size of the whole body and a bit bigger, it will shrink whenever there's any clinging or craving, or any significant clinging or craving -- let's put it that way -- of a certain degree. It will shrink the awareness; they go together.

And lastly, we might say that awareness will tend to shrink just out of habit, because for most of us we need to train and develop a habit of a slightly larger attention as we develop the practice. We have a habit of the attention being, the awareness being slightly shrunk or quite shrunk, quite contracted, in fact. That's very, very normal, and through practice we can change that. The important point here is it will shrink as I'm practising. I need to notice that it's shrunk, many, many times, and expand it, stretch it out again to the whole body, to a little bit bigger than the physical body, and do that over and over. Notice, expand, over and over. Really, really helpful.

Okay. So, today, we're going to emphasize this samādhi, this tending to, playfully, creatively, lightly tending to the energy body, and whatever sense of well-being, of comfort, of ease, of pleasure even, is possible there. Lots of options possible for working with that, things you can play with. And that's really the movement, the intention, the direction of samādhi. We're tending playfully, creatively, experimentally to the energy body and how it feels, and tending to help it move in the direction of more and more well-being, and enjoying that when it feels relatively good. So that's the focus for today.

Again, if you're listening to this course at home, and you want to stretch it out over longer, take longer with this part if you want. Take a few days at least. We'll be emphasizing it throughout the retreat, so we will never lose this aspect of the samādhi that we keep coming back to. Last thing, I'm just going to re-emphasize what I said last night: encouragement to slow down and to let your movements of the physical body be gentle, the way you walk, the way you go up and down the stairs, the way you close and open doors and handle things. Let that be gentle and a little bit slower. Not to repress anything, not because we're interested in microscopic analysis of sensations there, but because that slowness and gentleness really helps develop and really allows a kind of sensitivity and an awareness of the whole body, but particularly the energy body, this quality that we want to cultivate a sensitivity of.