Inner Work

For week of September 21, 2015

Inhabiting Body, Heart, and Mind

(Presence Tools: 10)

True presence embraces wholeness, transcending all forms of partial presence. Neither inhabiting our body, nor inhabiting our heart, nor inhabiting our mind reaches wholeness. We need all three simultaneously. We can approach this effectively from below, from part to whole. We can practice inhabiting our body, our entire body, establishing our presence here. Then we can add a second part, inhabiting our body, plus our mind or heart, depending on our disposition at that moment. After establishing presence in two parts, we add the third, so that we practice inhabiting body, mind, and heart all together. Once we have experience and a clear taste of what it is like to inhabit body, heart, and mind, we have the option of diving into it directly, entering all three at once, rather than building up piecemeal.

Perhaps surprisingly, this three-fold configuration proves more stable than engaging any one of the three alone. With our mind, we can easily be carried off by thoughts. But if we are also anchored in our body and heart, we can more readily maintain moment-to-moment presence in the face of our thought stream, with all its scenarios and stories. Similarly, our emotions seduce us with their immediacy, urgency, and valence. Again, though, body and mind presence help us stay centered in front of any emotions that arise.

To be clear, when we speak of inhabiting body, heart, and mind, we do not only mean awareness of body, heart, and mind. Inhabiting means that we are here in our body, heart, and mind, as the one who is aware, the one who acts, the one who participates, the one who is. We have a visceral sense of agency, of immediacy and ownership, here in our body, our heart, and our mind.

For this week, please practice being here in all your parts.

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