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As we begin our time together, I�ve been contemplating our program title. What does
it mean to awaken the body? What does it have to do with meditation, and what does
it have to do with my life?
Awakening is a word equally difficult for me to pin down. As I walk through the
days of my life I�m often aware that part of me is slumbering. Sometimes the sleep
is deep, impenetrable, sometimes the sleep is light and reality creeps in around
the edges. Sometimes the dream is lovely, sometimes a nightmare. But the nagging
fact remains: for much of my life, I am sleepwalking, casually following waves of
habit and impulse, lost in thought.
And when I wake, I awaken to a world that is alive, sparkling, unexpected, ever-
changing. I discover something vast and still. I awaken to a body inseparable from
the cosmos. When I wake up, pains and pleasures dissolve into a fiery potency that
hums inside the cells of my body.
And this awakening can happen all within the simplicity of a moment, standing at
the sink doing the breakfast dishes. Or in the familiar ache of hanging up from a
phone call with my daughter who is away at college. Or while crossing six lanes of
traffic to make the exit on my way to work in Denver.
For some of us, the teachings presented in this Awakening the Body program will be
brand new. For some, these practices seem at first to be familiar territory. And
yet truly for all of us this is a new experience. These are living teachings,
unfolding in our bodies in real time. With the supports provided in this program �
the meditation instructors, weekly discussion groups, written online forums,
questions for contemplation � we�re invited to travel ever deeper into our own
direct experience. No one knows what that might look like. But our own curiosity
can be our trusted guide on the path.
�Your interpretation of the world is very different from the world itself.�
�Reggie Ray
�Everything that can ever be known by us is already known by our cells, these pools
of awareness.�
�Reggie Ray
�Ultimately, in order for the body to truly be our resource, our guide, and our
reservoir of wisdom and knowledge and understanding, we have to dismantle what we
think about it. That�s the journey of somatic meditation.�
� Reggie Ray
When I read this, I paused and searched inside � what is true for me around this?
Because I�m not all that interested in the theoretical answer, but more the real
true practical experience.
And what I found when I searched inside was that unconditioned awareness is not a
passive state at all! In fact, it feels potent and alive. And yes, I absolutely can
be rooted in the state of unconditioned awareness while acting in the here and now.
Does that mean I always am? Not even close! But when I am, I encounter the moments
of my life in a much different way.
I notice for myself, generally, that most thoughts seem to emerge from the grinding
of ego, but those thoughts are quite different in feel from the inspirations that
arise from unconditioned awareness.
Action that arises out of that state of unconditioned awareness feels like an
imperative from my innermost soul. I can recognize it because there�s not too much
story around it, and I feel my body completely as it arises. Those inspirations are
decidedly not well-thought out. They often surprise me. And as a result, when I
live in orientation to them I often surprise myself. I become less and less certain
who I am and how I will behave in given situations.
Is it possible to live without concepts? I know only that as I practice over the
years I find I ruminate far less and experience/feel far more. When I�m maintaining
contact with unconditioned awareness in my day to day life, there�s some thinking,
but the thinking mind is a servant of the awakened state. It�s not as if my
capacity to function goes offline � in fact, I seem to function far more
effectively when I�m free of all the chatter and strategizing. It�s a relief when I
can let it go and just live.
The thing about unconditioned awareness is: it�s happening all the time. It�s
always here. Like a river flowing through my experience. It is underlay and
overlay. It perforates and interpenetrates my day to day world, revealing life to
be far more nuanced and creative than I ever imagined possible.
Readings
The Awakening Body, Chapter 5, �Practice One: Ten Points�
The Awakening Body, Chapter 11, �Intention, Attention, Sensation, and Discipline�
Study Questions
We are learning to open to the body without a fixed set of ideas with which to
explain, identify or manage what is happening. We may feel tempted to hold on to a
particular experience, or draw conclusions about our practice. Notice how these
tendencies get in the way of our ability to actually experience our bodies. Share
one or two experiences here from your daily meditation practice.
Reggie describes the mind as having a predisposition towards health. Describe your
sense of what it means to be fully YOU, in a healthy way. How does this include (or
not) experiences that we would consider unhealthy, or painful?
The journey of somatic meditation is completely unique and individual, yet there is
also a sense of being held and in community with others. Describe the principles of
buddha, dharma and sangha as Reggie offers them in this unit�s talk.
Readings
Touching Enlightenment, Chapter 9, �Meditating without the Body�
Talk � Ways of Knowing: Understanding Body and Ego through Somatic Meditation
Here Reggie explores our self that exists beyond the voice of ego. What is ego, and
how is it separate from our true self? Reggie addresses the role of the body in
meditation, and the way in which the body serves as a gateway to three aspects of
our true personhood � our spaciousness, our creative spark, and our imperative to
act.
Readings
The Awakening Body, Chapter 6, �Practice Two: Earth Descent�
Study Questions
How do you relate with your fear of opening to experience? In the talk for this
unit, Reggie discusses the ways we exit from our lived experience. What are some of
your personal patterns of addiction and avoidance?
Have you experienced fear or discomfort in meditation? How did you relate to that
fear or discomfort?
What is Reggie referring to when he refers to the �purification process� of somatic
meditation?
Readings
The Awakening Body, Chapter 7, �Practice Three: Yin Breathing�
Study Questions
We have been invited to repeat practices, even spending an entire day repeating
those we have already covered. In your own experience, how has one of the �same�
practices evolved and changed as you have engaged with it numerous times?
What are the primary ways in which you habitually depart from somatic experience?
Do you notice specific feelings that tend to arise just prior to departing? What
is it about those feelings that seems most threatening or problematic?
Readings
Touching Enlightenment, Chapter 18, �The Body�s Own Agenda�
Study Questions
What does it mean to say that psychological distress or upwelling of
painful/traumatic memory is an opportunity? Are you aware of any apparent
�obstacles� in your own path that could be such opportunities?
Please describe and contrast the �veil of explicit emotions� and the �veil of deep
obscurations.�
Readings
The Awakening Body, Chapter 10, �Practice Six: Twelvefold Lower-Belly Breathing�
Study Questions
What are two main problems that come from trying to use meditation as a way to
separate from pain? How might you have related to practice in this way, and what
would an alternative look like?
What is the role and importance of the �natural state� or dharmakaya � the space
of the somatic practices � in working with incomplete experiences or trauma?
Readings
The Awakening Body, Chapter 9, �Practice Five: Whole Body Breathing and Rooting�
Study Questions
What does Reggie mean when he says, �the body is always fully awake and the journey
is to reside there�? What is your experience the inherent wakefulness of your body?
How might we discern the difference between the voice of ego and the voice of the
body?
Describe an experience in which your somatic knowing disconfirmed ideas you had
about an �other.�
Readings
The Awakening Body, Chapter 8, �Practice Four: Coming into the Central Channel�
Study Questions
What is your personal relationship with tradition and modernity in your own
spirituality? What do each contribute to your mediation practice? What do each
contribute to your understanding of the world?
How does the psychological journey of individuation relate to a
spiritual/meditative path?
Readings
The Awakening Body, Chapter 19, �The Soma and the Human Genome�
Touching Enlightenment, Chapter 56, �The Cosmic Body IV: Until the Very End of
Being�
Study Questions
In the talk for this unit, Reggie discusses the challenges our modern lifestyles
pose to somatic meditation. What do you experience as your greatest challenges on
this path?
In what ways do you experience your body as a servant to your left brain? In what
ways do you experience your left brain as a servant to your body? Reggie tells us
that the fruition of this path is the experience of our ordinary body as sacred.
How do you experience your own body as sacred? What stands in the way of you
experiencing your body as sacred?
At the start of this course, Reggie stated that our goal is a fundamental shift in
perspective. Reflect upon the ways in which your meditation practice has shifted
your experience of your daily life over the past ten weeks.
Readings
The Awakening Body, Chapter 20, �The Soma and the Cosmos�