-IBIS-1.5.0-
rx
meditation
pain (beyond the body)
psychospiritual approaches
definition
Each of these meditations may be read very slowly to a friend or silently to oneself.
Exploring awareness beyond the body:
Sit or lie in some position, as comfortable as possible. Let your body settle into its position. Let the whole body be relaxed and soft.
Let it just melt into the chair. Let it just sink into the bed you're lying on. No attempt to support the body. No holding.
Bring your attention into the body. Feel the denseness, the seeming solidness of its mass.
Explore the sensations arising in the body. Feel the hardness of the bones. The substance of flesh and ligament and muscle. Feel the body's density. Its weightiness.
Let the awareness move, slowly, from the top of the head through the body to the feet and the tip of the toes.
Wherever awareness is focused, sensation is received.
Begin, gradually, to allow awareness to come to the edge of the body.
Feel the skin touching the air. Feel the scalp, the top of the shoulders, the hair on the forearms. The point of touch where the buttocks meets its supporting cushion. Feel the feet touching the floor.
Allow the attention to come right to the point of touch. Let awareness examine the edge of the body.
Is the edge of the body the edge of awareness? Feel how awareness extends beyond the skin. Let awareness go beyond this feeling edge. Feel outside the body. Explore the space that touches the skin.
Feel how awareness seems to exist beyond the edge of the body. Feel an inch out into the room. Feel one foot beyond. Feel how the attention radiates outward. Investigate what lies beyond the skin and flesh. The air that surrounds you. Feel how the awareness expands beyond the body.
Let the awareness gradually fill the room.
Feel the walls of the room around you. Like a second body. Expand beyond these walls. Let the mind open into space. Expanding. Stopping nowhere.
Awareness has no edge. Allow your awareness to be the space in which the moon and the stars float. No edges anywhere. Limitless awareness. Expanding into vast space.
Your body is the center of the universe. Your awareness extends out limitlessly into the vastness. Expanding. Explore the awareness beyond the body. Vast open space. The whole planet floating in the vast spaciousness of awareness.
Expanding outward. The clouds floating within you. The stars. The moon. All the planets. The whole universe floating in the vast spaciousness of mind. Extending everywhere. Expanding to the very edge of the cosmos. And beyond. Vast. Open. Space. Awareness itself.
Go beyond. Beyond, beyond. Let awareness expand into infinity. Open. Endless. Space.
Feel how your body floats in the spaciousness of awareness.
Let your attention come back to the breath.
Each sensation floating in the vastness.
Each breath drifts through the body. Each sensation received in limitless awareness.
Feel the eyes as they begin to open. Look about you.
Move when you feel like moving.
(Levine, p. 134-145)
see:
cancer treatments: immune enhancement (includes types of meditation)
compassion and healing
healing power of meditation
healing power of prayer
meditation: forgiveness
meditation: pain (beyond the body; exploration; float free; opening; relaxation)
mind beyond body
relaxation techniques
self-hypnosis
treatment of chemotherapy side-effects
treatment of pain
footnotes