No-self, mindfulness and the body

I have always loved meditation and wondered whether the mindfulness-based Body Scan practise would detract from the self-transcendent nature of meditation.

I wondered how to relate the Mindfulness-based practise of the Body Scan in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course to the Advaita tradition of meditation that is transcendent of the personal sense of self and having no-relationship to the bodily senses.

We have the capacity for caring for ourselves and our physical well-being. The Body Scan helps to facilitate connecting me to the body sensations and physical sense of self. In this mindfulness-based practise, one is first settled, feeling safe and at ease, and then gradually guided through awareness of the breath and the body from the feet up to the top of head. Usually after a Body Scan practise, I feel relaxed in my body, and at ease with myself, with more open awareness of my body as it-is. Not trying to do more or attempting to relax any tension in the body.

In the meditation practise of the Advaita tradition that I had practised for many years, the sitting meditation practice would deepen inwardly, experiencing transcendence of being no-one, not attached to the body, thoughts and feelings. In this state of consciousness, I would sit still for hours, sometimes meditating through the night. The goal of meditation of being no-one had the effect of not sensing or being aware of the body.

Do I meditate being aware of the body, or do I meditate in consciousness and open awareness, disregarding the body? The Advaita practise (as I have experienced it myself) was to not relate to the body, and the Body Scan practise was to be in the body, to be aware of the body.

My answer is both, by relating how the Body Scan and awareness of the body and senses fills the personal sense of self within an open awareness of consciousness that Advaita is pointing to as Non-Duality. The Body Scan has enabled me to link and integrate the body in a wider awareness that included the body as part of the wholeness of self.

Sometimes the pitfall in meditation, by not relating to the body while deep in meditation can also easily lead to disassociating from the body and not caring for the self.

This integration is an open awareness of the Self as consciousness that also includes the comfort and ease of the body. The body and bodily sensations are not problems to be transcended. Instead, the body is included in this open awareness. The body has itself an intelligence that is opened to a wider consciousness.