Drawing upon the myths in the life of the Buddha Satyapara explores the role the body plays when we take up Buddhist practice. She describes the Buddha as a child under a rose apple tree being deeply in touch with his surroundings and when calling upon the earth he gains confidence in his practice and overcomes his doubts. With these stories, Satyapara invites us to trust our body. From the talk entitled A Body of Practice given in Cambridge for the Young Peoples Evening, 2016. ***
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[music] Dharma Bites is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for your life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. Thank you, and happy listening. So tonight's talk is called "A Body of Practice." So this is a first talk in a series over the next three months where we will explore body, speech and mind. And I think it's something that is traditionally in Buddhism it's used quite often. And our Meemite people, when they salute a Buddha, a Bruper, like the one we have on the Shri, doing this. So putting your hands to your forehead means like with body, putting them to the throat, symbolizes speed, and the heart is mind. So that's a traditional way of saying that we basically practice with the whole of our being, with all aspects of our being. So tonight we look at the first one, "Body." And I think Buddhism is often talked about as mindfulness or changing the mind or watching your mental states or being aware. And like Buddhism is all of that, but it's not like what we understand why mind is not really what a Buddha meant. And I think the fact that when we greet up with our figure, the fact that we go to the heart when we think of mind actually, you know, shows what a Buddha meant by mind. Because in Sanskrit, the word mind is actually a Cheetah and it's a hard mind. So you know, it's not the kind of mental activity, the thought processes that we think of. Cheetah is actually hard. So that kind of shows us that when we practice, it's not something that happens between our ears. But practice is something that happens in our bodies, in our activities, I suppose. So our bodies are not passive when we practice, when we start practicing the Buddhist teachings or meditation. So personally, I think that the body is the basis of our practice. It's like everything that happens happens within the body. So it's like through the body that we experience the world. As you have heard talks of me before, I think it's a really good reminder to think of the ancient Greeks. They thought that the organ of perception was the heart. They're not so much like the eyes or whatever, but actually the heart. So it's like very much like through the body, we experience the world to interact with the world and we practice. So often people come to Buddhism because they don't feel quite at home in the world. And that was at least for me the case, I struggled with finding my place in the world. I think it was my early 20s and I kind of was involved with things, like exotic things, like witchcraft. So there was some magic there. So we kind of come to Buddhism and we're just kind of feeling like the world is not the place where I belong. So we try to find that place in the world. But if we want to belong to the world, I think we first need to kind of feel we belong to our bodies. We kind of at home in our bodies. We hope you enjoyed today's Dharma Bite. Please help us keep this free. Make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. And thank you. (gentle music)
