Meditating with the Body

Questioner: “‘Realising the truth through the body,’ it is said. As described by the flourishing one, how is one realising truth though the body?”

Respondent: “Where, Friend, there is a practitioner, unattached to sensuality, unattached to non-skilful mental processes, who enters and abides in the first jhāna – where there is bliss and pleasure arising from being unattached, accompanied by directed thought and evaluation – when she abides thus, in touch with her body in whatever way is possible, in this way, one is described by the flourishing one as one realising through the body, though provisionally.

“And so, with the allaying of directed thoughts and evaluations, she enters and abides in the second jhāna… the third jhāna… the fourth jhāna… the dimension of immeasurable space… the dimension of immeasurable consciousness… the dimension of no-thingness… and the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception – when she abides thus, in touch with her body in whatever way is possible, in this way, one is described by the flourishing one as one realising through the body, though provisionally.

“And so, with the complete transcending of the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception, she enters and remains in the cessation of perception and feeling. Then, seeing with discernment, her mental fermentations go to their total end, and she abides thus, in touch with her body in whatever way is possible. It is to this extent that one is described by the flourishing one as one realising through the body definitively.”