Body Prayer involves expressing our relationship with God privately beyond the realm of words through attention to movement, posture or physical sensation. Traditionally we tend to conceive of prayer as a verbal and mental activity. Body prayer gets the rest of our being involved as well.

Week One: The Body-Scan

Our relationship with God is very intimately pictured in Genesis as being, in the first instance, through the breath. God makes the human being, and then breathes into the clay. This breath from God is our first experience of God. And the simple act of breathing is in one way then, our first prayer.

Our first Body Prayer exercise captures some of that moment by imagining the breath of God’s Spirit entering our being and moving the full length of our body. This exercise is a very gentle way of becoming aware of God with the whole of your being.

 

You can do this prayer-form standing, sitting or lying down. Generally, the Body-Scan works best standing up (balance issues permitting).

Close your eyes.

Notice the air as it meets your nostrils.

Notice its heat or coolness, dryness or moistness, scent or lack of scent.

Follow the air as it moves into your nose.

Track the air as it flows into your throat.

Notice where in your throat the air stops. For many of us, this will be a tight knot in the middle of the throat.

Mentally loosen the knot in your throat open and let the air drop through down into your chest.

With each breath draw the air a little further into your body.

With each breath imagine that you are breathing the air in, and letting any tensions out.

Breathe – gently – into your lungs, the full length of your lungs.

Into your sternum.

Upper reaches of your stomach.

The center of your stomach.

Base of your stomach.

Take care to keep your shoulders and chest still and let your stomach do the work.

Now gradually, ease your breath on down through your pelvis into your thighs.

Down into your knees.

Calves.

Ankles.

Heels.

Soles of your feet.

And down on into the ground.

Picture yourself breathing the full-length of your body.

Rest in this state, breathing gently and naturally from top to floor and back for as long as you’re comfortable.

Open your eyes. Let go of the exercise.

 

 

Week Two: Reading Your Body

Sit comfortably, alone, away from noise, pressures, demands, clock-panics and so on.

Close your eyes.

Let yourself recall a situation that is a problem to you, past, present or anticipated in the future.

Let some of the details of that situation float up into your mind.

Allow yourself to feel some of the emotions and tensions that go with that.

Notice where in your body you feel all this. That is, where in your body are you carrying this tension?

Pause to reflect as to why it might be this part of your body rather than another. Is there some natural link? Is that part of your body acting as a metaphor for how you feel about the issue (e.g. such and such is ‘a pain in the neck’; you’ve had a ‘gutsful’ of something else, etc)?

Rest for a moment just sitting with the fact of this discomfort, simply recognising it, without needing, yet, to do anything about it. Just acknowledge the situation and how you feel about it – both emotionally, and physically.

Now picture yourself reaching into that part of your body, picking up that tension or pain (how much does it weigh?) and mentally lifting that problem out of your body and putting it to one side, near where you are sitting.

You may want to physically enact or mime this gesture.

Sitting comfortably again, notice how you are feeling – in that part of your body; - in yourself emotionally; - about the provoking situation.

What, if anything, has changed?

The mere fact of even imaginatively being able to remove the tension from your sense of yourself may have already made a difference.

Or not.

Or, it may have made a difference, but only a preliminary one.

You may want to repeat the mental or physical gesture a few times until you feel you’ve ‘gotten rid’ of whatever the tension was.

 

It could well be that you only begin to experience a difference by repeating the exercise patiently over several days.

Even if you experience no change in your emotions or your body sensations, you are developing a new kind of muscle – the ability to ‘let go,’ one of the most important tools/skills in any contemplative practice.

 

Extra: After trying this you could experiment, when you’re comfortable doing so, with picking up the tension and placing it back inside yourself. Even just being able imaginatively to ‘remove’ the tension might mean you have a different relationship to it, the emotion, the situation as a result, even if nothing in your external world has changed at all. If this is not comfortable, simply repeat the first part of the exercise (removing the tension) again.

 

 

Week Three: Stance Prayer

Take some time alone. Close the door. Stand back. Give yourself some space. And think back to a currently difficult situation. Let the thought of that situation produce in you the feelings that go with it. Let yourself feel something of those feelings. Again, notice where in your body you notice them most. Put your body into a position that most acutely expresses how you feel about that situation.

Stay with that position for a few moments or even minutes if you can. Given some time in that posture, what do you notice? About your body? About your posture? About the relationship between you and the situation.

Pause. Have a break. Let go. Stand back at rest.

Now take a moment to think about how you would like to be in relation to that situation – even if the situation were to stay unresolved. So, assuming that the situation in your life stays as it is, put your body into a posture that expresses how you wish to be in relation to the circumstance. Even if the situation never resolves.

What can you see or feel? What do you discover about yourself from this? What can you take with you into the situation the next time you encounter it, whether that encounter is internal or external?

 

Week Four: Walking Meditation

Two options: 1) Indoor 2) Outdoor

1. Indoor:

Find a room where you can close the door and not be disturbed, or use a corridor when others are out. We’re after a space where you are free of distractions and interruptions and with plenty of room to move. Take a moment to close your eyes (again, balance issues permitting). Settle your breathing into your stomach. Notice your feet. How much of the floor, how much of the world can you register with your feet? The hardness, or softness of the floor. Temperature. Any movement through the floor from sound or vibrations from elsewhere. Now take a step. And breathe. With each step, take one breath. Breath in on the lifting of your foot; breathe out as you place your foot down. Keep moving, keep breathing. But only at the pace of your breath. You may want to cup your hands and hold them together. Or you could form the classic prayer posture of folding your hands, palms together, over your chest. Or leave both hands relaxed by your sides.

Your main attention however goes on the steps and the breath: being there, fully, with all your attention for both. Each time your mind wanders off, gently bring your attention back to the step and the breath.

Do several sessions across the week, daily if you can, of a length you determine. 5-10 minutes is enough. What do you become aware of in doing this? What do you become aware of gradually over several sessions?

2. Outdoor

Go for a walk. 10 minutes; 20 minutes; half an hour. Walk slowly. Pay attention with - every step - to everything you can: - see ( for a few minutes); everything you can smell; – hear …. Next phase: focus your attention to all of this with each step by repeating a word with each footfall. Suggestions include: ‘Now’; ‘Present’; ‘Awake’; ‘Here’; or ‘Yes.’ Notice what you have not noticed before. Spend some time savouring the new sensations.

 

 

 

 

Week Five: Listening

The following sound-based exercise is great practice for beginning to dislodge yourself form the center of your own attention. Repeated practice may help you to discover other 'centers of gravity' in the world, maybe even God . . .

 

Sit quietly, sit still, close eyes. Hold your hands over your ears and count to ten. While you are counting, listen to the sound of your breath. Once you’ve counted to ten, put your hands down and listen to everything else. What can you hear? Listen to the big sounds. Listen to the small sounds. What can you hear nearby? What can you hear far away? What sounds can you hear inside the sounds? That is particles of sound. And their textures. What can you hear around the sounds? Can you hear around corners? Can you hear places where you are not? See if you can hear God through the sounds.

 

Advanced:

Try these in a very relaxed, unhurried manner, pausing within and between each phase.

‘Who is listening?’ ask this a few times to see where this leads you.

Listen to the silence surrounding you in 360 degrees.

Whose silence is this?

Whose silence are you?

Listen to the sound of God listening . . .

 

Week Six: Taste

 

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand,

And Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour.”

• William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

 

We’re on the home strait with Lent, moving closer into Passion Week. One key event in Holy Week is the Last Supper, which includes, depending on your tradition, the first ‘communion.’ In anticipation of the event, this week’s Body Prayer takes an element of the communion - the wine – and both deepens our attention to that act, and uses that act to deepen our attention..

 

Take a grape (or any piece of fruit). Hold the grape. Look at the grape. Look at the colours on the grape. All the colours on the skin. Look at the roughs and smooths on the surface.

Feel the weight of the grape. Weigh the grape in your fingers. How heavy is it? . Feel the texture (or absence of texture) on the skin (yours and the grape’s).

Examine the colours. How the colours shade into each other

Smell the grape. What kind of smell does it have? How would you describe the smell? How would you describe the smell to someone who had never had a grape?

Now put the grape in your mouth. Just rest it on your tongue. Don’t chew it! Roll the grape around on your tongue.

Feel the textures on the surface.

Now you can chew it. But only one bite! Let the flavour fall over your tongue. See how many parts of the taste you can notice. What words would you use to describe the flavour? Keep rolling the grape around on your tongue all through the juice.

Now take a second bite. Don’t swallow. Don’t do anymore chewing. Run your tongue over the pulp on the inside of the grape. Do this for a minute or two. Now you can chew – only chew slowly. Swallow as you need to.

 

Repeat as often as you like or need to.

 

Take the same degree of attention with you to communion or Eucharist.

 

Week Seven: Review

We hope that you have found value in engaging with a prayer path through this Lenten season. As Lent draws to a close, you might like to reflect on the following questions:

- How easy/hard was it to maintain a regular meditation practice?

- What did you gain from the experience?

- What did you struggle with?

- How might you develop this practice in an ongoing way?

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