Foreword
In Full-Presence Meditation, we offer contemplative meditations that do not require any particular reflection but simply to be aware of what we feel, and more active meditations that require more of a reflective attitude. Those are informative meditations and sit halfway between a tutorial and a meditation.
Today’s meditation was such a meditation, and it should be re-visited in order to draw most of its contemplative quality.
Introduction
I touched on how delicate it is to talk of the soul in the context of a meditation that sees itself as secular, as this notion has strong religious connotations and is interpreted in many ways.
Religious connotations:
- The soul is a divine dimension
- The soul is the presence of God within Man
- The soul is the bearer of eternal life
- The soul connects the spirit to its creator
Some interpretations:
- The soul is linked to the mind
- The seat of the soul is in the heart
- The soul is linked to the body
- The soul is immaterial and separate from the body
And philosophical affiliations:
- The soul is mortal and disappears with the body (Epicurus)
- The soul is immortal as it is separate from the body (Plato)
François Cheng offers a third perspective of a being constituted of a body, a mind and a soul. For him the body is animated by a force that moves by itself. And the soul is connected to the life breath, a vital breath. THe suggests that the idea of a soul is rejected for two reasons: it is considered as a remnant of religious obscurantism, and the tendency today is to see the body and the mind as separate. These perspectives amputate our humanity from its essential part.
The meditation
The central question: what is it that interests us in the notion of soul ? Can we correlate the soul and the inner movement, knowing that ancient philosophers considered the soul as a motion principle that only exists through the body ? So I have approached the notion of soul as a movement, as a driving force, as a capacity for sensitivity and sensibility, and as a way of being in the world (“having a beautiful soul”, “acting in harmony with our soul and our conscience”).
• The methodology used:
1. Establishing the silence, the stillness of the posture and the apeasement of the mind by using the stability of the body
2. Exploring the qualitative dimension of the experience as lived
“To begin to explore the soul, we need first to establish a qualitative relationship with what we are observing.
It is quite possible to remain silent and not be touched by the silence, through a lack of presence.
It is quite possible to settle into a motionless posture and not enter into resonance with it. We are then just motionless.
So the first quality needed to explore the soul, is to be touched, engaged, to feel, to experience, to be active, to set ourselves into motion and to be set into motion by this universal force principle.”
Danis Bois
3. Connecting with this invisible driving force that sets matter into motion
“You have to connect with the sensations of motion. Without a body, there are no sensations, no emotions, no feelings nor moods.”
Danis Bois
4.Connecting with the resonance between body, mind and soul
“Without soul, we would be robots in action. Without soul, there is no subjectivity, no sensitivity nor sensibility. And it is this sensitivity and this sensibility that nourrishes the mind and allows us to enter into action. That is why ancients philosophers saw the soul as linked with the mind.”
Danis Bois
5. Connecting with our heart’s worthy attitudes
“Every attitude that is worthy is founded on a sensation, an emotion, a sense of benevolence. That is why ancient philosophers thought of the soul as being linked to the heart.”
Danis Bois
6. Connecting with the movement of the soul, as the source of human elevation
“Where does the inner movement that we experience in all the parts of our body and that influences the mind as well as the heart come from ?
The soul influences the mind which itself influences our attitudes and behaviours. The soul awakens the heart which itself renders our attitudes worthy and connects us to something that is greater than we are. So in the end, is not the inner movement that we The soul awakens the heart which itself renders our attitudes worthy and connects us to something that is greater than we are.
So in the end, is not the inner movement that we experience an expression of the soul, a force principle that leads to the elevation of our humanity ?
Danis Bois
7. Connecting with the the soul in the movement
“The inner movement alone is not the soul, if we are not touched. For the inner movement to become a principle of the soul, we need to be touched, moved, by the movement.”
Danis Bois
Back in daily life
Try to keep within you this internal dynamic that is moving and touching. “I do not know whether the soul carries the hope of immortality, of the eternal, but what I know is that the soul carries the hope of a more beautiful humanity.”
“I do not know whether the soul carries the hope of immortality, of the eternal, but what I know is that the soul carries the hope of a more beautiful humanity.”
Danis Bois
