#113 – The inner movement , expression of Life

Posted by Hélène Bourhis-Bois

In today’s meditation, Danis Bois highlights the uniqueness of the inner movement, which represents the signature of Full-Presence Meditation.

The inner movement is an experience that is most often lived as very significant, and even sometimes as life-changing. Many people describe a particular sensation and the effects they experience: ‘A sensation of movement slowly moving up my spine. […] I feel a soft warmth inside. […] Seeds of love manifest […] With a calm mind, I turn my attention towards my body.’ Numerous research papers published on the site of the CERAP (https://www.cerap.org/)describe the inner movement and its benefits on physical as well as mental health.

In his PhD dissertation in 2007, Danis Bois identifies the characteristics of the inner movement that ‘can be experienced when we are personnally engaged in the experience’. He adds ‘At the limit between visible and invisible, objective and subjective, palpable and impalpable, the dynamics of our tissues is extremely rich.’ With C.Rogers and E.T.Gendlin, he sees this internal motion as the invisible part of Life arising to our awareness and gives it a high degree of order, recognizing that the body has a potential to self-organise.

But his description goes further when he makes the connection between the inner movement as lived and consciously perceived, and the processes of change of the individual. Full-Presence Meditation leads to a self-observation that is sense-felt before being intellectualised. It is not about having a reflection on one’s life without having first perceived it within through body-states.

When changes in the inner states that are connected with the active process of the inner movement are consciously perceived, we penetrate the world of the ‘Sensible’ and become, in real time, the conscious observer of the process that brings us closer to experiencing the ‘Sensible’. The notion of inner movement brings together all the stages of inner transformation that an individual is able to consciously accompany as a result of their perceptual abilities being enriched.

Danis Bois dissertation, p.106 (translated from the French)

NB: The term ‘Sensible’ as used by Danis Bois in French denotes a particular world of sensing that is accessible in the encounter between a person who is the subject of their own experience and the experience of the inner movement, when this is consciously perceived.

At the end of the meditation, Danis Bois talked about the process that is leading him towards the development of a new concept that he calls: Psychology of Life.

When I began familiarizing myself with the thought of deep ecology, I noticed that the thinkers on Life – seen as the living word – talk completely freely about nature and living organisms.

And when it was proven scientifically that there does exist an intelligence without a mind, without a nervous system, it opened the way for my current reflection.

It is easier to defend the idea that there is a universal intelligence, without a mind or a nervous system, than the idea of a universal consciousness.

The movement in our meditation contributes deeply to your process of transformation. But there needs to be your agreement. There needs to be a consent from your side and it is maybe the only willful thing you are asked to do: to be consenting when you are connected with this movement.

And this movement always goes towards growth, preserving health and the balance of the body.

But this movement is not going to have any effect on the complexity that has been constructed by human beings. This movement isn’t going to unravel your traumas by revealing what they are about. It is just going to perceive areas that are fixed and, naturally, when it encounters an area that is fixed, set it into motion.

And when there are spontaneous memory recalls, when there are perspective-changing experiences occurring, it is always at the moment when the movement sets into motion something that was fixed.

And this truly contributes to your growth.

The only thing you have to do, is to try and remain in this state of peace that is familiar to you now and to try and avoid external situations that may come and disrupt your state of peace. That’s your only role with regards to your psychological state and your behaviour. And this requires discipline. It requires that you take decisions. You know the situations that have a deleterious effect on your calmness, on your peace. So it is up to you to act accordingly.

Even though there may be times when external events are so important that they do disrupt our peace. But the body will work as hard as possible to regain balance and this movement is going to contribute to the stabilization of the whole of your biochemistry.  As an example:  when a hormone is being secreted, it is an expression of Life. And this intelligence of the body is amazing.

But it seems to me that one of our particularities as human beings is to be endowed with a nervous, hormonal system that enables us to experience ourselves. It does not make us into a higher species. Other species have specific characteristics that humans do not have.

I observe that human beings have more knowledge of how nature works than how Life works within human beings, within human nature. But there is no reason for us not to have inherited these properties of Life. There is no reason for us not to think that we have constructed ourselves psychologically around these properties of Life. Hence the idea of creating a new discipline: The Psychology of Life.

Danis Bois