Pensées sur le cœur
Thoughts on The Heart
Extended embodiment is the capability of fully extending the body map into an object you interact with. There is not an absolute difference between body-as-unit, body-and-hammer as unit, or body-and-air-and-ground as dynamic unit.
Just as we used to talk of the “body-mind” we can talk of the “body-environment”, whose phenomenology as a gestalt we can refer to as “The Heart”, the totality of felt-sense of which the experience of body and environment and self and the thinking mind is part of.
When the energy that appears to be “of the heart” is realized to be an all-pervasive field of energy, which the physical heart appears to be a particularly capable receptor of, then thought and pre-thought is experienced as arising in the non-localized Heart.
The uncentered field of feeling-tone, an all-pervasive space without labels or narratives and with no special weight toward inside vs outside, is a valuable foundation for much energy work; analogous to “staying present to all that is happening” while doing a specific activity.
Energy body hygiene is not that different than conventional hygiene. Sometimes one has an unpleasant odor on the body. A shower is useful then. Sometimes one has darkness or angularity in the energy body. Particular energy practices may be appropriate in that case.
When I was younger, I was a type of health nut for the energy body. The energy body can always be more powerful, brighter, more sparkly. While having an energy body in good shape is useful, enjoyable, and valuable, spiritual practice can lead to a limiting obsession.
The numerous forms of “the energy body” in different lineages are various ways of organizing peripersonal (local to the body) space which yield different affordances of interaction, similar to how standing, sitting, lying down organize affordances of the body.
Responsive communication is the heart of compassionate activity, communication from the whole body and whole energy field, of which both verbal energy and what is usually called “non-verbal communication” are valuable aspects.
A foundational teacher for responsive communication can be to relax with a dog, in implicit communication of energies via the breath, resting, seated, leaning into, in flank contact, but not necessarily with shared attentional focus.
It is a great bliss to communicate as the heart.