Practicing My Body

Today, for the 22nd time in my life, I donated blood.  I have been doing this for a number of years as a practice of gratitude for the blood that sustained my father through various open heart surgeries and other proceedures for the 20+ years he survived following the first of several heart attacks. 

My pulse has always been good but over the last 15 years my blood pressure has slowly climbed into the pre-hypertension range.  The fact that I am overweight does not help either.  I am fairly active and I have lost weight in the past from both deliberate effort and as the byproduct of running for competition and health.

Today, like many adults in the West, I find myself knowing that I need to change something for the good of my own health and for the good of those who rely on me.  And like many others, I know this would have been a wiser idea 10 years ago.

However, I don't intend to diet to that purpose nor exercise to that purpose.

What I am encountering today is an overwhelming feeling of the need to practice my body.  The need to practice my health.

I don't know how explain why this is different, but it is.  The physical things that need to be done are obvious, regardless of the motivation.  I need to eat better and be more active.  What I can identify as different is the source that this feeling comes from.  It comes from practice.

There has been a notable shift in my practice since I took the precepts with the Toledo Zen Center last winter.  The practice and my life are increasingly expressing as one continuous thing.  Taking better care of myself is a natural extension of this.

Most of my poor dietary choices grow out of laziness and mindless reaction to situations.  Social eating is a good example.  The seeking of comfort food is another ingrained trap.  The shift starts not with form, but with intent.  It begins with the intention to manifest the mindfulness of practice more fully and skillfully to the way I use and care for my body.

When I last lost 30 pounds, I did it "to lose weight".  When I took up running, it was for competition and general health.  These are fine motivations, but what seems to be emerging for me now is more integrated.  Rather than being something that I do, it is more "me".

There is research to be done and preparations to be made, but the work is in the moment to moment mindfullness that envelopes this life.

I am not sure how it will unfold, or the form it will take, but it is like a crying child in the corner of the room.  It needs attention, effort and compassion.