How to come out of body consciousness?

Most of us are so deeply conscious of our body that we can’t think of anything without involving the body. So much so that we almost take it for granted and don’t even realize it. Beyond a limit, this can be a great impediment to our further progress. Is there a way out? Buddha has a way.

In the Tipitaka (DN 22: Maha-satipatthana Sutta) Buddha talks elaborately on how one can come out from this close affinity with the body, that most of us seem to be having. You may ask – what is wrong with this affinity?

You probably read my previous post on cycle of causality that binds us into an endless process of births and deaths. Buddhists take this cycle very seriously. The aim of a Buddhist is to break away from this cycle of births and deaths that he considers as “mother of all miseries”, and then attain ultimate liberation.

Probably, most of us may not have this aim. So, many of the things that Buddha suggests may look a bit abhorring. But if not the verbatim practice, a little closer attention to his suggestions can free us from the clutches of our bodies, that sometimes goes out of control. So read on without being judgmental.  

Firstly, why are we so attached to the body?

1. Because we forget that the body is impermanent:  All of us know that we have to die one day. All of us age, fall sick and so on. But still, we tend to forget it. Buddha says that one should look at a burning body in a crematorium where the body finally gets reduced to ashes. Or in a burial ground, where the body ultimately decomposes to fundamental elements from which it is made up of.

Like the ancient Greeks and Vedic Indians, even Buddhists believed that our body is made up of four or five fundamental elements – earth, air, fire, water and space (Buddhists skip this last one). And when we finally die, no matter the final ritual, our body once again joins these fundamental elements from which it has come. So where is the question of permanency?

2. Because we are enamored by the beauty of the body – ours or someone else’s: Most problems we get into is because of our undue fascination to beauty. But Buddha says –

“look at a decomposing body, floating in a river, or the one that is torn into pieces by vultures or other animals in a forest. Does it look beautiful? Don’t you realize what is inside this so called beautiful body? There is flesh, bone, blood, feces, urine, pus and such other filth. In that case does it make sense to get overly attracted to this body?”

3. Because we think that the body is the source of pleasure: The so called pleasure that we derive from our body has a beginning and an end. Beyond a point, we cannot even enjoy it. 

This fleeting pleasure leads to more craving, clinging to the body and finally to a series of miseries (see my previous post on the Buddhist concept of cycle of miseries). "Is this body really a source of pleasure or a trap that puts us into an endless cycle of births and deaths?"– Buddha asks.

In the Tipitaka Buddha seems to merely encourage people to analyze and infer the futility of being over associated with our bodies. But later Buddhists developed these ideas into elaborate meditative techniques.

In Vishuddhi Marga, for example, there are elaborate techniques to meditate on earth element, water element; on various types of corpses (the so called Kasinas) and so on. These practices look quite abhorring. But the idea is to come out of body consciousness.

For our purpose, we can restrict ourselves to a bit of analysis on the lines suggested by Buddha and refrain from being over conscious of the body.