BODY ABIDING
A PERSONAL PURE MIND PRACTICE
PURE MIND, gentle embodiment, somatic listening, and loving companionship with the whole body
Link – https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3896150/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Prepared personally for G. Ross Clark | August 2026
This body is not an obstacle to awakening.
This body is a living companion within Love.
A gentle practice shaped by more than thirty years of meditation, lived experience with pain and illness, and training in Healing Touch and Reiki.
A Loving Beginning: This Wonderful Body
Body Abiding begins with a simple recognition: Ross does not merely have a body. Ross is living as this whole body-mind. The body has carried every breath, step, illness, recovery, loss, act of service, prayer, meditation, and moment of love. It has worked faithfully through more than seven decades of life. It deserves companionship, not criticism.
To call the body wonderful and beautiful does not mean that it is always comfortable, young, strong, or free of illness. Its beauty is deeper than appearance or performance. This is the living body that continues to protect, signal, adapt, heal where it can, and make experience possible. Even a tired, painful, scarred, or frightened body remains worthy of reverence.
There is this body.
This body has carried Ross.
PURE MIND receives this body.
No part is left outside of Love.
GENTLE REMINDER Body Abiding is not a demand that the body feel better. It is a commitment to remain in warm, truthful, and wise relationship with the body as it is now.
What Body Abiding Is
Body Abiding is the practice of arriving in the present room, contacting PURE MIND as a resource, and then listening to the body with spacious, non-forcing attention. A sensation may be named, felt in a small manageable way, and accompanied without immediately explaining, resisting, intensifying, or trying to remove it.
The word body includes the whole embodied person: skin, muscles, bones, breath, heartbeat, organs, posture, movement, fatigue, pain, pleasure, nervous-system activity, and the inner sense of being alive. The word abiding means remaining gently near while keeping choice. It includes approaching, pausing, widening attention, moving away, returning to the room, and stopping when wisdom says enough.
Feel only what is here. Stay only as long as kindness remains.
What Body Abiding Is Not
It is not an attempt to conquer pain, force relaxation, or make the body release.
It is not a search for a hidden memory, a buried event, or the strongest sensation.
It is not proof that a particular organ stores a particular emotion.
It is not the assumption that every symptom is emotional or trauma-related.
It is not staying with intensity after the body has said no.
It is not a substitute for medical assessment, medication, physiotherapy, psychotherapy, or practical protection.
The Living Relationship Between Mind and Body
Mind and body are not two strangers sending occasional messages. They are interdependent aspects of one living process. Thoughts, memories, attention, expectations, emotions, and meanings can influence muscle tension, breathing, heart rate, digestion, sleep, pain, energy, and action. At the same time, illness, inflammation, pain, fatigue, hunger, posture, breathing, movement, touch, and internal sensations influence mood, attention, interpretation, and the sense of safety.
This relationship is two-way and continuous. It does not mean the mind causes every illness, or that a person can think the body well. It means that body and mind constantly participate in how a moment is experienced. Wise care therefore includes both: medical reality and emotional reality, physical support and compassionate meaning, practical action and spiritual refuge.
How the Mind May Affect the Body
A frightening thought may be followed by bracing, shallow breath, a pounding heart, stomach discomfort, or trembling.
Sadness may be felt as heaviness, lowered energy, tears, pressure in the chest or throat, or reduced movement.
Anger may gather as heat, pressure, jaw tension, clenched hands, or readiness to act.
Joy, Love, prayer, or PURE MIND may be accompanied by warmth, lightness, softness, fuller breathing, or a smile.
Attention can amplify a sensation when it becomes narrow and alarmed, or make more room around it when attention becomes wide and kind.
How the Body May Affect the Mind
Pain may make the mind more vigilant, impatient, fearful, or discouraged.
Fatigue and illness may reduce concentration and make ordinary concerns feel larger.
A supported posture, warmth, nourishing food, rest, gentle movement, or a trusted touch may help the mind feel more settled.
A familiar bodily sensation can evoke an old feeling or expectation before a clear memory appears.
Pleasant bodily sensations can remind the mind that safety, ease, interest, dignity, and Love are also present possibilities.
LIVING HARMONY Harmony does not mean using the mind to control the body. Harmony means allowing the body’s information, the mind’s wisdom, medical knowledge, and loving care to participate together.
What Somatic Feelings and Body Sensations Are
Somatic means relating to the lived body. A somatic feeling is an experience known through the body: warmth, cold, tingling, vibration, pressure, tightness, heaviness, lightness, trembling, pulsing, numbness, spaciousness, nausea, restlessness, softness, or pain. It may occur with an emotion, a thought, a memory, an illness, a medication effect, fatigue, or no clear explanation.
Three Ways the Body Is Sensed
Outside sensing.
Sight, sound, touch, temperature, and contact with the room help the body know where it is now.
Position and movement sensing.
The feet, joints, muscles, posture, balance, and movement tell us where the body is in space and how it is being supported.
Inside sensing, or interoception.
Heartbeat, breath, hunger, thirst, fullness, temperature, tension, nausea, fatigue, and pain are examples of signals arising from within the body.
Sensation, Emotion, and Story
These three layers can be related without being identical. A sensation might be pressure in the chest. The emotion might be fear, grief, or not knowing. The story might be, “Something terrible is happening” or “I will never feel better.” Body Abiding begins with the simplest layer that can be known safely.
Sensation: pressure is here.
Emotion: fear may be here.
Story: the mind is predicting danger.
Wisdom: what care is actually needed now?
KNOWING IS ENOUGH A bodily sensation is real as an experience, but its meaning may be uncertain. Description can be accurate even when interpretation remains open.
What Somatic Memory Is
Somatic memory is an informal way of describing how earlier experience may influence present bodily reactions. The brain and nervous system learn associations. A smell, voice, posture, place, conflict, medical procedure, pain, or relationship cue may later bring tension, freezing, rapid heartbeat, stomach upset, numbness, or an urge to protect oneself – sometimes before a clear verbal memory or explanation appears.
In this careful sense, the body may appear to remember because the whole brain-body system has learned a pattern of expectation and response. Trauma reminders can produce genuine physical signs of stress even when the original danger is no longer occurring. Pain itself can sometimes become a reminder of vulnerability or loss of control.
What Somatic Memory Does Not Mean
It does not mean that muscles or organs contain a complete recording of the past, waiting to be decoded. A cough is not proof of grief leaving the lungs. Right-sided discomfort is not proof of anger in the liver. Tightness is not proof that abuse occurred. Sensations can arise from many physical, emotional, neurological, environmental, and medical causes.
The wisest language is tentative: “This sensation may be connected with an old pattern, and I do not yet know.” Body Abiding honours possible meaning while refusing to manufacture certainty. No hidden memory has to be found for the present body to receive care.
Something familiar may be happening.
The past may be touching the present.
I do not have to decide what it means.
This body is here, now, within PURE MIND.
Why Body Abiding Matters
It restores dignity. The body becomes a companion to be heard rather than a faulty object to be managed.
It brings vague distress into workable contact. “Everything is wrong” may become “there is tightness in the throat.”
It supports wise choice. Sensations can reveal needs for rest, food, warmth, movement, safety, medical attention, emotional support, or a boundary.
It reduces abandonment. Pain or fear may remain, but the body no longer has to face the experience alone.
It welcomes pleasant experience. Warmth, ease, joy, Love, and simple aliveness are allowed to register instead of being overlooked.
It strengthens present-time discrimination. Ross can notice what belongs to this moment, what may be an old echo, and what needs practical action now.
The goal is not a silent body.
The goal is a trusted relationship with the body.
The Twelve Principles of Body Abiding
Begin with the present room. See light, colour, shape, sound, support, place, and date before turning inward.
Receive PURE MIND first. Contact the resource before approaching discomfort. Let genuine softness be enough.
Ask the body for permission. The body may answer yes, a little, not there, or not today.
Begin with neutral or pleasant support. Feel the hands, feet, clothing, chair, warmth, or another area that is easier to receive.
Choose only one manageable sensation. Do not scan for every problem or enter the most intense place.
Describe before interpreting. Use words such as tight, warm, heavy, pulsing, still, or numb before deciding what the sensation means.
Keep part of attention outside. Let the room, support, or a visible object remain in awareness while the sensation is contacted.
Allow one-percent change. Softening is welcome but not required. More space around the sensation is as meaningful as less sensation.
Let the body lead the pace. Pause when breathing changes, bracing increases, fatigue grows, or attention becomes narrow.
Do not manufacture release. Never force breath, cough, tears, trembling, shaking, movement, or memory.
Include medical and practical wisdom. New, changing, persistent, or alarming symptoms deserve ordinary health care and assessment.
Close in relationship. Thank the body, return to the room, move gently, and choose one warm and wise next action.
Resource before sensation.
Relationship before interpretation.
Choice before depth.
Integration before repetition.
The Complete PURE MIND Body Abiding Practice
Allow approximately three to ten minutes. The practice can end after any step. On a difficult day, seeing the room, feeling support, and saying PURE MIND may be the complete practice.
Arrive in the room. Keep the eyes open. Name the place, date, light, and three ordinary things you see. Let the nervous system receive present-time information.
Feel physical support. Notice the couch, chair, floor, clothing, blanket, feet, or hands. Do not force the body to settle. Simply recognize what is holding it.
Establish PURE MIND. Say “PURE MIND” slowly one to three times. Receive only the real softness, lightness, joy, quiet, or spaciousness that is available.
Ask permission. Quietly ask, “Dear body, is there a small sensation that wishes to be known?” Accept yes, no, not knowing, or silence.
Begin with an easier place. Feel a neutral or pleasant area first – perhaps the hands, feet, lips, clothing contact, or warmth. Let the body know that attention is not arriving only to search for trouble.
Choose one small area. Approach the edge of one manageable sensation. If it is large, feel a boundary, a nearby neutral place, or only ten percent of it.
Name its qualities. Use simple words: tight, warm, cool, heavy, tingling, dull, moving, still, numb, pleasant, unpleasant, or changing. “Not knowing” is an honest note.
Abide with two anchors. Keep one part of attention with PURE MIND, the room, or support, and one part with the sensation. Move gently between them rather than staring inward.
Offer relationship. Say, “I hear you,” “I am here,” or “Yes, there is this sensation – and Love is abiding.” Let the phrase be companionship, not persuasion.
Allow the body to answer. A sigh, cough, tear, yawn, warmth, movement, softening, continued pain, or no change may appear. Reduce effort and do not ask for more.
Ask for one wise need. Ask, “What would support this body now?” The answer may be rest, warmth, water, food, medication as prescribed, movement, a boundary, contact, prayer, or medical care.
Close deliberately. Look around again. Name the present place and date. Move the fingers and feet. Thank the body and choose one ordinary caring action.
Here, in this room.
PURE MIND.
Dear body, what may be known gently?
There is ____.
Nothing needs to be forced.
What is the next warm and wise step?
Four Helpful Ways to Name a Sensation
The bare note.
“Tightness. Warmth. Pulsing. Numbness.” This is the simplest form and can interrupt unnecessary story.
The spacious note.
“There is tightness. There is trembling.” This creates a little room between identity and experience.
The relational note.
“Dear body, I hear this tightness. I will not abandon you.” This is useful when the body feels frightened or alone.
The abiding note.
“Yes, there is this sensation – and PURE MIND is abiding.” This lets difficulty and resource coexist without making one erase the other.
Working Gently With Unpleasant Sensations
An unpleasant sensation may be physical, emotional, or mixed. The first task is not to determine its cause. The first task is to decide whether inward attention is appropriate and safe. If a sensation is new, severe, rapidly changing, medically concerning, or accompanied by warning signs, practical and medical response comes before contemplative practice.
Pain
Pain is real and deserves respect. Do not use Body Abiding to prove that pain is harmless, emotional, or unreal. Begin with support and a place that is not the centre of pain. Notice the boundary, movement, temperature, rhythm, or the space around it. Alternate five to ten seconds of contact with a longer return to the room or a neutral body area.
Pain is here.
This pain is not the whole body.
PURE MIND is beside this painful place.
Only this much, gently, for now.
Tightness, Pressure, or Contraction
Let the tight place remain tight at first. Feel where it begins and ends, whether it is solid or changing, and whether a less-tight area is nearby. Invite no more than one-percent space. If the body braces harder, widen attention immediately.
There is contraction.
The space around contraction is also here.
Nothing must open.
Numbness, Emptiness, or No Clear Feeling
Numbness is also a body experience and may be protective. Do not penetrate it or demand feeling. Notice its size, temperature, boundary, or the simple fact of not knowing. Stay with clothing contact, hands, feet, or the room.
Numbness may be here.
Not knowing is enough.
PURE MIND does not force this body to feel.
Trembling, Shaking, or Restlessness
Let spontaneous movement be small and supported. Feel the feet, seat, or hands and keep the eyes open. Do not amplify, perform, or prolong shaking. If movement feels involuntary, forceful, unfamiliar, painful, or medically concerning, stop and seek appropriate assessment.
Movement is happening.
I do not have to produce more.
This body may settle in its own time.
Heaviness, Fatigue, or Collapse
Fatigue may be a medical symptom, a result of pain or poor sleep, an emotional state, or several things together. Body Abiding does not ask an exhausted body to meditate harder. Reduce the practice to the room, PURE MIND, and one caring action. If inward attention increases collapse, sleepiness, hopelessness, or disorientation, stop.
This body is tired.
Rest may be wisdom.
Love does not demand performance.
Heat, Activation, or Anger in the Body
Keep the eyes open and feel the legs, feet, and room. Name heat, pressure, clenching, or energy without rehearsing the grievance. Give the body a safe channel: loosen the hands, lengthen the exhale naturally, stand or walk only if medically safe, create distance, or use a clear boundary.
Heat and pressure are here.
The body is preparing to protect.
Harmful action is not required.
What boundary is wise?
Pleasant Sensations Also Deserve Abiding
Body Abiding is incomplete if attention visits the body only when something hurts. Warmth, softness, pleasure, steadiness, ease, appetite, humour, gentle energy, and simple aliveness help the body learn that being noticed does not always mean being examined for danger.
Warmth is here.
There is a little ease.
This hand feels alive.
Joy may be received by the whole body.
This Love includes Ross.
Savour one pleasant or neutral sensation for three natural breaths without grasping it. Let it be real even if pain remains elsewhere. The sacred “and” is welcome: “There is pain, and there is warmth in my hands.” Both can be true.
A Gentle Somatic-Memory Practice
Use this only when a sensation feels familiar or seems connected with an earlier time. The purpose is present relationship, not memory recovery. Do not search for images, details, names, or explanations.
Orient strongly. Name the present place, date, age, light, and objects. Say, “This is August 2026. I am Ross, here in this room.”
Establish the resource. Receive PURE MIND, Jesus, Love, the room, or trustworthy support before touching the familiar sensation.
Use tentative language. Say, “This may be an old echo,” or “Something familiar may be here.” Do not claim more than is known.
Contact one small fragment. Feel only the edge, texture, or ten percent of the sensation for a few seconds.
Return to present support. Move attention back to the feet, hands, chair, window, tree, or another safe-enough anchor.
Offer present companionship. Say, “Dear body, I am here now. You do not have to show me everything.”
Close without solving. Thank the body. Choose warmth, rest, writing one sentence, contacting a trusted person, or professional support if needed.
MEMORY WISDOM If a memory image appears, treat it as an experience arising now – not automatic proof that every detail is historically exact. Do not interrogate it. Return to present orientation and seek trauma-informed professional support if memories, flashbacks, or distress become disruptive.
Healing Touch, Reiki, and Gentle Self-Contact
Because Ross is trained in Healing Touch and Reiki, Body Abiding may include intentional hands-on or hands-near contact. The essential quality is not technique or energetic certainty. It is reverent, non-demanding companionship. Touch should remain comfortable, medically appropriate, and easy to stop.
Three Safe Forms of Contact
Hands resting on support.
Place the hands on the thighs, blanket, chair arms, or beside the body. Let the hands themselves receive support before offering anything.
One hand as resource, one hand as witness.
Let one hand rest where PURE MIND, Love, or steadiness is felt. Let the other hand rest on a neutral area near – not necessarily on – the unpleasant sensation.
Hands hovering.
If direct touch feels intrusive, painful, medically unwise, or overstimulating, hover at a comfortable distance or simply imagine kind presence around the body.
Left hand: this is what is being felt.
Right hand: PURE MIND and Love are here.
Between the hands: nothing is excluded; nothing is forced.
GENTLE TOUCH Avoid deep pressure, painful areas, recent injuries, surgical sites, medical devices, or any contact restricted by a clinician. Self-touch is optional; the practice remains complete without it.
A Whole-Body Greeting
This is a softer alternative to an intense body scan. Move slowly through broad regions and offer one brief greeting. Do not inspect every sensation. Skip any area that feels unsafe, and let the room remain visible.
Face and head: “Dear face, dear eyes, dear jaw – I am here.”
Throat and shoulders: “You do not have to carry everything alone.”
Chest and back: “Breathing may remain natural. Nothing is being demanded.”
Arms and hands: “Thank you for reaching, holding, working, and caring.”
Abdomen and pelvis: “This centre may be protected and respected.”
Legs and feet: “Thank you for carrying Ross through life.”
Whole body: “PURE MIND receives this whole living body.”
Dear body, thank you. Today, Ross will not abandon Ross.
Three Lengths of Body Abiding
The 20-second refuge
See the room.
Feel one point of support.
PURE MIND.
There is this body.
Back to the room.
The 3-minute practice
Name three things in the room and feel the support beneath you.
Repeat “PURE MIND” one to three times.
Feel a neutral or pleasant body area first.
Notice one manageable sensation and describe it simply.
Offer one relational phrase, pause, and return to the room.
Ask for the next warm and wise action.
The 10-minute practice
Use the complete practice. Spend more time with orientation, support, PURE MIND, and neutral or pleasant sensations than with discomfort. Alternate between the sensation and resource. Close before fatigue or activation grows.
Body Abiding While Resting on the Couch
Let the couch do most of the holding. Keep the head and breathing comfortably supported. Look around before closing the eyes. Feel broad contact along the back of the body. Say “PURE MIND” and ask whether the body prefers stillness, one hand resting, a hovering hand, a change of position, or simply sleep and rest.
Bodily Responses During Practice
Coughing, sighing, yawning, tears, warmth, tingling, contractions, trembling, spontaneous movement, deeper breathing, softness, joy, fatigue, continued discomfort, or no noticeable change may occur. These are body events. They may feel meaningful without serving as a codebook for what has been healed or released.
Reduce effort as soon as a response begins.
Pause the phrase and let breathing remain natural.
Keep part of attention with the room and physical support.
Do not repeat the practice in order to recreate a dramatic response.
Notice whether there is more room, kindness, clarity, dignity, or choice.
Close earlier when the body has done enough.
A response is happening. I do not have to produce more.
Safety, Medical Wisdom, and Wise Stopping
The deepest rule of Body Abiding is that wisdom outranks the practice. Love includes protection, medical care, professional support, medication used as prescribed, emergency action, and the freedom to stop. A spiritual or emotional interpretation must never replace needed health care.
Continue gently when
you know where you are and can feel present support;
the sensation is manageable and attention can move away from it;
the practice feels kind, curious, and voluntary;
breathing remains natural and there is no urge to force release;
there is at least a little more space, dignity, or choice.
Shorten, orient, or stop when
panic, flashback, unreality, collapse, confusion, or disorientation appears;
pain, dizziness, breathlessness, weakness, nausea, or exhaustion increases;
attention becomes trapped, compulsive, harsh, or intensely inward;
touch feels intrusive, painful, frightening, or medically inappropriate;
there is present danger or a practical health problem requiring action.
MEDICAL SAFETY With Ross’s health history, seek urgent medical help for chest pain or pressure; severe or new breathing difficulty; fainting; sudden confusion; blue or grey lips; signs of stroke; significant coughing of blood; or another severe, sudden, or rapidly worsening symptom. New, recurrent, changing, or persistent symptoms deserve ordinary clinical assessment even when they arise during spiritual or emotional practice.
WARM BOUNDARY Stopping is not failure. Looking outward, asking for help, taking prescribed medicine, resting, or receiving medical care can be the most complete form of Body Abiding in that moment.
A Simple Reflection After Practice
Choose only two or three questions. The purpose is relationship and integration, not diagnosis or a perfect explanation.
What did the room and physical support feel like?
What did PURE MIND offer today, even faintly?
Which sensation was manageable enough to know?
Did I describe the sensation before interpreting it?
What remained uncertain – and could not knowing be allowed?
Was there more room, warmth, dignity, kindness, or choice?
What did this body ask for next?
What medical, practical, relational, or spiritual care is wise now?
A One-Line Body Abiding Record
Room -> support -> PURE MIND -> sensation -> relationship -> response -> next wise step
Example: “Tree, daylight, couch -> back and feet supported -> PURE MIND -> throat tightness -> I hear you -> one sigh, still some tightness -> warm drink and rest.”
Master Phrases for Body Abiding
There is this body.
PURE MIND receives this body.
Yes, there is this sensation.
And Love is abiding.
Dear body, I hear you.
You do not have to show me everything.
Pain is here.
Pain is not the whole body.
Something familiar may be here.
I do not have to decide what it means.
A response is happening.
I do not have to produce more.
This Love includes my body.
Today, Ross will not abandon Ross.
The Master Body Abiding Summary
First, I arrive in the present room.
Then, I feel support and receive PURE MIND.
I greet an easier part of the body before discomfort.
I contact only one manageable sensation.
I describe before I interpret.
I remain in relationship without forcing change.
I close with gratitude and one warm, wise action.
The Shortest Complete Form
Here.
Supported.
PURE MIND.
There is this body.
Abiding.
Closing Reflection
Body Abiding gives Ross’s PURE MIND practice a deeply embodied home. The body is no longer approached only as the place where pain, illness, contractions, coughing, or old fear appear. It is also the place of breath, touch, support, warmth, prayer, joy, courage, service, and the quiet experience of being alive.
The body does not have to become silent before it can be loved. It does not have to explain every sensation before it can be honoured. Gentle healing begins whenever the body is met without abandonment: present room, PURE MIND, one truthful sensation, caring relationship, wise action.
Dear body, you are not a problem to be solved.
You are the living home of this moment.
PURE MIND is abiding with you.
No part is left outside of Love.
Grounding Notes
This personal contemplative practice is consistent with established observations that emotions are commonly experienced through bodily sensations, trauma reminders can bring physical stress reactions, pain and traumatic stress may influence each other, and mind-body practices should complement rather than delay appropriate health care.
National Institute of Mental Health – Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
U.S. National Center for PTSD – Common Reactions After Trauma
U.S. National Center for PTSD – Chronic Pain and PTSD
National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health – Mind and Body Practices
Nummenmaa and colleagues – Bodily Maps of Emotions
PERSONAL PRACTICE NOTE This document is a personal contemplative practice guide. It does not diagnose the cause of bodily sensations, recover hidden memories, or replace medical or mental-health care.