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Writer's pictureMillicent Lai

The Conscious Body 意識身體

The yoga teacher asked everyone to put a block under our mid-back and lie on it. I heard the small sighs and the room quietened, I was the only one who started to cough hysterically. I felt the itchiness rolling up in my windpipe and this uncontrollable urge to cough. I felt so embarrassed to make such noise and then panicked that I couldn't suppress it. For the past 2 years coughing in public is a taboo, attracting scrutiny or even violent attack. So my instinct kicked in, I looked into my lungs and asked my body to show me the images that caused this outburst. My body showed me memories of myself in hospital 2 years ago because of covid induced pneumonia. The pressure from the block has somehow triggered this trauma point in my body. I immediately imagined myself taking out all the films and pictures of this memory and burning them under the sun. Then I filled my lungs with the radiant sunlight. The coughing stopped instantly. The "repair" took seconds, and the body responded in no time. When I went to another yoga class yesterday and I lie on the block in the same position again, there was no cough and I felt rather relaxed in fact.


This is how dreaming works. It is practice until it becomes an instinct that you respond immediately to any situation with your imagination. Dreaming is a practice to align your body, mind and emotions. The body "speaks" to me through symptoms (itch in the throat, coughing), and my emotions (embarrassment and panic) lead me to the root of the memory, and my mind uses imagination to repair the memory, and the body responds to the correction (stopped coughing) and I felt calm and peaceful. The body is the feedback loop to verify that the issue is repaired. Our body is conscious. It is a tool for our healing. Without the body, we cannot feel or experience the world. The body is not fixed, it changes every time we look into it. The more we look in, the more light it shines through, and this is what it means to be "enlightened".


在課室內,瑜伽老師要求每個人在背脊中央下放一塊瑜伽磚並躺在上面。我聽到輕微的嘆息聲,然後房間便安靜下來,除了我歇斯底里的咳嗽聲。我感到氣管開始發癢,還有股無法控制的咳嗽衝動。發出這樣的聲音使我感到很尷尬,然後驚慌失措,因為我無法抑制它。在過去的 2 年裡,在公共場合咳嗽是一種禁忌,會引起別人的歧視甚至暴力攻擊。所以我本能地看進肺部,讓我的身體向我展示導致這個爆發的圖像。身體讓我看見兩年前因為新冠肺炎而住院的自己。來自瑜伽磚的壓力觸發了我身體裡的這個創傷點。於是,我立刻想像自己把這段記憶的所有菲林和照片都從肺部拿出來並將它們放在陽光底下燃燒。然後我把肺部充滿著燦爛的陽光。咳嗽瞬間停止了。 想像力的「修復」只用了幾秒鐘,身體立即作出了反應。當我昨天去另一個瑜伽課時,我再次以同樣的姿勢躺在瑜伽磚上,並沒有咳嗽,而且我感到身體非常放鬆。


這就是夢行。這是一種修練,直到它成為一種身體本能,即是當你遇到任何情況時,會立即以想像力作出回應。夢行是一種調整你的身體、思想和情緒的修練。身體通過症狀 (喉嚨癢、咳嗽) 對我「說話」,我的情緒 (尷尬和恐慌) 將我引向記憶/創傷的根源,我的心智用想像力來修復記憶,身體對修復回應 (停止咳嗽),然後我感到平靜 (情緒)。身體是驗證問題是否已修復的反饋回路。身體是有意識的。身體是療癒我們的工具,沒有身體,我們就無法感受和體驗這個世界。身體不是固定的,每次我們觀察它時它都會改變。我們越往裡看,它所透出的光就越多,這就是所謂「enlightened」的意思。





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