‘Think with your whole body.’
(Taisen Deshimaru)

Just to hear the challenge in that phrase does me good, even if I don’t quite know what it means. I don’t know what it is to think with the body, as I have never done it; but the bold pronouncement triggers in my mind an avalanche of thoughts, instincts, longings, intuitions that make me dream a fuller reality than I have lived so far, a keener commitment in my human activity, a wholesome totality in my responsibility as a person. Something beckons to me in the unusual proposition. ‘Think with your whole body.’ I, hardened intellectual, worshipper of the mind and slave of reason, glimpse a welcome ray of liberation in the oriental challenge of thinking with the body. What can they mean by that?

I realise I am taking refuge in a question, so as to avoid the inconvenience of an answer. I will admit that I know, at least in some initial way, what it is to think with the body; but I feel lazy to open the door that will lead to changes, as changes always bring trouble and inconvenience. But I guess some of the meaning in the invitation to think with the body. The fullness of thinking comes in the feeling; feelings show in the senses, and the senses are the body. In strained circumstances of intense thought, my pulse quickens, my breathing becomes conscious, perspiration surfaces, and my skin becomes taut against my bones. There I have my whole body taking active part with full responsibility in the vital process of thought. And if I feel that cooperation in peak moments, I guess the same happens quietly in daily thinking. The whole organism participates in an activity which matters to the whole organism. The mind also feels, and the body thinks. We are all of a piece.

Let them not divide us into watertight compartments. Let them not isolate our faculties. Let them not split the unity of being. Labels and divisions can be useful in the laboratory, but life is one, and it is in its oneness that its strength lies.

My body knows when it wants to walk and when to rest, when it wants to eat and when to wait; it knows when it can trust a person, and when it must keep a distance; it knows when it rejoices at seeing me undertake a new ideological adventure, and when it feels saddened at seeing me lose my time in a useless endeavour; it knows when I feel at home in sharing my life with faithful friends, and when I whither away in the slow loneliness I live alone. There is an instinct that resides in all my members, as the migration instinct in the wings of the birds, and that guides me, encourages me, lifts me up and makes me fly. If I learn how to sense, decipher, and follow that instinct, my life will cross infinite spaces with the ease of a seagull.

Such is my task. To learn how to trust, to understand, to listen to my body. To refine this incipient instinct till it becomes second nature to me. To forge the unity of my being in thinking and walking and dreaming and eating. To do all I do with all I am. To think with my whole body. To live with my whole being. Just to have said this gladdens my skin. Auspicious beginning for a happy task.