Our basic nature – that innate wellspring of brilliance in our lives – shows up in many ways. In the sudden clarity with which we see a situation. In the heart opening tenderness with which we receive the suffering of another. In our sometimes quiet capacity to bring goodness into this world.

It also appears as something called somatic mindfulness.

Somatic mindfulness is the inherent pull embodied experience exerts on our attention. When I slow down for a moment right now, for example, I begin to notice a subtle ache in one of my shins. I hear the singing of birds outside my window. I feel my shoulders relax.

In each of these instances, my slowing down has allowed me to notice and surrender to the magnetism of this embodied life. I didn’t place my attention on that shin, those birds, my shoulders. Instead, the basic magnetism of this moment has drawn me there. Has pulled me there. Has invited me there.

Somatic mindfulness, then, is the innate quality that guides our meditation practice. In describing this quality, I have already used the terms ‘pull’, ‘magnetism’, ‘draw’, and ‘invite’. Many in the Online Gatherings have also found the term ‘absorbs’ resonant in this regard.

Like water into paper towel, somatic mindfulness absorbs us into the fullness of our embodied lives. This quality absorbs us into the apparently bounded personal body (the trunk of our being), the subtle energetic body of connection and relatedness (the roots of our being), and the body of all time and all space (the earth and sky of our being).

Somatic mindfulness absorbs us out beyond conventional limits of ‘me’. Somatic mindfulness absorbs us into a more inclusive and alive sense of self.