The Sutra
"Consider any area of your present form as limitlessly spacious."
Paul Reps translation, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones (1957)
Understanding
Choose any area of your body - your hand, your chest, the space between your eyes. Now consider it as limitlessly spacious. Your hand is not just flesh and bone - it contains infinite space between its atoms. Your chest is not a solid wall - it is mostly space with a few atoms scattered through it. Physics confirms this: matter is 99.9999% empty space. Feel it. Any area of your form is limitlessly spacious.
Original Sanskrit
आत्मानं सर्वतो ग्रासं विज्ञानमतिगोचरम् ।
aatmaanam sarvato graasam vijnaanamatigocharam |
Vijnanabhairava Verse 115 (Technique 92 of 112)
How to Practice
Choose any area of your body. Start with something accessible - your palm, your chest, your forehead.
Focus attention on that area. Feel its apparent solidity and form.
Now shift perception: consider this area as limitlessly spacious. Between every atom is vast space.
Feel your hand (or chosen area) as mostly space - infinite space with tiny specks of matter.
Let the spaciousness expand. Your hand is as spacious as the sky. Your chest contains universes of space.
When any area of the body is experienced as limitlessly spacious, the boundary between body and space dissolves. You are space.
Duration
15-25 minutes
Best Time
Any quiet moment
Related Techniques
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