Listening To and Going Beyond the Body

 In my readings  of hospice care across  different spiritual practices, I have learned that there are a variety of approaches to what the goals of spiritual care are. On the one hand, some approaches tend to emphasize keeping the mind peaceful at the time of one's illness or death. Here, the aim is compassion toward self and body. Implied in this approach is the notion that a comforted mind and body are most at peace, and are most able to harmonize with others at the time of death. On the other end of the spectrum are approaches which emphasize end-of-life as a trial of suffering and separation. "Passing" or getting through such a trial involves an open view of pain and an ability to strengthen oneself by tolerating pain. Under this approach, it is best not to try to relieve pain or blunt it in any way, but to see it as a testing ground to purify one's heart and being into the next life.
    The analogy I can think of is meditation. One emphasis in group meditative practice is to calm the body prior to meditation. In fact, guided meditation hinges upon the very specific instructions to relax all the body prior to picking up the practice.  The initial stages of meditation are often about adjusting the posture and calming the body. Here, I am said  to 'listen' to my body to get a sense of what's happening to it in the moment, so that pent-up or tense energy can release and I can fully settle on the cushion. On the other hand, as I start to take up my method of practice and mind stability, I subtly shift away from tending to the particulars of the body. Why is this so? Once the body is relaxing on its own, there is simply no need to attach to it or keep checking to see if the body is 'relaxed' or not. In fact, doing so might only start to make the body more tense. Anytime  I focus my energy into trying to influence something to be a certain way, that  is bound to create added tension to the experience. Another reason is that it's not the body itself that relaxes itself. Rather, there is a feedback loop, where relaxed mind loosens its grip on the body and the body in turn is able to help the whole mind relax.
    "Going beyond" the body is a tricky notion, because one does not get rid of the body during meditation. Rather, 'going beyond' might simply mean embracing the totality of the experience without clinging to any particular as 'me' or 'mine'. One of the tricky things I notice about the 'talk' or discourse on health and hospice care, is that it often assumes that the body is the central core of a person's being. But I have to wonder, is it really? Sometimes,  the more bodies are 'treated', the more depersonalized it can seem for someone receiving health care. Perhaps one of the reasons for an urgent need for 'spiritualized' health care is that some individuals begin to realize that they are not 'just their bodies' or 'just their illnesses'. An excessive focus on bodily dysfunction can also give rise to a lot of fears, as well as a sense that the body is controlling one's destiny. Cultivating a sense that we are not limited to our bodies may be one way to move away from a body-centered approach to health, and toward a fuller understanding of who receives health care.