I just met her. Now, standing beside the bed of her loved one, who is leaving this world, we hold hands. I pray. We embrace like two old friends. Then, silence, lovely quietness. I turn, we talk. Then, we embrace each other like we have known each other for an eternity - possibly, we have.
Grace reaches out to connect, for Grace creates communion (lit. with-union). Life does that in different ways, one through bodies-with-bodies. Heart-with-heart arises from body-with-body.
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The Christian rite of the Eucharist points to this truth, the deep meaning of which points to flesh being the means for a hidden communication of grace. In partaking of the Eucharist, flesh consumes flesh and enters flesh.
Thus, the blessed elements connote much more than how the churches speak of it. The Eucharist points not merely to the body of a man called the Christ. It connotes the christness of your body, every body - not only human. The bodies of all sentient beings live alongside-with the earth-sky-body. Accordingly, bodies are sacramental and are not defined or explained by any religious dogma of sacramental, holy, or sacred.
In the Holy Communion, there is a phase of the Eucharistic Prayer called the Epiclesis. The officiant prays an invocation of the Holy Spirit to transform the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. There is no need for this. The magic is that the bread and wine are already that of Christ. Christ's body is the only body, the body-of-bodies. Your body is the same flesh as that of Jesus, Jerry, and Julia. Flesh is blessed in being flesh. The Epiclesis would best be an affirmation. No amount of blessing will make something blessed that is already blessed and a blessing. You can touch yourself, smile, and speak forth, "Holy, holy, holy."
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The human body points beyond itself, free of conceptualization about the body. Thinking we know the body, we demonstrate disconnection from the mystery, the ineffability of flesh-and-blood. This ignorance manifests in disconnection and abuse of world-as-body and bodies misusing bodies. Materialism denudes the body-landscape of its illuminative self. How would our relationship with others and the environment be influenced by perceiving body-as-sacred, therefore?
The body is more than a mere receptacle, later to be disposed of, for an intangible spirit that is somehow inside. We are more likely correct to say the body is a continuation of what the words like soul, spirit, and essence point to. Still, the body-as-matter cannot retain the subtle essence once it loses its capacity to hold the intangible. The essence does not just leave the body; the body loses its capacity to hold the essence. We call this loss of capacity death. Yet, nothing dies.
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Bodily reductionism leads us to devalue the body of self, others, and the world. While the body is often sexualized, this is an objectification, a desacralization. Likewise, the body is easily objectified when reduced to a gender. The body conveys gender, sexuality, and personality, but the body is more and is a conveyance of more. What is this more?
I was raised on a Christian teaching that shaped my relationship with bodies. I was taught the body is the temple of the holy spirit. The reading for this is I Corinthians 6.19-20 (NRSVE):
19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple [or sanctuary] of the Holy Spirit [or holy, sacred spirit] within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20 For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.
In Buddhism, we see the body is the body of buddha, every body is a buddha body. We see this, for everybody is more than a body. The body, or nirmanakaya - or physical body - is a manifestation of the dharmakaya - the absolute. Hence, we hold in a paradox that "buddha" points to more than the body, while the body is not other than what the body points to - "buddha."
The body-as-temple or as-buddha-shrine is seen and treated with reverence. Do we not treat sacred spaces in a way beyond respect? Would we not treat Christ or the Buddha beyond respect? Reverence is beyond respect. Our very embodiedness is as holy as any buddha or any christ, as sacred as any mosque or temple or shrine. People travel thousands of miles to visit holy places not realizing they are a holy place all the way there.
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With insight, the body becomes a skillful means beyond pleasure at the expense of others, instead to connect with others spirit-with-spirit. Sacred sites are material means to assist us in connecting with the subtle sacred. Our bodies can serve the same purpose. Our bodies can be a means for others and ourselves to be open to the holy and feel the holy.
Love, with all its shades - compassion, kindness, concern - expresses itself through the body. Love grounds itself through matter for subtle connection.
When a hospice chaplain, I made it a practice to touch a hand of those I was serving. Persons were always responsive positively to this touch. My hand was a means to communicate much more than a hand. In the touch, I gave and received the same sacredness.
A single hand can reach all the way to the heart. One smile can dissolve distances, bringing together heart-with-heart. Whatever "God" indicates, bodies are principal means for sacredness to enter our everyday world and call our attention to the reverential quality of our surroundings and the faces and places we meet along our way.
We know "God" through fragile, aging bodies. To say this is to say we know ourselves and others through fragile, aging bodies. To know "God's" body, we know bodies-with-bodies. Who is the knower of bodies-with-bodies?
