How do I meditate on the foulness of the body?

How do I meditate on the foulness of the body?

Before getting into the details, I’d like to address something that you’ll probably encounter later: there’s no mention of this meditation nor loving-kindness in any of the Far East Zen traditions. That doesn’t mean that these meditations weren’t practiced, but it does mean that we don’t know for sure. It’s very likely that they were practiced for centuries in China, as even modern teachers like Sheng Yen and Xu Yun mention both as one of the Five Methods for Stilling the Mind (taken from the Tiantai tradition which arose in China around the same time as Zen), but Zen masters from past until present have been reluctant to share the specifics of their practice and training.

What were the Five Methods for Stilling the Mind?

It’s a set of meditation techniques for developing concentration and purifying the mind of the five hindrances. They partially correspond with the traditional Theravada techniques I mentioned before. They are:

1. Foulness of the body to dispel lust.
2. Loving-kindness to dispel aversion.
3. Contemplation of causality to dispel ignorance.
4. Awareness of the breath to dispel discursive thought.
5. Recollection of the Buddha to dispel multiple afflictions or guilt.

These methods were known in Japan as well, but, again, there’s no mention of this practice  in the literature. What’s clear, though, is that Japanese Zen teachers from the 18th century onwards make no mention of it, despite a wealth of private correspondences and public recorded talks available between teachers and their disciples. To add to that, when the modern founders of Western Zen, such as Harada Roshi, Sasaki Roshi, and Suzuki Roshi, brought Zen over, none included these meditations in their initial meditation curriculum.

In Vietnam, which developed alongside its Theravadan neighbor, Cambodia, it’s unclear when and how vigorously the Thien Buddhist tradition picked-up and applied Theravadan practices. What is clear is that there was a renaissance of Vietnamese Theravada in the early 20th century which heavily influenced modern Thien, including teachers like Thicht Nhat Hanh. That renaissance moved Buddhism away from the more shamanic form it had taken on and reinvigorated meditation practice, including foulness of the body and loving-kindness.

Foulness of the body and loving-kindness have had a capricious existence within Zen. They were likely foundational practices for centuries throughout China as a result of Tiantai’s influence and possibly part of the Vietnamese tradition as well, however, the paltry information available makes it impossible to say for sure. What is certain, though, is that many modern Zen teachers have adopted both of these practices, including within the Japanese Zen tradition, once they’ve been in sustained contact with them. The reason is simple: they work. Really well.

I apologize for the diversion, but it’s to preempt any confusion you might encounter later and to justify to those nay-sayers that these practices do rightfully belong in Zen. Not only because they work, but also because they’ve been used for centuries within various Zen traditions themselves.

Returning to the topic at hand: foulness of the body.

Good.

As a practice, it boils down to one thing: focusing the mind on the ugliness of the human body. Now please, don’t freak out. It’s not as bad as it sounds.

Sounds pretty bad. I heard your story of durian and flying fried chickens, but I’m still not convinced.

I know that it’s a hard pill to swallow, so before I lay out the how, let me again address the why, minus the flying fried chickens. Foulness of the body meditation isn’t saying that the body is inherently disgusting or ugly. It’s simply a correction for when practitioners are enamored with it and the pleasures derived therein. Fire can be destructive and overheat you, but if you just came in from a winter storm with -20C outside, you’re gonna snuggle up real close and let your hands hover over its flames. Foulness of the body’s the same. Foulness of the body brings to mind icky, disgusting, or strange parts of the body to  counteract infatuation with the senses. As such, it cools a lustful heart.

Another common fear that meditators have is that if they do this, they’re going to think their body is disgusting and ugly, worsening their already low self-esteem. The actual effect in moderation is the opposite. For those who struggle with a crooked nose, too small breasts, or twig arms, it offers freedom. When you look at the entire body as something that’s ugly, rather than just your nose, breasts, or arms, it relieves the pressure from the negative self-image and the longing for those parts to be better. Instead, you start to feel more confident and comfortable in your own skin because, after all, you’re just as ugly as every other meat-sack. There is some reason to the fear that this practice will cause meditators to revile their body. When practiced too intensely, the mind can become averse to the body. For that to happen, though, it often takes hours of dedicated practice a day over weeks, not just a 30 minutes seshes on the daily.

So the goal is to have a completely neutral perspective of the body?

No. The goal is to not be stuck in any view of the body. You should be able to see the body in all of its diversity, ranging from horrifying to ugly to whatever to sexy to glorious. The problem comes when you fixate and say, “The body’s this!” “The body’s ugly, I don’t want it.” Or “This body’s sexy as hell, gimme.” Or “Man, I look good.” Or “Ehhh…the body’s what it is.” Every view is a trap when clung to. As humans, though, 99.99% of us long for beauty, but that’s impossible and incomplete vision.

Returning to the fear of feeling disgusted with the body, however, that’s something that meditators should beware of. It’s extremely unlikely for light practitioners to ever have much problem with this, but it’s good to know just in case. Foulness of the body is considered a dark practice in many traditions. Dark here doesn’t mean that Satan’s going to spring up from the floorboards and whisper for you to burn down churches or kidnap children. Dark practices take the mind to a dark place and can lead to depression, hopelessness, loathing, hate. But like Nirvana’s “Something in the Way,” that darkness comes with the power to free, to free us from the darkness, sorrow, loss, misery that we’ve harbored for far too long. Darkness is powerful, but it’s also dangerous. The risks of the dark practices means that it’s best to take them on cautiously and, ideally, under the supervision of an expert.

What are the dark practices?

There are five main dark practices:

1. Foulness of the body.
2. Contemplation of sickness, aging, and death.
3. Contemplation of impermanence
4. Contemplation of suffering.
5. Contemplation of certain deities.

I’ve done each of these practices for at least a hundred of hours. They’re dark alright. When I had been practicing foulness of the body intensively for around a month, things started to get pear-shaped. The smell of the human body grossed me out. The thought that people had touched surfaces and their dead skin and grease and germs were smeared all-over everything haunted me. The feelings peaked when I started to see people as walking corpses in waking life. During morning chanting, the other monks were skeletons with rotting flesh dangling from their bones. On the morning alms round, the villagers’ flesh peeled off before my eyes.

What!?

Yes, it happens, but keep in mind that I had been meditating 12+ hours a day for years upon years. At that time, I had also been meditating on foulness of the body for 8+ hours a day for at least a month. The mind gets wonky. Strangely enough, though, I was cool about it. My mind was so serene and at rest that there was only a mild sense of disgust that came along with it. Mostly, I felt relieved of the burden of having to care about this sack of meat and trying to be beautiful and stuff my five senses all the time. I was at ease.

And how did you get rid of it?

I went to my teacher for guidance. He asked if I was stressed or miserable because of this. I said no. He then asked if I gained the relief I sought for. I said yes. Then he hinted it’s time to move on, which I did. I don’t say this to scare you, but to inform you of the more unusual side-effects that don’t get much air time.

Does anyone actually do foulness of the body regularly?

Sure. In the Thai tradition, it’s the first meditation object you’re given once you ordain. Hair of the face, hair of the body, nails, teeth, and skin. For many new monks, foulness of the body’s their main practice for years.

And for laypeople?

Unusual, but does happen.

So how is it done?
There are three main ways: 1) as a chant, 2) analytically, and 3) visually.

1) Foulness of the Body Chant

This first way is simple and effective. It entails repeating and focusing on the 32 parts of the body chant. There’s a chant from the Pali texts that’s often used. The one I’ve included below is a chant I’ve used for years inspired by the original Pali but roughed up a bit to capture its visceral quality. I also made a few minor additions not included in the original because I’ve found these other items have high ickiness factor and are useful to contemplate if you decide to take a discursive approach. The added items are included in brackets.

This body is filthy, foul, and disgusting. It is filled with filthy, foul, and disgusting things. In this body there are:

Hair of the head
Hair of the body
Nails
Teeth
Skin
Flesh
Sinew
Bones
Bone Marrow
[Eyes
Ears
Tongue]
Kidneys
Heart
Liver
Membranes
Spleen
Lungs
Large intestines
Small intestines
Stomach
Vomit
Shit
Brain
Bile
Phlegm
Pus
Blood
Sweat
Fat
Tears
Grease
Spit
Snot
Oil-of-the-joints
Piss
Brain fluid

This body is filthy, foul, and disgusting. It is filled with filthy, foul, and disgusting things.

The advantage of the chant is that it’s easy to do wherever you are, whatever you’re doing. The length of the chant also means that if you’re mind drifts off, you’ll realize it when you start tripping up or repeating lines. Outside of keeping the chant going either internally of verbally and focusing on the words, the workload is low, making it more enjoyable than its more demanding brethren. However, since it’s less demanding, that also means it’s easier for distraction to cut in.

2) Foulness of the Body Analytic Meditation

In the analytical style, you go through the parts of the body in the chant one-by-one and think about how gross, weird, and ugly they are. To give you a sense, allow me to briefly step you through it.

Close your eyes. Sit upright. Relax your shoulders.

First, visualize your own body naked in front of you. It doesn’t matter if it’s very clear or not. The most important point is that you keep a gentle effort to maintain some image, however fuzzy, in your mind’s eye. It will gradually sharpen in its own time.

Focus on the hair of your head. Imagine how weird our faces look to every other animal. A dog’s face is covered in hair. A cat’s face is covered in hair. A mouse’s face is covered in hair. We have these weird patches that we have to wash and comb and apply lotions to every day, otherwise they become oily, filthy, cracked, smelly. Isn’t that weird? Disgusting? From beneath the head, visualize all the dandruff flying from the top of your head and filling the air. That’s dead skin. Your hair grows out from a layer of dead skin that you’re constantly shedding. And if you don’t wash it, it’ll itch and become infected with lice, bacteria, or mold. That thing atop our head’s filthy.

Visualize removing all of the head of your hair - your eyelashes, the hair on top of your head, the hair in your nose, the stubble on your cheek, the hair around your ears. Put it into a pile and look at how weird and ugly it looks piled like that. Look at your face without it, totally hairless, and how weird and ugly you look.
Repeat that same exercise for the hair of the body.

Next, focus on the skin. Notice all of the wrinkles, dots, and discolorations that cover it. As you age, it will sag and grow uglier and uglier. If you live long enough, you’ll look like a living corpse. Your flesh will hang off you like a sheet of cloth from a clothes hanger. Your eyes will sink back into your skull. Your lips will be broken. Your hands gnarled and covered in spots. Imagine yourself at 90 covered in bags, crevasses, and splotches of color. Notice how ugly it looks.Think about what happens when you don’t shower for a few days. It smells. It’s oily and sticky to the touch. The dirt and other filth that you encounter throughout the day accumulates there. Run your fingernail along it and you’ll see a black crust. The skin’s constantly collecting waste.

Then imagine if you remove the skin from your body, like a sheet from a bed. Drag it off and look at what’s beneath this filthy skin. What’s it covering up? Stay with that image for a few moments. Then look at the skin held up like a sheet. Is it so beautiful now? Let it crumple onto the floor next to the pile of human hair. Look at these things you call beautiful and miraculous. Look at how ugly, weird, disgusting they are.

I’ll end it here, but this should give you a sufficient taste of it. If you’re doing it as a practice, continue going through all the different parts of the body piece-by-piece in this way. You can also spend 30 minutes just focusing on one part of the body, like the skin, and thinking about and visualizing it again-and-again as well.

3) Foulness of the Body Visualization

The final option is similar to the above contemplation except you simply visualize the different parts of the body without the commentary. Here’s an example.

Visualize yourself again standing naked before you. Then focus on the hairs of the head. See them as clearly as possible all at once. Then remove them and gather them together into a pile. Focus on that pile. Then set it down a meter away from your body. Look back at the body again with no head hair.

Then focus on the hairs of the body. See them as clearly as possible all at once. Then remove them and gather them together into a pile. Focus on that pile. Then set it down a meter away from your body. Look back at the body again with no head hair and no body hair.

Then focus on the skin. See it as clearly as possible all at once. Then remove the skin and gather them together into a pile. Focus on that pile. Then set it down a meter away from your body. Look back at the body again with no head hair, body hair, and skin.

This is enough to give you a taste. To continue, move on and visualize all the different parts of the body. Once there is nothing left, then imagine the different parts recombining to make the body and start all over again. Continue until you feel like you’ve had enough.

Each method has its respective strengths and weaknesses. The analytical meditation harnesses all the powers of the mind, both visualization and commentary. It also effectively reorients the mind to see the body in a more sober manner. The drawback is that it’s tiring, busy, and requires a lot of mental effort to sustain. These mean its difficult to do in daily life and difficult to maintain interest on over long periods of time. The visualization is much more quiet and simple, suiting it better for for developing concentration.

One tip for these practices: buy a book on anatomy or find a website online to help with the visualization. Don't worry about getting things anatomically accurate, but having a reference helps. One good website is Innerbody. There are also a few Buddhist websites with pictures to aid in the visualizations. Just search Asubha Bhavana (Pali for foulness of the body development) and a list of websites will pop-up. Just make sure you're on an empty stomach, as it's harrowing for many.
Whichever method you choose, whether chanting, analysis, or visualization, I encourage you to get over the ickiness factor, give it a go, and see its value for yourself. Lust can be so destructive. Overeating. Infidelity. Compulsive distraction. This meditation can help cool things off and give you the space to do what’s right, rather than what you crave.