THE HAND

In this practice we are paying attention to the hand—the part of the body that caresses, touches, grabs, and so on—and reflecting on what it does for us moment by moment, day after day, year after year.

Try this

Take your attention to one of your hands. In your mind’s eye, just become aware of the hand… the palm… the back of the hand… the fingers… the index finger… the middle finger… the ring finger… the little finger… the thumb. Becoming aware of the length of each finger… notice the spaces in between… in your mind’s eye becoming aware of the thumb nail… and then the other nails.

We are not looking for any particular sensations and you may have none at all—if so, that is your experience now.

Slowly move one of your fingers. Experiment with slowly stretching and bending the finger, feeling the stretch… noticing the contraction…

What is it like if you bring a finger and thumb together? What sensations are you noticing? Gently rub the finger and thumb back and forth together… moving them apart and bringing them together… becoming aware of any sensations of touch. Play with moving… adjusting, bending, stretching the different fingers on the hand. Moving them singly, moving them together…

Next, expand your awareness to the whole hand. Begin rotating your hand at the wrist… first one way and then the other… turning… noticing the limit of the turn… and then coming back… repeating the movement.

What you do today may be different from what you did yesterday or what you may do tomorrow. We are simply interested in the hand in this moment—what it can do, what it feels like.