Identification with form

Are you trying to avoid the shame? I practice Satipathana insight meditation and it was hard for me to realize that I can really just witness the shame without reacting to it or getting involved with it. One's feelings and mind events are not entangled with other mind states when one looks at them on a continuous moment by moment basis. They are just unconnected mind objects that one can isolate and witness with properly concentrated mindfulness.

Why do you feel shame or embarrassment about the body ?

Look at your body as a wound which needs to be taken care of until you fully realise you are not body.

I can suggest 2 ways to overcome this problem. But first I think we should understand why we feel ashamed or embarrassed with our body. I suspect we tend to feel more conscious of our self-image or physical attributes when we are young with impressionable ideas of what a good or bad physical image might be. This is usually a result of peer pressure, social expectations and other external influences and can lead to shame or embarrassment.

The best way to overcome this identification with our body or image is to realize its true nature i.e. it is impermanent (anicca). We will all grow old, ugly and frail one day. We have no control over this process i.e. it is not-self (anatta). One practice is to train our mind to pick out the old and unattractive people in a crowd. In doing this practice, we will notice our mind naturally gravitate towards identifying youthful and attractive people despite the fact there are way more ordinary people with ordinary physiques than people with attractive physiques. By forcing our mind to identify and focus on the old, ugly and ordinary, we begin to see the biasness in our mind.

After specifically picking out the old and frail, mentally tell ourselves, “This is what I will be like in X number of years”. This is not brainwashing ourselves, just a practice to remind ourselves the reality that is waiting for us many years from now. It will lessen our mind’s infatuation with youth and beauty. I think this practice is not as extreme as meditating on rotting corpses. It maybe not be as effective but is definitely more accessible.

And further, monks, as if a monk sees a body dead one, two, or three days; swollen, blue and festering, thrown in the charnel ground, he then applies this perception to his own body thus: "Verily, also my own body is of the same nature; such it will become and will not escape it."

Another approach is to watch and catch the train of thoughts when you start to feel shame or embarrassment about the body. There is usually a trigger. Were you comparing yourself to someone who just walked by? Or an advertis*m*nt of some models you saw? Or an implicit trigger behind all these explicit triggers like a sudden recollection of a nasty comment from someone you respected about your physical attributes from a long, long time ago? This is not an easy approach as it requires a high degree of mindfulness, alertness and concentration as we go about our daily activities. But the advantage is that identifying these triggers allows us to see the deluded mind which believed that satisfying all these artificial criteria will bring happiness. No, it may bring attention but attention is not a cause for happiness. Otherwise, all celebrities and well-known figures would have been the happiest people alive. These people are just like us, they faced difficulties in their lives too.

Lastly, not all shame or embarrassment with our body is bad. For example, if we had been overindulgent in our intake of food and beverages, a protruding tummy in the mirror might look a bit embarrassing. But it is a signal we need to be more health conscious going forth. Shame can be a good thing if we utilize it skilfully. But don’t let it goad you into unskilful thoughts or actions. With Metta.