During this week I remember to bring my attention to posture, I recognise the tension/torsion in the body.
I allow the body to assume a ‘correct’ posture: the spine straightens naturally; I can move forward or sideways, ever so imperceptibly, until I find the correct posture.
In the chair: I sit on the edge, without leaning on the ‘back’, in the correct posture, breathe and relax.

Inhabiting the body, thanks to the breath getting in touch with the open, soft, relaxed places, as much as with the tense, closed ones, where we can feel a tension or pressure, somehow a discomfort.
Bringing our breath right here, to these areas of the body where we feel resistance to letting go and relaxing. Instead of rejecting or trying not to feel, trying to change or resolve the discomfort, we rest in the very heart of the sensation, embraced by the wave of the breath.

Freedom from the fear of pain.

1 – Exercises (duration: 12m)

2 – Deep relaxation (duration: 29m)

This week

Practice the four postures

I follow five breaths standing, five breaths walking, five breaths lying down, five breaths sitting, then standing again, walking…
This practice does not need a long time, a few minutes are enough.
This practice is inspired by the Four Foundations of Mindfulness Sutra (Satipatthana sutta):

“When walking the practitioner is aware:
I am walking.
When standing he is aware of it:
I am standing.
When he sits he is aware of it:
I am sitting.
When he is lying down he is aware:
I am lying down.
In whatever posture he happens to be he is aware of his posture.”

Four postures: I do five breaths standing, five walking, lying down, sitting, then standing again, walking … (then repeat)

Returning to correct posture: in whatever position I am, I stretch my column, then relax.

This practice does not require a long time, a few minutes are enough.

In-depth information

Befriending our bodies – Jon Kabat-Zinn (duration:4m)

Living the moment peacefully (duration: 1h55m)

Listening to the body

by Jon Kabat-Zinn

An important aspect of our life and experience, which due to the automatism of our reactions we tend to ignore, is our relationship with our body.

Often we are barely in touch with our body, hardly aware of what it feels. As a result, we are often insensitive to the effects our environment, our actions and even our thoughts and emotions have on it.
When we ignore these interconnections, we sometimes feel that our body has unpredictable reactions and we cannot understand why.
As we will see later, physical symptoms are messages that the body sends us to let us know how it is and what its needs are. When we get used to systematically paying attention to the body and are more in touch with it, we also acquire the ability to understand what it wants to communicate to us and to respond appropriately. Learning to listen to the body is vital for our health and quality of life.
Even something as simple as relaxing can be frustratingly difficult when we are unaware of our bodies.
The stress of everyday life generates localised tensions in particular muscle groups, for example in the shoulders, jaw and forehead. To relax these tensions you must first realise they are there, you must feel them. You have to be able to switch off the ‘autopilot’ and take back control of your body and mind.
As we will see, to do this you have to focus your attention on your body, perceive the sensations coming from the various muscles and send the message to your muscles to relax the tensions. If you are aware enough, you can do this already at the moment when the tension is arising: there is no need to wait until you feel as rigid as a piece of wood. If you let tension accumulate, it becomes so habitual that you forget what it feels like when you are relaxed and it becomes much more difficult to find relaxation again.
When we suffer from physical or mental illnesses, we often expect doctors to be able to put us back on our feet. Sometimes this is possible; but, as we shall see, our active cooperation is essential in most therapies.
This is especially true for those chronic conditions for which medicine has no decisive cure. In such cases, the quality of our lives depends to a large extent on the knowledge we have of our bodies and minds, and on our ability to improve our health within the always unknown limits of what is possible.

Taking responsibility for getting to know your body better, listening carefully and cultivating your internal healing resources, is the best way to work with your doctors.
This is where meditation comes in: it gives power and substance to this commitment and catalyses the healing work.

Mindfulness

by Thich Nhat Hanh

Mindfulness is above all the ability to be able to recognise the presence of an object of perception without taking a position, without judging, desiring or disliking it.
For example, let us say we have a painful area of the body: with mindfulness we simply take note of that pain.
It is a very different kind of prayer to what you may be used to, but even sitting in meditation and simply being aware of that pain is praying.

Calligraphy

be still and heal