body or even aiming to improve your own. You are
not judging how your body is doing. You are simply
residing in stillness, within the full range of your
experiences, including any intensity or discomfort
(which should in any case be benign if you have not
forced yourself to go beyond your limits), tasting the
bloom of these moments in your body.
All the same, for the devoted practitioner, it's hard not
to notice that the body loves a steady diet of this and
changes on its own. There is frequently an "on the
way to" quality to this practice at the same time that
there is the "just as it is now" feeling as the body
sinks more and more deeply into a stretch or into
letting go, lying on the floor between more effortful
postures. Not forcing anything, we just do our best to
line up with the warp and woof of body and mind,
floor, and world, staying in touch.
TRY: Getting down on the floor once a day and
stretching your body mindfully, if only for three or four
minutes, staying in touch with your breathing and with
what your body is telling you. Remind yourself that
this is your body today. Check to see if you are in
touch with it.