Week 1 (2/23/26)
Bodyfulness Home Practices: Week 1 (2/23/26)
Formal Practice — in any of the four postures
- Set the intention to learn from the body with the attitude, “I come in peace”
- Incline attention where the experience is more or less neutral, but subtly pleasant more than unpleasant
- Feel the body from the inside out
- Notice the body breathing itself
- Let the body lead the mind in meditation
- Notice what the body itself is sensing
- If you’re newer to practice, notice that you are not experiencing the idea of the body, but many different types of sensations coming, going, shifting, and changing
- Warmth/cool/temperature
- Pressure increasing & decreasing
- Vibration
- Tingling
- etc
Informal practice in motion (5-10min) — Find a simple daily activity that doesn’t require much thinking
How can the body itself be:
- Moving at a speed and in a way that fosters presence
- At peace with any discomfort. Acknowledging it, but not asking it to be different
- Example activities:
- Washing dishes
- Walking meditation
- Stretching
- Bathing
Inquiry — a few times per day, ask the following contemplative question(s):
- “What does the body know right now?
- What is the body aware of right now?”
Supplemental Info and Reminders:
If you are living with chronic pain and have not received teaching on how to use meditation and dharma practice as a support, you will likely find enormously helpful supplemental material for this course from:
If you can do even 10min of an embodied movement practice either directly before, or directly after our class, you will likely find that it is a powerful pairing. A few practices you can explore if you don’t have your own already:
Week 2 (3/2/26)
Bodyfulness Home Practices: Week 2 (3/2/26)
Extra credit—
- During one or two meals a day for the first ~10 bites, put the fork or spoon down, finish chewing, and see if you can catch the impulse to reach for the utensil. Can you begin to recognize this expression of craving arising in the body? It may help you during formal meditation to notice the craving/urge/inclination to think the next thought.
- Set a timer for 10min at the end of your formal practice. See what it’s like to carry forward the intention to be aware in the body for the next 10min.
Formal Practice — in any of the four postures
This week, add into the instructions we’ve been working with an intention to let all experiences arising in the mind lead your awareness and interest back into the body. Not as an alternative, better, or different thing to notice, but rather as a way to more deeply understand these experiences.
Take interest to become mindfully familiar with the experience of the body thinking. How are thoughts and the after effects of thoughts experienced in the body? Can you sense an imprint, or echo, of sensation that thoughts leave in the body.
Recognize any ways thoughts/concepts/ideas/images in the mind can masquerade as the body when we turn our attention there. The thought of the breath is not the breath. An image in the mind of the hands, or the body posture, is not the direct experience of these phenomena. When we feel in an open and relaxed way, we discover the experience is more akin to shapes and points of sensation in space shifting and changing.
Occasionally, in moments when you’ve set down the most recent train of thought and returned to the body, take an interest to see if you notice an inclination, leaning, yearning to think the next thought, or to move attention back into the realm of thoughts and thinking.
Informal practice in motion (5-10min) — Find a simple daily activity that doesn’t require much thinking
Add to last week’s instructions an intention to discover and nurture any enjoyment of bodily awareness that may be present in this gentle informal practice. Note, this isn’t enjoyment of the physical experience, like enjoying a massage or a swim on a hot day, though you may experience physical pleasure in the activity as well, the practice is to see if there is any enjoyment of the embodied awareness itself that can be noticed.
Inquiry —
Please continue finding moments to ask the contemplative questions, “What does the body know right now?”, What is the body aware of right now?” This is, in part, a way to cultivate a clear recognition of how much wisdom there is to be found through awareness established in the body.
Week 3 (3/9/26)
Bodyfulness Home Practices: Week 3 (3/9/26)
Formal Practice (15-60min) —
This week’s instruction is to practice the body scan. The body scan is about beholding change presently and directly, feeling it (change/inconstancy/impermanence) as the sensations in the body dance and shift, wax and wane, come and go. One suitable description for all mindfulness meditation (vipassana) might be simply “Change, and the knowing of it”. This is not beginner’s practice. It is profound practice, which can also be accessible for newer meditators.
Bring all previous practice instructions to bear on how you feel the body, and how you respond to the mind as you encourage attention to move through the entirety of the body. But keep it simple, rather than trying to keep every instruction in mind at once, only call forward previous instructions when they feel relevant.
Importantly, remember the foundational instructions to 1. shift attention elsewhere and take your “foot off the gas” should you experience overwhelm or significant anxiety, and 2. call forward compassion any time struggle or suffering becomes predominant while you’re practicing.
Informal practice in motion (5-10min) —
(Find a simple daily activity that doesn’t require much thinking)
In the last weeks we’ve brought a light awareness to the body, moved at the speed of mindfulness, and nurtured enjoyment of bodily awareness.
This week, see what happens when engaging in the same activity while adding the intention to bring deep awareness to the body. Simply explore what this shift in intention does in your experience. If you notice efforting or trying hard, see if you can soften those tendencies, and remain relaxed as you touch in to the intention for deep embodied awareness as opposed to light embodied awareness. Spoiler: neither intention (deep or light) is better or worse. They likely condition your experience differently. Good to bring an exploratory attitude to discovering those differences in one’s own direct experience. Not so good to try to do it “right” or “best”.
Inquiry (sprinkled throughout the day) —
The inquiry practice this week progresses from contemplative curiosity (“What is the body knowing right now?”) to a more humble solicitation for help, and can even develop in the direction of a more mystical supplication. Below are a few examples for language on a spectrum from being suitable for more skeptical minds <-> to being suitable for more mystical orientations.
Examples:
- “How can bringing attention to the body help me right now?”
- “How can body awareness help me right now?”
- “How can embodiment help me right now?”
- “How can the body help me right now?”
- [addressed to awareness in the body] “I’m open to your help right now”
- [addressed to awareness in the body] “Please, lend me your help/wisdom in this moment”
Choose a wording (or design your own) that most promotes awareness+wisdom+compassion when you engage.
For those newer to contemplative practice: be open-mindedly practical. Lean toward a willingness to try things, and then go with whatever seems useful, rather than looking for capital “T” truth in the wording, or in any contemplative practice. In the Buddhist view, all practices are provisional.
For those more experienced in dharma practice: It is always important to understand any practice in terms of Wise View. One way to consider Wise View here would be that the more mystical frames can at times be helpful for periods in our life or practice when the there is strong identification with the body, or strong identification with the mind. However, the more mystical frames can at times be unhelpful if the mind is clinging to a solidified concept of the “mystical body”. Approach your own inquiry practice (and all practice) in a way that serves non-clinging here and now, rather than serving to reinforce your own philosophical or spiritual aesthetic preferences. And when in doubt, trust whatever ways to practice keep you engaged and seem to move in the direction of intimate letting go.
Week 4 (3/16/26)
Bodyfulness Home Practices: Week 4 (3/16/26)
Formal Practice (15-60min) —
Please continue with the body scan, incorporating an attitude of goodwill (metta). Other words that might evoke a skillful attitude for you might be: affection, kindness, benevolence, warmth, care, appreciation.
Informal practice in motion (5-10min) —
This week, each day find something kind to do for the body (above and beyond what you might do in a typical day). Likely this will offer the body some comfort or pleasure. Explore the possibility of enjoyment and appreciation of bodily awareness in the midst of pleasure, while simultaneously enjoying the spiritual pleasure of wisdom: an understanding that this passing pleasure would disappoint and condition suffering if it’s clung to. It is an exquisite and often freeing experience to know passing pleasure with intimacy, free from seeking lasting satisfaction in it.
Inquiry (sprinkled throughout the day) —
Please continue the inquiry practice from last week if you connected with it.
For this week, explore mindfulness of the body externally. As you continue to accumulate momentum in your meditative relationship to the realm of experience we refer to as “the body”, explore whether the things you have perceived internally in your practice may also be perceived (or inferred) as you sense and relate to other bodies. This does not need to be limited to human bodies. This is most potently done when sharing physical space with other bodies as opposed to seeing images or hearing descriptions of other bodies, but there may even be fruitful discoveries to be found in these more removed circumstances as well. Enjoy exploring!
Note: This is not the only way to interpret and practice the meaning of mindfulness directed externally.on-clinging here and now, rather than serving to reinforce your own philosophical or spiritual aesthetic preferences. And when in doubt, trust whatever ways to practice keep you engaged and seem to move in the direction of intimate letting go.