At the Exeter Sangha Night sessions this month, we are starting off our journey of Going Deeper with our meditation practice' by looking at involving our bodies and physical experience. 

This includes spending some time with and  achieving a comfortable and supportive posture - I have attached a short guide (thanks to Vajramati from the New York Triratna Centre) and here is also a link to Kamalashila’s online version of his posture guide from the original version of his book ‘Buddhist Meditation’. 

A key phrase this week was ANCHOR YOUR AWARENESS TO YOUR BODY as the body can be a bridge between a distracted mind and the subtlety of the breath. 

It can be helpful to start each practice sit with a body awareness and it can be even more helpful to focus on particular areas of the body to guide and anchor the mind: 

The Seven Points of Posture is one such traditional way of focusing the mind.

If you want to take this further, the US dharma teacher  Reginald Ray wrote 'Your Breathing Body' - see this review here  - and he has some excellent CD sets with Guided Meditations, and I personally benefited a lot from practising my way through his 'Meditating with the Body' and found them really helpful. 

Enjoy your practice!