Awareness of the whole body is one way this can be effected. Even if you are working with a method of breath meditation, for example, that involves a spatially narrow focus of attention as ‘foreground’, it is often beneficial to lightly maintain, as the ‘background’ to this ‘foreground’, a global awareness permeating fully and ‘filling … Continued

Second: Tightness is usually a result of, and indicates, slightly too much effort in the concentration at that time. Similarly, a slight over-efforting can underlie both sinking and drifting. There, however, the situation can be a little more complex, because both sinking and drifting may arise at any time as a result of marginally too … Continued

Additionally though, since tightness is often an indicator of a degree of over-effort, we need not view its presence only as a difficulty. We can actually use the feeling of tightness when it appears somewhere in the body as a helpful signal to slightly back off the effort in that moment. And this subtle backing … Continued

Alternatively, at other times, it can be more useful to encourage a more ‘receptive’ mode of working, to let the awareness ‘receive’ the breath sensations. Here the breath may be conceived of, and thus perceived, as ‘coming toward’ the awareness, as opposed to the other way around.

This feeling of the energy of the whole body space can be made the sole focus of attention. •   Alternatively, it may be mixed with the awareness of another object such as the breath or mettā – by paying attention to the changing effects of the breath or the mettā on the body’s energy field. •   Either … Continued

Almost from the start in this approach we deliberately but gently work at nurturing a sense of comfort, pleasure, or well-being in the body.

This can be done through the way we pay attention to the subtle body, as described above – opening out the awareness to encompass the whole body space, and tuning into the more pleasant frequencies of feeling that are perceivable.

It is also possible to use the breath or the mettā to help elicit and support the pervasion of this sense of well-being. Simply sensitizing to, and enjoying, the way we feel the energetic resonances of the mettā or the breath throughout the whole space of the body – opening to and finding delight in … Continued

And when there is a state of agitation or anxiety, we can play with ways of breathing or practising the mettā, and also ways of sensing the breath or mettā, that feel as if they soothe the subtle body and smooth out its energies. Delicately tuning into the felt experience of these qualities of soothing … Continued

The imagination, too, can be skilfully employed in order to gently encourage this sense of pleasure or well-being in the subtle body. While simultaneously pervading the whole body space with an awareness sensitive to the texture and tone of the energy of that whole field, it is possible, for example, to imagine the subtle body … Continued

Likewise, one may experiment with imagining various luminous lines of energy in the body – for example, between the perineum and the crown of the head, or from the lower belly out through the legs – and sense how any such line of energy supports the whole body to feel upright, open, and energized. The … Continued

If there is tension, or even pain, in one area of the body, rather than always conceiving of it in anatomical or physiological terms, it can sometimes be more helpful to conceive of and perceive that area in energetic terms, and to play with the perception of lines of energy in order to support a … Continued