Before you can really let go of the body, you’ve got to fully inhabit it, make use of the space. Because only if you can fully inhabit the space can you be fully at ease with your own mind. And that’s when the mind can really settle down.

"If there’s a chronic pain in some part of the body, how do you breathe around it? How do you breathe through it? How do you get your awareness around it? Get so that you feel that you inhabit the body, you feel that this is your space, in the sense that you’re not going to let the pain push you out. Of course, there’s a paradox here. On the one hand, ultimately we don’t want to lay claim to the body as us or ours, but before you can really let go of it, you’ve got to fully inhabit it, make use of the space. Because only if you can fully inhabit the space can you be fully at ease with your own mind. And that’s when the mind can really settle down."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Occupy Your Body"

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