The Buddha started with a form of concentration that was very much with the body: focusing on the breath, giving rise to a sense of ease and well-being, refreshment, and rapture. Then he worked the pleasure and rapture through the body in the same way that you knead moisture through dough.

"When the time came to settle on the true path, [the Buddha] started with a form of concentration that was very much with the body: focusing on the breath, giving rise to a sense of ease and well-being, refreshment, and rapture. Then he worked the pleasure and rapture through the body in the same way that you knead moisture through dough. It’s when your awareness is centered in the body like this that you open up areas that might be closed, to feel more at ease with areas that you’ve been running away from.

At the same time, you’re opening up areas of the mind that you might have closed off as well."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Concentration Work" (Meditations6)

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