Finding the path to radiance through deeply felt, sitting meditation. This book shares practices to show how sitting meditation can be reconnected to lived, bodily experience and help you rediscover your natural somatic radiance.

It explores how the modern thought-focused frame of mind introduces patterns of holding and tension into our bodies. Drawing on techniques from the Buddhist, Sufi, and somatic wisdom traditions, as well as insights from the author’s own teachers and collaborators, including Ida Rolf and Judith Aston, this guide presents a revitalized understanding of seated meditation.

The author argues that the thought-focused mode of consciousness in modern rigid seated meditation introduces patterns of holding and tension that guarantee that awakening will not occur. The focus on thought, rather than embodied experience, results in a numbing connection to our physical selves and a dimming of the body’s natural somatic radiance, potentially leading to chronic pain and a general sense of malaise.

However, this “consciousness of separation” can be overcome. The book presents a wide range of practices, including 14 meditations, to support the awakening of breath and presence in the body. These methods draw on techniques from Buddhist, Sufi, and somatic wisdom traditions, as well as the author's studies with Ida Rolf and Judith Aston.

Through the radical path of conscious sitting, this guide shows how to transform your sitting meditation practice into a fully natural mudra of greater grace, from which radiance will naturally flow. As the egoic perspective is dissolved and chronic pain is lessened, practitioners can begin to feel a new, enlightened, bodily radiance—what is referred to as “The Great Wide Open.”

Pages: 144, Year of Publication: 0227, Dimensions: 13.7x13.7cm