The time to close retreat also means time to open boundaries. Retreat ends, but your awareness doesn’t. Always move forward in a way that keeps you alive and progressing.
Practicing directing kindness towards ourselves by first connecting with our ability to receive kindness from other and then connecting with our own goodness.
Bodily feeling is an accurate read out of mental formations. It helps us detect kammic effects that arise and move us to action. Embodiment gives a way of discharging. The mind jumps over things that the body doesn’t.
One-pointedness, ekaggata, is a later development. The first aim is to get settled, to meet and dispel crankiness, negativity, craving. One-pointedness arrives after these are dispelled.
In embodiment exercises there are two qualities to emphasize: energy and the body. The basis of energy is this body. Embodiment exercises can help us cultivate the ability to redirect energy from the thinking mind by referring to the body.
First establish bodily presence. Notice how the leg lifts and moves. Keep the eyes soft. Experience the wave-like motion - it feels good! Allow what’s been difficult or closed to arise and walk it out.
