This very body, the Buddha: yes, you.
      
 “If everything is okay (with your body) you remain completely unaware of it and, really, that is the moment when contact can be made — when everything is okay — because when something goes wrong then that contact is made with illness, with something that has gone wrong and the wellbeing is no longer there. You have a head right now; then the headache comes and you make contact.
“But we have almost lost that capacity. Try to make contact with your body when everything is good.
“Just lie down on the grass, close the eyes and feel the sensation that is going on within, the wellbeing that is bubbling inside. Lie down in a river. The water is touching the body and every cell is being cooled. Feel inside how that coolness enters, cell by cell, and goes deep into the body. The body is a great phenomenon, one of the miracles of nature.
“Sit in the sun. Let the sunrays penetrate the body. Feel the warmth as it moves within, as it goes deeper, as it touches your blood cells and reaches to the very bones. Sun is life, its very source. So with closed eyes just feel what is happening. Remain alert, watch and enjoy.
“By and by you will become aware of a very subtle harmony, a very beautiful music continuously going on inside. Then you have the contact with the body; otherwise you carry a dead body.
“Your body can be used as a mechanism; then you need not be very sensitive about it. The body goes on saying many things you never hear because you don’t have any contact. So try to be more and more sensitive about your body. Listen to it; it goes on saying many things, and you are so head-oriented you never listen to it.
“Whenever there is a conflict between your mind and body, your body is almost always going to be right more than your mind, because the body is natural, your mind is societal. The body belongs to this vast nature, and your mind belongs to your society, your particular society, age and time. The body has deep roots in existence and the mind is just wavering on the surface. But you always listen to the mind, you never listen to the body. Because of this long habit contact is lost.
“The whole body vibrates around the center of the heart just as the whole solar system moves around the sun. You became alive when the heart started beating, you will die when the heart stops beating. The heart remains the solar center of your body. Become alert to it. But you can become alert, by and by, only if you become alert to the whole body.”