Discover BodySensing

iRest BodySensing Source Yoga is an approach to meditation that uses the body as an entry point for coming to know our essence. It has the potential to profoundly nourish our connection with ourselves, provide a deep sense of calm and wellbeing, and bring us to a clear realization of our true nature. iRest offers this practice, which is rooted in ancient tradition, as a central resource.

BodySensing invites us to truly feel our bodies, not as a preconceived form with a distinct center and periphery, but as pure sensation. Doing so evokes subtle vibration and an unlimited expanse of radiance, without boundary.

At first, we might try BodySensing with eyes closed to help us more easily go beyond our normal manner of perceiving. Ultimately, it can be an eyes-open practice that mimics everyday life. BodySensing can be practiced in stillness or in movement. It can happen during yoga, walking, biking, climbing, dancing—or just sitting. 

We begin by slowing down and emptying out any extraneous tension. The greater our economy of movement, the less our striving, the more we open to the experience of “being moved”. When this is achieved, we are free to know and express ourselves.

In BodySensing, we listen inwardly to the subtle scintillations and vibrations of our own vitality. The life force animating us is connected to every other living thing and holds a universal intelligence. When we attune to that force, we discover our source intelligence. 

BodySensing can also be described as a form of Yoga Nidra meditation, in which we experience ourselves from gross levels of sensing to increasingly subtler levels, illuminating our pure awareness. To access this awareness, we move through layers that can be likened to musical notes with distinct frequencies or resonance.  As we listen to these notes and experience these ever-subtler layers, we orient to pure awareness.

What differentiates BodySensing from most other forms of meditation? Rather than asking us to cultivate a higher state, it points to an awakeness already present in us.  We are already whole. We discover this truth through somatic inquiry.

BodySensing can have meaningful implications in our daily lives. As we become more trusting of our body’s natural awakeness and intelligence, we come to be more spontaneous and responsive to our experiences. This trust might be expressed initially by speaking up for ourselves or another when we might not previously have done so; or making choices that are more authentic for ourselves rather than suppressing our needs for the sake of keeping peace. Some practitioners with deeply held tensions and symptomology have found profound healing as a result of this practice.

As pure awareness moves through us, uninhibited by conditioned patterns, we find a greater sense of freedom.