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The Body: Vehicle for Awakening

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© Erwin Blumenfeld


They awaken, always wide awake: Gotama’s disciples, whose mindfulness, both day and night, is constantly immersed in the body.

—Dhammapada, 299 

In the ultimate gesture of presence, the Buddha, fighting off Mara’s armies of temptation, reached down to touch the earth, calling upon it to bear witness to the lifetimes of struggle that had led to his imminent enlightenment. It was with a physical gesture that he signaled his intention to be free—fully embodied, fully human, liberated from the delusive fictions of mind.

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