When I used to do yoga, my attention was on the breath, and I didn’t see much in it for me. I was more at home with dynamic exercise and sport.

But as I studied the phenomenon of meditation and went deeper into the subject, I came to understand what these “low-intensity” body practices are for: they help us become more aware of the body, and so notice more precisely how our thoughts and emotions show up in it. Very often we discover an emotion that has already taken hold of us only through the body: the breath has quickened, the shoulders have tightened, the stomach has clenched. The earlier we notice, the less power emotions have over us.

Since then I have practised awareness yoga with real interest. It is the first twenty minutes of my day.

There is a second reason too. We live in this physical world in order to feel it. When we lose the sense of our own body, we miss that chance. And that, in part, is already physical death.