The first thing to do in this meditation is to choose your position. You can do it lying down. You can do it sitting. You can do it standing. You can even do it walking slowly up and down the room.

The main thing is to choose a position where you'll be as relaxed as possible, and yet as alert as possible. Bear in mind your pain condition if you're doing this meditation in pain. And choosing a position that's going to ease your pain as much as possible. And it's also fine to change your posture during the meditation. If you find your pain is building an intensity through being still.

So choosing a position and beginning to settle and arrive. Feeling into the point of contact between your body and the surface it's resting upon. Either through the bottom if you're sitting on a chair, the soles of the feet against the floor if you're standing or walking, it will be the soles of the feet, and if you're lying down, it'd be the back of the body, the back of the head. See if you can have a quality of yielding and resting down into this position. When we're in pain, we very often tense and hold in the body.

We kind of rigidify and contract around the pain. It builds in intensity through this process of contraction and tension and holding, rigidifying. So to begin to unwind this, let's deepen into this quality of resting and yielding and see if you can have a sense of resting into the support of the chair, the floor, the bed, rather than perching on top of it. This is an interesting, subtle distinction. To help this, you might find it helpful to take a deep in-breath.

Then on the out-breath, releasing and yielding a little bit more. Do this a few times in your own way, in your own time if you find it helpful. And now allowing your breathing to settle and to find its own natural rhythm. Opening phase on the in-breath, subsiding phase on the out-breath. This meditation is called from fighting to flowing.

And in the practice will be quite consciously, intentionally unwinding any habits we have of resisting the pain, contracting against it, hardening against it, holding, guarding, bracing and releasing and letting go into a much more fluid and open sense of things. So rather than pain being a label for an experience that feels hard and tight and solid, pain can become a label for a process, a flow of experiences changing one moment to the next, never exactly the same one moment to the next. And this is a very big shift that can happen in our perception, from pain as solidity to pain as flow. So let's really rest down into the body. Yielding.

Feeling into the support of gravity that's gently holding your body in place. And now let's allow our awareness to trot more and more deeply inside the body. So we're not thinking about the body or looking at it from the outside, but we're learning how to inhabit the body and to release these layers of contraction and holding and tension. So, first of all, allowing awareness to flow all the way down through the body to inhabit the legs and the feet. Feeling into the points of contact with the floor or the bed.

And feeling into the sensations in the legs and the feet. Maybe they're intense. Maybe they're painful. Or maybe they're dull or absent. Whatever your experience is, just seeing if you can rest a little more deeply inside the legs and the feet.

In the sense of direct experience, rather than contraction, tightening or aversion to experience. If you have got discomfort or pain, seeing if you can allow the sensations to flow through your awareness moment by moment. A little bit more like a river than a rock. Pain as flow, rather than pain as solidity. And now flowing back up through the buttocks and into the whole torso.

Letting the buttocks be soft if we're sitting or lying down, yielding into the support. And allowing our awareness to feel the whole torso. The front, the abdomen and the chest, the whole back of the body, the sides of the body. Feeling into breathing in the whole torso. Quality of opening a little bit in all directions on the in-breath, subsiding a little bit in all directions on the out-breath.

No need to force or strain around the breathing. Always yielding up to the support, particularly with the out-breath. And just as breathing is changing and flowing moment by moment, can you let any painful sensations in the torso likewise flow through the moments? So it's allowing the experience that we label as pain to be like a river, rather than like a mountain. Coming through the shoulders and allowing our awareness to pour down through the arms all the way to the hands, the fingers, the thumbs. If we're sitting or lying, having the hands supported in a place where the arms can rest into gravity.

We don't hold onto the arms with effort. And if we're standing or walking, just letting the hands and the arms hang lightly at the side of the body. And again, if there's discomfort or pain anywhere on the shoulders, arms, hands, fingers, thumbs, see if you can let it flow through the moment's pain as river, rather than pain as mountain. Flowing and changing moment by moment. And just resting inside the flow of this experience rather than fighting it, contracting against it and resisting it.

Allowing our awareness to flow back up through the arms, through the shoulders, into the neck and into the head. If we're sitting, standing, walking, just checking the angle of the head and seeing if it can be lightly poised on top of the neck. Releasing through the base of the skull and yet openness in the throat. And if you're lying down, giving the weight of the head up to the support of the pillow or the cushion. And allowing awareness to inhabit the whole head, the back, the sides, the top and the whole face.

Letting the face be soft as best we can. And letting the jaw be soft, the tongue and the mouth soft so the wind or the breath can flow in and out of the body with as little inhibition as possible. And now broadening to be aware of the whole body. The legs, torso, arms, neck, head, face. This experience we label body.

Rather than it being a static and rigid thing, let's let it be a living, flowing experience. Breath flowing, sensations flowing. All the time releasing contraction, releasing holding, particularly with each out-breath. And allowing breathing to soothe our experience of pain. And keeping the practice going as long as you want to.

And when you decide it's time to finish, very gently bringing the body back into movement. Seeing if we can keep the breathing soft as we begin to move. And just noticing any tendency to immediately grip around the breathing as you move. And in the noticing, you can choose to release and soften again and again. Thank you for your practice.

And I really wish you all the best as you move from fighting to flowing with your experience of pain.