Adventures in Awareness Dr Shamil Chandaria: The body as a full path to awakening
Dec 17, 2025
Dr. Shamil Chandaria, a seasoned researcher at Oxford specializing in consciousness and meditation, shares his insights on utilizing the energy body for awakening. He discusses joyful practices that blend shamatha and vipassana for deeper awareness and emotional self-liberation. Shamil emphasizes the importance of bodily awareness, using techniques like auto-vipassana to effortlessly digest emotions. He advocates for daily practice and the role of contraction as an opportunity for mindfulness. His approach merges ancient contemplative traditions with modern neuroscience, making the journey both enlightening and accessible.
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Train Auto-Vipassana Habit
- Try 'auto-vipassana': train the habit of welcoming sensations so insight and digestion happen automatically.
- Use the body-focused habit to stop identifying with thoughts and let patterns unwind autonomously.
The Middle Aperture Of Awareness
- Insight: The 'middle aperture' of whole-body awareness balances narrow breath focus and vast space practices.
- This middle route is stable, accessible to beginners, and scales to advanced awakening.
Combine Shamatha With Vipassana
- Do pair shamatha (stabilize and brighten awareness) with vipassana (investigate arising phenomena) every session.
- Notice impermanence, non-self and unsatisfactoriness in bodily energy while staying open and relaxed.