Book excerpt: What does it mean to "meditate with the body"? Until you answer this question, explains Reggie Ray, meditation may be no more than a mental gymnastic —something you can practice for years without fruitful results. In Touching Enlightenment, the esteemed author of five books about Buddhist history and practice guides you back to the original practice of the Buddha: a systematic process that results in a profound awareness in your body rather than in your head. Combining the scholarship that has earned him international renown with original insights from nearly four decades practicing and teaching meditation, Reggie Ray invites you to explore: How to enter fully into communion with your embodied natureThe insights of Tibetan yoga, from guidance on breathing and working with discomfort to its challenge to modern practitioners on the path to realizationWhy "rejected" experience becomes imprinted in the body —and how to receive it anew to reconstitute your human way of being Karma of cause and karma of result —taking full responsibility for your lifeYour three bodies—the physical, the interpersonal, and the cosmic "To be awake, to be enlightened, is to be fully and completely embodied. To be fully embodied means to be at one with who we are, in every respect, including our physical being, our emotions, and the totality of our karmic situation," writes Reggie Ray. In Touching Enlightenment, he offers you a map of unprecedented clarity and power for embarking on the journey toward ultimate realization in and through the body.