Mini-Lessons for Contemplative Practice, Lesson Four

One of the first lessons that the Buddha taught was the body in the body. We practice residing in awareness of sensations in the body. There are two great ways to do this. One is with a body scan, which you can lead yourself through or which you can be guided through by a teacher. You visit each part of the body from toes to crown of the head, really experiencing that part with every amount of awareness that you can muster. If you are interested, you can listen to a guided body scan by Jon Kabat Zinn here: https://youtu.be/daU-xneLA0g

Another way that you can experience body in the body is through awareness of the breath in whatever posture you would like to experience. Take a posture and then tie your attention to the breathing. Whenever the mind wanders, gently and compassionately bring the mind back and place it back on the breath. The moment when you catch the mind wandering is the moment when you have really woken up. The moment you catch the mind wandering is the moment that you are really practicing.
I think it is interesting that this practice is one of the first ones taught by the Buddha. After leaving his protected, luxurious life, the first place he landed was with the yogi ascetics. I think this is one of the lessons he took with him from his time as a yogi. He taught that there were seven points of posture to be visited upon taking a meditation posture. These are to be revisited any time there is pain or discomfort during practice:

Legs
Shoulders
Back
Eyes
Hands
Tongue
Head

Sure, you can memorize Buddha's list, or you can just remember to scan your body each time you come to practice and then whenever it would be useful to help you during your practice session.