Sitting: The Physical Art of Meditation

“Sitting on a meditation cushion sounds like it should be easy, but for many of us it is a journey of aches and pains. Fortunately, there are compassionate and articulate guides, such as Erika Berland, who have deeply immersed themselves in the art of sitting. Her book is a rich blend of traditions, so there is a wide variety of exercises to choose from. I invite you to engage these teachings as a way to wake up your life with good posture and to inspire your posture with a good heart.”
—From the foreword by Ashe Acharya John Rockwell

“This book is for anyone who wants to sit with ease, presence, and vitality. If you are just beginning your search into quiet sitting, Erika offers basic guidelines to direct you on your path. If you are already immersed in the deep practice of contemplative sitting, she opens the way to subtleties of consciousness through embodying your body systems. This is a gem of a book.”
—Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, developer of Body-Mind Centering®

“Sitting” is a handbook for deepening your experience of the ancient posture of sitting meditation. Drawing on research in somatic education and experiential anatomy, many guided exercises offer you imagery you can use to release tension and stress, contemplations to increase your body awareness, tips for making gravity work for you rather than against you, physical and energetic methods for relating with the systems in your body, and much more—including ways to bring your new awareness into daily life.