Arriving In The Body (with George Mumford)

Ever feel like life is a full catastrophe—email pings, family needs, calendar jams—and your attention never gets to land? We slow everything down with a clear, zero-fluff mindfulness practice you can use anywhere: arrive in your body, breathe, and know it. No special gear, no perfect posture; just a reliable way to reset the nervous system and sharpen presence when it matters most.

George Mumford's website: GeorgeMumford.com

We start with the simple ethos of teaching and practicing whether one person shows up or a hundred, then move into a guided arrival that anchors awareness in contact, posture, and breath. You’ll hear how we apply the Satipatthana lens—be aware of the body to the extent that there is a body—to dissolve the pressure to achieve a mystical state and instead build continuity of mindfulness in real time. When distractions and images pull focus, we use gentle labels and a steady return to sensation, turning wandering into a training loop rather than a failure.

From there, we explore resting as alert relaxation: not limp, not rigid, but a stable, kind attention that lets sounds and thoughts arise and fade. You’ll learn practical cues for daily life—opening the sternum for easeful breathing, feeling contact points, and shifting posture mindfully—so practice fits into meetings, commutes, and caregiving gaps. The result is more choice before reaction and a calmer baseline without adding pressure to your day.

If this landed for you, subscribe, share the episode with someone who needs a reset, and leave a short review telling us what sensation anchored you best. Your feedback helps more people find a simple way to arrive.

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:50):
I'm excited to be here.
And it's interesting, my myfirst teacher, Larry Rosenberg,
he had a few sort of I don'tknow what I would call them, I
guess, premises.
Maybe he said that if somebodyasked me to teach, that I was
supposed to say yes.
And he also, not that I do thatall the time now, and that'd be
overwhelmed if I did, butstarting off, I would say yes.

(01:13):
And he also said that if nobodyshowed up, I was still supposed
to teach.
So it wasn't about who was here,or it wasn't so much about how
many were here, it's about justmaking a commitment and forming
the intention to teach and thento teach you when somebody
showed up or if it was just oneperson.
So I'm excited about being here.
But what I like to do is justengage in what I call arriving,

(01:36):
because a bunch of you folks,I'm pretty sure were coming from
some place or some activity.
And if anything like Rocky andmyself, you are you're, you
know, I I talked to a teachRocky about having a full
catastrophe, you know, about youknow, the whole, you know, and
Zoba de Green, the movie, theyasked him, they said, you know,
are you married?

(01:57):
He said, Yeah, I'm married withkids, the full catastrophe.
So that's another way, even ifyou're not married with kids,
you have the full catastrophe inthe sense that we have a full
plate and there's a lot goingon.
And I I believe the model that Ilearned a long time ago, and
that was if you wanted somethingdone, give it to a busy person.
So I wouldn't be surprised if abunch of us on this call are

(02:19):
probably in that category.
So let's just take a few minutesof just sitting and breathing
what I call arriving, but it'salso very powerful because it's
it's the beginning of this ideaof spending time together and
being present with each other,and to do that, we have to be
here, and so just tuning intoyour body, you don't have to get
into a cross-legged position,you just be sitting, just having

(02:43):
your sternum open, lightlyshutting the eyes, tuning into
the body and the breath to theextent that we know that there
is a body, so you can feel thebody because it's making contact
with surfaces and justbreathing, noticing that you're
sitting and breathing, anddistinguishing between sitting

(03:04):
and breathing in, sitting andbreathing out, and the idea is,
and they talk about this in uhSatipattana Sutta, that all
we're doing is being aware ofthe body to the extent that we
have a body, to the extent thatthere is a body, and that we can
have the can continuity of mycontinuity of mindfulness or

(03:26):
bare awareness, just feeling thebody and the seated posture
while breathing in and breathingout, so we can focus on the body
as a whole, from the bottoms ofour feet out to the fingertips
and thumbs, the top of the head.
We're just sitting and breathingand knowing it.
So when thoughts come, we getdistracted just by thinking

(03:49):
about the body, thinking aboutthe breath.
The attention goes there, andthen it's just a matter of
sustaining it or just beingaware of the sensations of
sitting and breathing andknowing it.

(04:27):
We can rest in the body.
So, what I mean by rest is justsettling back is just alert,
relaxation, alert, you know,being relaxed and alert at the
same time, and being like asilent witness, just observing
our experience in a way wherewe're allowing the body and the
breath to speak to us in its ownlanguage without interpreting,

(04:49):
without interacting, in terms ofinterpret in terms of pushing
away or pulling somethingtowards us in terms of trying to
make something happen or toachieve some state unifys or
optimal state of mind.
It's really more about justsitting and breathing and
knowing it.

(05:09):
No agenda with no activity otherthan just observing ourselves as
we sit and breathe, observingthe body while sitting on the

(06:07):
once in a while to tune in andto notice what the mind is
involved in.
So is it with the body and thebreath, or is it involved in
thoughts, images?
Maybe we have to shift positionfor whatever reason, or just the
screen.
Just being mindful, beingpresent to what is happening as

(06:29):
it is happening, and thenreturning to the body and the
breath.

SPEAKER_00 (06:42):
Simplicity of just thinking about the body, and
then the attention goes there.
Then it's just a matter of justnoticing what's there and
allowing it to be as it is.

(13:03):
And so to continue to be restingin the body, resting in the
breath, and allowing the soundto just come and go, arise and
fade.

(14:37):
So thank you for indulging mewith that.
I don't know about you, but Idefinitely needed that.