The reason behind it

[Gem]

Originally Posted by A human Being

This is a good and important point, I think - people sometimes approach meditation as a predominantly mental practice, but I personally prefer an approach that encompasses all aspects of our experience, including the various feelings and sensations felt in the body, as this helps to root our attention in our present experience. And the breath is of course intimately related to the body (it's the body that breathes, after all), so being conscious of the breath inevitably puts us in touch with the body too, as you say.

Most people in meditation ideally want to lose body awareness, but I've gone the other way and remain aware of the body. My abstract reason for that is about body/mind/spirit balance, but purification generally happens through 'equanimity with the body', which is basically having a neutral disposition toward feelings. We'd usually think of emotional contents as psychological for example, but these are largely physical feelings, yet we tend to fabricate mentalities around them, so feelings in the body correlate directly to emotional blocks, which are created and/or maintained through phychological reactivity toward their physically feeling, and released via the 'neutral disposition' them (mindful equanimity).

I think the ability to 'just observe' is the sort of skill we need more that any other, but we find that is difficult because we tend to react - aversion to pain and desire for pleasure - which incites the volition, aka generates kamma, aka perpetuates ego through time from moment to moment in that cycle of 'rebirth'.

Since my own approach is of the non-volitional kind, 'just watch what happens', I've been able to strip everything bare, like, if you mantra, stop doing that. If you control the breath, stop it, if you are visualising light or whatever, don't. If you count breaths, desist. Then all the things you do unintentionally are revealed, and I just notice what I am doing and cease to do so, at least so far as I'm able. However, it's ironically very hard to not-do. We are habitually ingrained to do something and react to everything. Hence the meditation teachers are always telling us to do, like visualise this, imagine that mantra, control your breathing thus, count breaths etc etc etc.

As such my meditation approach is completely counter to everything. I don't try to lose body awareness - I remain body-aware, and I don't do anything - I stop doing what I do do. It's like the truth, I'm aware and this is what is happening. Anything blocking the system, well, it can stay there or it can come loose. That is not my concern and I don't try to 'make it happen' - or resist what just happens to happen. I am aware of what it feels like. 'It feels like this'. Period.