Let's take this as a general question because it applies in a broader sense than this. Pain in the body, especially shoulders, tension. Some of it is your own creation, people who get nervous, get angry, get fearful, tighten up the shoulders, the teeth, the neck, wherever, and this is why last night's technique of working with Unpleasant Physical Sensations is very important. It's very important, it's very, very important, it's very, very, very important. It's very, very, very, very important! I don't know how many of you have tried that technique last night, but one student who was in their tenth retreat, wrote me a note after the talk last night, which would have been today, and said, "You know, it's now my tenth retreat, I've heard that talk now ten times, I have to admit, I've never done it yet. I think I'll try it." So a lot of people don't actually try that technique, as we know from this person.
The tension that you produce in your body, the pain and tension in your body, especially the shoulders, is it your own creation or not? This is one thing to find out. If it is your own creation, then those techniques last night, learning more relaxation, letting go of worry, fear, and all this stuff, they will definitely work, the tensions will go away. Body mindfulness in general is the key to whether we actually know that we're tense or not. Some people will go around, and you can see them like this (hunched over), all hunched over. At work whatever, they're tight, and they don't even know it. And they can sit like that for days before they kind of relax because they have a different mind state. So the body awareness itself is important, to actually know whether you're tense or not. Now just like the sleepiness technique, if you've really done lots of body mindfulness, being able to know just the slight tilt, it's exactly the same thing with all this tension and stuff. If you've got good body mindfulness, you're going to know when the tension is in its beginning stage. You're not going to have to wait for three or four hours to know, you're going to know in the beginning stage. It all hinges on body awareness, and making body awareness stronger and stronger.
Now if the pain and the tension is not from the mind, it's not mentally created, then of course look at your posture, see if there's something you're doing in your posture. I say on the first night, "If the head's going too far, it's going to cause pain, if it's up too high, it's going to cause pain." Not only be aware of how you sit though, be aware of how you walk just going to the bathroom. A lot of people try very hard when they're in sitting posture, but then when they're walking to the bathroom they're just slouching, when they eat their food they're just slouching, and then they try hard in the sitting but then they slouch elsewhere. Well, that's not going to work. So to actually be more aware when you're sitting there eating your food, to be more aware when you're going to the bathroom, that will help you greatly so that you have less body pain which is coming from the physical posture not being right.
To give you a little story on that, one of our assistants, when they first came to us appeared to be a certain height, let's just say five feet five. Now I could tell that they were kind of hunched over, they were walking slouched and they stayed with us for a while. I encouraged them at one point to sit up straight, especially in the dining hall, to be very careful sitting up straight, to be more aware and get the shoulders back better. And at first they were kind of reluctant, but they tried it. They seemed to grow about three inches! No kidding, it was that dramatic. The change of height was like three inches, just standing up straight. We see them at the dining hall occasionally when they're at the Wat, and they're sitting like this, and there are other people next to them slouched down and eating whatever. It's for your own health. Lots of us are taught this when we're teenage kids, "Stand up straight, stand up straight", and we don't. And the chairs at work make us slouch and the chairs at home make us slouch. Well if you can stand up straight you're just going to be more physically fit. It's pretty simple in that way.