Do you own your body? A lot of people think they own their body. The body tells you when it wants to go to the bathroom, the body tells you when it wants to fart, or burp, the body tells you a lot of things, the body kind of controls us to a certain extent. We don't always control the body. So why doesn't it want to sit still? Two reasons, one is physical pain, you reach a limit. Why can't we sit with physical pain? Want some stories of super duper macho meditators? Some monks in Thailand sit all night long, 10-12 hours straight, don't move. I've never seen it though, but those are the stories. They have super concentration that overrides the pain. I would think that all of you know that if you can concentrate on something else, you can escape another sense perception. We don't teach that type of meditation because we don't want to suppress, but to a certain extent, if you're having pain, say in your leg, and you get very focused on your breathing, you're going to forget that pain for a while, you're just going to lose memory or perception, because the mind can only focus on one thing at a time. This is why people have accidents, they're driving the car, and they start thinking of something they've got to do at work, and then they make mistakes because they're not paying attention like crashing into the car in front of them if it slows down or stops suddenly. They're mind is elsewhere.
So physical pain is just part of the body, it's just a natural process. We could assume it's because atoms move, and because things are moving you get heat, you get friction, because you get friction, you get pain. So we could say physically it's obvious why the body gets pain. With sitting still and being able to sit still longer and longer and longer, some people can stretch it to certain limits. Still, as I said in the hall last night, no matter who the person is, even these monks in Thailand, they may be able to sit still for ten hours, but they can't do eleven, or they can't do twelve. There's a limit for them as well. There's a limit for all of us. Even with the Buddha, he got pain in his body. In the scriptures it's actually written at least twice, the Buddha in his older age was giving a talk to a large group of monks, nuns and laypeople, and he says to one of the other top enlightened students, Sariputta probably, "Sariputta, I can tell that everyone's minds are very bright tonight. You teach them, my back aches, I'm going to go lie down." A lot of people don't know that the Buddha had physical pain. So this is just natural part of our physical body.
Now I said that there are two reasons why our body doesn't want to sit still, and one is physical pain. What's the other one? The mind is restless or bored! It just wants to do something, and anything will do, shifting the legs is anything. So with the mind's restlessness, that's where we can do lots of work. That's what our practice is all about, reactions to things. If you're sitting there and you're bored and you can't find your breath and you just feel like you want to daydream, be mindful that you're daydreaming. The minute that you're mindful that you're daydreaming, what's happened? You're back practicing. The mindfulness is the practice, note it, okay, start again, start again. So the body doesn't want to sit still for two reasons, and it's the mental part where we can do our work effectively, we'll keep working, working, working, and then we will sit still, more peacefully, for a bit longer time.