“How does it feel to be you?” asks the interviewer. She never would have guessed what happened next.

How does it feel to be you? That’s not an unusual question to ask around here. Barry Boyce, Mindful’s editor-in-chief, even wrote in the first issue that “meditation begins and ends in the body.”

But how does it feel to be Bill Murray?

That’s what one reporter asked the comedian and actor during a film festival press conference after the screening of his lastest film, St. Vincent.

Instead of expounding on the sheer awesomeness of being Bill Murray, he takes a moment to direct the question to the audience and talks about mindfulness of the body—paying attention to the sensations in your body, and how that can feel good and grounding.

Here’s Murray’s meditation:

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Think about how much each person here weighs and try to feel that weight in your seat right now, in your bottom right now. Parts in your feet and parts in your bum. Just try to feel your own weight, in your own seat, in your own feet. Okay? So if you can feel that weight in your body, if you can come back into the most personal identification, a very personal identification, which is: I am. This is me now. Here I am, right now. This is me now.

If you want to try a full body scan practice, check out this 10-minute body scan practice from Elisha Goldstein, Mindful’s mental health blogger.

Tip of the hat to the folks at Vulture for recording Murray’s answer, and to On Being for transcribing it. 

[03/23/15]