The Embodied Experience of Prostration (chaktsal)
The Journal of Somaesthetics October 12, 2025 Kei Nagaoka
Prostration among Tibetan Buddhists in the Eastern Himalayas is an embodied practice that enhances the good life through a creative art of living. Drawing on sensory ethnography and somaesthetics, the analysis shows how daily prostration weaves together intersubjective relations, bodily sensibility, aesthetics, and politics. The practice is not merely ritual but a dynamic act that cultivates well-being and expresses the Monpa people's distinctive way of being in the world.