Susan James discusses Spinoza on the good embodied life
via Elucidations (A University of Chicago Philosophy Podcast)
Spinoza … presented the mind and body as utterly different perspectives on the same thing, always with perspective influenced by passions. Thus, in his magnum-opus, the Ethics, he taught that life is best lived not by ridding ourselves of passions to reach objectivity, but rather by growing awareness of our passions, without supposing to escape them.
Podcast here
synthetic zerØ 
Keith W. Faulkner made these valuable comments on another social platform:
“Hi Linda. I would like to distinguish, if I may, Spinoza’s embodiment from our contemporary quest for embodiment. It seems to me that many contemporary theorists are seeking a way to make consciousness into an embodied awareness. Being aware of the body for its own sake doesn’t seem to be what Spinoza is about. I formulate Spinoza’s embodiment differently, in the manner of Deleuze: we are not seeking to become aware of our bodies, we are seeking precisely that which we are unaware of. That is to say, becoming conscious of the body is not the aim; but rather, becoming more and more unconscious by way of the body. Page 90 of Spinoza Practical Philosophy: “it is not at all a matter of giving a privilege to the body over the mind; it is a matter of acquiring a knowledge of the powers of the body in order to discover, in parallel fashion, powers of the mind that escape consciousness.” For me, the last part is key: escaping consciousness. So rather than becoming more conscious of embodiment, I think we should strive for an “unconscious knowledge,” a self-affection of essence rather than an affect of one body on another. Thank you for raising this important topic… “
this isn’t an either or, see the work of the contemporary enactivists like:
https://froese.wordpress.com/2015/01/07/beyond-neurophenomenology-a-review-of-colombettis-the-feeling-body/