The Posture of Meditation Read online

  Now begin to decrease the range of your movements to the left and to the right, paying ever more attention to the subtle lightening of sensations that occurs in the center of this movement. Let the movements become smaller and smaller until they gradually come to a stop around this centermost point. This point is your vertical axis through which the force of gravity naturally flows, and it possesses a distinct, and quite recognizable, feeling tone.

  Now begin a slow, undulating, rocking movement of the spine backward and forward. Initiate this movement with the pelvis. Begin by very slowly rocking your pelvis backward so that you contact your cushion far behind the midpoint of your sitting bones. As you do this, start allowing the rest of your spine to respond naturally and accordingly. The lumbar and lower thoracic portions of your spine will shift backward in response. The upper thoracic portion of your spine, your neck, and finally your head will begin to drop forward. Explore the sensations, as well as the quality of mind, that this hyperflexed posture of collapse creates in your body. After a few seconds begin to reverse the movement. Initiate this reversal of position once again with your pelvis. As you begin slowly and sensitively to rock your pelvis as far forward as possible, your spine will begin to uncoil and come out of its collapsed position. The lumbars will move forward, the front of the chest and the neck will lengthen and expand, and the head will tilt backward as the eyes look up toward the place where the wall joins the ceiling. Be very careful not to strain. Take a few comfortable breaths in this hyperextended position, and then slowly begin reversing it again by initiating a movement backward in your pelvis.

  Continue this slow, undulating movement forward and backward several times. Let the movement be as fluid, sinuous, and coordinated as possible. Gradually begin to decrease the range of movement backward and forward. The body will become less collapsed in its forward flexed position and less extended in its backward position. As you continue to make your movements smaller and smaller, make sure that you maintain the fluidity and coordination inherent in this undulating motion. Gradually you will come to a place where the forward and backward movement effectively ceases. Pay special attention to the feeling tone in your body as you come to this place as once again you have brought your body into a much closer alignment with the imaginary vertical axis through which the force of gravity naturally flows.

  The posture of meditation is not a static position that we search to discover and then maintain. It is, rather, a deeply organic process that will naturally evolve and shift over time as your sense of balance becomes increasingly refined. As you work to bring the condition of alignment into your sitting posture, keep monitoring the ever-changing sensations of your body. They will provide the data that will help you to keep moving in the direction of ever greater alignment. Keep feeling your body as it is. From moment to moment this feeling may change. Spontaneous adjustments in posture may begin to occur. These adjustments may appear in the form of smooth or even jerky movement. Allow these adjustments. Yield to them. This is the body’s way of becoming ever more balanced as we continue to align ourselves with the force of gravity.

  3

  Relaxation

  . . . and the body relaxed.

  RELAXATION IS a function of the body’s ability to surrender its weight to the pull of gravity. If we are constantly bracing ourselves against the force of gravity, we cannot truly relax. This is why alignment is so crucial as the first step in establishing the posture of meditation. The upright structure of an aligned body, much like a tall tree or skyscraper, is both supported and stabilized by the force of gravity. Consequently there is no need for it to brace itself against anything. It can completely surrender its weight to the pull of gravity, and still it remains standing.

  If the body is not so vertically aligned, we must instead rely on muscular tension to support us. The primary purpose of this muscular tension is to counteract the downward pull of gravity. Visualize for a moment a situation in which the head is angled forward of the ideal midline of the body. The muscles of the back of the neck and upper back must constantly contract to offset the negative influence of gravity. If we were to relax these muscles, the head and neck would fall even further forward and down, and ultimately the body might topple to the ground. If, however, the head sits directly on top of an aligned body like the topmost building block in a child’s tower, the muscles of the back of the neck and upper back can relax. They do not have to exert any unnecessary muscular tension to keep the head balanced on top of the rest of the body. Within this condition of relaxation the head (and the rest of the aligned body as well) can surrender its weight to the pull of gravity without forfeiting its uprightness.

  By aligning our body with the directional flow of the gravitational field, we effectively transform the effect of gravity from a force against which we must constantly struggle and brace ourselves into a force that can provide both support and stabilization, a sea in which we can float and feel buoyed up. Gravity, then, is simply a neutral force. Depending on the structure on which it interacts, however, it may be experienced positively or negatively.

  Relaxation without alignment can only be partial at best. Alignment without relaxation creates a condition of great rigidity much like the soldier at boot camp standing tensely at attention. The standing military posture seeks to create good soldiers. By bringing a great deal of tension into his body, the soldier is effectively able to lessen the awareness of his sensations and feelings. Through limiting his awareness and impulses, he becomes much more amenable to following orders and doing the bidding of his superior officers.

  The posture of meditation, however, seeks to create the conditions in which meditative inquiry can come to fruition. While different traditions of spiritual practice will express the goal of meditation through different metaphors, all forms of practice are designed to help the student come to a deeper understanding of the nature of reality. The ultimate nature may be expressed as an awareness of Christ’s love, the discovery of one’s natural state, the attainment of the enlightened condition, or the simple ability to see things as they actually are. The primary tool that helps us in any of these undertakings is a sharply honed awareness that can be directed to examine objects of experience both inside and outside our bodies. Maintaining chronic tension in the body, however, is the most effective way in which we can block out awareness of whole levels of experience. Then, no matter how penetrating our awareness may be, there is little for it to examine. By locking our body into patterns of tension and rigidity, we become numb to our sensations and feelings. We restrict the full flow and natural expression of our breath. We fail to hear all the sounds that are happening around and inside us; the visual field can rapidly lose its sense of luminosity, color, and three-dimensionality. As we continue to lose awareness of these most primary manifestations of reality, our internal monologue builds in strength and intensity. As we listen to the often skewed and highly subjective pronouncements of this monologue, we even further remove ourselves from an objective awareness of the nature of reality.

  By relaxing through surrendering the weight of the body to the pull of gravity, we allow unnecessary tension in the body literally to fall away. As the musculature of the body continues to relax, we become much more aware of our sensations and feelings. Formerly the tension in the musculature created a kind of armoring that prevented us from fully feeling the tactile sensations in our bodies. As we relax this tension, we are often flooded by the awareness of these sensations, and we become able to experience the body as it is. The relaxation of tension also enables us to hear and see with greater clarity, and the internal monologue of the mind naturally begins to subside. As we learn to experience the components of reality (our sensations, sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and thoughts) with greater ease and precision, we naturally begin penetrating to an awareness of ever deeper levels of that reality.

  Just as the importance of posture is often overlooked in spiritual practice, so too is the ability to accept and experience the body as
it is. In many spiritual traditions the body is presented as an impediment to attainment. Attachment to, and identification with, the body are seen as one of the major obstacles to experiencing the goals of the practice. One of the unfortunate consequences of this understanding, however, has been to bring a great deal of tension and holding into the body as an unconscious strategy to break one’s attachment to the body by blocking out awareness of it. The creation of tension and holding, however, can only serve to fuel our identification with the superficial dimension of the mind that the practice is ostensibly designed to dissolve.

  On every part of the body down to the smallest cell tactile sensations can be felt to exist. Even though these sensations are almost unimaginably small in size and are appearing and dissolving with astonishing rapidity, their presence can be distinctly felt. If you hold out your hand with the palm up, allow it to relax, and focus your awareness there, you will begin to feel a mass of tingling sensations in the hand as though a current of minute vibrations is flowing through the hand. These sensations exist on every part of the body all the time, but ordinarily we are very rarely aware of them. The holding and tension in the musculature of the body effectively blocks out our awareness of this experiential dimension of our bodies. This same holding and tension then fuels the activity of the superficial level of our minds. A condition of profound relaxation can begin quite dramatically to reverse this polarity. As we become more aware of the body as a unified field of tactile sensations, the activity of our inner monologue simultaneously begins to diminish.

  By creating a condition of alignment, we can begin to relax our bodies and minds. As the feeling of relaxation expands and tension and holding are felt to fall away, we are able to penetrate to deeper and deeper levels of awareness. As we come face to face with the deepest realities of our bodies and minds, we are then challenged to let go of our conceptions or notions of identity and align our sense of self instead with the experience that our condition of alignment and relaxation have revealed. Paradoxically, the awakening of the awareness of body as a unified field of constantly changing, shimmering sensations becomes the doorway through which our conventional understanding of the body as a physical object separate and distinct from the rest of reality, an object that we then attach ourselves to and identify ourselves with, is revealed to be incorrect.

  Furthermore, the current of sensations that can be felt to flow through the body rapidly becomes a powerful source capable of dissolving physical blockages that may exist in the body and of purifying the mind of its residual patterns of limiting thoughts. The twentieth-century Burmese meditation teacher U Ba Khin spoke of this force as nibbana dhatu, a force capable of cleansing the body and mind of blockage and impurity and revealing the awareness of the enlightened state in its place. Through entering into a profound process of relaxation the meditator is able to kindle an awareness of the whole body as a field of tactile sensations. These sensations, then, can be experienced to form a current or force. It is as though the physical body becomes a conduit or a position in space through which the current of sensations, the life force of the body, flows. It is not technically accurate to say that this force flows through the body because it also is the body. A body that can align itself with gravity and then relax through surrendering its weight to the pull of gravity activates an awareness of its tactile, sensational presence. This presence, then, becomes a force that itself can purify the body and mind and reveal the meditative awarenesses that are the goal of the practice.

  If the conditions of alignment and relaxation are not brought into the posture of meditation, this process of purification will still occur, but it will do so very much more slowly. A sandstone boulder that falls into a river will gradually be dissolved by the action of the water that passes over and around it. Imagine, however, that there is a logjam just downstream from where the boulder has settled. The water will be moving very slowly in this area of the river. The slower the current moves, however, the softer will be the abrasive action of the water on the sandstone boulder. If the logjam can be cleared and the current of the river increased, the abrasive action of the water on the sandstone boulder will increase dramatically, and the boulder will dissolve much more quickly. In much the same way the posture of meditation is able to generate a pronounced, catalytic effect on the process of meditation. The key to this acceleration is relaxation. Alignment is only important in so far as it allows us to surrender the weight of the body to the pull of gravity and experience the feeling of relaxation.

  To relax in this way is to reestablish your connection with the earth. Through real relaxation the energy field of the body merges compatibly and harmoniously into the greater gravitational energy field of the earth. Relaxation, then, is synonymous with grounding. True grounding occurs not just through feeling the connection between the feet and the ground, but rather through feeling the whole body as a unified field of sensation surrendering its weight to the gravitational pull underneath its feet.

  Many years ago a young meditation student attended a weekend retreat at a recently opened Tibetan dharma center. The student arrived not only with an assortment of pillows on which to sit, but with pencils and paper with which to write down what he assumed would be highly complex and esoteric meditation instructions. Imagine his profound surprise when, after assuming a sitting posture, the whole of the instructions to follow consisted of one word alone: relax. That one word was repeated again and again over the entire weekend, and no other instructions were given.

  It may be easier to contact the experience of surrendering the weight of your body to the pull of gravity if you begin by lying down on your back. You may lie on the floor, on a mat or bed, or on the ground. Begin by simply resting. Take at least a minute to let your body settle down onto the surface that supports it, and allow your breath to breathe you in whatever pattern it naturally assumes. Do not forcibly try to change anything: your pattern of breath, your level of relaxation, the sensations you may be experiencing. If these change on their own, simply allow that change to occur, but do not feel that you need to change anything about your experience. Relaxation occurs through allowance, a literal giving in to forces that are much more powerful than you. Forcing relaxation to occur is a contradiction in terms.

  Gently move your attention to your right foot, and simply allow whatever tension or holding you find in your right foot to let go and relax. Feel how your right foot can surrender itself to gravity. Feel what happens as you allow this surrender to occur. Take however much time you need. As you let go of residual tension through surrendering a part of the body to gravity, you will experience an immediate shift in the nature of the tactile sensations in that part of the body. Once that shift has occurred, you can move your awareness to a different part.

  Move your attention in turn to your right lower leg, your right upper leg, your left foot, your left lower leg, your left upper leg. Feel how each part of the body that you are focusing on can be experienced to let go and release subtle tension as you surrender that part to the omnipresent pull of gravity. Observe the difference in the tactile sensations of each part of the lower body after you have allowed this surrender to occur.

  Continue moving your awareness up the body. Feel the entire basin of the pelvis soften and let go, the abdomen and lower back, the chest and upper back. Move your attention to the right shoulder, the right upper arm, the right lower arm, the right hand. Once you have experienced a distinct shift in sensations, turn your attention to your left shoulder, upper and lower arm, and hand. Feel the throat and the neck surrender to gravity. Feel each part of the body as though it were an object that a child was holding in her hand and simply released. Feel the face and the head let go in the same way.

  Acknowledge how different the body feels in this relaxed state. The breath may have shifted on its own. The activity of the mind may also have slowed down significantly. Move your awareness briefly through your body a second time. Can you allow the individual body parts to release even further?
In a condition of complete surrender the mind may stop completely. Notice what has happened in the body when the thought process resumes again. Inevitably the resumption of involuntary thought is accompanied by the reappearance of tension and resistance to gravity in some part of the body as well.

  In this very relaxed state you will be much more aware of the whole body as a unified field of tactile sensations. These sensations may be very noticeable or extremely subtle, a scarcely detectable shimmer. As you experience the whole body as a surrendered unit, notice how these sensations form a kind of active current or force that appears to pass through you from top to bottom and back again. Visualize the physical body as a completely relaxed, hollow bamboo tube through which the energy of your life force can freely and organically move and circulate in whatever pattern is appropriate to it at that moment. Notice how this life force can be felt to ebb and flow, how it builds one moment and subsides the next in a random pattern of manifestation that is deeply organic and unpredictable. Feel how the perimeter of the channel in which this current flows is not just limited to the surface of your physical body, but that it can actually be felt to radiate out from the physical body. Keep surrendering the weight of the body to gravity, accepting whatever states of awareness and consciousness naturally occur as you allow this process to continue.

  After spending some time lying down, familiarizing yourself with the feeling and process of relaxation, you may want to come up to sitting. Assume your formal posture of meditation, and begin by bringing a condition of alignment into your posture through exploring the exercises at the end of the previous chapter. Once you have experienced the maximum amount of alignment available to you at this time, turn your attention back to the process of relaxation. The alignment of your body will allow you to surrender your weight to the pull of gravity quite freely without toppling over, so begin to relax and let go as fully as possible.