by Will Johnson
Most meditation practices, their superficial differences and goals notwithstanding, attempt to reveal our identification with the internal monologue of the mind as creating a fictive, or at least a highly limiting, sense of self. Indeed we all have the same name for this aspect of experience. We call the speaker of the monologue “I.” By assuming that we are this “I,” however, we block out all awareness of deeper, more expansive, and more wholesome awarenesses of identity.
By bringing resilience into the posture of meditation, the internal monologue begins naturally to subside. To confirm this statement, you will want to watch closely to see what happens when you begin to experience subtly resilient movement passing through the whole body as you sit in a balanced and relaxed posture. The movement may be so subtle that no one would be able to detect that you are not “sitting still.” Observe the process of your mind carefully as you sit in this way. You may be surprised to find that the internal monologue does not have any stable ground on which to erect itself and project its dominant presence. This is especially true when the resilient movement is able to extend through the top of the head. At these moments the conventional sense of self begins to dissolve, and a more expanded sense of identity appears to fill the void left by the small self’s vacancy.
It may be easier to experience the breath moving resiliently through the whole body if you begin by lying down on your back on a soft surface. You may want to have a friend slowly read this section aloud to you as you lie down in this way. Rest your hands on your belly with the palms down, one on top of the other. Depending on the relative lengths of your arms and torso, one hand may completely cover the other or the fingers of one hand may barely be touching the other. Find the placement of your hands that is the most relaxed and comfortable for you.
Begin by simply observing the breath through bringing your awareness to the sensations of touch and movement. Do not feel that you need to change your pattern of breath in any way. If the pattern changes on its own, that’s fine, but do not forcibly attempt to make it conform to an image of proper breathing that you may have. Resilience is a function of allowance, not of manipulation. Simply observe the breath as it is. You will begin to notice subtle movements in the body as you breathe. Perhaps the belly can be felt to rise and fall slightly with every breath. Perhaps there is movement in the chest but not in the belly. Observe where your body naturally moves in response to the breath and where it holds still. Again, do not try to change anything about your pattern of breath. Simply observe how it is for you right now. We become aware that we are breathing through observing the movements of the body, the sensations generated by these movements, or the sensations created by the passage of air around the nose and the mouth. Keep on patiently and passively watching until the awareness of your pattern of breath becomes quite clear to you.
On the next three breaths extend the exhalation as long as possible without causing undue strain. You may wish to visualize that a friend is pressing down on your ribcage with every exhalation, helping you to expel all the gaseous waste from your body. At the very bottom of the exhalation your friend releases the pressure, and the inhalation comes flooding back into the body. After you have taken these three breaths, allow your breath once again to resume whatever pattern is natural to it. Can you remember how your pattern of breath appeared just a few minutes ago prior to this imaginary intervention? Is it different now? How is it different? Keep allowing your breath to breathe you however it wants throughout this entire exercise. From one breath to the next its pattern may change on its own. If that happens, allow it, but do not feel that you need to change it in any way for any reason.
Now bring your attention back to your hands as they rest on your belly, one on top of the other. Surrender the weight of your hands and your belly to gravity, and feel the sensations of relaxation enter into this area of your body. As you continue to breathe in this relaxed condition, you will begin to notice that your hands are not still. The movements that you can detect may be very subtle, but they are very real. As your breath causes movement in your belly, your hands can be felt to move ever so slightly in response. Perhaps they move up toward the ceiling on the inhalation and back down on the exhalation. Perhaps they slide slightly away from each other on the inhalation and back together on the exhalation. There is no “correct” way for them to move. There is only your way. Stay as relaxed and resilient as possible, and you will discover how your hands move in response to the breath. Spend a number of breaths familiarizing yourself with this movement. Is it the same from breath to breath, or does it change?
Now forcibly cause your hands to stay still. Allow no movement in this part of your body, and observe what happens elsewhere. What happens to your breath? What happens to your sensations of relaxation? What happens in your mind? Holding still in any one small part of the body generates a subtle pattern of holding that spreads to affect the whole body. Resiliently releasing holding in any one small part of the body encourages release everywhere else as well. Once again allow your hands to begin to respond to the movement of the breath, and experience how different this feels.
Bring your awareness next to your elbows as they rest on the soft, supporting surface, and allow the sensations of relaxation to extend to this part of your body as well. If your hands and arms are truly relaxed, the movement that began in the hands can now be felt to extend down the length of your forearms and will cause your elbows to move ever so slightly. The elbows may move into the surface underneath you as you inhale and rise up slightly when you exhale. They may move into or away from the body on the inhalation and reverse their movement on the exhalation. Again, do not force your elbows to move in any particular way, but simply find the movement that is true for your body.
Notice how a chain reaction of subtle movement has begun to occur in your body as a result of the generative force of the breath. As the belly rises and falls, the hands respond. The movement in the hands is then transferred along the length of the forearms to the elbows. Once you have contacted this feeling of movement in the belly, the hands, and the elbows, forcibly stop it, and once again observe what occurs when you hold still in this way. Resilient movement is the norm in a relaxed and balanced body. If that movement does not naturally occur, you are unconsciously resisting somewhere in your body. Resistance is antithetical to relaxation. Release the tension and holding in your elbows, and allow them once again to respond to the movement of the breath.
Turn your attention now to your shoulders. A great many sources of movement come together in the shoulder girdle so it is not possible to predict what will actually occur as you consciously bring resilience into this part of your body. The shoulders may move in unison or quite differently one from the other. One may rise while the other falls. One may move outward while the other spirals up and toward the ceiling. Keep trusting your body to find the resilient pattern of movement that is completely natural for it. Also recognize that over time that pattern of movement may change quite spontaneously.
After you have contacted the resilient dance that occurs in the shoulder girdle in response to the movement of breath, consciously cause it to stop. Hold the shoulders very still, and observe what begins to occur. The difference in sensation may be quite dramatic. You may find that it is difficult to breathe or that the experience of stillness is accompanied by a sensation of tension or pain that does not feel natural. See how much more shallowly you breathe when you hold the body in this way. How does stillness affect your sense of self or the activities of your mind? What effect does releasing the tension and allowing resilient movement back into the shoulders have on you?
We often hold our heads very still. In fact, stillness in the head is a virtual prerequisite for the sustenance of the internal monologue of the mind. First bring relaxation to your neck and head, and then slowly begin allowing this part of your body to respond subtly to the movement that has been generated in your hands, arms, and shoulders by the breath. You may need to reposition your head slightl
y in order to find the placement that allows it to be most comfortably relaxed. Experiment with moving your head very slightly up or down so that the back of the head rests more squarely on the surface that you are lying on and the eyes are looking directly up toward the ceiling. Feel how the head can respond to the breath, how it can be felt to expand and contract ever so slightly. It may perhaps be felt to move up and back on the inhalation and down and forward on the exhalation. The movement pattern in the head may vary significantly from person to person, so keep experimenting until you find the movement that is appropriate for you. Once you have contacted the movement that is possible, once again contrast your experience by forcibly stopping that movement from occurring. By patiently contrasting the difference between holding and yielding, you will come to know the values of resilience and the ways in which your body can naturally allow it to occur.
The movements in the lower part of the body in response to the flow of breath are even more subtle, and yet they too can be distinctly felt. The actual movement may be experienced more on an energetic level as a kind of ebbing and flowing of sensation in the pelvis, the legs, and the feet. As you learn to tune into these subtler levels of movement, they may be experienced to extend to the upper body as well. In the manner of an amoeba, the whole body can be felt to pulse, to expand and contract with each inhalation and exhalation. You may experience a pronounced shift in consciousness as you contact this amoebalike pattern of movement. Watch what happens when one part of the body inadvertently begins to tense and becomes once again stiller. How does this affect the awareness of your body, the manifestation of your mind? Perhaps you begin to notice that your attention has wandered and a stream of involuntary thought has begun to occur. See if you can allow the internal monologue to continue, and simultaneously pass your awareness through your body to find where you have unconsciously re-created tension and resistance. You can learn a great deal about yourself simply by patiently observing the process of your body and mind through focusing on the possibility for resilient movement.
Once you have familiarized yourself with the possibility of a resilient pattern of breath that can move throughout the entire length of the body, you can bring what you have learned to your formal posture of meditation. Begin by bringing alignment and relaxation into your posture, and then slowly begin to add the element of resilience as you focus on every breath you take. You may wish to repeat the previous exercise in your sitting posture. Do not, however, expect that the body will respond and move in the same way as it did when you were lying down.
The resilient motion in the spine can become quite pronounced in the sitting posture. On the inhalation the entire spine can be felt to lengthen, and the spinal curves will flatten slightly. The head can be felt to rise up and back. The movement can even be felt to extend down into the sacrum. On the exhalation the spine settles down once again, and the spinal curves reestablish themselves.
Just as you did when you were lying down, you may want to contrast your experience of resilient movement by forcibly causing the spine to become still. Bring tension and holding in turn to the area of the sacrum and the lower back, the middle and upper back, the neck and the head. Notice how the reintroduction of stillness affects your breath, your experience of balance and relaxation, the meditative process itself. You may find that holding still in one or more of these areas feels very familiar to you. If this is so, make a special effort to bring resilience into this part of your spine.
Observe how your hands, arms, and shoulders can be felt to participate in the subtly resilient movement that your breath has initiated. As you sit in meditation, the entire body can be felt to be in motion. This motion may be so subtle that no one will be able to notice that you are not “sitting still.” The motions that occur are completely natural and spontaneous motions. They cannot be induced or exaggerated to any benefit. Denying these motions, however, serves no benefit either and can be felt to seriously impede the process of meditation. Notice how relaxation is not possible unless resilience is present.
In addition to the breath there are two other major forces that can be resiliently responded to in the posture of meditation. The first of these is the force of gravity itself. Alignment, you will recall, is not a static state to be attained and then maintained. It is, rather, an ongoing process in which the small intrinsic muscles of the body are constantly making subtle and spontaneous adjustments to keep the body erect. Alignment is more of a dance than a pose. Stillness and holding can only inhibit the process of alignment and make the task of coming to balance much more difficult.
As you sit in the posture of meditation, exploring the possibilities for resilient movement, keep bringing your attention back to the experience of balance. Keep focusing on the feeling of the body as it continues to balance itself in as relaxed a condition as possible. Meditate on the relationship of the body to the gravitational field. Really feel this relationship, and see if you can continue to allow the most comfortable and relaxed condition of alignment to continue to manifest from moment to moment as the conditions of this relationship constantly shift.
You might like to review the movement exercises at the end of the chapter on alignment. In those exercises you experimented with gentle, swaying movements as you sat in the posture of meditation. Beginning with large, noticeable movements, you gradually reduced the range of motion until you came closer and closer to the imaginary vertical axis of alignment. At that point you were instructed to bring the movements to a stop as a way of pinpointing the exact location of the vertical axis. In practice, however, these slow, undulating, swaying movements never do come to a complete stop. By adding the elements of relaxation and resilience to the condition of alignment, the truly dynamic nature of the posture of meditation reveals itself. The body sways and moves around the vertical axis, but never comes to complete rest there. The motion is like a subtle jiggling or bobbing. The movements may be roughly circular or spiral in nature and are completely random. As the posture of meditation continues to refine itself, the movements become extremely subtle. They never, however, quit completely.
In addition to the breath and the force of gravity, the current of tactile sensations and the contents of the mind itself are constantly passing through the conduit of the body. If you hold back on this current for any reason, you will gradually create a condition of blockage that can only interfere with the posture of meditation. If you can learn to yield to this current, to respond to it resiliently, it will pass through you easily and comfortably without accumulating any residue or leaving any trace of its passage.
The holding and resistance that keep an imbalanced body erect also serve to keep the awareness of our deeper self contained. The complete storehouse of tactile sensations, feelings, emotions, and memories and thoughts that might be available to us becomes inaccessible. Bits and pieces may occasionally surface to remind us that much more is effectively buried and waiting to be unearthed, but the method by which we might excavate and uncover these deep contents is unclear.
The relaxation and release that the posture of meditation makes possible can bring these long-buried contents to the surface of awareness quite quickly. Often we may begin the process of meditation in a body that has little awareness of its tactile sensations. As we learn to relax through aligning the body, surrendering our weight, and then inviting the quality of resilience into our posture, this superficial awareness of numbness may rapidly begin to change. In its place a wide assortment of tactile sensations, pressures, and forces may suddenly appear. Some of the sensations may be quite neutral in tone. Others can become extremely pleasant. Still others may be very painful.
As you become increasingly aware of the tactile presence of the body, you will notice that the sensations that arise and pass away have a kind of motive force or current to them. Like almost everything else relating to the posture of meditation, they do not appear in a simple, static form, but are quite dynamic in their patterns of appearance and dissolution. Sometimes this rising
and passing away occurs extraordinarily rapidly and on an extraordinarily minute scale as individual sensations appear to shimmer like tiny lights flickering on and off. At other times a large number of individual sensations mass together as a common force or presence. These sensations may appear like the force of water in a swiftly moving stream. Held rigidly, the body will resist the current of these sensations and cause them to accumulate and become jammed. In a condition of resilience, the body can yield to the force of these sensations and allow them to pass through in whatever way they need to.
As you become increasingly aware of these sensations, simply yield to them. Allow them to move through you in whatever way they wish. You may experience mild sensations of movement, like water passing through a hose, or you may experience powerful sensations of ebbing and flow as the sensations build to a heightened intensity and then dissipate. Sometimes, after long hours of sitting, the body may be experienced to shake or tremble as these sensational flows spontaneously bring themselves to resolution. Whenever you become aware of a sensation, simply accept it, allowing it to present itself in whatever form it wishes to take. You do not need to make the sensations stronger than they are. Nor do you need to hold back on their presence.
You may like to think of these emerging sensations as the manifestation of the unconscious contents of the body and mind. Ordinarily we are quite unaware of the tactile presence of the body. In other words, we are unconscious of it. Many somatic therapists are being drawn to the notion that the location for what we call the “unconscious” is to be found in the tissues of the body itself, not just in some corner of the brain. If this is so, then as we become increasingly conscious of sensations, we are literally bringing our unconscious to the surface of awareness where it can once again be liberated and included as part of the conscious sphere of our body and mind. The body is the repository of the unconscious only so long as we remain unconscious of the body.