The Posture of Meditation

by Will Johnson

  Alternately, you may like to think of these emerging sensations as the manifestation of the life force. The life force wants to move through the body like a wave through water. If it becomes blocked, a sensation of pressure or pain will begin to form at the point of blockage. If you can learn to yield resiliently to this force, the body will spontaneously bring itself into a condition of alignment and relaxation and may experience an extraordinary condition of comfort, naturalness, and authenticity. Indeed, the ultimate cause of pain and suffering in the body can be directly attributed to the fearful resistance to allowing the life force to pass through the body without interference.

  The comments that have been made about the flow of sensations in the body hold equally true for the passage of thoughts in the mind. Ordinarily we identify with the contents of our minds. As a thought emerges, we hold to it and claim it as our own. Like sensations, however, the force of the mind simply wishes to pass through us. If we respond by clinging to the contents or wishing to disavow and push them away, we create blockage that ultimately will manifest as holding and tension in the body and a dulling of awareness in the mind.

  There are several different layers of thought that can be allowed to pass resiliently through the space of the mind and body just as wind moves through the branches of a tree. You do not need to hold on to any of them. The most superficial patterns of thought can be contacted as a force that wants to move through the space of the cranium and can be released through relaxing the area around the temples, the eyes, and the forehead. Deeper convictions of personal identity may be released and allowed to move through by consciously relaxing the area around the brain stem and the back of the throat. By holding and identifying with thoughts, you invite limitation into your experience and interfere with the passage of the life force just as effectively as if you were holding back on sensations.

  Resilience implies movement. The movement, however, may be extremely subtle at times and difficult to detect. There may even be times during the movement when the sensations of the body or the contents of the mind begin to close down and become highly compressed. At times like this you may feel as though you are not able to respond resiliently and to allow the sensations to move through the body or the thoughts to dissipate through the mind. If this happens, do not force anything to occur, but simply accept this apparent moment of nonmovement as another phase in the process of resilience. Patiently accept and sink deeper into the experience. Trust the process of body and mind and the posture of meditation. Over time the deep blockage will yield, and the more familiar experience of flow and movement will reestablish itself. Never force. Accept everything. Hold to nothing. Resilience may imply movement, but it ultimately refers to complete acceptance of the natural manifestation of the life force. This force is deeply organic. It is our nature. We can contain it and miss its blessing, but we can never completely control it or predict the exact manner in which it will move.

  NOTE

  1. Ch’an Master Sheng-yen, The Poetry of Enlightenment (Elmhurst, New York: Dharma Drum Publications, 1987), p. 99.

  5

  Integration

  THE POSTURE of meditation is a process in which the body initially aligns itself in the field of gravity, invites relaxation by surrendering its weight to the pull of that field, and then cultivates the conditions of alignment and relaxation through allowing the body to move and respond in subtly resilient patterns of motion. The posture of meditation is not a perfected condition which we aspire to attain and then maintain, but more like a work of art in continual progress and development. The three gestures of the posture of meditation—alignment, relaxation, and resilience—constantly influence and support one another. Alignment allows the body to relax. As the body relaxes, it becomes naturally more resilient. Over time a relaxed and resilient body will allow residues of tension and holding, at the levels of both the body and the mind, to come to the surface of awareness and resolve themselves. Through this resolution the alignment of the body will be affected in such a way that even greater relaxation and resilience may be possible. In this way the three gestures continually stimulate one another.

  Just as the contents of the mind and body are observed during meditation to be in a condition of constant flux and change, so too will the posture of meditation itself constantly shift and refine itself. As we continue to gain access to ever deeper levels of awareness, more information (in the form of tactile sensations of the body and cognitive contents of the mind) will emerge that ultimately needs to be aligned, relaxed, and resiliently responded to. There may be times during your meditation when you come to a place in which the three postural gestures feel completely integrated. This state of integration does not signify that the posture has perfected or completed itself. A condition of perfection, with its implications of correctness and finality, is antithetical to the ongoing process of meditation. More often than not, moments of postural integration simply signify that you are on the threshold of dropping into a deeper layer of meditative awareness. Once this penetration begins to occur, additional tactile and cognitive data will begin to appear, and once again you will be challenged to process through this additional information through the gestures of alignment, relaxation, and resilience. In this way both the posture of meditation and the meditative awareness it promotes become increasingly refined over time.

  Paradoxically, integration almost always signals transition and growth; it rarely denotes completion or stasis. Everything is in process, and nothing in the universe is capable of standing still. The desire to hold on to any object of experience, to maintain its status quo and render it impervious to change, is itself a cause of great suffering. Such a desire places us at odds with the universal law of change. This universal law applies as equally to our experience as human beings as it does to the appearance and dissolution of subatomic particles or the creation and destruction of entire worlds or planetary systems.

  The phases in the process of change are reflected in the Hindu conception of the three forces of creation, preservation, and dissolution. These three forces take symbolic form in the Hindu trinity of deities: Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Applied to the posture and process of meditation, this observation of universal change shows us that we must first work to create and establish the conditions of alignment, relaxation, and resilience. As we gradually let go of the physical and mental patterns of holding that interfere with the posture of meditation, a time naturally comes when the three gestures of this posture become integrated. The feeling tone of integration is extremely wholesome and joyous. Sitting in meditation, we suddenly feel as though we can sit forever, and indeed this feeling may sustain itself over a considerable period of time. Gradually, however, the integration itself allows the next deeper layer of psychophysical holding to come to the surface of awareness. When it does, the feeling of integration is dissolved as we are once again challenged to assimilate a great deal of emergent data. An alignment that is appropriate to the new emergent conditions of experience must now be created anew. This refined alignment allows deeper relaxation to occur, and our understanding of resilience will allow the relaxed state to expand and to be sustained. At some point an even further refined feeling of integration will appear. It will last as long as it is organically appropriate. Then it too will fade, and so the process continues over and over again.

  In the beginning as we work with our posture, the initial creative gesture of finding and securing a condition of alignment may prove to be the most challenging of the three stages. Once we have familiarized ourselves over time with the posture and process of meditation, the stage of dissolution may prove to be the most challenging. The posture of meditation is capable of dislodging deep psychophysical residues in the form of intensified emotional states in the mind and powerful energetic currents in the body. The manifestation of this residue is most potent during this final stage of dissolution. It is important to recognize that just as integration precedes dissolution, so too does dissolution precede entrance into a
higher dimension of experience that ultimately will be integrated.

  Balance is a function of alignment, relaxation, and resilience. When the body is balanced, nothing needs to be held on to or resisted. The force of gravity provides support for a balanced body, and the life force can pass freely through the body without interference.

  With this understanding it becomes easier to accept the periodic disorienting phases of the meditative process. During these moments the stability of alignment and the flowing quality of true relaxation may not be available or even appropriate. The ability to respond resiliently to the manifestation of this residue, however, is the most potent tool that can help you navigate these moments. Resilience in this context simply means allowance and acceptance. If powerful energetic surges are felt to build in the body, we can yield to them and allow them to pass through even if they temporarily move us into postural states that differ from our conventional understanding of alignment. If strong emotions and disturbing patterns of thought begin to emerge, we can yield to them as well. The key to working through these difficult periods is an attitude of trust and acceptance that permits the residue to come to the surface in as organic and natural a manner as possible. There is no need to stop it from emerging; nor is anything to be gained by indulging the process and attempting to make the emergent tactile sensations and patterns of thought even stronger or more prominent than they naturally are. Just to let them be is enough. Over time the body and mind will begin once again to settle, and alignment will once again reappear to bring a returned sense of stability into the practice.

  Work to create the posture. Then trust in the process that it allows to emerge. Like a twig that falls into a river with a strong current, you will unfailingly be conveyed in the direction of the goal of your practice.

  6

  Moving through Life

  AS CHALLENGING as it may seem to bring alignment, relaxation, and resilience into our formal meditation posture, it may seem even more challenging to maintain these conditions and attitudes when we stand up and leave the relative haven of our meditation seat and begin moving out into the world. And yet this is exactly what we are asked to do.

  Those of us who are householders may be able to find time for, at most, between half an hour and one or two hours of formal sitting practice a day. What, then, about the other twenty-two or twenty-three hours of the day? If we are sincere about progressing in our practice, we must recognize the importance of viewing the rest of our lives as “informal practice” and begin to bring the same calm and focused meditative awareness to all the activities of our lives, not just to the hours spent on our meditation cushions.

  To some extent we are aided in this task by a kind of spillover effect from our formal practice itself. Dedicated sitting practice inevitably yields results, and over time our lives do appear to become calmer, easier, and truer to our intentions, hopes, and highest purpose. It is unrealistic, however, to expect that our lives will be completely free from confusion, doubt, and ignorance simply because we sit in the formal posture of meditation for a short period of time every day. The posture of meditation can only be experienced now, and if we relinquish the embodiment of the posture as we go about our lives, we will be relinquishing the benefits and awarenesses that accompany that posture as well. Indeed, the fruits of meditative practice are a result of letting go of the habit patterns of the mind and the body that interfere with our clear awareness of this present moment.

  Fortunately, we needn’t leave the posture of meditation behind as we stand up from our formal sitting practice. Alignment, relaxation, and resilience can once again be our guides and companions as we move out into the world and interact with our families, colleagues, and friends. With this understanding we come to realize that meditation is something we do all the time, whether we are aware of this or not. By bringing alignment, relaxation, and resilience into our actions and movements through life, we begin to experience in our lives a benefit and change similar to what occurred when we first introduced these gestures into our formal sitting practice.

  One of the main benefits of a formal sitting practice is that we take time out from the normal routines and pace of our lives and slow down considerably. We pay attention again to the primary events of our lives, phenomena that are completely remarkable and yet that we take almost completely for granted: the action of breath, the appearance and dissolution of bodily sensations, the drama of our minds, feelings, and emotions. Only by slowing down can we observe these phenomena, and only through observing and experiencing them closely can we learn from them and allow their patterns to change if we learn that change would be beneficial to us.

  Relaxation is really the central key to the posture of meditation. Alignment can be viewed as a kind of precondition that makes relaxation possible, while resilience is the post-condition that allows relaxation to continue over time. If we begin to examine our lives with as much objectivity as possible and closely observe what we are actually doing from moment to moment, we are almost always struck by how unrelaxed we are. Many of us lead lives so filled with activities, duties, and responsibilities that we become overwhelmed and tend to shut down our awareness of bodily sensations so as not to feel the effects of the stress that inevitably builds as a result. The way we do this is to bring a great deal of tension into the body to enable us not to feel what is actually occurring. Others of us who are struggling to find a niche in life and a place to focus our energies may experience ourselves as underwhelmed. While this situation brings with it a different quality of pain and unsatisfactoriness, the preferred remedy for dealing with this pain is exactly the same as the one used for dealing with stress: by bringing tension into the body and turning our awareness away from the lived truth of this very moment we shield ourselves from having to feel what is actually going on in our lives. While these strategies may have a certain amount of short-term effectiveness, over time they can generate a great residue of tension, and real relaxation becomes very elusive indeed.

  What would happen, however, if we were simply to slow down and to begin to pay more attention to what we were actually doing in any given moment? Driving a car, cooking a meal, working in an office or factory, exercising, sitting at a computer, talking with our friends and family, mowing the lawn, playing with our children: every occasion in life presents an opportunity to explore the posture of meditation. By bringing alignment, relaxation, and resilience into all activities of our lives, we effectively transform them into situations capable of revealing to us the highest insights and understandings.

  The first thing that you may notice as you begin to observe your movements through life is how much of the time you spend lost in the inner monologue of your mind. If you pay close attention, you will also come to recognize that when your internal voice is particularly active you have very little conscious awareness of anything else that is occurring: the sensations in your body, the sounds, sights, smells, and tastes that surround and penetrate you. You will further come to realize that the unbridled momentum of the inner monologue is itself dependent on a specific bodily posture or attitude. You may only be able to come to recognize this retrospectively, because when you are lost in your mind, you really are unaware of the rest of sensory reality. (In truth, most of the time when our inner monologue is particularly active we have little awareness of the monologue as well.) In any case, as you become more sensitive and able to monitor what is actually transpiring, you will become aware that the internal monologue of the mind is dependent on a condition of explicit holding and tension in the body. This pattern of holding is almost completely opposite from the posture of meditation. The alignment of the body is compromised. There is no real relaxation and very little resilience.

  Unfortunately, it is some variation or other on this pattern of holding that passes as normal in the modern world. Is it any surprise, then, that the kinds of conscious states that deep meditation practice allows us to contact and experience are rare occurrences for most of us? What passes as no
rmal in the world at large is a kind of awakened sleep state. Much like when we walk in our sleep, we manage not to bump into things, but have little real awareness about what is actually transpiring around us. By not actively bringing the posture of meditation into our activities in life, we are simply supporting the prevailing belief that there is something taboo about the nature of human experience that manifests naturally in an aligned, relaxed, and resilient condition of embodiment.

  We bring alignment into our lives by paying attention to how the energy field of our body relates to the gravitational field of the earth. The same primary principles of verticality that governed our ability to bring the body to alignment in the formal sitting posture allow us to maintain that alignment as we move through life. If the body can efficiently organize itself around a predominantly vertical axis in any of its activities, then the field of gravity can reinforce and support the energy field of the body.

  The application of alignment is most apparent in activities such as standing, walking, or sitting. Much like the formal sitting posture, these activities allow you to organize the mass of your body around a predominantly vertical spine. How do we apply the underlying principles of alignment, however, to all the other movements we can make in which the spine is not so vertical? The simplest answer to this question comes through the recognition that alignment allows us to do things in the simplest, most efficient manner possible. When we perform any movement efficiently we are applying the principles of alignment.