Sitting Meditation:
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part two of four |
What to do with the body: |
First you want to sit upright in a comfortable position.
Sometimes, to do that, you’ll need to put a little leverage behind the back of your coccyx or your butt. Some people can sit naturally flat on the floor very relaxed and straight. They don’t need a pillow, blanket or towel. If you do need something, position it so that it allows you to sit straight and most importantly to relax your diaphragm and stomach. For those people who are sitting in a chair, you can do the same thing. You just sit on the edge of the chair in a straight posture. Sometimes floors in meditation halls are beveled so you already have a slight incline forward. In China and Japan, many of the benches are beveled. |
The sitting postures: |
You can sit in full lotus position or half-lotus position or you can just sit in crossedlegged depending on your abilities.
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Full Lotus |
The ideal position is the yogi posture. It’s called vajrasana, vajra position, or full lotus. The following is an illustration of full-lotus posture:
The left leg goes on top of the right thigh. Right leg goes on top of the left thigh. You can all try this but don’t force it. It’s better if you have the feet pulled back up {towards your abdomen}, not towards the front {away from your abdomen}. Some people are born naturally elastic and others are born like me, not. It took me a long time to get into full lotus posture. My first years of meditation was a continual struggle to get into full-lotus position. |
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Half-lotus: |
This is just one leg under and one leg on top. If doing half-lotus, I’d advise that every other sit, reverse, so that the other leg is on top and that keeps a kind of symmetry. So, today you sit half-lotus in one way, and next time, you will sit with the other leg on top.
If you can do full-lotus, try to stay with it for the entire time you sit. If you can do half-lotus, do it for the entire time you sit. If you sit cross-legged, do it for the entire time you sit. Basically, what you’re trying to do is create a solid base. That’s why it’s called vajrasana. It’s a diamond shape. The solid base is a diamond. It’s good to have the knees touching the floor. When I started, my knees were way up. As you can see, the diamond on the bottom begins to go up to the head. If I had an illustration, you’d see the dynamics of concentration: the base coming up and the concentration going down to the center. It’s a very balanced posture. |
Aligning the torso |
Once you get the legs into position, your hips, shoulders and ears should align on the same plane. So the shoulders align with the hips and the shoulders also align with the ears in one plane so you’re sitting up straight. If you find yourself leaning forward, bent or your spine’s not straight and you’re not comfortable, then you might need to get something behind you for some leverage.
The forearms rest on top of the thighs. So, the arms are not held up, but resting on top of the thighs. This way you can relax your whole shoulders, chest, arms and neck because as soon as you hold them up, you’re straining. If they’re relaxed, all your energy just drops. The left hand is on the bottom and the right hand is on top, as illustrated: The thumbs just gently touch to complete a circuit. It’s not a special mudra. It’s just completing a circuit of energy with the hands, just natural and relaxed. Keep the mouth, especially the jaw, relaxed. Don’t clench the teeth. You don’t open your mouth. You breathe through the nose. This is very important. The eyes aren’t completely closed nor are they wide open. The way to do this is to let the lids gently close and then bring the lids open a slight bit as if raising a shade maybe a sixth up from the window. The eyes are open enough so that you can let light in; so that you can know there’s an outside environment but you can’t see anything focused clearly. The eyes gaze down in a direction off the nose. They don’t look at the nose or the nose tip. If done this way, you will be cross-eyed and get a headache. Let your eyes gaze off the nose, down an angle towards the floor. |
Physical Focus |
Here’s the contemplation you do:
The eyes look down off the nose; the nose regards the mouth; the mouth regards the center; the heart down below the navel. This exercise brings your concentration inward; down in towards what’s called the dantian. So the focus of your concentration, your attention is at about two inches below the navel and two inches in from the navel. This is called the ‘square inch’. So, you’re not thinking or concentrating between your brows, between your ears, nor are you putting your energy into your throat or your chest or your stomach but you’re dropping it down, almost to the cradle of your hips; two inches below and two inches in from the navel. That’s also the point to where your breathing drops. This is essentially the sitting posture. Once you start in this posture, you want to leave yourself in this posture for the entirety of the sit because now you’re relaxed and have just centered the body. You can leave it in this state and forget about it and focus on the mental part. Most importantly, you’re not leaning too far forward or back. You’re just straight. You’re not leaning to the right or left. When you get in this position, the most important thing is to totally relax your body. So although the scaffolding, your skeleton is in this upright, alert position, the muscles, the sinews, the tendons, the ligaments, everything is just soft and relaxed, like silk. No muscle is tense or holding. You really let go and relax. As soon as you do this and relax your diaphragm, the breathing and concentration naturally drops down. If you do this correctly, almost immediately, you’ll feel a rush of circulation because with everything relaxed, all the capillaries, pores, arteries, veins, and the channels of prana, or chi flow effortlessly, unencumbered. If you ate too much, you will find an obstruction. So, it’s always good not to eat before class. Or if you do eat, then eat to be less than eighty percent full and then it won’t be a problem. If you eat too much, then you will feel the obstruction. If you do this exercise in this way for 15-20 minutes a day, you will increase your health and well being physiologically. There have been some studies done to show that this is the case. If in addition to that, you can empty your mind of extraneous thoughts, worries and anxieties for those 15-20 minutes, you’ll not only increase your health but you’ll lengthen your life and bolster the immune system. These are all incidental by-products of meditation. These are not the main reason for doing it. It’s very important to not sit with the eyes closed. If you look at statuaries or iconographies of the Buddhas, the eyes are not completely closed but open just slightly.The reason for this is that this posture allows you to bring your mind to a focused attention that doesn’t become too drowsy or too hyper. If the eyes are closed, you’ll get drowsy and slip into a torpor like state. If the eyes are too open, then you’ll become agitated and hyper. So, having the eyes in that middle state is like a having a sail open that’s completely balanced with the wind, not too slack and not too tight and the vessel moves smoothly. It’s the same way in that meditation can take a dynamic investigative track rather than slipping into agitation or torpor. This is a very important point. |
