Meditation Series: Posture

One of the most important facets of meditation is posture. It is said the way one positions themselves during meditation greatly effects the balance between body and mind. Typically, when someone thinks of meditation they envision this pose (as I did):

This picture is courtesy of an online article, Bhuta Shuddhi an Esoteric Tantric Practice.

If you've seen a statue of the Buddha (which we all have at our favorite Chinese buffet), then this pose is easily recognizable. It is called the Vairochana Buddha or Lotus meditation posture and for all intensive purposes, as far as I'm concerned, should not be used by someone who is just beginning to meditate.

I remember the very first time I meditated. I dimmed the lights, lit a few candles; I even burned some incense to "set the mood" before sitting on my mat (which was nothing more than a comforter) and imitating the Buddha pose. Before attempting to meditate, I had taken no great lengths at all to research other meditation postures and techniques. I made up my mind, fairly early on, that I was going to do that specific pose, because that was the pose I saw all those beautiful statues doing, in all those movies, and in all those dreams where I envisioned myself in full Lotus, meditating at the peak of a mountain. I had it all so dreadfully wrong....and I found out, fairly early on, that I forgot an important fact.

Siddhartha Buddha, the "Silent Sage of the Sakyas," was a master at his craft and devoted his life to his ascetic practices. What's more, given all the postures he probably did in his lifetime, the vairochana is the one that's been most engraved in culture. Obviously, I had chosen one of the hardest poses to do as a beginner. My legs ached, my feet ached, my hands ached, my arms ached, my butt ached, and my mind "ached" from the continuous processing of how much the rest of me ached. Instead of supporting the weight of the world, which was my goal through meditating, I felt the weight of the world was crushing me and I had neither the mental conditioning or focus to ignore it. I was in agony. 

So, I went on to plan B:

This image is courtesy of an amazing ebook, Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kaat-Zin.

Now granted, meditating in a chair is perfectly ok (especially if you're older). But, as is illustrated above, the key is to remain in an alert and aware position. If you relax too much (like I did), you will fall asleep (just like I did) and sleeping is not meditation.

1. Whatever posture you choose, there must be a balance between relaxation and awareness. Don't choose a pose too hard (like I did at first) and be too aware of you're body's aches. But, also don't choose a pose too relaxed (like I did in the second example) and end up making your meditation session nap time. Eventually as time goes on, the balance will shift and harder poses will become easier as your mind becomes stronger.

For now, my suggestion (and it is only that) is the kneeling pose:

Courtesy Full Catastrophe Living

In the kneeling position, you sit with you knees folded over either a meditation bench, cushion or, as in my case, a pillow. The hands and arms are resting which isn't as much a strain as the Lotus where they aren't. This greatly helped me, because I have absolutely no arm strength and found it hard to focus when my arms weren't in a passive position. 

Once again, the above is just a suggestion. There are many different meditation postures just like there are numerous meditation styles. But, how do we distinguish a true meditation posture from just another position that is comfortable, yet entirely worthless? 

One morning...

I woke up and life was hell. We've all experienced this in one form or another. In one unexpected flash you scan over your life and realize that ten years ago this wasn't where you thought you'd be at all. Add to that the rent and mortgage is due, the job hunt continues, and everyone in your life, all at once it seems, wants you to provide the answers you still don't have. Enter the coping mechanism; and since I wasn't one to act I procrastinated, but soon realized that didn't mean problems disappeared or, worse, stopped piling one on top of the other.

That's when it dawned on me. It didn't matter what I "did." In fact, my whole level of existence was wrapped so exclusively around my actions that I didn't stop to realize that there were other forces at work. Imagine for a second that there are two canteen-less soldiers stranded in the desert looking for their base. Extreme, I know, but there's a point. Say that both soldiers come across an abandoned well that has enough water for the both of them to take a few sips. Soldier A takes his sips and notices that the sips weren't enough because his mouth is still dry. He realizes he's still in the desert, the sun is still hot on his back, and as far as his weary eyes can tell, the base is nowhere in sight. He continues to walk pissed off at his circumstances, at the scratchy sand in his boots, and at his own stupidity. Somewhere along the way he collapses, dejected and alone.

Back at the well, Soldier B takes his sips. He is thankful and understands that though he thirsts for more, he got a few more sips of water than he thought he would find in the desert. He looks around and notices all the things Soldier A noticed; that he's still in the desert, he's still hot, and he's still stranded. He continues to march forward knowing that though the water didn't help the dryness in his mouth, that his body put it somewhere of better use to get him out of his present circumstances. So, he continues. Somewhere along the way, he might have passed Soldier A's body. Eventually upon his arrival, he would have laughed darkly at the irony for Soldier A had only to walk 1/2 a mile to come across the base and his salvation.

This is a starkly melodramatic and over-exaggerated story, but it does have its moral. Both Soldier A and B performed an action (took sips of water) to help solve their problems. The only difference was their inability or ability to back up their actions with the strength of their mental focus. A less formal way of saying it would be by using a term we hear all too often: half-assed. What use is there in doing anything if our minds aren't in it as well. In fact, the energy spent downplaying our actions, in many cases, negates the good we intended to do with those actions to begin with (as in the case of Soldier A). Also, I learned, as did Soldier A, that just because I did something did not mean that the world would magically alter and my situation would change instantaneously. Soldier A sipped his water and was pissed to find that, in spite of everything he did, he was still hot and, seemingly, doomed. Enter the power of mindfulness.

What is mindfulness? It has been given many different definitions over the centuries, but the one I liked the most was from thewhiteelephant.org: the ability to be fully aware of what one is experiencing, without becoming at the same time, lost in that same experience. Soldier A understood that he was in a dire situation, but used the power of his mental focus to ward out negative, judgmental thoughts. More on judgmental thoughts later, but the goal is to reach the highest level of existence by not expending extra energies on trains of thought that are destructive and negate our actions. The world I realized is ever-changing and if its not one problem thrown at me, its another. I realized in order for me to reach some sort of stability and normalcy in my life that the stability would have to come from me. I was the one who had to be anchored. I was the one who couldn't change. I was the one, like Soldier B, who had to say yes I have some problems, but that doesn't mean I have to become one of them.