How can posture benefit meditation?

[Michael David]

Starting with a mound of Jello tap it with your finger. Notice that the entire mount of Jello responds and wiggles. From science class recall the experiment where you moved a magnet up and back through a coil of wire producing the flow of an electric current. The magnet’s moving magnetic field (like the poking of the Jello) pushes (moves) every electron in the coil of wire. When you breath in the movement of the diaphragm abdomen and chest push against the body and every cell (like every part of the mound of Jello) moves. So what!!

The body mind continuum is made up of multiple layers or sheaths which all interact with each other. Like a seesaw when you push one end down the other end goes up (even if they are different lengths or move different amounts). When your mind settles in meditation there is a concurrent reaction in the body. If the body is unsettled it hinders the settling of the mind. When the posture, mind and breath are all settling at the same time there is a balance and deeper meditation.

Meditation may be thought of as a balance between two tensions. A meditation on the now may be a balance between the two tensions of the past and future. Meditation may be thought of as a balance between being too alert and too lethargic. Posture may be used to be a balance between the tensions of alert and lethargic.

Will Johnson in his wonderful book titled Yoga Of The MahaMudra describes the posture of meditation as sitting as tall as you can and being as relaxed as you can at the same time. It is not as strange as it seems. Start by sitting upright with a straight back. Sit tall and erect but not stiff. Like a palm tree rather than a rigid flag pole. Allow all the muscles that are not needed to hold you up be as relaxed as you can allow them to be.

For a few moments flow up and back between tall and relaxed in varying degrees of both and find the balanced posture that allows you, for this meditation session, to sit as tall as you can and as relaxed as you can.

As the breathing settles the mind and the posture settles the body other sheaths come into play. The visual or mind’s eye starts to intersect with the settling and images or impressions which represent the settling come into awareness. Such as an imaging of the water moving up and down along a still post in the water as the ocean rises and falls with each wave as this motion becomes timed to the breath going in and out. Feeling the breath rising and falling along with the image of the ocean rising and falling. The body filling with air and emptying of air with each breath in time to the rising and falling of the image of the ocean on the stationary post.

The posture, breath, images, sense of expansiveness are all related and intertwined as the action of every breath moves through all the sheaths and each point of the body as the shimmering Jello or the magnetic filed moving through the coil of wire. The whole body/mind responds to the movement created by the rising and falling of each breath. In the same way the movement of the air around the body affects everything it comes into contact with as everything is interconnected.

The more settling that occurs the more awareness of this interconnection and the deeper the meditation.

How do you sit?
Does your posture change during meditation?
What else aids your meditation?

Michael

[Karmoh]

Hi Michael,

Another wonderful unique visual explanation

How do you sit?
Does your posture change during meditation?

I sit Burmese style with the traditional Zafu & Zabuton, I can remain in that position, as long as required, 40mins, 1hr 2hrs + without any discomfort.

What else aids your meditation?

Just little ol' me and a warm blanket.

Peace

[Bryan555]

Thank you, Michael. for raising this topic. I have a posture "problem" that you might be able to solve.

I am aware of the 'tall but relaxed' guideline, and follow it effortlessly these days. The problem comes when I reach a deep meditative state: my head drops forward. Not onto my chest, but down quite a bit.

Of course, I am way "under" at that time, so have no direct control of my body. Nor, really, do I want any. I mean, that's why I meditate, to reach a deep place quite beyond the reach of my physical life.

Anyway, when my head drops, I become aware of it, as a kind of peripheral problem. I sort of "ask" my head to rise, and it does...quite gracefully. But it eventually falls down again.

I wonder if this is really a problem, at all? Should I, perhaps, just accept the head movement as a signal that I've reached a deep state, and let it happen? That would elminate the "irritant" inside my meditation. I'm just worried that it's not a very productive position...in the long run.

Anyway, all help and opinion will be gratefully accepted.

By the way, Karmoh: "I sit Burmese style with the traditional Zafu & Zabuton". Hmmm. Well, I do know where Burma is. Have been there, in fact. The rest...perhaps you could explain? I myself, at this point in my life, do not possess a "zabuton". Zafu, either.

[Michael David]

Hi Bryan

Probably there is not one clear answer to your question and I can only respond with some thoughts that you might consider.

What are the characteristics of the deep meditative state that you reach?
How do you know that you are there?

You wrote that you are beyond the reach of your physical life but at the same time become aware of your head dropping and perceive that as a problem. Your choice of word to describe this as a problem makes it seem that your intuitive sense is wanting your head to not drop.

You have also written that you have started with a balanced "tall but relaxed guideline." Possibly as you move into a deeper state your body starts to relax more than your intention of maintaining an as tall as you can position. And the head dropping may be similar to lights or other phenomenum that occur during meditation that tend to become a side road or detour to going "deeper." Or that you are just becoming too relaxed. You might try to sit even taller and more relaxed just as you atart to become aware of shifting into the beginning of that deeper state before you notice your head has dropped. I am curious as to the result of this if you care to try it.

My experience has been that when I become aware that I am shifting into a deeper state I start to lose the sense of a "conatiner" and have sometimes drifted off into space. At other times when I "catch" the beginning of this shift I hold the container (like the frame a dancer holds in front of them) of sitting tall and relaxed. I focus on really the detail of how can I sit taller and taller and then focus on letting everything else drop and relax around the tallness. For me this seems to hold the balance between the two tensions and I go deeper into the meditation without going off into space.

By container I mean something that supports something else. A straight man supports a comic and is the container, the straight common sense thought that allows the comic to be funny. For a high jumper to jump he needs a solid floor to push off from. The depth of meditation (for me) uses a container to hold to, like a meditation life line, that senses "wherever this meditation is going if I hold awareness of the breath and or sitting tall and being relaxed as one pole, the other pole of the meditation is free to "get blown with the wind."

Sometimes this stage, of the container, is like a portal that if I pass through opens to a wider expansive meditation. So for me holding on allows me to really let go.

I hope this has been of some help for your posture concerns.

Michael

[Bryan555]

Well, thanks Michael. There is certainly lots to ponder in your post.

First, a quick clarification. When I said that I get "beyond the physical", I meant that I no longer have direct control of my body. Also its sensations change: example, though I know my hands are folded together, they cannot feel each other.

So, I am aware of my head dropping, in a peripheral sense, but no longer have control over it. I have to "ask" my head to rise. And, after a brief pause, it does, slowly and gracefully -- but kind of like something "unto itself", which isn't fully attached to me.

These things are hard to describe, in words, as you obviously realize.

Anyway, since my last post, I tried something new. I basically "asked" my head not to drop, when I was in the early stages of "losing contact" with it. This seems to have worked. Though, as you also know, sometimes just discussing a problem on this board somehow changes it. Our mind, body and spirit are all connected...and all fully aware of this discussion. So, who knows what actually happened?

In the meantime, I'm very interested in your "container" concept. It is a bit hard to grasp the idea that "holding on allows me to really let go". But I do think I see where you are coming from.

Everyone's meditation is as individual as their fingerprints, it seems. Still, it is useful, and fascinating, to hear the inner workings of someone else's sitting.

Thanks again....

[Karmoh]

Originally Posted by Bryan555

By the way, Karmoh: "I sit Burmese style with the traditional Zafu & Zabuton". Hmmm. Well, I do know where Burma is. Have been there, in fact. The rest...perhaps you could explain? I myself, at this point in my life, do not possess a "zabuton". Zafu, either.

Hi Bryan,

When I started meditation I was in the belief that if I couldn’t sit on the floor cross legged I wasn’t going to meditate. After many false starts and frustration I found this site Zen Mountain Monastery: Zen Meditation Instructions that explained a few things. I think the Zafu and Zabuton originated in Zen

First I brought a good quality Zafu cushion which is a small hard round cushion and a Zabuton the sitting mat which the Zafu is placed on. You don’t have to buy these you can improvise with good hard-foam and a folded blanket. I then went to a store and brought two hard foam wedges.

I picked a quiet spot in the house and declared it as my own country and set up a meditation area.

I sat on the cushion (Zafu) on the mat (Zabuton), where my knees couldn’t touch the floor, I wedged under the foam wedges. I then covered my lower half with a blanket and began to meditate. The transformation was gradual. To cut a long journey short. As my posture relaxed so did my back and legs, the wedges got smaller and the sessions longer. Within a one year I was sitting Burmese style with just the Zafu & Zabuton, I can remain in that position, as long as required, 40mins, 1hr, 2hrs + without any discomfort.

I do believe that it benefits my meditation, as I’m solid like a tripod, although I don’t advocate doing this, but if you want to sit crossed legged this is by far the easiest to do, with little discomfort....after a while


Peace

[Bryan555]

Hi guys....Can I ask a quick question?

What do you think about the position of hands? I've recently changed mine, to get more stability, and have had some really odd results.

I used to clasp my hands gently in my lap, just to get them out of the way, so to speak. But a few days ago, I decided to go "Buddha statue style": with the hands lying face-up, on each thigh, fingers touching in an 'O' shape.

Here's the bizarre part. When they were clasped together, I would feel -- about 30 minutes into the meditation -- that they were actually wide apart. Now, well, I suppose you guessed it. About 30 minutes into the meditation, I become 100% sure that they are touching. I mean, I can absolutely feel that they are touching.

And when I "come awake", they are resting politely on my thighs, 7-8 inches apart. This morning, I was quite shocked. It just seemed impossible that they could still be where I left them.

You guys are such experienced meditators, so I can't help but ask: Does this happen a lot? What on earth is the explanation?

Much thanks...

[Michael David]

Hi Bryan

Falling heads and now changing hands what's next? Glad to see your openness to new experiences of body awareness. Although there is a tendency to try to "escape" the body in meditation we are intimately connected to it. Posture and especially hand positions might be considered as the wing tip adjustments that birds make during flight. (Described beautifully in Johnathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach).

Currently I am mostly resting my hands on my thighs with the hand facing up. I have the tip of the thumb lightly touching the tip of the ring finger. For me this mudra (see note below) represents the principle of the earth.

I posted this poem a few weeks ago, it seems timely for a reread.

ISLANDS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Mind is an island
Soaking into body and earth
Flowing throughout thoughts and sky
Joining with space which holds all and heaven


Consciousness is an island
Anchored in God
Surrounded by an ocean of thought





As sitting mountain pose is held
Go through the island of mind into body/mind/awareness
Bring your arms down touching earth
Joining self to Oneness





Now answer this question
If you think about sinking into the earth
What is holding you up?

Mudras as described by Richard Miller founder of iRest

By Richard C. Miller PhD
Mudras (Sanskrit: energetic gestures or seals) are precise ways of holding the hands, fingers, tongue and/or body to represent specific acts of offering, saluting or understanding as well as to produce specific energetic effects in the mind and body.

They influence the way we experience our body, breath and energy during daily activity as well as in acts of ritual, dance, movement, art, prayer and blessing and in meditation.

Mudras are also used in healing as they focus the body's energetic forces, breath and mind to specific areas in very precise ways.

Michael

[Bryan555]

Wow, Michael, thanks for the info on mudras. I looked it up on Google, and it opens up some fascinating options for meditation.

But before searching, I did a meditation with the fingers as you suggested: tip of thumb lightly touching the ring finger. The response was wonderful: a very clear, vibrating "magnetism" between the hands...which, yes, became "one" again. But were sitting innocently in their original spots when I awoke.

Last quick question: Do you have any opinion or info, on whether it is better for the thumb to touch the index, or ring, finger? Seem to have different effects.

Anyway, huge thanks, again. I can see that this "problem" is certainly no problem at all.

[Michael David]

Originally Posted by Bryan555

Wow, Michael, thanks for the info on mudras. I looked it up on Google, and it opens up some fascinating options for meditation.

But before searching, I did a meditation with the fingers as you suggested: tip of thumb lightly touching the ring finger. The response was wonderful: a very clear, vibrating "magnetism" between the hands...which, yes, became "one" again. But were sitting innocently in their original spots when I awoke.

Last quick question: Do you have any opinion or info, on whether it is better for the thumb to touch the index, or ring, finger? Seem to have different effects.

Anyway, huge thanks, again. I can see that this "problem" is certainly no problem at all.

Hi Bryan

I would describe the mudras as being different than each other rather than one being better than the other. Although they are reported to have differing effects; so it seems that as your intention changes the muda you might use would also change.

Lightly touching the thumb and finger tip and keeping the other fingers straight is called shraddha prana kriya mudra . Slows respiration and brings attention into the front brain centers.

Link to article in Yoga Journal:
Yoga Journal - Google Books

Michael