ALIGNMENT
Sit with the back straight…
Any child who enjoys playing with building blocks understands the principles and importance of alignment. If the blocks are placed one directly on top of the other, the pile remains standing. If the blocks do not bear this vertical relationship to one another, the pile falls over.
These very same principles of alignment determine the degree of balance available to a human body. The building blocks of the human body are the major bodily segments: the feet, the lower legs, the upper legs, the pelvis, the abdomen and lower back, the chest and upper back, the shoulders and arms, the neck, and finally, the head. If these segments can be stacked one directly on top of another, that body will be able to stand in a balanced way. A balanced posture requires very little effort to sustain and allows the major muscles of the body to relax. This relatively small expenditure of energy, coupled with the phenomenon of relaxation, produces a distinct feeling tone of softness, ease, and vibratory flow. It also generates a natural condition of alert awareness. This dual condition of comfort in the body and relaxed alertness in the mind is the fruit of balance.
If the major bodily segments are not comfortably stacked one directly on top of the other, the body (unlike the child’s blocks) won’t topple over, but it will have to compensate for its lack of alignment by exerting constant muscular tension to offset the force of gravity. This constant tension generates a feeling tone in the body of hardening, numbness, and pain. It clouds the mind and makes it difficult to remain focused or alert with any kind of ease.
The exact same force provides support for the balanced body and withholds it from the imbalanced body. That force is the gravitational field of the earth. The force of this field always flows through the vertical.* Even though the primary function of this most powerful of planetary forces is to draw objects to its source (the center of the earth), it also provides support or buoyancy to any structure that’s able to conform its shape to the precisely vertical direction of its influence.
Think for a moment of the giant sequoia trees, the gothic spires of Chartres Cathedral, the Eiffel Tower, or the Empire State Building. The tallest trees (nature’s oldest living entities) and our tallest buildings are able to reach heights that would not be possible if their structures weren’t so vertically aligned. The force of gravity supports them by securing their stability. Now think of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Slowly but surely over the centuries it has continued to lose height, tilting ever more precariously toward its side. In the human body we call this gradual loss of height (and the dulling of mental alertness that all too commonly accompanies it) old age. Is it not possible that there exists a direct correlation between these marks of aging and the fact that a body may never have been fully and successfully able to align itself in such a way as to experience the supporting function of the gravitational field? Verticality is the sweet spot that transforms gravity from a force against which you have to brace yourself into a force that buoys you up.
If we can find this delicate spot in which the uprightness of the body comes into alignment with the verticality of gravitational energy, then we experience a natural quality of buoyancy and a feeling of being literally uplifted. If we cannot synchronize the energy field of the body with the vertical flow of gravity, then life can become an exhausting struggle simply to remain erect.
The ability to align the upright structure of the body with the directional flow of gravitational energy is the primary requirement in securing the posture of meditation, and its importance cannot be overemphasized. Our first task, then, is to create a structural situation in which gravity supports our bodies and meditative efforts. This task corresponds to the initial instructions to “sit with the back straight.”
Three major structural relationships promote a natural condition of alignment in the posture of meditation. Each relationship builds on the previous one. First of all, the pelvis must be elevated slightly higher than the knees. This allows the pelvis to tip slightly forward so that the weight of the upper body can rest directly above, or even a bit in front of, the sitting bones of the pelvis. The securing of these first two relationships creates a highly stable base of support above which the upper body can balance. Situated atop such a stable foundation, the upper body can come to a relatively effortless condition of balance as it straightens naturally. The right and left sides of the upper body become approximately symmetrical, while the pelvis, abdomen and lower back, chest and upper back, shoulders, neck, and head stack up one on top of the other just like the child’s building blocks.
It may be easier to appreciate just how important these three structural configurations actually are by examining what happens in the body when these relationships don’t exist. Sit for a moment on the floor or in a chair in such a way that your knees are substantially higher than your pelvis. If you let yourself relax in this position, you’ll notice that your pelvis begins to rock backward over and behind the fulcrum point of your two sitting bones. As your pelvis tips backward in this way, your lower spine begins to shift backward as well. As the lumbar region of your spine moves backward, opposite to its natural curvature, your upper body has no choice but to begin to arc forward in compensation. If you now examine your upper body, you’ll observe a situation in which the back has become overly elongated while the front has become compressed and shortened. The upper body no longer looks like a straight, vertical line. It more closely resembles the letter C. There’s simply no way for the force of gravity to flow harmoniously through the curvature that has been created by this structural configuration. The result is a body that’s not only at odds with gravity but also compresses the abdominal viscera and depresses the chest. The compression of the internal abdominal organs doesn’t allow them to function optimally. The compression of the chest significantly inhibits the cycle of breath. The free flow of energy is seriously compromised in such a body. Such a configuration of structure is the somatic equivalent of a knotted garden hose, which seriously impedes the flow of water through it.
You’ll need to bring a subtle, yet significant and constant, amount of tension into the musculature of the body simply to maintain this position. While the degree of holding may be more prominent and acute in some parts of the body than in others, the overall pattern of holding subtly affects the whole body (Figure 1).
Figure 1: If the knees are higher than the sitting bones, the pelvis and lumbar spine must shift backward, and the upper torso assumes a posture of collapse. Like a knotted garden hose that obstructs the passage of water flowing through it, a collapsed body is unable to allow the life force to move freely through its length. Obstruction to the free and unimpeded passage of the life force causes the energy of the body and mind to alternate between periods of sluggishness and agitation.
The posture of collapse may at first appear to be relaxed, but in actuality it isn’t. Within this posture you constantly have to brace yourself to offset the pull of gravity. If you were truly to relax and surrender the weight of your body to gravity rather than brace yourself against it, you might become more compressed and collapsed, crumble even farther forward until your head was hanging virtually in your lap, or fall backward. In any case, you can’t relax in this posture and maintain your uprightness.
When we don’t experience the force of gravity as a source of support, we must brace and hold ourselves against it. Holding in the body very directly creates holding in the mind. Such holding restricts the function of the mind to its most superficial dimensions and will often manifest as an ongoing internal monologue that comments on everything that passes before it and indulges in fantasies about the past and future. The sense of self that accompanies this dimension of the mind will view itself as an entity named “I” separate and distinct from the rest of the world, which it fearfully views as being other than itself and a threat to its existence. Much like a cloud that hides the warming brilliance of the sun, this superficial dimension of the mind effectively conceals the mind’s deeper possibilities. It is the superficiality of this most conventional dimension of mind, as well as the deeper possibilities that exist beneath this dimension, that the process of meditation works to expose and reveal.
All of these difficulties with the posture of collapse began by elevating the knees higher than the pelvis. Let’s see what begins to happen when this relative positioning is reversed. You may choose once again to sit cross-legged on the floor or in a chair. This time, however, place enough firm, supporting cushions underneath your pelvis to ensure that it is higher than your knees. In this position the top of your pelvis naturally comes a bit forward. Your cushions will now contact the very bottom of your sitting bones, or you may find that your point of contact is even a bit in front of the bottom of those bones.
As your pelvis tips forward, it brings your lumbar spine forward with it. This is the natural position for the lumbar spine to assume. The thoracic portion of your spine is then able to assume its natural slight curvature backward. The cervical portion of your spine comes slightly forward, and the head is able to balance quite effortlessly on top of it all. When teachers of meditation speak of sitting with the spine straight, they don’t mean that these natural curves should be flattened. These slight curves occur at the approximate points where several of the major energy centers or chakras have traditionally been cited as being positioned. When these curves are comfortably situated, the body can begin to relax, and through this relaxation, these centers can naturally begin to open and blossom.
When the sacral, lumbar, thoracic, and cervical regions of the spine are able to assume the slight curvature natural to them, the upper body becomes vertical and upright. The right and left sides of the body appear to hang symmetrically off of the vertical axis that has been established in the very center of the torso. The length of the front of the body appropriately matches the length of the back. Maximum space is created in the belly for the internal abdominal organs to settle comfortably. Restrictions to the immediate structures involved in the action of breathing are minimized as well (Figure 2).
Just as the tallest trees and skyscrapers appear to stand effortlessly, so too can the sitting meditator experience a place of calm and stability through bringing the body into vertical alignment in this way. Because the verticality of structures is supported by the force of gravity, over time the meditator will come to realize how comfortable this posture feels. It’s important to stress that the posture of meditation is not a contrived or contorted positioning of the body whose purpose is to generate unusual insights or states of consciousness. On the contrary, once we’re comfortably able to find and assume this posture and begin to experience the buoyant support of gravity, a distinct feeling tone of naturalness and authenticity begins to appear. We begin to realize that the posture of meditation reveals not some extraordinary condition of the body and mind but rather the natural state that’s available to us as our birthright. By aligning the body with the vertical flow of the force of gravity, we begin quite literally to experience the support of the larger universe of which we’re but a small part.
Alignment that conforms to the directional flow of gravity has a distinct feeling tone of rightness to it. This feeling tone, or lack of it, becomes our primary guide as we attempt to find this place of alignment and bring it into our sitting posture. If we sit in front of a mirror and consciously manipulate the various parts of the body to conform to the vertical, we may unwittingly bring more tension into our sitting posture. This is like attempting to superimpose alignment onto the structure of the body from the outside in. If, however, we simply generate the three primary gestures of alignment (the pelvis higher than the knees; the very bottom, or even a place just in front of the very bottom, of the sitting bones contacting the cushion; the upper torso balancing itself as effortlessly as possible over the stable base of support created by the first two gestures) and then allow the body to make whatever adjustments in posture spontaneously occur, the feeling tone of alignment gradually and inevitably begins to emerge. Paying more attention to the feeling tone of alignment rather than to its spatial coordinates allows us to align ourselves with gravity from the inside out.
Figure 2: By establishing a stable base of support, the body naturally comes into alignment with the directional flow of gravity. Once alignment has been established, the body can begin to become relaxed and resilient. The deeply purifying process of meditation has no choice but to begin.
Because every body is unique, there can be no specific rules as to how much higher the pelvis should be than the knees. You will need to experiment with different thicknesses of supporting cushions (or heights of kneeling benches or chairs) until you find the combination that’s appropriate for your body. Over time, as the posture of your meditation continues to refine itself, this combination may have to be adjusted. Stay sensitive to the feeling tones of balance. They’ll provide you with continuous information that will allow you to determine whether or not your body is continuing to move in the direction of alignment.
The three primary gestures of alignment apply equally whether you’re sitting on a kneeling bench, in a chair, or cross-legged on the floor. If the tradition of practice to which you are drawn so allows, experiment with different ways of sitting. To sit in the traditional cross-legged posture, you will want a thick supporting foam mat (traditional zabutons filled with kapok all too often over time become pancake thin) to ease the strain you might otherwise feel in your knees and ankles in addition to the individual cushions to raise the height of your pelvis. How you cross your legs depends largely on the degree of flexibility in your ankle, knee, and hip joints as well as on the length of your upper and lower legs. If you have a great deal of natural flexibility, the traditional full Lotus Pose, in which your legs cross each other and your feet rest on the top of the opposite thigh, may be very comfortable and stable. If this isn’t comfortable (and for a majority of people it won’t be), there’s no need to force your legs into this position. You may choose instead to cross one leg loosely over the other or sit with one leg in front of the other. The ability to sit in full Lotus doesn’t in itself confer any status of attainment. It’s more a function of body mechanics than anything else. Again, pay most attention to the feeling tones in your body. Find the cross-legged position that’s the most comfortable for you to assume. The position that you find will be different from the position your neighbor finds.
Almost inevitably you’ll discover that it’s much easier to cross one leg over the other rather than the other way around. For example, you may be quite comfortable with your right leg crossed loosely over your left but find that reversing the position and crossing your left over your right is significantly less comfortable and may even distort the alignment of your upper body. If this is the case, it is quite important that you change the placement of your legs (right over left, left over right) from one sitting to the next. In the beginning spend much less time in the less comfortable position, but over time keep working with both until your body has adjusted itself and released some of its holding and you can sit equally comfortably with your legs crossed either way. A time may even come when the formerly uncomfortable positioning of the legs can actually become more stable than the initially more comfortable placement. In this way the sitting posture helps us release the structural imbalances that exist in the body. As the body becomes more naturally balanced, it becomes much easier to maintain the posture of meditation not only in the formal sitting posture but as we move through life as well.
The placement of the hands in the formal posture of meditation is best determined not by any specific rule, but by the relationship between the lengths of the arms and the torso. Again, this will be different for everyone. Cupping one hand loosely in the other and resting them both on the lap may be comfortable for those whose arms are quite long relative to the length of their torso, but not nearly so comfortable for someone with a long torso and relatively short arms. Some people will find placing the hands lightly on the knees much more comfortable than will other people. Again, the key is comfort. Experiment with different placements until you find the positioning that’s the most comfortable for your body. In the upright human form, arms are designed to hang, completely surrendered to the pull of gravity. Any placement of the arms within the formal posture of meditation that inhibits this surrender will cause holding or tightening through the shoulder girdle and consequent interference with the free flow of breath and energy through the body.
Establishing alignment through synchronizing the structure of the upright torso with the directional flow of the force of gravity is the first key in establishing the posture of meditation. It is the foundation on which the next two keys—relaxation and resilience—ultimately rest and depend. If we do not first bring our awareness to establishing alignment in our sitting posture, our ability to relax and be resilient in that posture will be significantly compromised.
Shortly before the Buddha experienced his enlightenment, he met a grass cutter who gave him a bushel of straw with which to make his meditation seat more comfortable. It’s reported that the Buddha graciously accepted this gift, arranged his seat, and renewed his efforts. A bushel of straw on which to sit may not seem like much to us, accustomed as we are to the ready availability of high-density foams or natural-fiber cushions. Twenty-five hundred years ago, however, a bushel of straw probably represented a significant gift. It’s tempting to imagine that the Buddha was able to craft the straw into a supporting cushion that not only provided greater comfort but, even more important, also raised his pelvis to a higher elevation than his knees, allowing his upper body to align itself much more comfortably with the directional flow of gravity. It was not long after receiving this gift that the Buddha’s long search and inquiry experienced a final acceleration that would culminate in his full enlightenment.
A PRACTICE
Organizing Around the Vertical Axis
To bring alignment into our sitting posture, we need to organize the mass of the upper body as economically as possible around an imaginary vertical axis that runs through the center of the torso. This vertical axis is imaginary in that it doesn’t correspond to any specific anatomical structure; it does, however, correspond precisely to the directional flow of the force of gravity. By efficiently organizing the body around this axis, we create a situation in which gravity is able to reinforce the uprightness of our posture. Any major structural deviations, either to the right or the left of this axis, or in front of or behind it, will present gravity with a mass on which it must exert its pull and influence. We will then have to brace ourselves against this pull and compromise the degree of relaxation and resilience that alignment otherwise makes possible. The purpose of creating alignment is to create a situation in which gravity can work for us rather than against us. As we begin to experience gravity as a source of support, we will come to realize that this support is not just experienced as a mechanical function. A profound process of healing, at the levels of both the body and the mind, spontaneously begins to occur for the person who is able to synchronize the alignment of the body with the directional flow of gravity.
Begin by sitting in your customary meditation posture. You may be sitting cross-legged on the floor, on a kneeling bench, or in a chair. If you choose to sit on a chair, sit well to the front and don’t lean against the back. Examine the sensations in your body generated by your posture. How comfortable and supported do you feel in your posture? Are there parts of your body that feel as though they have to tense and brace themselves, to hold on to maintain the uprightness of your posture and to prevent your falling over? See if you can locate and identify these places if they do, in fact, exist. Over time we become accustomed to the holding and tension in our bodies. We experience them as normal. Examine some of these places calmly and slowly. See if you can detect the holding you can feel exists there. Can you simply let go of the holding that you discover by relaxing the tension in the muscle group that’s creating it? What happens to your posture if you’re able to do this?
Now turn your attention to the relationship between the height of your pelvis and the height of your knees. Begin to add as many supporting cushions as necessary to bring your pelvis to a higher elevation than your knees. Closely watch how the addition of supporting cushions affects the angle of your pelvis, the point of contact between your sitting bones and your seat, and the position of your lumbar spine. Invariably you’ll find that your pelvis tilts forward, as does your lumbar spine, and the point of contact between your sitting bones and your seat shifts forward as well.
Keep experimenting with different thicknesses or numbers of supporting cushions. Too thin or too low a supporting cushion won’t allow the pelvis, lumbar spine, and point of contact of the sitting bones to shift forward sufficiently to function as a stable base of support for the upper body. Too high a supporting cushion will cause the pelvis to shift too far forward and create a condition of swayback in the lumbar spine. Too high a pelvis is just as capable of compromising the base of support on which your alignment depends as is too low a pelvis. Feel what happens in your body when you sit on no supporting cushions. Feel what happens in your body when you sit on too many supporting cushions. Slowly keep experimenting, adding or removing cushions as necessary, until you find a place between these two extremes that begins to feel comfortable and over which your torso begins to experience a greater ease of balance.
Once you’ve created a stable base of support, you can turn your attention to your torso. Visualize the major bodily segments—the abdomen and lower back, the chest and upper back, the shoulders and arms, the neck, and the head—as a grouping of interdependent building blocks. Any adjustment to the positioning of any one of these units will inevitably affect the stability and placement of all the others. Visualize the segments of your upper body stacked comfortably and efficiently one on top of the other, and then slowly allow your body to reposition itself so as to approximate your visualization. Let the feelings and sensations of your body initiate and guide this subtle readjustment. Alignment has a distinct feeling tone of rightness and buoyancy to it. Release any tensions that may enter into the readjustment of your posture. The alignment that you seek is a completely natural and comfortable condition. It is not an artificial and rigid condition like the standing military posture.
Now begin to sway slightly. Move your upper body forward and back and from one side to the other. Let this swaying movement be natural, relaxed, and easy. The whole upper body can move together as an integrated unit composed of interdependent parts. Let your legs remain relatively immobile during this exercise, and initiate the movement in your pelvis. The major joint, then, out of which the movement will be initiated will be the place where the upper legs (specifically, the heads of the femurs) come into contact with the socket joints of the pelvis. Move randomly, perhaps bringing circular or figure-eight motions into your movement. In the beginning let the movements be quite noticeable and imagine that your upper body is swaying around an imaginary vertical axis like streamers around a maypole. Gradually decrease the range of motion, making the movements around the vertical axis smaller and subtler. Keep making the movements smaller and smaller until it feels as though they’ve completely stopped. (Later in this book we’ll see that subtle motion can always be present throughout the body and that the movement never stops.)
Now slowly begin to move your upper body quite far to the left. Let the fulcrum of this movement be your anatomical waistline. As your upper body moves to the left, you may feel your pelvis shift slightly to the right as a counterbalance. If your hands are resting on your knees with the palms facing down, you’ll feel your right hand slide toward your body and your left hand slide away from your body as you do this. Move as far as possible without straining. Let your shoulders, arms, neck, and head hang comfortably in this position.
When you’ve moved your upper body as far to the left as possible, slowly begin to reverse the direction of your movement. Your upper body will come back to center and, without stopping, continue moving to the right. Your pelvis will shift back to center and move slightly to the left. Your right hand will slide slightly forward on your knee as your left hand slides back. Let your movements be as fluid as possible. Breathe easily and comfortably throughout the movement.
Keep moving slowly back and forth, exploring the limits of your body’s range of motion to the right and left. Pay special attention to the feelings and sensations that this movement generates in your body. You may be able to detect an intensification of sensations as your upper torso moves as far as possible to the right or the left. As you move back to center, you will feel this intensification lessen. Just before you begin to move past center to the other side, you may be able to detect a significant lightening quality to the sensations.
Now begin to decrease the range of your movements to the left and right, paying ever more attention to the subtle lightening of sensations that occurs in the center of this movement. Let the movements become smaller and smaller until they virtually come to a stop around this centermost point. This point is your vertical axis through which the force of gravity naturally flows, and it possesses a distinct and recognizable feeling tone.
Now begin a slow, undulating, rocking movement backward and forward in your spine. Initiate this movement with your pelvis. Begin by very slowly rocking your pelvis backward so that you contact your cushion far behind the midpoint of your sitting bones. As you do this, start allowing the rest of your spine to respond naturally. The lumbar and lower thoracic portions of your spine will shift backward in response. The upper thoracic portion of your spine, your neck, and finally your head will begin to drop forward. Explore the sensations, as well as the quality of mind, that this hyperflexed posture of collapse creates in your body. After a few seconds, begin to reverse the movement. Initiate this reversal of position once again with your pelvis. As you begin slowly and sensitively to rock your pelvis as far forward as possible, your spine will begin to uncoil and come out of its collapsed position. Your lumbar vertebrae will move forward, the front of your chest and your neck will lengthen and expand, and your head will tilt backward as your eyes look up toward the place where the wall joins the ceiling. Be very careful not to strain. Take a few comfortable breaths in this hyperextended position, then slowly begin reversing it again by initiating a backward movement in your pelvis.
Continue this slow, undulating forward and backward movement several times. Let the movement be as fluid, sinuous, and coordinated as possible. Gradually begin to decrease the range of the movement. Your body will become less collapsed in its forward flexed position and less extended in its backward position. As you continue to make your movements smaller and smaller, make sure that you maintain the fluidity and coordination inherent in this undulating motion. As you inhale, you rock forward and up. As you exhale, you rock backward and down. Gradually you’ll come to a place where the pronounced forward and backward movement becomes very small, but once again (as we shall see later in this book) this movement never ceases completely. Pay special attention to the feeling tone in your body as you come to this place, as you’ve again brought your body into a much closer alignment with the imaginary vertical axis through which the force of gravity naturally flows.
The posture of meditation is not a static position that you search to discover and then maintain. It is, rather, a deeply organic process that will naturally evolve and shift over time as your sense of balance becomes increasingly refined. As you work to bring the condition of alignment into your sitting posture, keep monitoring the ever-changing sensations of your body. They’ll provide the data that will help you keep moving in the direction of ever greater alignment. Keep feeling your body as it is. This feeling may change from moment to moment. Spontaneous adjustments in posture may begin to occur. These adjustments may appear in the form of smooth or even jerky movements. Allow these adjustments. Yield to them. This is your body’s way of becoming ever more balanced as you continue to align yourself with the force of gravity.
* “The directional flow of gravity” is an expression that, twenty-five years on, I feel I need to clarify. While I’m still comfortable with the phrase as an image of what I’m attempting to convey when I suggest we align the upright torso with the force of gravity, gravity doesn’t flow; it just exerts its influence in a very specific, directional way. Except at a few very fluky geographical spots, which are often turned into tourist attractions, gravity always expresses itself through the vertical. It doesn’t pull us to the right or the left or forward or back. It sucks us right down through our feet into the earth, but it doesn’t flow like a current in a river. It’s the awakened sensations of a body in harmony with—and no longer bracing against—the gravitational field of the earth that can flow like a river.