RESILIENCE
Sit quite still, and breathe comfortably and naturally.
When we sit down in meditation, we’re instructed to sit very still like an unmoving mountain or a carved statue of Buddha, to let go of extraneous motions, gestures, or nervous movement habits. Stillness, however, is antithetical to life. The common denominator to all life forms is the presence of motion. Everything’s moving. Everything’s pulsing. This is as true of individual cells as it is of large vertebrate mammals. True stillness and immobility only enter our bodies when we die. The posture of meditation is able to reconcile this apparent contradiction between stillness and motion through adding the element of resilience to the preliminary conditions of alignment and relaxation.
It’s important to recognize that, when applied as a value to the process of meditation, stillness refers to the gradual softening and quieting of the body and mind. It does not imply rigidity or immobility. The stillness of meditation, rightly understood and experienced, promotes the quality of quiescence. Paradoxically, the quiescent state is a function of softly resilient motion. We can only hold our bodies still through constant muscular tension and contraction. By constantly tensing and contracting the musculature, however, we effectively forfeit the condition of relaxation. We inhibit the natural flow of breath and the passage of energy through the body. By holding the body still, we transform the gelatinous nature of its tissues into a kind of armor that’s able to block out our awareness of tactile sensations. The result of this physical holding and hardening is a mind filled with involuntary thoughts of attack and judgment, fear, desires, and fantasies. Clearly this isn’t the quiescent state of mind that we hope to create through the practice of meditation.
When applied appropriately to the process of meditation, stillness is a relative term. It’s to be found between the two poles of an imposed immobility and a constant fidgeting. If we sit down to meditate and react to the appearance of every unpleasant sensation by moving or rearranging our bodies or even standing up and walking away altogether, our meditative inquiry can’t proceed very far. At the same time, if we impose an unnatural stillness on our sitting posture, we create the kinds of conditions outlined in the last paragraph. These too will seriously interfere with our progress. The introduction of subtle resilience into the posture of meditation allows us to avoid the pitfalls of these two extremes.
Resilience is a function of accepting and then yielding to the deepest forces of nature that so affect and move through us. This may be the force of gravity, the sensations in the body, or the movement of the breath. Resilience is about flexibility and always involves surrendered motion. The leaf that dances on the wind is remarkably resilient. So too is the water of the ocean that allows the force of waves to move through it and constantly change its shape. The tallest trees and skyscrapers sway in the wind. If they didn’t, they would break apart. Indeed, one of the greatest dangers to our tallest and most established trees is an unseasonal ice storm that leaves a layer of brittle ice covering the surface of the trees. If a tree is unable to continue its resilient swaying motion, it may snap apart.
Resilience is the quality that nurtures the conditions of alignment and relaxation and extends their presence over time. Alignment is not a static condition that we seek to create and then maintain. It’s an ongoing process that may change from moment to moment. Relaxation is not a static gesture. It too is an ongoing process. The body continues to let go of tension and yield to the appearance of new areas of sensation that present themselves. In the posture of meditation the body remains in constant, subtle motion. Without alignment there can be no relaxation, but without resilience there can be no relaxation either. Relaxation without resilience is a contradiction in terms. How can the body be relaxed and yet be tensing its musculature in an attempt to hold itself still?
The final challenge for the meditator who has brought the body into a condition of alignment and then surrendered its weight to the pull of gravity is to invite the quality of softly resilient motion into the posture. Paying attention to the process of breath is one of the most direct ways through which we can contact the perpetual nature of subtle, resilient motion. The presence of breath belies the potentiality of stillness. Where there’s breath, there’s movement. If we hold our breath for any reason, we do so by holding the body still, and whenever we bring stillness to the body, we inhibit the breath. In that we breathe all the time, there’s always going to be some accompanying movement even in the stillest of bodies. Furthermore, in an aligned and relaxed body this movement won’t be limited to the area around the organs of respiration proper (the chest and diaphragm) but can extend throughout the whole body. Like a wave that moves without interference through a body of water, breath can be experienced as moving through the entire length of an aligned and relaxed body. The force of breath invites the body to respond resiliently.
The action of breath is initiated through the involuntary contraction and relaxation of the diaphragm. The contraction of this powerful muscle creates a bellows effect that draws air into the lungs. Its relaxation encourages the oxidized waste to leave the body. With every contraction the belly can be seen to expand slightly; with every relaxation the belly once again becomes smaller. This amount of movement, so directly associated with the action of the diaphragm, exists in everyone (including the meditator who interprets the instruction to “sit still” to mean to sit with complete immobility).
In an aligned and relaxed body, however, the movement associated with breath need not be confined to this one small area. Like ripples moving across a still pond into which a pebble has recently been dropped, the movement initiated by the involuntary action of the diaphragm can expand joint by joint through the entire body. As the diaphragm contracts, the belly and lower back expand slightly. In an aligned and relaxed body the force of this expansion can then be felt to move simultaneously up the torso through the top of the head and down through the pelvis and legs. The amount of actual movement may be very small, but its existence is real. Pioneering somatics teacher Ida Rolf (1896–1979) once stated that in a completely relaxed and balanced body the motion of breath would generate subtle movement at every joint in the body and that this would include the sutures in the skull and the joints between the small bones in the feet!
Moving upward from the belly, the force of the belly’s expansion can stimulate the chest to open. The chain reaction continues as the force from this opening is immediately transferred to the shoulders, down the arms, and into the hands, all of which can be felt to respond to the force of the breath and to move ever so slightly. Finally, the neck and head can be felt to bob on top of it all. With the exhalation, the movement retraces its path. As the cycle of breath continues, the whole body can be felt to expand and contract in the manner of an amoeba. The movement down through the pelvis and the legs on the inhalation and back up into the navel on the exhalation is even subtler but can still be felt distinctly. If this kind of resilient movement is unavailable, it’s a sign that the body is still holding and bracing itself and hasn’t yet relaxed as fully as it possibly can.
In addition to the movement of the breath, the sensational presence of the body itself is another strong force to which we’re challenged to respond resiliently when assuming the posture of meditation. The significant letting go of tension that the posture of meditation activates powerfully loosens the lid on the long-contained canister of the inner world of the body’s tactile sensations. The body is revealed to be a dynamic process of vibratory phenomena, all of which can be felt distinctly. We feel the sensations of the body flow, shimmer, throb, and vibrate. Some of the sensations may be very pleasant, others extremely uncomfortable. In the face of the uncomfortable sensations, it’s all too common a reactive habit pattern to tense the body in an attempt to modify or completely conceal the discomfort. The felt movement of the sensations, however, builds into a force of purification that helps clear the mental and physical blockages that keep the states of awareness—the goal of our meditation practice—contained and unavailable. By not shutting down the emerging sensations, whatever their nature, but remaining resiliently open to them, we allow the process of purification to continue, and our experience of meditation naturally deepens. By holding back on the powerful flows and surges of sensations that may occur, we lock ourselves into further patterns of tension, and the posture of meditation becomes even more elusive. Resiliently yielding to the breath and to the emerging awareness of the body’s sensations are two of the most powerful ways in which we can ensure that our practice continues moving forward.
“Resilience is the function / Of the self forgotten,” sings the seventeenth-century Chinese poet Han Shan Te Ch’ing in his poem “On Clear Mind.”*1 This attitude is further reflected in the words of the Zen poet Ikkyu, “To harden into a Buddha is wrong.”*2 As we become increasingly familiar with the process and experience of resilience, we come to recognize how the superficial dimension of mind and identity, which our meditation practice is designed to pierce through, is itself a function of holding still. We cannot stay open to the senses and be lost in the internal monologue of the mind at the same time. Clear, unfiltered awareness of sensations, and by extension sounds and sights, can only truly occur in a body that is relaxed and resilient. If that body is challenged to respond resiliently to a motion that wishes to move through it and it declines, then that body reintroduces an element of tension and forfeits its relaxation. As the awareness of sensations recedes, the internal monologue of the mind reappears to take its place.
Most meditation practices, their superficial differences and goals notwithstanding, attempt to reveal our identification with the internal monologue of the mind as creating a fictive, or at least a highly limiting, sense of self. Indeed, we all have the same name for this aspect of experience. We call the speaker of the monologue “I.” By assuming that we are this “I,” we block out all awareness of deeper, more expansive senses of identity.
By bringing resilience into the posture of meditation, the internal monologue begins naturally to subside. To confirm this statement, you’ll want to watch closely to see what happens when you begin to experience subtly resilient movement passing through your whole body as you sit in a balanced and relaxed posture. The movement may be so subtle that no one would be able to detect that you’re not “sitting still.” Observe the process of your mind carefully as you sit in this way. You may be surprised to find that the internal monologue does not have any stable ground on which to erect itself and project its domineering presence. This is especially true when the resilient movement is able to extend through the top of the head. At these moments the conventional sense of self begins to dissolve, and a more expanded sense of identity appears to fill the void left by the small self’s vacancy.
PRACTICE
The Resilient Flow of Breath
It may be easier to experience the breath moving resiliently through your whole body if you begin by lying down on your back on a soft surface.
Rest your hands on your belly with your palms down, one on top of the other. Depending on the relative length of your arms and torso, one hand may completely cover the other, or the fingers of one hand may barely be touching the other. Find the hand placement that’s the most relaxed and comfortable for you.
Begin by simply observing your breath through bringing your awareness to the sensations of touch and movement. Don’t feel that you need to change your pattern of breath in any way. If the pattern changes on its own, that’s fine, but don’t forcibly attempt to make it conform to an image of proper breathing that you may have. Resilience is a function of allowing, not of manipulating. Simply observe your breath as it is. You’ll begin to notice subtle movements in your body as you breathe. Perhaps you can feel your belly rise and fall slightly with every breath. Perhaps there’s movement in your chest but not in your belly. Observe where your body naturally moves in response to the breath and where it holds still. Again, don’t try to change anything about your pattern of breath. Simply observe how it is for you right now. We become aware that we’re breathing by observing the movements of the body, the sensations generated by these movements, or the sensations created by the passage of air around the nose and mouth. Keep on patiently and passively watching until the awareness of your breathing pattern becomes quite clear to you.
On the next three breaths, extend the exhalation as long as possible without causing undue strain. You may want to visualize that a friend is kneeling behind you, pressing down on your rib cage with every exhalation, helping you expel all the gaseous waste from your body. At the very bottom of the exhalation, your friend releases the pressure, and the inhalation comes flooding back into you. After you’ve taken these three breaths, allow your breath once again to resume whatever pattern is natural to it. Can you remember how your pattern of breath appeared just a few minutes ago, prior to this imaginary intervention? Is it different now? How is it different? Keep allowing your breath to breathe you however it wants throughout this entire exercise. Its pattern may change on its own from one breath to the next. If that happens, allow it, but don’t feel that you need to change it in any way for any reason.
Now bring your attention back to your hands as they rest on your belly, one on top of the other. Surrender the weight of your hands and belly to gravity, and feel the sensations of relaxation enter this area of your body. As you continue to breathe in this relaxed condition, you’ll begin to notice that your hands aren’t still. The movements that you can detect may be subtle, but they’re very real. As your breath causes movement in your belly, you can feel your hands move ever so slightly in response. Perhaps they move up toward the ceiling on the inhalation and back down on the exhalation, like a piece of driftwood floating on ocean waves. Perhaps they slide slightly away from each other on the inhalation and back together on the exhalation. There’s no “correct” way for them to move. There’s only your way. Stay as relaxed as possible, and you’ll discover how your hands move in response to your breath. Spend a number of breaths familiarizing yourself with this movement. Is it the same from breath to breath, or does it change?
Now forcibly cause your hands to stay still. Don’t allow any movement at all in this part of your body, and observe what happens elsewhere. What happens to your breath? What happens to your sensations of relaxation? What happens in your mind? Holding still in any one small area generates a subtle pattern of holding that spreads to affect the whole body. Releasing holding in any one small part of the body encourages release everywhere else as well. Once again allow your hands to begin to respond to the movement of your breath and experience how different this feels.
Bring your awareness next to your elbows as they rest on the soft, supporting surface, and allow the sensations of relaxation to extend to them as well. If your hands and arms are truly relaxed, the movement that began in your hands will now be transmitted down the length of your forearms and will cause your elbows to move ever so slightly. They may move into the surface underneath you as you inhale and rise up slightly when you exhale. They may move into or away from your body on the inhalation and reverse their movement on the exhalation. Again, don’t force your elbows to move in any particular way, but simply find the movement that’s true for your body.
Notice how a chain reaction of subtle movement has begun to occur in your body as a result of the generative force of your breath. As the belly rises and falls, the hands respond. The movement in the hands is then transferred along the length of the forearms to the elbows. Once you’ve contacted this feeling of movement in your belly, hands, and elbows, forcibly stop it, and once again observe what occurs when you hold still in this way. Resilient movement is the norm in a relaxed and balanced body. If that movement doesn’t naturally occur, you are unconsciously resisting somewhere in your body. Resistance is antithetical to relaxation. Release the tension and holding in your elbows, and allow them once again to respond to the movement of your breath.
Turn your attention now to your shoulders. A great many sources of movement come together in the shoulder girdle, so it’s not possible to predict what will actually occur as you consciously bring resilience to this part of your body. Your shoulders may move in unison or quite differently from each other. One may rise while the other falls. One may move outward while the other spirals up toward the ceiling. Keep trusting your body to find the resilient pattern of movement that is completely natural for it. Also recognize that over time that pattern of movement may change quite spontaneously. Not imposing a movement pattern on any part of your body, just allowing whatever motion naturally and organically wants to occur, allows the deep patterns of physical holding and tension to come to the surface and begin to unravel.
After you’ve contacted the resilient dance that occurs in the shoulder girdle in response to the movement of breath, consciously cause it to stop. Hold your shoulders very still and watch what begins to occur. The difference in sensation may be quite dramatic. You may find that it’s difficult to breathe or that the experience of stillness is accompanied by a sensation of tension or pain that doesn’t feel natural. See how much more shallowly you breathe when you hold your body still in this way. How does stillness affect your sense of self or the activities of your mind? What effect does releasing the tension and allowing resilient movement back into your shoulders have on you?
We often hold our heads very still. In fact, stillness in the head is a virtual prerequisite for the sustenance of the internal monologue of the mind. First bring relaxation to your neck and head, and then slowly begin allowing this part of your body to respond subtly to the movement that your breath has generated in your hands, arms, and shoulders. You may need to reposition your head slightly in order to find the placement that allows it to be most comfortably relaxed. Experiment with moving your head very slightly up or down so that the back rests more squarely on the surface beneath you and your eyes are looking directly up toward the ceiling. Relax your face. Feel how your head can respond to your breath, how it can be felt to expand and contract ever so slightly. You may perhaps feel it move up and back on the inhalation and down and forward on the exhalation. The movement pattern in the head may vary significantly from person to person, so keep experimenting until you find the movement that’s appropriate for you. Once you’ve contacted the movement that’s possible, once again contrast your experience by forcibly stopping that movement from occurring. By patiently contrasting the difference between holding and letting go, you will come to know the values of resilience and the ways in which your body can naturally allow it to occur.
The movements in the lower part of the body in response to the flow of breath are even more subtle, yet they too can be felt. The actual movement may be experienced more on an energetic level as a kind of ebbing and flowing of sensation in the pelvis, legs, and feet. As you learn to tune in to these subtler levels of movement, they may extend to the upper body as well. In the manner of an amoeba, the whole body can be felt to pulse, to expand and contract with each inhalation and exhalation. You may experience a pronounced shift in consciousness as you contact this amoeba-like pattern of movement. Watch what happens when one part of your body inadvertently begins to tense and once again becomes more still. How does this affect the awareness of your body, the manifestation of your mind? Perhaps you begin to notice that your attention has wandered and a stream of involuntary thought has begun to occur. See if you can allow the internal monologue to continue and simultaneously pass your awareness through your body to find where you’ve unconsciously recreated tension and resistance. You can learn a great deal about yourself simply by patiently observing the process of your body and mind through focusing on the possibility for resilient movement.
Once you’ve familiarized yourself with the possibility of a resilient pattern of breath that can move throughout the entire length of your body, you can bring what you’ve learned to your formal posture of meditation. Begin by bringing alignment and relaxation into your posture, then slowly begin to add the element of resilience as you focus on every breath you take. You may wish to repeat the previous exercise in your sitting posture. Don’t, however, expect that your body will respond and move in the same way as it did when you were lying down.
The resilient motion in the spine can become quite pronounced in the sitting posture. On the inhalation, the entire spine can be felt to lengthen, and the spinal curves will flatten slightly. The head can be felt to rise up and back. The movement can even be felt to extend down into the sacrum. On the exhalation, the spine settles down once again, and the spinal curves reestablish themselves.
Just as you did when you were lying down, you may want to contrast your experience of resilient movement by forcibly causing your spine to become still. Bring tension and holding in turn to the area of your sacrum and lower back, middle and upper back, neck and head. Notice how the re-introduction of stillness affects your breath, your experience of balance and relaxation, the meditative process itself. You may find that holding still in one or more of these areas feels very familiar to you. If this is so, make a special effort to bring resilience back into this part of your spine.
Observe how your hands, arms, and shoulders can be felt to participate in the subtly resilient movement that your breath has initiated. As you sit in meditation, you can feel your entire body to be in motion. This motion may be so subtle that no one will be able to notice that you aren’t “sitting still.” The motions that occur are completely natural and spontaneous. They cannot be induced or exaggerated to any benefit. Denying these motions, however, serves no benefit either and can seriously impede the process of meditation. Notice how relaxation isn’t possible unless resilience is present.
RESILIENCE, GRAVITY, AND SENSATION
In addition to the breath there are two other major forces that can call forth resilience in the posture of meditation. The first of these is the force of gravity itself. Alignment, you will recall, is not a static state to be attained and then maintained. It is, rather, an ongoing process in which the small intrinsic muscles of the body are constantly making subtle and spontaneous adjustments to keep the body erect. Alignment is more of a dance than a pose. Stillness and holding can only inhibit the process of alignment and make the task of coming to balance much more difficult.
As you sit in the posture of meditation, exploring the possibilities for resilient movement, keep bringing your attention back to the experience of balance. Keep focusing on the feeling of your body as it continues to balance itself in as relaxed a condition as possible. Meditate on the relationship of your body to the gravitational field. Really feel this relationship, and see if you can continue to allow the most comfortable and relaxed condition of alignment to continue to manifest from moment to moment as the conditions of this relationship constantly shift.
You might like to review the movement exercises at the end of chapter 2. In those exercises you experimented with gentle, swaying movements as you sat in the posture of meditation. Beginning with large, noticeable movements, you gradually reduced the range of motion until you came closer and closer to the imaginary vertical axis of alignment. At that point you were instructed to bring the movements to a stop as a way of pinpointing the exact location of your vertical axis. In practice, however, these slow, undulating, swaying movements never do come to a complete stop. By adding the elements of relaxation and resilience to the condition of alignment, the truly dynamic nature of the posture of meditation reveals itself. The body sways and moves around the vertical axis but never comes to complete rest there. The motion is like a subtle jiggling or bobbing. The movements may be roughly circular or spiral in nature and are completely random. As the posture of meditation continues to refine itself, the movements become extremely subtle. They never, however, stop completely.
In addition to the breath and the force of gravity, the current of tactile sensations and the contents of the mind itself are constantly passing through the conduit of the body. If you hold back this current for any reason, you will gradually create a blockage that can only interfere with the posture of meditation. If you can learn to yield to this current, to respond to it resiliently, it will pass through you easily and comfortably without accumulating any residue or leaving any trace of its passage.
The holding and resistance that keep an imbalanced body erect also serve to contain the awareness of our deeper self. The complete storehouse of sensations, feelings, emotions, memories, and thoughts that might be available to us becomes inaccessible. Bits and pieces may occasionally surface to remind us that much more is effectively buried and waiting to be unearthed, but the method by which we might excavate and uncover these deep contents is unclear.
The relaxation and release that the posture of meditation makes possible can bring these long-buried contents to the surface of awareness quite quickly. Often we may begin the process of meditation in a body that has little awareness of its tactile sensations. As we learn to relax through aligning the body, surrendering our weight, and then inviting the quality of resilience into our posture, this superficial awareness of numbness may rapidly begin to change. In its place, a wide assortment of tactile sensations, pressures, and forces may suddenly appear. Some of the sensations may be neutral in tone. Others can become extremely pleasant. Still others may be very painful.
As you become increasingly aware of the tactile presence of your body, you will notice that the sensations that arise and pass away have a kind of motive force or current to them. Like almost everything else relating to the posture of meditation, they do not appear in a simple, static form but are dynamic in their patterns of appearance and dissolution. Sometimes this rising and passing away occurs extraordinarily rapidly and on an extremely minute scale as individual sensations appear to shimmer like tiny lights flickering on and off. At other times a large number of individual sensations mass together as a common force or presence. These sensations may appear like the force of water in a swiftly moving stream. Held rigidly, the body will resist the current of these sensations and cause them to accumulate and become jammed. In a condition of resilience, the body can yield to the force of the sensations and allow them to pass through in whatever way they need to.
As you become increasingly aware of these sensations, simply yield to them. Allow them to move through you in whatever way they wish. You may experience mild feelings of movement, like water passing through a hose, or you may have powerful experiences of ebb and flow as the sensations build to a heightened intensity and then dissipate. Sometimes, after long hours of sitting, the body may shake or tremble as these sensational flows spontaneously bring themselves to resolution. Whenever you become aware of a sensation, simply accept it, allowing it to present itself in whatever form it wishes to take. You don’t need to make the sensations stronger than they are. Nor do you need to hold back their appearance.
You may like to think of these emerging sensations as the manifestation of the unconscious contents of the body and mind. Ordinarily we are quite unaware of the tactile presence of the body. In other words, we are unconscious of it. Many somatic therapists are being drawn to the notion that the location for what we call the “unconscious” is to be found in the tissues of the body itself, not just in some corner of the brain. If this is so, then as we become increasingly conscious of sensations, we’re literally bringing our unconscious to the surface of awareness where it can once again be liberated and included as part of the conscious sphere of body and mind. The body is the repository of the unconscious only so long as we remain unconscious of the body.
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 impasse. If you can learn to yield resiliently to this force, your body will spontaneously bring itself into a condition of alignment and relaxation and may experience a heightened 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 identifying with the contents or disavowing and pushing them away, we create an obstruction that ultimately will manifest as holding and tension in the body and a dulling of awareness in the mind.
Several different layers of thought 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 don’t 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, eyes, and 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 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’re not able to respond resiliently and allow the sensations to move through your body or the thoughts to dissipate through your mind. If this happens, don’t force anything to occur; simply accept this apparent moment of non-movement 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 on 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.