Category: A Natural Mindfulness

I have a neighbor who is interested in sitting with me. He has never practiced any kind of meditation before, apart from a failed attempt to sit cross-legged with me over a year ago.

This time around, I will offer him a chair.

I find myself wondering what advice, if any, I should give him. The advice most zendos give beginners is to “follow the breath”, though as Shunryu Suzuki said, following the breath is only a preparatory practice:

… usually in counting breathing or following breathing, you feel as if you are doing something, you know– you are following breathing, and you are counting breathing. This is, you know, why counting breathing or following breathing practice is, you know, for us it is some preparation– preparatory practice for shikantaza because for most people it is rather difficult to sit, you know, just to sit. (1)

Suzuki described shikantaza in more detail:

So most teacher may say shikantaza is not so easy, you know. It is not possible to continue more than one hour, because it is intense practice to take hold of all our mind and body by the practice which include everything. So in shikantaza, our mind should pervade every parts of our physical being. That is not so easy. (2)

Gautama spoke similarly about the mind pervading the body:

… seated, (one) suffuses (one’s) body with purity by the pureness of (one’s) mind so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded with purity by the pureness of (one’s) mind. (3)

“The pureness of mind” Gautama referred to is the pureness of the mind without any will or intent with regard to the activity of the body.

In Gautama’s teaching, the extension of “purity by the pureness of mind” belonged to the last of four concentrations. The initial concentration is induced, said Gautama, by “making self-surrender the object of thought”:

… the (noble) disciple, making self-surrender the object of (their) thought, lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness.  (The disciple), aloof from sensuality, aloof from evil conditions, enters on the first trance, which is accompanied by thought initial and sustained, which is born of solitude, easeful and zestful, and abides therein. (4)

In my experience, “one-pointedness” occurs when the movement of breath necessitates the placement of attention at a singular location in the body, and a person “lays hold of one-pointedness” when they remain awake as the singular location shifts.

Gautama described the “first trance” as having feelings of zest and ease, and he prescribed the extension of those feelings:

… (a person) steeps, drenches, fills, and suffuses this body with zest and ease, born of solitude, so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this lone-born zest and ease. (3)

Words like “steeps” and “drenches” convey that the weight of the body accompanies the feelings of zest and ease.

The weight of the body sensed at a particular point in the body can shift the body’s center of gravity, and a shift in the body’s center of gravity can result in what Moshe Feldenkrais termed “reflex movement”. Feldenkrais described how “reflex movement” can be engaged in standing up from a chair:

…When the center of gravity has really moved forward over the feet a reflex movement will originate in the old nervous system and straighten the legs; this automatic movement will not be felt as an effort at all. (5)

“Drenching” the body “so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded” with zest and ease allows the weight of the body and “one-pointedness” to effect “reflex movement” in the activity of the body.

In falling asleep, the mind can sometimes react to hypnagogic sleep paralysis with an attempt to reassert control over the muscles of the body, causing a “hypnic jerk”. The extension of a weighted zest and ease can pre-empt the tendency to reassert voluntary control in the induction of concentration, and make possible a conscious experience of “reflex movement” in inhalation and exhalation.

Gautama offered a metaphor for the first concentration that emphasized the cultivation of one-pointedness. Here’s the full description:

… just as a handy bathman or attendant might strew bath-powder in some copper basin and, gradually sprinkling water, knead it together so that the bath-ball gathered up the moisture, became enveloped in moisture and saturated both in and out, but did not ooze moisture; even so, (a person) steeps, drenches, fills, and suffuses this body with zest and ease, born of solitude, so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this lone-born zest and ease. (3)

The juxtaposition of a singular bath-ball with the extension of zest and ease such that “there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded” might seem dissonant, yet in my experience the two can be realized together, and at least initially neither can be sustained alone.

Gautama also taught the extension of zest and ease in the second concentration:

… imagine a pool with a spring, but no water-inlet on the east side or the west side or on the north or on the south, and suppose the (rain-) deva supply not proper rains from time to time–cool waters would still well up from that pool, and that pool would be steeped, drenched, filled and suffused with the cold water so that not a drop but would be pervaded by the cold water; in just the same way… (one) steeps (their) body with zest and ease, born of solitude, so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this lone-born zest and ease. (3)

In the third concentration, the feeling of zest drops away, and only the feeling of ease is extended:

… (one) steeps and drenches and fills and suffuses this body with a zestless ease so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this zestless ease. … just as in a pond of blue, white, and red water-lilies, the plants are born in water, grow in water, come not out of the water, but, sunk in the depths, find nourishment, and from tip to root are steeped, drenched, filled and suffused with cold water so that not a part of them is not pervaded by cold water; even so, (one) steeps (one’s) body in zestless ease. (3)

Even though Gautama’s metaphor for the third concentration lacks a clear singularity, “one-pointedness” can be said to be present, as for Gautama concentration was synonymous with “one-pointedness of mind” (MN 117).

Gautama said that arahants (enlightened individuals) praised the ease of the third concentration, because that ease was associated with equanimity and mindfulness (MN 119). That suggests that the arahants favored the third concentration in seated meditation.

The feeling of ease, said Gautama, ceases entirely in the fourth concentration as “(one) suffuses (one’s) body with purity by the pureness of (one’s) mind”.

I would say the activity of the body in the fourth concentration is entirely “reflex movement” occasioned by the placement of attention. To remain awake as the location of attention shifts and activity of the body takes place is “just to sit”.

Gautama detailed the four concentrations in a description of the mindfulness of states of mind (DN 22). He concluded his description by saying:

… with the consciousness ‘There are (the states of mind), mindfulness thereof is thereby established, far enough for the purposes of knowledge and of self-possession. And (a person) abides independent, grasping after nothing in the world whatever. (6)

About the first three concentrations, Shunryu Suzuki said:

To prepare for the first stage or second stage or third stage, (Theravadin Buddhists) practice some special practice. Those practice is not the practice of the first stage or second stage or third stage, but to prepare for those stages. (1)

Just as with “counting breathing or following breathing”, doing something with regard to a state of concentration is only “preparatory practice”, and not the state of concentration.

In the same vein, Gautama taught:

… a good (person) reflects thus: “Lack of desire even for the attainment of the first (concentration) has been spoken of by (the Gautamid); for whatever (one) imagines it to be, it is otherwise” [Similarly for the second, third, and fourth concentrations]… (7)

I don’t think I’ll advise my friend to “follow the breath”. I don’t think I’ll tell him the practice is “just to sit”, either.

Zen centers tend to give lots of instruction about posture. Suzuki said:

It will take at least six months before you get your own right posture. Everyone has their own right posture… (8)

But you ask me, what is right posture? [laughs]. You know, that is also mistake. Whatever you do is right. Nothing is wrong with what you do. But some improvement is necessary. Some—something should be done with what you have attained. Even though you attain enlightenment like Buddha, something should be done to human[?]. That is his enlightenment. So, the point is, whether your posture is right or—is not whether your posture is right or wrong—the point is constant effort or way-seeking. (9)

The Tai Chi master Cheng Man Ch’ing wrote:

In general, what the ancients called, “straightening the chest and sitting precariously,” has to do with the work of self-cultivation.  … Therefore, I advise practitioners of T’ai-chi ch’uan to straighten their spines. Holding the spine erect is like stringing pearls on top of each other, without letting them lean or incline. However, if one is too tense and stiff, or unnaturally affected, then this too is an error. (10)

I would say that the thread on which the pearls are strung is the fascia behind the sacrum and spine, the thoracolumbar fascial sheet, composed of the thoracolumbar and nuchal fascia.

“Stringing pearls” is allowing the abdominals to work with the extensor muscles of the spine to align vertebrae and thereby permit the displacement of the fascial sheet. Gravity in the abdominals can work against the extensors in a rhythm regulated by the stretch of ligaments, while pressure created in the abdomen as the abdominals work can displace the fascia behind specific vertebrae in support of an overall stretch.

Because the extensor muscles behind the sacrum are enclosed by bone on three sides, the thoracolumbar fascia behind the sacrum can be displaced by the mass of the extensor muscles as they contract. Gravity in the muscles of the lower abdomen and pelvis can work against the extensors, again regulated by the stretch of ligaments, to displace the fascia behind the sacrum in support of an overall stretch.

I find that Gautama’s description of ease in the second concentration accords well with the engagement of “reflex movement” in the lower abdomen, around the pelvic basin, and behind the sacrum. Likewise, Gautama’s description of ease in the third concentration accords well with “reflex movement” in the abdominals and in the extensors of the spine.

I tend to rely on Yuanwu’s “turning to the left, turning to the right, following up behind” (Applying the Pali Instructions) and on Hsueh Feng’s “turtle-nosed snake” (Post: Common Ground) to provide an initial sense of stretch behind the sacrum and the spine.

I remember telling Kobun Chino Otogawa that sometimes I had a feeling of stretch along my spine into my head, and that I enjoyed that. To my surprise, he said that he enjoyed that too.

The suffusion of the body with “purity by the pureness of mind” in the fourth concentration can allow the thoracolumbar fascial sheet to sustain an openness of nerve exits along the sacrum and spine. Such an openness is accompanied by an ability to feel throughout the body to the surface of the skin.

That’s reflected in Gautama’s metaphor for the fourth concentration:

… it is as if (a person) might be sitting down who had clothed (themselves) including (their) head with a white cloth; there would be no part of (their) whole body that was not covered by the white cloth. (11)

There is a relationship between the ease of nerve exits from the sacrum and spine and feeling on the surface of the skin. Here is a chart from the early 1900’s of the specifics of that relationship on the front of the body:

The free placement of attention in the movement of breath depends on an ability to feel throughout the body to the surface of the skin. As I wrote previously:

When a presence of mind is retained as the placement of attention shifts, then the natural tendency toward the free placement of attention draws out thoughts initial and sustained, and brings on the stages of concentration. (12)

As regards posture, I will probably tell my neighbor to sit on the edge of his chair, and to have one foot flat on the floor and the other foot drawn back so that the ball of the foot makes contact with the floor. I will tell him to place the fingers of one hand on the palm of the other, resting the wrist of the lower hand on the upper thigh of the flat-footed leg. That’s basically how I sit, when I sit in a chair.

As regards the breath, I expect I will tell him to let the place where his attention goes do the sitting, and maybe even the breathing.