Month: December 2011

There can be a sexual energy connected with the balance forward in the lower abdomen; Kegels with the pubo-coccygeus would be connected with that.

There are three motions at the sacrum, pitch, roll and yaw, that translate into three stretches in the ilio-sacral, sacro-spinous and sacro-tuberous ligaments respectively. The pitch motion, forward and back, not only stretches the ilio-sacral ligaments allowing the sacrum to move to a lower horizontal pivot on the pelvis, but stretches ligaments connected with the pubo-coccygeus muscles, and generates activity in these muscles that carries into the pubic bone and the rectus muscle of the lower abdomen. The external oblique, internal oblique, and transversus abdominals have ligamentous connections to the rectus, and these connections are of equal mass at a point about two inches below the navel. I’m still learning about “as before, so behind; as behind, so before” but I think it has to do with these stretches and the activity that results.

Fuxi’s poem is a great guide for me:

“The empty hand grasps the hoe handle
walking along, I ride the ox
the ox crosses the wooden bridge
the bridge is flowing, the water is still”

The practice of “as before, so behind; as behind, so before” is I think connected with the first line. The second line would be about the stretches and activity from the stretch of the sacro-spinous ligaments, side-to-side. The third line would be similarly the stretches and activity from the sacro-tuberous ligaments, out of the motion of yaw at the sacrum (on the diagonals). Last line concerns action solely from the place of consciousness as it occurs and the cessation of action through the exercise of volition. All the steps are linear, and simultaneous, so I might as well just be where I am, and hope to “tower up like a mile-high wall and see that there aren’t so many things”.

Shunryu Suzuki said all a person can do about the practice is to be grateful. He also said, “zazen sits zazen”. Kobun Chino Otogawa said, “you know, sometimes zazen gets up and walks around!”- this experience is still my only light.

I stretch both legs, first one then the other; I just wait until I can grab my toes and then ease a stretch on the hamstring until I feel I can breathe. I suspect it’s years of half-lotus on both sides that now enables me to get into the lotus, but there are specific coordinations that I call to mind to stay in the lotus and relax. The hamstrings and the quads reciprocate activity out of stretch, and that puts a stretch on the ilio-tibial tract. Stretch in the tract generates activity in the sartorius muscles that pivots the pelvis on the hips, left and right; with that pivot and stretch in the ilio-tibial tract, activity will be generated in the gluts that also pivots the pelvis left and right on the hips. Not volitive activity, activity generated by the stretch of ligaments and fascia that translates into different motions.

The left and right pivot of the pelvis on the hips puts the balance forward in the lower abdomen, and that slight stretch generates activity in the obturators that extends the hips slightly from the pelvis. This allows the activity of the legs from the soles of the feet to travel up the back of the spine to either side of the skull and the top of the head in inhalation; the return from the top of the head to the soles of the feet depends on the free movement of the mind , technically the free occurrence of consciousness, and the stretch and activity occasioned as consciousness takes place for the complete exhalation. That’s because it’s really about the generation of the cranial-sacral rhythm by nerves at the sagittal suture, so the real return is in the motions of the sacrum and the way the rhythm extends through the body.

In short, it’s the sense of place, the one that moves in falling asleep (and in waking up, although that’s harder to see). That’s the source of the action. The more you see it, the more you can rest in it, and so you gain it.

That’s how I sit in the lotus. Why it took so long to be where I am, I can’t say!