by Rolf Sovik
side view of spine and skull
When you are meditating, you will want to arrange your posture from the bottom up, so that’s how we’ll approach it here. We’ll work systematically from the legs and base of the torso to the crown of the head.
Folding the Legs
Difficulty folding the legs can create persistent and discouraging problems for beginning meditators. There is no instant cure for tightness in the legs, nor does any one asana alone hold the answer. But a balanced selection of postures does. Deeper hip opening and increased knee flexibility can be accomplished on the floor using simple stretches. The muscles of the inner thighs, the adductor group, need stretching, and the legs gradually need to be accustomed to the combination of knee bending, lateral rotation, and hip opening that is required in most sitting poses. The stretches illustrated here can help you accomplish these goals. To work on the legs and hips in butterfly pose, sit on a cushion and use a wall to support the back. Slow, gradual work is best. Do not force the knees into a position that is painful or provokes anxiety in any of these stretches.
Next, add standing asanas. They stretch the leg muscles, improve circulation to the legs, and create flexibility at the knee and hip joints. Include trikonasana (triangle and its variations), parshvottanasana (angle pose and its variations), parshvakonasana (side angle pose and its variations), and prasarita padottanasana and uttanasana (standing forward bends), as well as vrikshasana (tree pose), an asana that brings attention to hip opening and builds abductor muscle strength.
Even experienced meditators sometimes experience poor circulation in the feet. When this happens, one or both feet, or even larger portions of the legs, may fall asleep. There are a number of things to check when this occurs. Start by making sure that your clothing has not pinched off circulation at the hips or knees. Straighten your legs, loosen any tight folds or gathered material, and then refold your legs. It also frequently happens that the front edge of the cushion you are sitting on has impeded circulation by pressing against the back of the legs and buttocks. To remedy this, sit a little farther back on the cushion or smooth the sharp edge by sloping the cushioning differently.
The most common problem, however, is that one ankle is pressing on the other, cutting off circulation to one foot. To relieve the pressure, you will need to reposition your feet, making sure that the upper ankle bone is placed either behind or in front of the lower ankle. Once pressure is relieved, circulation will slowly return.
knee flex
reclining hip opener
reclining cradle
butterfly
Sometimes circulation problems are more systemic. Sluggish circulation to the legs can result from folding the legs in virtually any posture. The situation will improve with regular sitting practice, combined with regular practice of standing postures that stretch and strengthen the legs. In the meantime, it helps to know that, unless the condition is painful, sleeping legs are an inconvenience rather than a serious condition. From time to time simply stretch your legs, or rub them, to restore circulation (even while meditating). Stand up slowly at the end of your meditation to prevent any unexpected loss of balance.
Lower Back Support
You may have experienced meditations in which your posture bobs up and down as if you were only half awake. The effect is not very meditative. But you can amend the situation by increasing strength in your lower back, making it possible to sit erect without really having to think about it. Building strength of this kind is not as hard as you might imagine.
Start with a simple standing forward stretch. Be sure to bend from the hip joints and maintain a flat lower back, stretching the hamstrings early in the movement. You can bend the knees or keep them straight as you return to standing, but either way engage the lower back muscles and pivot up from the hips. Use this basic paradigm for all standing forward bends. The goal is to keep the lower back erect for as long as possible as you move into the pose, and to return to an erect spine as early as possible as you come out of the posture.
Another pose that strengthens the lower back is adho mukha navasana (downward-facing boat). The simple version of the posture is adequate. Lie face down with the chin on the floor, legs together, arms alongside the body, palms facing the hips. Keep the buttocks firm and the lower back strong as you lift both legs and the upper body. If the back tires, try contracting the buttocks even more. Create a smooth arch through the entire length of the spine, facing down to keep the neck long and neutral. It’s not necessary to exaggerate the height of the posture; instead, gradually increase the length of time you remain in it. Be sure to release from the pose if the back becomes strained.
Perhaps the best posture for acquiring the lower back strength that will carry you through a long meditation is dandasana (staff pose). Sit with your legs together and straight out in front of you, with feet flexed. At first, support the back by placing your fingertips on the floor behind the hips, with fingers facing forward. Maintain an erect lower back, then gradually reduce the arm support, proportionately increasing the work of the muscles deep in the lower back. Lift the lower back firmly and tip the torso forward toward the front of the sitting bones. Contract the muscles of the pelvic floor as well. This is a strenuous posture, but with regular practice you’ll discover that you can sustain elevation in your lower back rather than collapsing into the pelvis.
standing stretch
dandasana
adho mukha navasana
The Upper Torso
The main problem with maintaining an erect upper torso is not hard to discover. Tight pectoral muscles, acting in combination with the weight of the rib cage and chest, cause the shoulders and the upper back to round. Upper back muscles then strain to counteract these forces, and as they lose the battle, the rib cage slumps as much as several inches.
The muscles of the upper torso form a complicated network, extending downward into the lower back as well as upward to the shoulders and neck. Stretches that open the shoulders and bring them down and away from the ears counteract some of the tension of this area. But variations of tadasana (mountain pose) and utkatasana (powerful pose, or chair pose) offer the best opportunity to improve the dynamics of the upper torso. These standing postures should be included in every routine until their lessons are fully internalized.
Begin with tadasana. With feet together, inhale and raise the arms out to the side and overhead. Interlace the fingers and turn the palms up. Draw the head back, like a turtle retracting its head into its shell. Lift the front of the chest toward the chin and lower the chin toward the notch below the throat, elongating the back of the neck. Now, with each of the next three inhalations, press the palms up toward the ceiling and further lift the chest. Slightly draw the circle formed by the shoulders, arms, and hands toward the wall behind you. Maintain the pose for three more breaths, then release the palms and lower the arms with a long exhalation. This is a deceptively challenging stretch that will open and elevate the front of the rib cage.
Utkatasana, the chair pose, will complement this work. Start with arms alongside the body, and the feet and legs together. Pressing the legs together, bend the knees and slowly lower your torso a few inches. Keep the lower back erect and heels on the floor. (It may take some time to build the quadricep strength you will need to sustain this position.) Next, raise the arms to the side and overhead, palms facing one another and arms parallel. Broaden the back and lower the shoulders away from the ears.
Elevate the chest as if you were lifting it into the space between the hands. Notice the powerful opening in the upper torso. Continue to elevate the chest as you lean back ever so slightly to engage the long muscles on either side of the spine. Draw the pelvic floor in and up, creating an upward flow of energy that balances the downward action of the posture itself. Hold for six to ten breaths before releasing the arms and returning to a standing posture.
tadasana
utkatasana
Internalize the experience of elevating the c
hest in these two postures—and come back to it in your sitting pose. With the chest lifted, the shoulders will release naturally to the sides, and you’ll find that you can relax tension between the shoulder blades and in the mid- and upper back (areas that are often aggravated during longer meditations). This is an important step, and once it has been achieved, you will also find it much easier to continue on to the next one: adjustments to the head and neck.
The Neck and Head
Many muscles play a role in positioning the neck and head, and finding the right placement is a matter of experimentation. But it is important to remember to elevate the lower back and lift the chest before addressing the neck and head. Otherwise, your work will not make sense internally.
The head rests on the neck, and the neck, in turn, rises out of the thoracic spine just below it. During meditation, it is common to slide the head forward and lift the chin, overarching the neck in the process. This adds stress to already challenged neck and upper back muscles. A relaxed neck, on the other hand, will support the head while remaining erect and balanced.
In most cases, the neck needs to be drawn back (again, like a turtle) and elongated. This creates an unusual feeling of length in the back of the neck, and the chin will tilt down to balance the movement in the neck. If the pelvis is well grounded and the lower back strong; if the chest is gently elevated, the shoulders relaxed to the sides and the upper back relaxed; then these adjustments to the neck and head will feel transparently natural. But with the neck and head, subtle realignments are the name of the game, and that means toning muscles that hold the head steady while relaxing muscles at the front of the neck and deep in the throat, as well as at the base of the skull.
seated pose: head thrust forward
seated pose: head drawn back
This completes the work of aligning the spine. You’ll find that it will need some attention each time you sit, until the habit of sitting erect is well established. Then, energy flowing along the spinal axis will naturally enlist the muscles it needs, and sitting erect will follow effortlessly.
Calming the Senses
The creator made the senses look outward,
therefore one sees outward and not within.
But the wise turn inward, in order to see the soul.
—Katha Upanishad
The function of sitting poses can be viewed from a variety of perspectives. Among the most interesting is the effect they have on the senses, the gateways leading to and from the mind. The yogic analysis of personality describes ten senses, ten passages that link individual awareness to the environment around it. These include both the familiar cognitive senses (jnanindriya)—smell, taste, sight, touch, and hearing—as well as five “active” senses (karmindriya)—elimination, procreation, locomotion, manipulation, and communication—the means by which we are able to act on the world.
Each of these ten senses is associated with a sense organ, a gateway through which the sense operates. The sense organs connected to the five active senses include:• the eliminative organs, the means for eliminating wastes
• the genital organs, the means for procreation
• the feet, the means for locomotion
• the hands, the means for manipulation
• the tongue and vocal chords, the means for communication
The sense organs associated with the cognitive senses are:• the nose, the means of smelling
• the tongue, the means of tasting
• the eyes, the means of seeing
• the skin, the means of touching
• the ears, the means of hearing
An important aim of sitting poses is to begin the process of quieting the ten senses so that attention can be turned inward. In order to accomplish this objective, the ten gateways to the senses must be gradually closed. This, together with withdrawal of psychological involvement, weakens the contact each sense has with its normal object or activity. And as a result, the sense rests.
The various methods employed to rest the sense organs and quiet the senses are invariably simple, and they might easily go unnoticed. By paying attention to them, however, we can deepen our understanding of sitting poses, and meditate with greater depth and consistency. Let’s take a brief look at each of these methods in turn.
The Active Senses
Elimination. The discharge of wastes in the body must be managed so that the natural urge to expel them does not become a distraction during meditation. This is primarily accomplished by emptying the bladder just before meditating and by establishing a relatively regular bowel schedule, conducive to meditation.
The problem is also addressed by the sitting pose itself. During meditation, muscles in the floor of the pelvis are mildly contracted and drawn upward to form mula bandha, the root lock (see the following chapter). While the main focus of these contractions is the central area of the pelvic floor, muscles encircling the organs of elimination are also mildly contracted. This withdraws energy from the process of discharging wastes and quiets the active sense of elimination.
Procreation. Sexual energy is largely mental energy, although certain postures and ways of carrying ourselves are more sexually suggestive than others. With legs folded and drawn in, and with feet protecting the genital organs, energy that could be directed toward sexual pursuits can be gradually redirected.
Locomotion. When the legs are folded and immobilized, the urge to move settles down. It requires only a short time to notice a quieting of energy in the legs, and the placement of the feet draws energy in toward the base of the spine rather than sending it out through the lower limbs. As the urge to move is calmed, the legs and feet become increasingly relaxed.
Manipulation. The hands are the most active of the active senses, and they commonly serve as a means both for manipulation and for communication. A simple method for withdrawing energy from the hands is to rest them on the legs or in the lap, and to quiet the fingers. A special hand gesture (mudra) helps to accomplish this. The most common mudra is to touch the tip of the first finger to the tip of the thumb (or to curl the first finger into the base of the thumb) in a gesture called jnana mudra. As time passes, this gradually relaxes the palms of the hands and quiets the energy moving through the arms.
jnana mudra
During meditation, the palms may be turned up or down. Some practitioners choose one method and stick to it. Others develop a more complicated pattern: turning the hands up in the morning, down in the evening, and cupping the hands in the lap at midday. This is largely a matter of personal preference. It is worth noting, however, that despite the proliferation of illustrations showing straight-armed meditators sitting with arms locked, this is not a common (or comfortable) pose. It is much more natural to bend the elbows and rest the arms on the legs.
Communication. The primary means of communication is the voice, and the mouth, tongue, and voice box must be calmed in order to quiet the urge to speak. The basic method used to accomplish this is very simple: close your mouth.
A few meditators refine the technique of speech withdrawal further. They curl the tip of the tongue back and place it at the roof of the mouth in a version of kechari mudra, the tongue lock. With practice, the tongue remains in the curled position with very little effort.
The Cognitive Senses
Smell. A beginning step in meditation is to distance the nose from anything that might arouse the sense of smell. Since this is largely a matter of proximity, a meditation seat is simply not placed near smells that might disturb concentration. Interestingly, although incense is often associated with meditation, it is rarely used at the actual time of practice. If you like, use it before meditation to enhance a meditative mood.
Taste. Meditation is normally practiced before meals, not after them. Rinse your mouth or brush your teeth before you begin your meditation. Then trust that your posture will keep you far enough from food, and immobile enough in attitude, that neither your body nor mind will be foraging during your meditation time.
Sight. The eyes are the most active of the cognitive senses. In yoga meditation, the eyes are closed and the eyelids relaxed. Any intention to engage the eyes rests as well.
Touch. The primary organ of touch is the skin. The method for calming this sense is to become increasingly still. Stillness is the mark of a deep meditation, and as stillness deepens, the sense of touch diminishes. Although some lingering sense of touch remains from the pressure of clothing and even of air on the skin, these residues of sensation recede into nothingness as the posture is maintained.
