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Sitting Upright with Proper Posture

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Sitting Upright with Proper Posture My Footnotes on Zazen (4) his posture has spontaneously emerged from Sitting Upright With Proper within as katadori (form), and not as katachi Posture: Sitting Like An Infant (shape) forcibly imposed from the outside. Shosui Iwaki, a Japanese traditional martial arts Rev. Issho Fujita Director, Soto Zen Buddhism master, says, “Katadori has softness and flexibil- International Center ity. Katachi is stiff and lacks liveliness or prin- ciple. It is artificial, like a doll’s posture.” The poise of an infant’s sitting When we teach zazen we often show a In many cases, zazen instruction consists of photo of an austere Zen monk sitting zazen a series of “how to’s” - how to cross legs, how to with upright posture. We begin by saying, place the hands, how to drop the line of sight, “This is a model for zazen. You should sit like how to keep the back straight, how to pull in this…” I usually show a photo of an infant one’s chin, how to settle one’s tongue, how to sitting on the floor. Here is a photo of an breathe, how to control one’s mind, and so on. eleven-month-old baby. I think we can learn a With these “how to’s,” practitioners make a lot lot about zazen posture of effort to control all the body parts, the from this photo. Accord- breath, and the state of mind by faithfully ing to Zen master Dogen, following those instructions one by one. That sitting upright with kind of effort is usually understood as “regulat- proper posture (shoshin ing body, breath and mind.” In this approach tanza in Japanese) is the A to zazen the shallow layer of the mind, the to Z of zazen. Breath and “conscious I” (the ego-consciousness, which is mind will naturally be the product of thought), is trying to unilater- regulated by establishing proper zazen posture. ally give orders and force the rest of the mind and body to devotedly obey. It is as if it is Please notice that this baby shows no sign telling them, “Because our instructor said so, of contrivance or pretentiousness. We do not you should do what I tell you without com- see any strain or lack of naturalness. The baby plaints or questions! That is zazen!” does not seem to be thinking, “I should keep my back straight!” “I must not move!” “If I sit This approach might work to some extent nicely, I will be praised.” He is effortlessly in the beginning, but eventually there will be sitting comfortably. To borrow Dogen’s phrase, many problems - “I can’t sit still because of so he sits “with no need for any expenditure of much pain in my legs!,” “I can’t do anything either physical or mental effort” (Shobogenzo about idle thoughts. My mind is out of con- Shoji). Nevertheless he is sitting firmly trol,” “I am not good at zazen…” It is no grounded on the floor so that his upper body wonder because “I,” which is only a product of stands up beautifully and freely, extending in thought, is trying to control everything else the direction of gravity. He does this because without getting any agreement, consent, or 30 cooperation from the layer of the mind and should we follow? That is what we need to body which is much deeper, wider, and wiser investigate thoroughly. than “I.” It is quite natural that the practitioner will experience many kinds of resistance, rebel- lion, disagreement, and complaint one after Sitting with sit bones (ischium) another in the form of sleepiness, chaotic Looking at the photo of the infant’s sitting, thoughts, uncomfortable sensations and so on. we notice that he is If one tries to win this battle by willpower, one firmly connected is bound to fail. The practitioner will just end with the floor up hurting the body and mind by doing too through his pelvis. many unnatural things. His spine-neck- skull (twelve tho- Forcible action and spontaneous action racic, five lumbar Zen master Dogen calls this type of action figure 1 and seven cervical go-i (forcible action). It means to do something vertebrae), like the intentionally, by force, aiming at certain goal. links of a chain, is freely stretched upward, sup- He sets un-i against go-i. Un-i is spontaneous ported by the solid pelvic structure. The points action that emerges naturally in response to the of contact between the pelvis and the floor are situation beyond judgment and discretion. the two sit bones, right and left (see figure 1). There is a common misunderstanding that In sitting, the most important thing is letting zazen is done as accumulation of go-i. But our body weight fall onto the best point of the Dogen says that zazen should be done by “let- sit bones. This determines the tilt of the pelvis, ting go of both your body and mind, forgetting which in turn strongly influences the shape of them both, and throwing yourself into the the upper body and the balance of the whole house of Buddha, with all being done by body. Sit bones are literally “zazen bones.” Buddha” (Shobogenzo Shoji). This means that zazen should be practiced as un-i. I show a When doing zazen, we put a round cushion, photo of an infant’s sitting when giving zazen called a zafu, under the sit bones. If we use a zafu instruction because I hope it will prevent prac- of appropriate thickness titioners from practicing zazen as go-i. There is - not too thick, not too a sentence in the Bible (Matthew 18-3): thin - the outsides of ”Unless you turn and become like children, both knees will easily you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” and firmly touch the Borrowing this famous phrase, I would like to zabuton (square cush- say, “Unless you turn and sit like children, you ion under the zafu) or will never enter the gate of zazen.” the floor (see figure 2). So, how can we sit zazen as un-i? What path figure 2 31 Now please see figure 3. The line connect- most properly. If our body weight is supported ing the right and left sit bones (I) and the line at point 1, the pelvis tilts too far backward. connecting the anus (A) and sexual organs (S) This results in rounding of the lumbar and tho- meet at C. If we draw a line from C to the top racic area, sliding down of the ribcage, com- of the head (TS), it defines a central axis of the pression in the abdominal area, pulling in of body. It is crucial to sit so that the line C-TS the chin, and closing of the eyelids. If our body extends up and weight is supported at point 3, the pelvis tilts down freely too far forward. This results in bending back- and vertically. ward at the lumbar and thoracic area, sliding Of course, this up of the ribcage, protruding of the abdominal line does not area, pushing out of the chin, and opening of exist as an ana- the eyelids. These connected changes in various tomical entity. body parts are induced naturally by the move- It only exists as ment of the pelvis, as a chain reaction. The a felt-sense to body should be flexible enough to allow these figure 3 the sitter. The changes to happen freely. Through carefully isosceles triangle KCK´(K and K´are the knees) is the foundation supporting the central axis. For this to happen, it is necessary to let the body weight fall vertically straight onto the proper points of the curved surface of the sit bones. When we do this, our body’s innate self-regulatory mechanism allows the upper body to naturally elongate upward. It is neces- sary to have the muscles around pelvic joints, pelvis, spine, neck and shoulders deeply relaxed so that they do not hinder the sponta- neous adjusting movement of the figure 5 whole body. sensing with the whole body (figure 5), we figure 4 Slowly rolling the should discover point 2, where our spine natu- pelvis forward and rally elongates, somewhere between points 1 backward on the curved surface of the sit and 3. bones, we carefully look for point 2 in figure 4, the point where our body weight is supported When we are sitting on point 2 of the sit 32 bones, our body weight is so firmly and solidly depth. Through the nose, in-breath and out- supported with such a good balance that we can breath quietly happen with our body’s own reduce muscle tension substantially. We can rhythm. With in-breath, the whole body have a feeling of being in a perfectly “neutral” expands, the sit bones press on the zafu, the position and sometimes even feel that we have pelvis tilts forward a bit and the spine slightly no sense of weight. Here there is no need to stands up. With out-breath, the whole body make an extra effort to put our back in position. contracts and the pelvis and the spine come back to the original position. In this way the Natural regulation of the body waves of breathing movement spread through When we sit down on point 2, we can feel all corners of the body. If we feel this spread is the flow of supporting force from the floor blocked, we unwind the blocked part so the along the central axis of the body (in reaction wave of breath can go through our whole body.
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