PROPER POSTURE REQUIRED
In Zero Defex we had a song called
"Proper Attire Required" which was a rant about music clubs that
wouldn't let you come in unless you wore a tie, as well as the whole mentality
surrounding that kind of idea. The thought that anyone would even want to pay
money to go to a place that required you to wear a tie -- that forced you to
conform -- was appalling. So I shouldn't have been surprised when I got some
angry responses to my statement in the last installment
that zazen was a "proper posture required" practice, and that if you
didn't do zazen in the proper posture you were missing out on 90% of the
practice.
But I stand by what I said; proper posture is
a requirement of zazen practice. I'm not the only one who says this, by the
way. Check out the chapter "Posture" in Shunryu Suzuki's Zen Mind,
Beginner's Mind or Dogen's chapter
"Fukanzazenji" (Guidelines for Practicing Zazen) in Shobogenzo or just about anything written by Gudo Nishijima. But
I'm not going to try and bamboozle you with quotes from renowned authorities.
It's what you discover for yourself that's important. And what I've discovered
for myself is that proper posture in zazen is absolutely vital to the practice.
People want Zen to be an "anything
goes" type of philosophy. Sometimes people mistake the Zen insistence that
wherever you are and whatever you are right now is Reality itself for the idea
that anything goes. But anything does not go. Buddhism is about discovering the
things that "go," that really work and make our lives and the lives
of others better and happier, and the things that do not "go," that
make ourselves and others miserable. The fact that Zen Buddhism doesn't have
any set lists of hard-and-fast rules which are supposed to work anywhere at
anytime for anyone at all does not mean that everything is OK. Right and wrong
still exist.
To extend the metaphor I used last time, if a
professional bowler told you that using a bowling ball is the right way to bowl
and using a big ball of yarn was the the wrong way, you'd probably take his
advice. But for reasons I'll never fully comprehend, people don't seem
interested in the same kind of advice when it's offered by a Zen teacher. And
this is fine. If you want to make mistakes, I'm not going to stop you. Bowl a
few frames with your ball of yarn and see how it works. When you're done with
that maybe we can talk.
In the chapter on doing zazen in my book I
mention only sitting on a cushion in the full lotus, half lotus and Burmese
positions (what we used to call "sitting Indian style" when we were
kids). I thought hard about adding some lines about doing zazen on a wooden
bench they call a seiza bench or doing it while sitting in a chair, but I
decided against it. I didn't do this lightly either. I had some very good
reasons based upon practice and experience.
I know all the arguments against sitting in
the correct position. I hear them almost any time I or any other teacher I
happen to be listening to starts talking about the proper sitting posture.
Folks always start wildly speculating about hypothetical situations. "What
if someone was in a horrific gardening accident and lost both arms and
legs?" "What about people who've had their leg bones replaced with
thermoplastic implants that can't possibly be bent into the lotus position or
they'll break and leak poisonous compounds into their bloodstream killing them
instantly?" "What about paraplegics? Can't they get enlightened?"
"What about people with birth defects, or crippling diseases? Don't they
have the Buddha nature too?"
The trouble is, I've never heard a question
like this from someone who actually had a crippling disease, a birth defect, or
who'd had both legs lobbed off by a madman in a samurai costume. In fact these
questions always -- always -- come from people who are perfectly capable of
doing proper zazen, but who would like an excuse not to.
The few times I've encountered people who had
conditions that prevented them from doing zazen in the correct posture have
been quite different. At the first place I practiced zazen there was a
quadriplegic guy who used to sit with us. He just used his chin to push on this
little lever on his motorized chair, wheeled himself up to the wall and faced
it until the bell rang, at which point he'd use that lever to spin the chair
around and make a little nod with his head when the rest of us bowed. Once a
tennis pro visited one of our summer retreats. As athletic as he was, his legs
had stiffened up to the point where no matter how hard he tried he could not
make his knees touch the floor when he sat on a cushion. His solution was to
grab another two cushions to support his knees while sitting. Afterwards he
started working on some exercises to improve his lack of flexibility which, as
an athlete, he regarded with some concern. These people did not look for
excuses, but found ways to beat their own limitations.
There is no good reason why someone who
writes about Zen absolutely needs to address a lot of hypothetical maybe type
situations which might preclude someone from sitting in the proper position.
People who really can't do those positions know it already and don't need to be
told. If you're serious about zazen you will find a way to do it no matter what
physical condition you're in. When a teacher meets someone with some specific
condition that needs to be addressed, he or she can assess that person's
situation and advise that person how best to do the practice in light of their unique
situation. No problem. If you have any problems like that feel free to write me
about it. But in cases like these, a face-to-face consultation is much more
effective. Just don't be surprised if your teacher takes a look and says,
"Stop making excuses and sit in the right position!"
It might sound very politically correct to
address these kinds of things. But it leads to more problems than it solves
because it allows people who really could do zazen properly to make excuses for
themselves and do it wrong. How do I know this, you ask? Because I am one of
those people. For many years, I fooled myself into believing I was simply
incapable of sitting in the lotus position. This in spite of the fact that I
knew very well that I could twist my legs up in that position and hold it for
several minutes at a time. My teachers were both so tough that when they saw me
doing zazen wrong they didn't hit me with a stick or shout. In fact they did
not say a word. They'd already explained how zazen was supposed to be done.
They knew I understood. And yet I wasn't doing it right. So they just let me
keep right on doing it that way.
Those kinds of teachers are the toughest
around. They'll let their students spend years and years doing things wrong
until the students discover their own mistakes for themselves because they know
there is nothing more convincing than when you discover your own mistakes for
yourself. I wish life wasn't this hard. But sometimes it just is. And here I
am, an old softie, telling you how to do it right. Just call me Master
Marshmallow.
After a few years of sitting zazen wrong, I
finally buckled down and started doing it right and noticed a tremendous
difference, not just physically, but mentally as well. You will too if you try
it.
Since I discovered what real sitting was I
must have encountered a couple dozen other lame-o's just like me who actually
could manage the posture if they made a little bit of effort, but who begged
out of it with all kinds of half-assed excuses. These guys (who seem to all be
American and male, by the way, for what that's worth) all seem to be saying,
"Hey, look at me, I'm not one of those cross-legged schmucks. Cuz I have a
unique problem with my legs/back/neck, you see..." It reminds me of the
character on the old Second City TV show who could walk, but rode around in a
wheelchair to get sympathy. It's like looking at your friend who's suicidally
depressed because of repeated abuse she suffered as a child who's gotten better
by taking Prozac® and thinking that maybe you should try taking some because
you're kinda down in the dumps since your girlfriend dumped you to go out with
a professional Pogo Stick® champion. But, hey, if that's what you really want
to do, fine by me.
Zazen is not a "spiritual"
practice. It is the effort of mind and body. Body and mind are one and the
same. If you were not born with
eighteen slimy green tentacles instead of legs -- or whatever -- and you still
cannot manage the lotus position, this is evidence that you have abused your
body for many, many years. If you don't believe me, find me one able bodied
three year old who cannot do the lotus position or indeed bend her body in ways
most accomplished yogis or gymnasts would envy. You had that ability too when
you were that age and you lost it. No, let me be more direct. You threw it
away. And if the body is not right, neither is the mind.
Zazen is very much a physical practice. As
with any physical practice, there are right ways and wrong ways to do it. Keeping
the spine straight using your own ability to balance the vertebrae on top of
each other without any effort is the key to good zazen. Zazen is all about
achieving physical as well as mental balance because they are the same thing.
While sitting in zazen you're trying to maintain balance in your posture. Sit
like you would if you had one of your rich Aunt Betty's antique porcelain
dishes worth a couple hundred bucks balanced on top of your head. Stay straight
and your mind will settle of its own accord. You won't need to count your
breath or think about a koan or any of that silliness if you just keep your
posture right.
If you're too fat to do zazen, try losing
some weight. If your legs are too stiff, try doing what I did and learning some
other yoga exercises to loosen those muscles up. Nothing worthwhile comes
without effort. People who tell you you can do zazen just as well lying down or
in a chair or on a kneeling bench are fooling you. Those kinds of practices are
only for people who absolutely can't do anything else. They're effective
practices for people who really, truly need them. That doesn't mean they'll
work just as well for someone who doesn't.
You can achieve some kinds of wowie-zowie
type spiritual states lying down or floating in tanks of heated water and all
that. But that's not zazen and what you discover by those practices is not
Reality. Sitting in your La-Z-Boy® and spacing out is not zazen.