Hello,
This is Tina Rasmussen and I'm now going to give you some posture instructions that can help you to really optimize your meditation practice.
Often there are a lot of instructions given about the meditation itself,
But the posture that we're sitting in is often overlooked as part of the instructions.
And it can be quite important,
Especially in particular practices like the Samatha practice,
But really in any practice,
Vipassana or any meditation that you are undertaking,
Setting up your posture at the beginning of the meditation can really help your practice settle and flourish.
So I'll work through the body starting at the feet and going up to the head.
If you want to get into your normal posture,
Whether that's sitting on a cushion or using a bench or sitting in a chair,
Any of those are absolutely fine,
As well as I'm sure others,
But these are really targeted at an upright posture.
Go ahead and close your eyes so you can really tune into your physical sensation as we do this.
Starting with the feet for those of you who are sitting in a chair,
Really make sure that your feet are firmly planted on the ground,
That they aren't crossed or pushed behind the chair some way,
But really have your feet firmly on the ground and feel the earth beneath you supporting you.
If you're on a bench or cushion,
The same thing applies to your knees.
So really feel that contact with the earth and the sense of the earth or whatever's under you that's on the earth.
Ultimately,
The earth is supporting us as our mother,
As the place from which all of us came in a certain way biologically,
And just feel that support underneath you and see if you can relax,
Holding your body up and just surrender into the gravity of the earth that is holding us.
And then moving up the legs,
See if your legs can be alert but relaxed,
And moving our way up to the hips.
Now one of the benefits of sitting on a zafu or a bench is that the hip alignment tends to be more optimal,
But it's fairly easy to accomplish this in a chair.
What you want is for your pelvis to be slightly tilted so that the natural S-curve of your back happens on its own.
And if you've ever looked at a skeleton hanging in a doctor's office or seen that in the media,
You can see a natural curve that goes from our upper spine down to the lower spine with the belly being outward and the chest being back.
And having our pelvis tilted slightly helps create this natural curve which is going to support your body much better through your skeleton actually.
So in a chair that would mean maybe putting your feet out a little farther and having your knees below your hips or even having a cushion or a folded towel or something under you especially if you're tall so that your knees aren't higher than your hips.
And so just to feel that slight tilt or make any changes to have that be in place,
This is the time to do that.
We also at the hip area want to check our balance from left to right and to really see whether we're leaning in one way or another.
And you might just lean a little bit to each side just to see if you can then settle into your center,
Really having your spine be in the middle and not tipping to one side or another even subtly.
Then going up,
You can feel that slight inward curve in your lower back,
Going to the belly.
See if your belly can be relaxed.
Oftentimes we can hold in there and that really restricts the breathing.
So see if you can just let those muscles relax,
Even let your belly hang a little bit.
Nobody's watching you while you're meditating,
Hopefully.
Unless there's a teacher there,
They might be watching a little bit.
Just let your belly hang and feel the relaxation of that.
Then going up to your chest,
Working your way up the spine.
We can often be very slumped forward in the chest and this will really create a lot of neck pain and not be optimal for your meditation posture.
So see if you can just subtly have the chest be open.
You don't need to jut it out,
But to just feel your shoulders relaxing down your back and to have the chest really be open.
And this is the other side of the S-curve in the spine.
Having our heart be open and not be slumping forward really creates a much better posture.
It's better for our breathing and that will then support our head much better as well.
Going up then to the shoulders and then to the arms to just have them folded comfortably and in a relaxed way.
In your lap,
You can have one hand on top of the other.
That's a traditional posture.
Or you can have your hands just resting comfortably on your legs.
And for people who are sitting on a cushion or on a bench,
Sometimes we might need to have a blanket or a pillow,
Something underneath the hands so that our shoulders aren't being weighted by the hands because they're too low.
So if that applies to you,
You might want to try just putting a folded towel or something on your lap so that your hands can rest comfortably and your shoulders aren't kind of dangling in front of you.
That'll cause a slumped posture and we want our chest to be nice and open.
Then moving up to the neck.
Our necks can hold a lot of tension so you might want to just move the neck around a little bit to see if there can be some relaxation there.
And you want to have your neck really centered on top of the rest of the spine and not jutting forward.
That can often happen where our chin is sticking out.
So just see if your neck can be situated right on top of your spine and then going up to the head to see if your chin can be tucked just a little bit so that it's as if your face was on a flat plane with a wall in front so that your chin isn't tipped up or tipped down too far that'll cause our whole body to tip forward.
And then feeling the head just resting on top of the spine.
That way it doesn't take a lot of muscular effort to keep your head in place.
Again here this is a time to notice whether you're tipping to the right or the left at all and to really be centered.
Bring them to the jaw,
We can hold a lot of tension in our jaw.
See if your jaw can be relaxed and maybe feel a little bit of space in between the jawbone and the skull.
Touching the tip of your tongue onto the upper palate just behind the front teeth can also relax the jaw.
So if that's comfortable for you,
You might want to try that and it also completes an energy circuit in the body.
And if that feels like too much effort and it's not comfortable,
Don't worry about that.
It's just something else you can try to see if it's beneficial.
Going then to your face.
See if your face can be relaxed.
Relax all those muscles.
Going to the eyes.
Let your eyes just rest in the sockets.
They don't need to do anything when we're meditating.
And then moving up to even the scalp.
Can you relax your scalp and just let any tension in your head anywhere.
Let go.
And now doing one more scan of your whole body.
Letting yourself really let go and settle into your seat.
Balanced.
Having an alertness to your posture.
You don't need to be straight as a rod,
But being upright,
Being alert and yet relaxed at the same time.
You can feel that relaxation in your shoulders just letting everything go as you now go on to your meditation practice.
Thank you for listening.
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