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Fascinating. Deep gratitude for the advice ZM - I find that the emotions that come up when I meditate are very often ones I have suppressed under the "Oh that is the past, let it go" label. What I have probably NOT done is deal with them before letting them go.
Excellent advice on handling emotions that come up, ZM and Federica! Thank you. Knitwitch, I have been working on actually dealing with emotions when they come up rather than just ignoring them, or shoving them away, and it's tough! This advice for dealing with them while meditating will be very helpful.
And that was the question I wanted to ask: does one direct observation and do the 'nonthink/think'....like following a thread...during sitting? OR, is that an activity done afterwards to clear it away...and then go back to meditation?
1. Is meditation directed while sitting?
2, Should one consider sitting as meditation, and non-sitting as non-meditation - as seperate states? If yes, what is the qualifier that distinguishes the two?
1) It's directed in the sense that we bring ourselves back again and again to the body/breath/mind. Ultimately though, it goes beyond technique, as in Shikantaza or Dzogchen. Sitting does sitting, breathing does breathing.
2) I would say that meditation has nothing to do with any particular posture, yet the effort to sit in meditation is indispensable and to sit in meditation is itself a complete manifestation of the awakened mind. If for some reason you can't sit because of a physical problem, then lie down. If you can sit - sit. There's posture of mind and posture of body and they are both two different manifestations of the same thing - body and mind are one and meditation helps us to begin to realize this experentially - to gradually integrate body/mind so that we see that fundamentally there is no separation between breath/body/mind/others/ourselves/this/that.
These excerpts from a couple of Dharma talks might be of interest. Bear with me here because it's going to be a long post and some of this you may already be well aware of:
What is the point of the posture of zazen?
To learn to open past what you think of as “you”;
To learn to step past all of the states you believe yourself to be
Into who and what you truly are,
Awareness in Itself.
What does the posture point to?
The posture points to Awareness in Itself.
Why don’t you already know this?
You do. But you choose to ignore it.
...There is an appearance of balance and alignment, but some of you are already uncomfortable even though you’ve only been sitting for a few minutes.
And so although it may seem quite still in the room, there are already some subtle and not so subtle movements going on here and there – someone rocking very slightly; toes flex, a foot shuffles just a little, a small shift of the head – subtle callisthenics to relieve perceived tension in the neck. Some of us understand the importance of simply sitting still. Others who have not been practicing for quite as long are not as clear about this. In ten or fifteen minutes the little “corrections” going on around the room will become more and more obvious as students begin to argue with themselves about how their posture “should” be.
Now we might think that these little movements – the shuffling of a foot a slight rocking motion or the continuous movements generated by arguing with oneself over one’s posture are okay because we are sitting and we’re just “trying to get it right” or some such thing, but they’re not okay. As our Teacher, Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi often says “If you move while sitting zazen, you simply haven’t sat. You’ve just been sitting around instead of practising a round of zazen.”
One of the most important things that we are practising when we sit is the posture itself. The posture of zazen lets the body sit as the body itself instead of holding it captive to our usual states, thoughts, feelings and storylines. Ordinarily, when we experience a state of sadness or anger or confusion, whether alone or with other people, we act it out with the body by doing such things as physically tightening, allowing the spine to collapse, sighing, fidgeting, grimacing, rocking, shifting, twitching, pursing the lips, clenching the teeth or going slack-jawed, narrowing the eyes, twiddling our thumbs and on and on and on. A thought, a feeling, even the memory of something that happened 30 minutes or 30 years ago can express itself bodily and when we do this what we are doing is reinforcing the state.
When we sit in zazen, what the posture points to is not what you ordinarily think of as “you”, which is a collection of habits and tendencies. In fact, your whole life points to the fact that it is not about you and never has been. The posture of zazen is very simple and very clear. The point of the posture is to sit in the reality of this moment. The posture points to the open space of reality all around and within and as the bodymind.
Let’s start at the very beginning, the beginning of the sitting round. You have a minute or so to arrange your posture and you must do this mindfully because you cannot “fix” it later. Once everyone is settled and the room is quiet, we begin the sitting round with the set of forms all students are instructed to use: We bow forward and exhale; we straighten and inhale; we settle into balance point.
Everything is positioned as well as you can position it. You are sitting up straight, nose over the navel, ears over the shoulders, balanced and aligned. Your hands are resting in the mudra, with all of the fingers in full contact with one another, the thumbs forming a gentle arch.
Now stay like that.
No movement for the next 30 minutes: No fidgeting, no fixing anything, no changing posture. Sit still. If you don’t move out of alignment, there’s nothing to fix, no corrections to be made.
Anything, any thought, any feeling, any impulse, any idea, any movement of attention, any reactivity that causes you to begin to move at all needs to be noticed and released immediately. The only way that you can do that is if you are feeling into the sensations of the body from the beginning of your sitting round, and moment after moment, doing this continuously for the next 30 minutes. This means you will need to refresh your practice again and again and again and again and again. It means that you have to actually pay attention with each breath. This is what practice is – continuous mindfulness of whole-bodily experience, opening to the seeing and hearing. This is not the time to think about anything, let alone think about how you feel about anything. It requires that you make an effort to open past thoughts and feeling tones.
An occasional adjustment to the posture such as straightening the spine a little or realigning the mudra is acceptable, but this shouldn’t be necessary more than two or three times during a half-hour sitting round even if you are very tired. Again, if you are continuously feeling into the sensations of the body, releasing any states, thoughts or feelings that begin to pull the bodymind out of alignment as soon as they come up, you won’t go out of alignment in the first place, so there is no need to constantly adjust your posture.
And this one, which also touches more on why the form, the way things are done in Buddhist practice - including both posture and ritual are indispensable:
This practice closes the gaps between our body and mind, and between our attention and our activity.
So much of the time, we are lost in our thoughts or separated from our experience. We may do several things at once: we may listen to music and eat or smoke, or talk on the telephone while we are driving; we may say one thing while we are feeling something else, or we may allow our mental activity to wander endlessly away from what we are actually doing. This becomes such a strong unconscious habit that we end up losing much of our lives. We all tune out, a little or a lot, from our actual life, and I think we do this initially because of painful circumstances, or because we are bored, which we may experience as painful because boredom is such a dead space. Over time, the process of tuning out becomes such a habit that it tends to accompany all of our activity. Getting in touch with the process we go through as we tune out, as well as with what prompts us to tune out, is a big step in closing the gap between our actual life, here and now, and our imaginary, projected, or conceptualized life.
In Zen practice, at least in Japanese Zen, instead of using mindfulness practices, the forms are used to bring us back to the aliveness we can only know in our concrete existence. By forms I mean both the formalized movements we make, like bowing, as well as the way we regard and handle things which brings a kind of presence to the space or to the thing itself. I’ve heard that in traditional Japanese culture, the value of a piece of art depended not only on the quality of the object and who created it, but also on who owned it and the care and regard they brought to the piece.
One aspect of the forms is precision. There is a specific way that the forms are done, and this precision isn’t important because there is a right and a wrong way of doing them, but because the precision, or lack of it, provides information about whether we are present with the detail of what we are doing or whether we have drifted away.
Many of the instructions for Zen meditation are directed to the physical details of our posture. The culture that Zen grew out of made much less distinction between the body and mind than our culture does. So, the idea is that sitting upright, aligning the spine and being still physically, supports the mind in settling and becoming focused. In Zen we tend to work with the mind indirectly, through the body. As you know, this meditation posture [“lotus” position] developed in India. It’s a yogic posture. Each aspect of the position, actually of any position, effects our state of mind. So, Zen meditation isn’t something we do only with the mind. What we practice with is much wider than the boundaries of our thinking. In Zen it is said that realization must penetrate every cell of our body, down to the marrow of our bones and out to each tip of our hair. In Zen practice, we use our body as an ally to enable us to practice with the totality of our being.
Suzuki Roshi said,
“You should sit zazen with your whole body: your spine, mouth, toes, mudra. Check on your posture during zazen. Each part of your body should practice zazen independently or separately. You should feel each part of your body doing zazen separately....Don't move your legs for your own convenience. Your legs are practicing their own zazen independently and are completely involved in their own pain. They are doing zazen through pain. You should allow them to practice their own zazen....” [Talk given during zazen 6/28/70]
We have different ways to work with the habitual activity of our body, speech, and thought. We sit down and practice zazen and let our habitual patterns begin to unwind. We give our body, speech, and mind new activities which lead to disentangling. For example, we have several positions for our hands. These are specific, intentional positions; they aren’t some kind of coincidence or accident. Each of these positions affects our state of mind. For example, in walking meditation, we place our hands in a firm, contained position. When we bow, we place our palms together with no gaps between the fingers and thumb of each hand in the mudra the Japanese call gassho.
In zazen, we use what is called the “cosmic mudra,” in which the hands are overlapping and connected, but open. As you know there is a lot of emphasis on being upright and keeping the spine well aligned. I think that, after aligning the spine, the next most important aspect of the zazen posture is the position of the hands. For years, I put my hands into the mudra and then rested them, sort of like a dead weight, on the top of my thighs, and forgot about them while I went on to follow my breathing.
At some point, I got the idea to hold my hands up higher on my abdomen so that my thumbs were near the height of my naval. This brought a different kind of balance to my overall alignment. It felt as though there was less weight bearing down on my body, so there was less to hold up. It brought a lightness to my posture. I find that when I pay attention to the roundness of the hands, and to the very, very light contact between my thumbs, it keeps me present and in my body, and I fall asleep much less. When my attention drifts away, my hands tend to come down, and the open, round shape changes and my thumbs separate. Holding the hands in this manner, requires intention and attention, but, at the same time, there is an openness of shape, and a lightness of contact between the thumbs. I’ve found that the dynamic or aliveness of my hands in this position isn’t separate from my state of mind.
In each of the positions we use for our hands in the Zendo, the hands are brought together, which supports the mind in coming to one-pointedness. One way to practice in activity is to practice doing things with both hands. Whatever you are doing, see if you can do it with two hands instead of one. This will slow you down, but it will simplify your activity, helping to keep your mind on your activity.
Some of the forms we use are more apparent than others. I think explaining too many details in the beginning can be overwhelming and actually obscure practice. For example, it is traditional to enter the Zendo on the left side of the doorway, stepping into the room with the left foot, but this doorway is so narrow, that once a person is in it, there isn’t really a left and right side to it. So, one way to work on being present is to try to step through the doorway with your left foot. Suzuki Roshi suggested that we turn clockwise when we sit down on the zafu to face the wall and, again, when zazen is over to turn clockwise before we stand up. A practical side of this is that we are all turning the same direction so it is less likely that we will bump into each other. We use the form of bowing when we enter the Zendo, and bowing to and away from our cushions before sitting down, and bowing when we pass in front of the altar. These arbitrary details help us notice our preferences, our strong or subtle likes and dislikes, and they give us a background against which to contrast our usual tendencies and conditioned activity. When we do such meaningless activity as bowing to cushions or holding the chant card with two hands instead of one, or stopping and taking off our shoes before entering a room and then stopping and putting our shoes back on when we leave, this helps us extend ourselves beyond our rational, logical minds.
We bow to our cushions or to the altar or to each other not because we, here, are Buddhists, or the Buddha figure is “sacred,” or because our practice is special. We bow because every*thing is special. What all this bowing and stepping forward with a particular foot does is to pull us out of the realm of our mental constructs, our incessant mental activity, into the realm of what is actually right before us.
I find that Doan work, ringing the bells in zazen and service, and eating formal meals in the Zendo give me the opportunity to go beyond depending on my thinking to know when to ring the bell, or to know what comes next in the Zendo meal, so more of my consciousness is available, and my experience isn’t fenced in by the boundaries of my ability to track what is next.
The oryoki or Zendo meal is a wonderful activity in which to practice doing one thing at a time. We really have to pay attention to what we are doing and how we are doing it. For the Zendo meal, we eat at our places with our bowls on the floor. If you are wearing robes, and only have one set of robes, you really don’t want to spill anything. I find that I am more concentrated when I use both hands. I pick up each bowl with two hands, move the utensils with both hands. I also find that I am more concentrated when I keep my back straight, in the zazen posture, while I am eating, which means I must bring the bowl up to my mouth to eat.
Although monastic life is filled with forms, the point isn’t to recreate the forms perfectly. There is nothing right or wrong, sacred or profane about the forms. They are arbitrary or agreed upon ways of doing an activity. The forms support us to attend to our state of mind in the midst of our activity. So, whatever situation arises, whatever happens, we address that and take care of it as if it were our state of mind without worrying about making mistakes. The emphasis is on sincerity and one-pointedness of mind. Suzuki Roshi said, “When you do something, if you fix your mind on the activity with some confidence, the quality of your state of mind is the activity itself.”
In Zen our practice is to bring the wholehearted activity of our body and mind to the simple, full presence of this moment. There’s really nothing else. Rather than trying to control or analyze our experience, we bring our attention back to our presence. We use our body to support our mind in doing this. We use the stability of our body to stabilize our mind, trusting the self that is independent of knowing East or West, black or white, up or down.
"Although monastic life is filled with forms, the point isn’t to recreate the forms perfectly. There is nothing right or wrong, sacred or profane about the forms. They are arbitrary or agreed upon ways of doing an activity. The forms support us to attend to our state of mind in the midst of our activity. So, whatever situation arises, whatever happens, we address that and take care of it as if it were our state of mind without worrying about making mistakes. The emphasis is on sincerity and one-pointedness of mind. Suzuki Roshi said, “When you do something, if you fix your mind on the activity with some confidence, the quality of your state of mind is the activity itself.”
In Zen our practice is to bring the wholehearted activity of our body and mind to the simple, full presence of this moment. There’s really nothing else. Rather than trying to control or analyze our experience, we bring our attention back to our presence. We use our body to support our mind in doing this. We use the stability of our body to stabilize our mind, trusting the self that is independent of knowing East or West, black or white, up or down."
Me too at times. When I find myself doing that, I often find that it's actually a form of resistance to the sitting as well as a way of being up in my head, thinking of what the posture should be rather than just sitting.
One thing that I'd suggest, in addition to Federica's advice, is to feel the emotion in the body - that is really feel what that emotion is pysically - where does it manifest, how does it manifest? Is there a tightness in the chest or the abdomen, is there resistance to it, or is there openess to it, is the breathing affected and so forth, then return to the breathing and posture. Often, when the body/mind begins to get used to sitting meditation and stops flailing about and dispersing it's energies in unecessary thought, emotions will arise spontaneously, often without apparant reason. By opening up to them, experiencing them fully in the body and then returning to posture and breathing, we can let go of them without pushing them away or wallowing in them. A particularly useful practice both for physical pain and for difficult emotions, is to try a little to soften the area where we feel the pain or the emotion, rather than what we often tend to do - which is to tense up.
Thanks for asking those questions, Harlan. Your response, Genryu, is very helpful to me. I think I was doing just as you said, tensing the area of pain, both emotional and physical. I wasn't aware of that as much as I should have been. Now I will be. I'll remember to soften the area. (Again, Greenpeace learning comes in strangely handy; go limp. LOL!)
I was pushing against my physical pain, or falling into it, which is a different practice. When the pain gets really bad I concentrate on nothing but the pain in a quiet room (I'm working up to doing it in a normal, noisy atmosphere), and I sort of fall into it and the pain changes, quite quickly sometimes. Sometimes it becomes meaningless and empty and I don't feel much of anything. But sometimes, (this may sound crazy), the pain kind of feels good (?). I don't know how or why, and sometimes I can make myself fall asleep like that. I can't really explain it.
But I try not to do that when I'm meditating. So I have a tendency to kind of resist the pain and it's very present. I start to worry if I'm damaging my back even more (which is why I laughed so hard at your description earlier). But my real challenge is alertness because of the meds. and, sometimes, the pain lulling me. So I tend to sit towards the end of the last dose of meds. when they're wearing off, and the pain starts to increase. (Sometimes I have to fight so hard to stay alert that I've thought of going out to sit in the snow!)
So, from what you said, I should let the pain be, not resist it or get lulled by it (what I call falling into it), and relax the area from which the pain is emanating. And bring myself back to breath and posture ('cuz I'm still at the "calm abiding" stage, with the everyday mindfulness of body and speech as my constant foundation) and mindful alertness whenever I go astray. Is that close?
Wow, Genryu. You posted all of that and the others responded, all in the time it took me to post!
And since then I've done a 20 minute sitting !
It is so hard not to move while sitting. About 5 minutes into my sitting my foot started to hurt - I sit in Burmese posture and it's always the foot nearest my groin that plays up. It was a niggle at first but after a while it was absolute agony and I just had to wiggle it a bit.
The same thing happened at my meditation group on Monday. We do two 40 minute sits with 5 kinhin in between to help get the blood moving again. My inside foot was a nightmare, I'm not sure whether it's my posture or not but I seem to be hyperextending it which then pushes the top of my foot into the mat.
I guess (and hope!) it's something that will get easier with time as I've only recently been using a zafu. Before that I used a bench I'd made for kneeling which was good but I didn't get the feeling of solidity that I get sitting on my zafu.
It is so hard not to move while sitting. About 5 minutes into my sitting my foot started to hurt - I sit in Burmese posture and it's always the foot nearest my groin that plays up. It was a niggle at first but after a while it was absolute agony and I just had to wiggle it a bit.
The same thing happened at my meditation group on Monday. We do two 40 minute sits with 5 kinhin in between to help get the blood moving again. My inside foot was a nightmare, I'm not sure whether it's my posture or not but I seem to be hyperextending it which then pushes the top of my foot into the mat.
Perhaps your foot is tucked too far under the leg and circulation is being cut off dramatically. I've found that there is a big difference between a few cm in placement and the amount of pain you might feel in the legs. Hence the concentration required in the first minute during which the posture is set.
Of course I may be completely wrong as I sit half lotus!
You were right BSF, if I move my foot a fraction further away I don't get quite the same level of discomfort.
I've also been moving towards half-lotus and this has made a big difference in my comfort.
I need to do more yoga, after 90 minutes of that I can sit in full lotus quite comfortably. Unfortunately fitting in a yoga session before each sit isn't too practical !
One thing I'd advise if anyone's sitting half lotus (or full lotus), is to alternate which leg is uppermost each sitting if possible. This helps to develop the muscles of the legs and lower back equally, rather than unevenly, which can lead to distortions in posture and long term discomfort.
It also helps prevent injury to you knees.
Both the monk at Reading priory and Rev Master Daishin Morgan (the Abbot at Throssel) meditate sitting on a chair due to damaging their knees from too much sitting.
The guy that runs our meditation group was a postulant monk at Shasta for 18 months and he ended up bursting his patella from over sitting in lotus.
I guess it's a case of listening to your body and knowing your limits.
Also very good advice. A good thing to do when arranging your legs for sitting is to cradle the knee as you fold and unfold the legs. The knee is a comparatively weak joint and should be treated with care. This is also another good reason for not sitting more than 45 minutes or so without a break.
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federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
edited March 2006
It's the most complex joint in the body, and the largest, with crusciate ligaments that are a nightmare when injured....think football.....
Tendons and ligaments should never hyper-extend... they are there to hold things together, not stretch them apart... having little or no blood supply also means they take an interminable time to heal.
This process can be accelerated by taking Glucosamine sulphate - a food supplement which takes around two weeks to begin to take effect, because it's a slow process for the body to absorb and use it.
It was developped initially to, accelerate the healing of joint injuries in race-horses... expensive pets if they ain't doin' nuthin'..... and was then further developped and marketed for those suffering from joint problems. Good stuff.
Now what I'd like to hear is what meditation is all about from Palzang or Elohim.
-bf
What, ZM isn't good enough for you?!
Oh, all right... I don't have much to add actually. I started sitting with a small Zen group on the North side of Chicago way back in the early '70s. I remember very clearly sitting there at night and hearing the traffic and city sounds outside. Just sitting like that, I didn't attach to the sounds and in fact felt quite grateful for the opportunity to actually hear them instead of blanking them out with my monkey mind like I usually did. I found the sound of a bus driving by, gently shaking the building I was in, to be quite beautiful. When I got to Tibetan Buddhism and heard the phrase "all sounds are the mantra's sound," I knew exactly what they were talking about. I also remember driving back down to the South side where I lived along Lakeshore Drive after a weekend sitting retreat and being astounded at how my perceptions had changed. It was like I was seeing the world with my whole eye, not just the point of focus like usual. It was like the whole world had opened up.
The point of this is that Buddhism is an experiential path. You can't just read about it and "get" it. Never happen. You have to meditate and practice, otherwise you'll just be dead in the water and eventually quit because nothing is happening.
As for the technique of meditation, the Vidyadhara Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche once described meditation as being like letting a young, rambunctious calf out into a huge field. At first the calf will bound all over the place, jumping here and there, exploring every nook and cranny, but eventually it will tire of all that and just settle down naturally. That's like our minds. If we give it the space, it will behave in pretty much the same way. When thoughts arise in our minds, one way to deal with them is to take a mental sticky note labeled "Thinking", stick it on the thought, and then let it go. Emotions are also considered thoughts, so do the same with them. Don't let them pull you away from your still point.
Physically you need to find a good seat. You should be comfortable but not so comfortable you'll fall asleep. That's why the full or half-lotus position is so perfect for meditation as you can't just fall back into the cushion and sleep, and there will be just enough tension in your body to keep your mind alert. Eyes should be open slightly, pointed towards the floor a few feet in front of you. Not focused, just directed that way. You sort of unfocus and see without seeing, if that makes any sense. The eyes are a good way to moderate your mind as well. If you're feeling sleepy, just lift your gaze a bit. If your mind is racing all over the place, just lower the gaze a bit. With practice, you can learn to stay right on point with this technique, sort of like biofeedback. Back should be straight but not tight. When you sit down, adjust yourself to find a comfortable seat. If you find yourself hurting at some point, readjust your position. It's OK. You're not being filmed, really! As Trungpa Rinpoche taught, do whatever you need to make yourself comfortable, but just don't make a production out of it.
It's the most complex joint in the body, and the largest, with crusciate ligaments that are a nightmare when injured....think football.....
Tendons and ligaments should never hyper-extend... they are there to hold things together, not stretch them apart... having little or no blood supply also means they take an interminable time to heal.
This process can be accelerated by taking Glucosamine sulphate - a food supplement which takes around two weeks to begin to take effect, because it's a slow process for the body to absorb and use it.
It was developped initially to, accelerate the healing of joint injuries in race-horses... expensive pets if they ain't doin' nuthin'..... and was then further developped and marketed for those suffering from joint problems. Good stuff.
Ok. lesson over.
Carry on.
In addition to Glucosamine, drinking a tea made with turmeric root daily is excellent for your joints, ligament and tight muscles.
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federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
edited March 2006
Cool!! Great advice, thank you! Turmeric is used by chefs in Indian Kitchens to stem the flow of blood, if they cut themselves, and is very antiseptic.
Turmeric is also a powerful anti inflammatory and I use it in food all the time for my back. I don't use pharmaceutical anti inflammatories because they're brutal and dangerous. The turmeric is one of the reasons why Indian food makes me feel so good.
Palzang,
I don't know about anyone else but I found that to be very, very helpful. In that one small post you cleared up 4 major questions of mine. Thank you so much.
LOL though I do wear robes sometimes and right now I need a shave so...:cool:
And last time I looked I don't have either hair (gray or otherwise) nor a beard (though I do wear robes). Maybe you should try the whirling dervishes! :tongue2:
I don't know about anyone else but I found that to be very, very helpful. In that one small post you cleared up 4 major questions of mine. Thank you so much.
You can buy it online. All of the Yogi Teas are so yummy. I drink different varieties of this brand all day long. it is the best tasting tea I have ever had. And it's all organic, which is a must in my book!
It has the two best anti-imlammatories in it, turmeric and Devil's Claw (that I know of, anyway). Sounds great!
But they don't ship internationally. I'll have to find something similar up here in Canada. I have a tea place I order from which is in Montreal but I'm not thrilled with their choice of organic. For example, they have only 1 organic green tea and it's the fermented kind. I prefer the unfermented Japanese Sencha, but it's not organic. And it's not a matter of taste really because I've been told that unfermented green tea has a lot more of the antioxidants I'm looking for.
You know, I could talk about tea for days and never get bored. I have 7 different kinds of tea in my cupboard at the moment and they're all the good kind. I even have a tiny cast iron tea pot like they use in Asia with a filter....oooppps! I'm of topic.
Sorry.
Brigid
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federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
I have a couple of questions about meditation that might seem silly but I still want to ask about. (Also, tired and a bit sick, so if this doesn't make any sense, that might be why.)
Last night I sat down before going to bed, it was later than I had planned and I was really tired. After about five minutes I started feeling a weird pressure against the sides of my face, down my neck and then (I think) down my shoulders. I tried shifting a little and moving my head but the only thing that helped was tilting my head back as far as it can go, and I didn't want to sit like that for another 15-20 minutes so I got up. I have no idea what that was, if I was sitting incorrectly and was too tired to notice, if I had some kind of tension I wasn't aware of, or what. It felt like what I would guess it would feel like to have blocks or something pressed against your face and have your head forced into position so that you wouldn't be able to move at all (except I could move since no one was actually holding my face). Any idea what that might have been and how I can prevent it in the future?
The past few times I've been sitting, something weird (but not unpleasant) has been happening. The first time it happened, it happened about half-way through, but it's started soon after I've sat down since. I'm not sure how to describe it, but even though my mind is just as noisy and scattered as ever, it's like the background feels less heavy, lighter, more open maybe. I'm not sure if this is normal or if it means I'm doing something wrong or what it is.
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federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
edited March 2006
I sometimes get that weird pressure you describe...it happens on different parts of my body, and not only while I meditate... it's kind of odd....it feels as if someone is pressing you into a different position...invisible hands guiding or just resting on the body.
I ignore it. I'm conscious of it arriving, and then of leaving, but I give it no regard....
These pressures are due to the different layers of muscles tensing or relaxing at a slightly different rate to the rest of the muscle...It's very common when we are sitting or relaxing, because we are achieving a state of alert realxation - or relaxed alertnes... not like going to sleep... we are ever conscious of a need for a relaxed, open posture, but not so realxed that we slump...so parts of our body release tension, and others, ("confused" by the demands we are making on the body") remain in a state of 'tension'...
Don't worry about it. I don't know how common it is, but it's quite normal.
I sometimes get that weird pressure you describe...it happens on different parts of my body, and not only while I meditate... it's kind of odd....it feels as if someone is pressing you into a different position...invisible hands guiding or just resting on the body.
I ignore it. I'm conscious of it arriving, and then of leaving, but I give it no regard....
These pressures are due to the different layers of muscles tensing or relaxing at a slightly different rate to the rest of the muscle...It's very common when we are sitting or relaxing, because we are achieving a state of alert realxation - or relaxed alertnes... not like going to sleep... we are ever conscious of a need for a relaxed, open posture, but not so realxed that we slump...so parts of our body release tension, and others, ("confused" by the demands we are making on the body") remain in a state of 'tension'...
Don't worry about it. I don't know how common it is, but it's quite normal.
Thank you Good to know it's normal, I wasn't at all sure of that last night.
This is actually very interesting about the different layers of muscles tensing and relaxing at different rates. As far as I can remember, I've never heard of that, or anything like it, before.
Comments
I just have to find a closet to meditate...
1) It's directed in the sense that we bring ourselves back again and again to the body/breath/mind. Ultimately though, it goes beyond technique, as in Shikantaza or Dzogchen. Sitting does sitting, breathing does breathing.
2) I would say that meditation has nothing to do with any particular posture, yet the effort to sit in meditation is indispensable and to sit in meditation is itself a complete manifestation of the awakened mind. If for some reason you can't sit because of a physical problem, then lie down. If you can sit - sit. There's posture of mind and posture of body and they are both two different manifestations of the same thing - body and mind are one and meditation helps us to begin to realize this experentially - to gradually integrate body/mind so that we see that fundamentally there is no separation between breath/body/mind/others/ourselves/this/that.
These excerpts from a couple of Dharma talks might be of interest. Bear with me here because it's going to be a long post and some of this you may already be well aware of:
What is the point of the posture of zazen?
To learn to open past what you think of as “you”;
To learn to step past all of the states you believe yourself to be
Into who and what you truly are,
Awareness in Itself.
What does the posture point to?
The posture points to Awareness in Itself.
Why don’t you already know this?
You do. But you choose to ignore it.
...There is an appearance of balance and alignment, but some of you are already uncomfortable even though you’ve only been sitting for a few minutes.
And so although it may seem quite still in the room, there are already some subtle and not so subtle movements going on here and there – someone rocking very slightly; toes flex, a foot shuffles just a little, a small shift of the head – subtle callisthenics to relieve perceived tension in the neck. Some of us understand the importance of simply sitting still. Others who have not been practicing for quite as long are not as clear about this. In ten or fifteen minutes the little “corrections” going on around the room will become more and more obvious as students begin to argue with themselves about how their posture “should” be.
Now we might think that these little movements – the shuffling of a foot a slight rocking motion or the continuous movements generated by arguing with oneself over one’s posture are okay because we are sitting and we’re just “trying to get it right” or some such thing, but they’re not okay. As our Teacher, Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi often says “If you move while sitting zazen, you simply haven’t sat. You’ve just been sitting around instead of practising a round of zazen.”
One of the most important things that we are practising when we sit is the posture itself. The posture of zazen lets the body sit as the body itself instead of holding it captive to our usual states, thoughts, feelings and storylines. Ordinarily, when we experience a state of sadness or anger or confusion, whether alone or with other people, we act it out with the body by doing such things as physically tightening, allowing the spine to collapse, sighing, fidgeting, grimacing, rocking, shifting, twitching, pursing the lips, clenching the teeth or going slack-jawed, narrowing the eyes, twiddling our thumbs and on and on and on. A thought, a feeling, even the memory of something that happened 30 minutes or 30 years ago can express itself bodily and when we do this what we are doing is reinforcing the state.
When we sit in zazen, what the posture points to is not what you ordinarily think of as “you”, which is a collection of habits and tendencies. In fact, your whole life points to the fact that it is not about you and never has been. The posture of zazen is very simple and very clear. The point of the posture is to sit in the reality of this moment. The posture points to the open space of reality all around and within and as the bodymind.
Let’s start at the very beginning, the beginning of the sitting round. You have a minute or so to arrange your posture and you must do this mindfully because you cannot “fix” it later. Once everyone is settled and the room is quiet, we begin the sitting round with the set of forms all students are instructed to use: We bow forward and exhale; we straighten and inhale; we settle into balance point.
Everything is positioned as well as you can position it. You are sitting up straight, nose over the navel, ears over the shoulders, balanced and aligned. Your hands are resting in the mudra, with all of the fingers in full contact with one another, the thumbs forming a gentle arch.
Now stay like that.
No movement for the next 30 minutes: No fidgeting, no fixing anything, no changing posture. Sit still. If you don’t move out of alignment, there’s nothing to fix, no corrections to be made.
Anything, any thought, any feeling, any impulse, any idea, any movement of attention, any reactivity that causes you to begin to move at all needs to be noticed and released immediately. The only way that you can do that is if you are feeling into the sensations of the body from the beginning of your sitting round, and moment after moment, doing this continuously for the next 30 minutes. This means you will need to refresh your practice again and again and again and again and again. It means that you have to actually pay attention with each breath. This is what practice is – continuous mindfulness of whole-bodily experience, opening to the seeing and hearing. This is not the time to think about anything, let alone think about how you feel about anything. It requires that you make an effort to open past thoughts and feeling tones.
An occasional adjustment to the posture such as straightening the spine a little or realigning the mudra is acceptable, but this shouldn’t be necessary more than two or three times during a half-hour sitting round even if you are very tired. Again, if you are continuously feeling into the sensations of the body, releasing any states, thoughts or feelings that begin to pull the bodymind out of alignment as soon as they come up, you won’t go out of alignment in the first place, so there is no need to constantly adjust your posture.
The Point of the Posture and What it Points to
And this one, which also touches more on why the form, the way things are done in Buddhist practice - including both posture and ritual are indispensable:
This practice closes the gaps between our body and mind, and between our attention and our activity.
So much of the time, we are lost in our thoughts or separated from our experience. We may do several things at once: we may listen to music and eat or smoke, or talk on the telephone while we are driving; we may say one thing while we are feeling something else, or we may allow our mental activity to wander endlessly away from what we are actually doing. This becomes such a strong unconscious habit that we end up losing much of our lives. We all tune out, a little or a lot, from our actual life, and I think we do this initially because of painful circumstances, or because we are bored, which we may experience as painful because boredom is such a dead space. Over time, the process of tuning out becomes such a habit that it tends to accompany all of our activity. Getting in touch with the process we go through as we tune out, as well as with what prompts us to tune out, is a big step in closing the gap between our actual life, here and now, and our imaginary, projected, or conceptualized life.
In Zen practice, at least in Japanese Zen, instead of using mindfulness practices, the forms are used to bring us back to the aliveness we can only know in our concrete existence. By forms I mean both the formalized movements we make, like bowing, as well as the way we regard and handle things which brings a kind of presence to the space or to the thing itself. I’ve heard that in traditional Japanese culture, the value of a piece of art depended not only on the quality of the object and who created it, but also on who owned it and the care and regard they brought to the piece.
One aspect of the forms is precision. There is a specific way that the forms are done, and this precision isn’t important because there is a right and a wrong way of doing them, but because the precision, or lack of it, provides information about whether we are present with the detail of what we are doing or whether we have drifted away.
Many of the instructions for Zen meditation are directed to the physical details of our posture. The culture that Zen grew out of made much less distinction between the body and mind than our culture does. So, the idea is that sitting upright, aligning the spine and being still physically, supports the mind in settling and becoming focused. In Zen we tend to work with the mind indirectly, through the body. As you know, this meditation posture [“lotus” position] developed in India. It’s a yogic posture. Each aspect of the position, actually of any position, effects our state of mind. So, Zen meditation isn’t something we do only with the mind. What we practice with is much wider than the boundaries of our thinking. In Zen it is said that realization must penetrate every cell of our body, down to the marrow of our bones and out to each tip of our hair. In Zen practice, we use our body as an ally to enable us to practice with the totality of our being.
Suzuki Roshi said,
“You should sit zazen with your whole body: your spine, mouth, toes, mudra. Check on your posture during zazen. Each part of your body should practice zazen independently or separately. You should feel each part of your body doing zazen separately....Don't move your legs for your own convenience. Your legs are practicing their own zazen independently and are completely involved in their own pain. They are doing zazen through pain. You should allow them to practice their own zazen....” [Talk given during zazen 6/28/70]
We have different ways to work with the habitual activity of our body, speech, and thought. We sit down and practice zazen and let our habitual patterns begin to unwind. We give our body, speech, and mind new activities which lead to disentangling. For example, we have several positions for our hands. These are specific, intentional positions; they aren’t some kind of coincidence or accident. Each of these positions affects our state of mind. For example, in walking meditation, we place our hands in a firm, contained position. When we bow, we place our palms together with no gaps between the fingers and thumb of each hand in the mudra the Japanese call gassho.
In zazen, we use what is called the “cosmic mudra,” in which the hands are overlapping and connected, but open. As you know there is a lot of emphasis on being upright and keeping the spine well aligned. I think that, after aligning the spine, the next most important aspect of the zazen posture is the position of the hands. For years, I put my hands into the mudra and then rested them, sort of like a dead weight, on the top of my thighs, and forgot about them while I went on to follow my breathing.
At some point, I got the idea to hold my hands up higher on my abdomen so that my thumbs were near the height of my naval. This brought a different kind of balance to my overall alignment. It felt as though there was less weight bearing down on my body, so there was less to hold up. It brought a lightness to my posture. I find that when I pay attention to the roundness of the hands, and to the very, very light contact between my thumbs, it keeps me present and in my body, and I fall asleep much less. When my attention drifts away, my hands tend to come down, and the open, round shape changes and my thumbs separate. Holding the hands in this manner, requires intention and attention, but, at the same time, there is an openness of shape, and a lightness of contact between the thumbs. I’ve found that the dynamic or aliveness of my hands in this position isn’t separate from my state of mind.
In each of the positions we use for our hands in the Zendo, the hands are brought together, which supports the mind in coming to one-pointedness. One way to practice in activity is to practice doing things with both hands. Whatever you are doing, see if you can do it with two hands instead of one. This will slow you down, but it will simplify your activity, helping to keep your mind on your activity.
Some of the forms we use are more apparent than others. I think explaining too many details in the beginning can be overwhelming and actually obscure practice. For example, it is traditional to enter the Zendo on the left side of the doorway, stepping into the room with the left foot, but this doorway is so narrow, that once a person is in it, there isn’t really a left and right side to it. So, one way to work on being present is to try to step through the doorway with your left foot. Suzuki Roshi suggested that we turn clockwise when we sit down on the zafu to face the wall and, again, when zazen is over to turn clockwise before we stand up. A practical side of this is that we are all turning the same direction so it is less likely that we will bump into each other. We use the form of bowing when we enter the Zendo, and bowing to and away from our cushions before sitting down, and bowing when we pass in front of the altar. These arbitrary details help us notice our preferences, our strong or subtle likes and dislikes, and they give us a background against which to contrast our usual tendencies and conditioned activity. When we do such meaningless activity as bowing to cushions or holding the chant card with two hands instead of one, or stopping and taking off our shoes before entering a room and then stopping and putting our shoes back on when we leave, this helps us extend ourselves beyond our rational, logical minds.
We bow to our cushions or to the altar or to each other not because we, here, are Buddhists, or the Buddha figure is “sacred,” or because our practice is special. We bow because every*thing is special. What all this bowing and stepping forward with a particular foot does is to pull us out of the realm of our mental constructs, our incessant mental activity, into the realm of what is actually right before us.
I find that Doan work, ringing the bells in zazen and service, and eating formal meals in the Zendo give me the opportunity to go beyond depending on my thinking to know when to ring the bell, or to know what comes next in the Zendo meal, so more of my consciousness is available, and my experience isn’t fenced in by the boundaries of my ability to track what is next.
The oryoki or Zendo meal is a wonderful activity in which to practice doing one thing at a time. We really have to pay attention to what we are doing and how we are doing it. For the Zendo meal, we eat at our places with our bowls on the floor. If you are wearing robes, and only have one set of robes, you really don’t want to spill anything. I find that I am more concentrated when I use both hands. I pick up each bowl with two hands, move the utensils with both hands. I also find that I am more concentrated when I keep my back straight, in the zazen posture, while I am eating, which means I must bring the bowl up to my mouth to eat.
Although monastic life is filled with forms, the point isn’t to recreate the forms perfectly. There is nothing right or wrong, sacred or profane about the forms. They are arbitrary or agreed upon ways of doing an activity. The forms support us to attend to our state of mind in the midst of our activity. So, whatever situation arises, whatever happens, we address that and take care of it as if it were our state of mind without worrying about making mistakes. The emphasis is on sincerity and one-pointedness of mind. Suzuki Roshi said, “When you do something, if you fix your mind on the activity with some confidence, the quality of your state of mind is the activity itself.”
In Zen our practice is to bring the wholehearted activity of our body and mind to the simple, full presence of this moment. There’s really nothing else. Rather than trying to control or analyze our experience, we bring our attention back to our presence. We use our body to support our mind in doing this. We use the stability of our body to stabilize our mind, trusting the self that is independent of knowing East or West, black or white, up or down.
The Enlightened Body
I found the first part really useful as I often find myself very subtly adjusting my posture.
In Zen our practice is to bring the wholehearted activity of our body and mind to the simple, full presence of this moment. There’s really nothing else. Rather than trying to control or analyze our experience, we bring our attention back to our presence. We use our body to support our mind in doing this. We use the stability of our body to stabilize our mind, trusting the self that is independent of knowing East or West, black or white, up or down."
Sounds very much like the practice of kata.
Thank you.
Thanks for asking those questions, Harlan. Your response, Genryu, is very helpful to me. I think I was doing just as you said, tensing the area of pain, both emotional and physical. I wasn't aware of that as much as I should have been. Now I will be. I'll remember to soften the area. (Again, Greenpeace learning comes in strangely handy; go limp. LOL!)
I was pushing against my physical pain, or falling into it, which is a different practice. When the pain gets really bad I concentrate on nothing but the pain in a quiet room (I'm working up to doing it in a normal, noisy atmosphere), and I sort of fall into it and the pain changes, quite quickly sometimes. Sometimes it becomes meaningless and empty and I don't feel much of anything. But sometimes, (this may sound crazy), the pain kind of feels good (?). I don't know how or why, and sometimes I can make myself fall asleep like that. I can't really explain it.
But I try not to do that when I'm meditating. So I have a tendency to kind of resist the pain and it's very present. I start to worry if I'm damaging my back even more (which is why I laughed so hard at your description earlier). But my real challenge is alertness because of the meds. and, sometimes, the pain lulling me. So I tend to sit towards the end of the last dose of meds. when they're wearing off, and the pain starts to increase. (Sometimes I have to fight so hard to stay alert that I've thought of going out to sit in the snow!)
So, from what you said, I should let the pain be, not resist it or get lulled by it (what I call falling into it), and relax the area from which the pain is emanating. And bring myself back to breath and posture ('cuz I'm still at the "calm abiding" stage, with the everyday mindfulness of body and speech as my constant foundation) and mindful alertness whenever I go astray. Is that close?
Brigid
Thank you so much for posting that. It's incredibly clarifying.
Brigid
How fortuitous and mindful....
-bf
And since then I've done a 20 minute sitting !
It is so hard not to move while sitting. About 5 minutes into my sitting my foot started to hurt - I sit in Burmese posture and it's always the foot nearest my groin that plays up. It was a niggle at first but after a while it was absolute agony and I just had to wiggle it a bit.
The same thing happened at my meditation group on Monday. We do two 40 minute sits with 5 kinhin in between to help get the blood moving again. My inside foot was a nightmare, I'm not sure whether it's my posture or not but I seem to be hyperextending it which then pushes the top of my foot into the mat.
I guess (and hope!) it's something that will get easier with time as I've only recently been using a zafu. Before that I used a bench I'd made for kneeling which was good but I didn't get the feeling of solidity that I get sitting on my zafu.
-bf
Perhaps your foot is tucked too far under the leg and circulation is being cut off dramatically. I've found that there is a big difference between a few cm in placement and the amount of pain you might feel in the legs. Hence the concentration required in the first minute during which the posture is set.
Of course I may be completely wrong as I sit half lotus!
Let me know if it helps!
I've also been moving towards half-lotus and this has made a big difference in my comfort.
I need to do more yoga, after 90 minutes of that I can sit in full lotus quite comfortably. Unfortunately fitting in a yoga session before each sit isn't too practical !
Both the monk at Reading priory and Rev Master Daishin Morgan (the Abbot at Throssel) meditate sitting on a chair due to damaging their knees from too much sitting.
The guy that runs our meditation group was a postulant monk at Shasta for 18 months and he ended up bursting his patella from over sitting in lotus.
I guess it's a case of listening to your body and knowing your limits.
Tendons and ligaments should never hyper-extend... they are there to hold things together, not stretch them apart... having little or no blood supply also means they take an interminable time to heal.
This process can be accelerated by taking Glucosamine sulphate - a food supplement which takes around two weeks to begin to take effect, because it's a slow process for the body to absorb and use it.
It was developped initially to, accelerate the healing of joint injuries in race-horses... expensive pets if they ain't doin' nuthin'..... and was then further developped and marketed for those suffering from joint problems. Good stuff.
Ok. lesson over.
Carry on.
What, ZM isn't good enough for you?!
Oh, all right... I don't have much to add actually. I started sitting with a small Zen group on the North side of Chicago way back in the early '70s. I remember very clearly sitting there at night and hearing the traffic and city sounds outside. Just sitting like that, I didn't attach to the sounds and in fact felt quite grateful for the opportunity to actually hear them instead of blanking them out with my monkey mind like I usually did. I found the sound of a bus driving by, gently shaking the building I was in, to be quite beautiful. When I got to Tibetan Buddhism and heard the phrase "all sounds are the mantra's sound," I knew exactly what they were talking about. I also remember driving back down to the South side where I lived along Lakeshore Drive after a weekend sitting retreat and being astounded at how my perceptions had changed. It was like I was seeing the world with my whole eye, not just the point of focus like usual. It was like the whole world had opened up.
The point of this is that Buddhism is an experiential path. You can't just read about it and "get" it. Never happen. You have to meditate and practice, otherwise you'll just be dead in the water and eventually quit because nothing is happening.
As for the technique of meditation, the Vidyadhara Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche once described meditation as being like letting a young, rambunctious calf out into a huge field. At first the calf will bound all over the place, jumping here and there, exploring every nook and cranny, but eventually it will tire of all that and just settle down naturally. That's like our minds. If we give it the space, it will behave in pretty much the same way. When thoughts arise in our minds, one way to deal with them is to take a mental sticky note labeled "Thinking", stick it on the thought, and then let it go. Emotions are also considered thoughts, so do the same with them. Don't let them pull you away from your still point.
Physically you need to find a good seat. You should be comfortable but not so comfortable you'll fall asleep. That's why the full or half-lotus position is so perfect for meditation as you can't just fall back into the cushion and sleep, and there will be just enough tension in your body to keep your mind alert. Eyes should be open slightly, pointed towards the floor a few feet in front of you. Not focused, just directed that way. You sort of unfocus and see without seeing, if that makes any sense. The eyes are a good way to moderate your mind as well. If you're feeling sleepy, just lift your gaze a bit. If your mind is racing all over the place, just lower the gaze a bit. With practice, you can learn to stay right on point with this technique, sort of like biofeedback. Back should be straight but not tight. When you sit down, adjust yourself to find a comfortable seat. If you find yourself hurting at some point, readjust your position. It's OK. You're not being filmed, really! As Trungpa Rinpoche taught, do whatever you need to make yourself comfortable, but just don't make a production out of it.
And as Dogen Zenji said, "Sit like a mountain!"
Palzang
I can't trust ZM - he doesn't wear robes, doesn't have grey hair or a long flowing beard... how can you trust a guy like that!?!?!
-bf
In addition to Glucosamine, drinking a tea made with turmeric root daily is excellent for your joints, ligament and tight muscles.
It stings like Billy-Oh, though....
Good tip!!
LOL though I do wear robes sometimes and right now I need a shave so...:cool:
Palzang,
I don't know about anyone else but I found that to be very, very helpful. In that one small post you cleared up 4 major questions of mine. Thank you so much.
Brigid
And last time I looked I don't have either hair (gray or otherwise) nor a beard (though I do wear robes). Maybe you should try the whirling dervishes! :tongue2:
Palzang
Well, that's what I get paid for! (don't I wish!)
Palzang
Just kidding, Palzang. I saw your photo on the NewBuddhist picture thread.
http://www.yogitea.com/Organic-Tea/Tea.asp?Tea_ID=HF13
You can buy it online. All of the Yogi Teas are so yummy. I drink different varieties of this brand all day long. it is the best tasting tea I have ever had. And it's all organic, which is a must in my book!
It has the two best anti-imlammatories in it, turmeric and Devil's Claw (that I know of, anyway). Sounds great!
But they don't ship internationally. I'll have to find something similar up here in Canada. I have a tea place I order from which is in Montreal but I'm not thrilled with their choice of organic. For example, they have only 1 organic green tea and it's the fermented kind. I prefer the unfermented Japanese Sencha, but it's not organic. And it's not a matter of taste really because I've been told that unfermented green tea has a lot more of the antioxidants I'm looking for.
You know, I could talk about tea for days and never get bored. I have 7 different kinds of tea in my cupboard at the moment and they're all the good kind. I even have a tiny cast iron tea pot like they use in Asia with a filter....oooppps! I'm of topic.
Sorry.
Brigid
This morning, I look more like Gerry Garcia than Gerry does....:eekblue: :tonguec:
That's cool! I love tea pots!
Brigid
Last night I sat down before going to bed, it was later than I had planned and I was really tired. After about five minutes I started feeling a weird pressure against the sides of my face, down my neck and then (I think) down my shoulders. I tried shifting a little and moving my head but the only thing that helped was tilting my head back as far as it can go, and I didn't want to sit like that for another 15-20 minutes so I got up. I have no idea what that was, if I was sitting incorrectly and was too tired to notice, if I had some kind of tension I wasn't aware of, or what. It felt like what I would guess it would feel like to have blocks or something pressed against your face and have your head forced into position so that you wouldn't be able to move at all (except I could move since no one was actually holding my face). Any idea what that might have been and how I can prevent it in the future?
The past few times I've been sitting, something weird (but not unpleasant) has been happening. The first time it happened, it happened about half-way through, but it's started soon after I've sat down since. I'm not sure how to describe it, but even though my mind is just as noisy and scattered as ever, it's like the background feels less heavy, lighter, more open maybe. I'm not sure if this is normal or if it means I'm doing something wrong or what it is.
I ignore it. I'm conscious of it arriving, and then of leaving, but I give it no regard....
These pressures are due to the different layers of muscles tensing or relaxing at a slightly different rate to the rest of the muscle...It's very common when we are sitting or relaxing, because we are achieving a state of alert realxation - or relaxed alertnes... not like going to sleep... we are ever conscious of a need for a relaxed, open posture, but not so realxed that we slump...so parts of our body release tension, and others, ("confused" by the demands we are making on the body") remain in a state of 'tension'...
Don't worry about it. I don't know how common it is, but it's quite normal.
Thank you
This is actually very interesting about the different layers of muscles tensing and relaxing at different rates. As far as I can remember, I've never heard of that, or anything like it, before.