Posture and Gaze

One of the most common questions I get when I introduce this teaching on True Meditation is whether it matters how you sit. Do you need to sit in meditation with a straight, erect spine, or can you relax in an easy chair or sit on a couch? My response is that it is preferable not to lie down—because people have a tendency to go to sleep when they lie down—but that, otherwise, sitting in a certain posture is not the most important thing to me. I understand that a lot of traditions emphasize proper posture. The Zen tradition I came from emphasizes posture quite a bit. And there are good reasons for emphasizing posture. Certain postures actually open us emotionally and physically. When our posture is open, when our spine is erect and our hands are not crossed in front of us, we feel more open. There is a natural sense of openness in such a posture. There are various physical positions that spiritual traditions use to foster an inner sense of openness and an attitude of openness. But what I have found over the years is that while proper posture is useful, what often happens is that the spiritual seeker's mind gets so focused on perfecting and maintaining a particular posture that the result doesn't lead to openness. Instead, it often leads to a hypersensitivity about the perfection of one's posture.

Again, it comes back to our attitude. What's important is that we approach meditation with an underlying attitude of ease and openness and relaxation. We need to move beyond the idea that awakening or enlightenment can only happen if our posture is correct, because that's simply not true. Awakening and enlightenment can happen to straight, erect meditators and slumpy, slouchy meditators who sit out on a lawn chair or however they are drawn to sit. Again, it is the attitude with which we meditate that is important. Are we open? Do we sit with ease? Is our approach very simple? In other words, does our posture allow us to forget the body? Not to dissociate from it, but just to leave it alone?

Another thing that people often ask me is whether they should have their eyes open or closed. Again, various traditions will emphasize different things. Some traditions say you should meditate with your eyes open. Others encourage you to keep them closed. As a teacher, I am more interested in what you are drawn to. What are you drawn to when you take away what you think you should do, or what you think you shouldn't do? When you take away the authority that you've learned from somewhere else and reconnect with what's really intimately yours, with that which wasn't given to you by something or somebody else? Many of us have so much knowledge of teachings and instructions that after a while we become disconnected from what's intimately ours, from our own natural and spontaneous wisdom. And so I am always trying to reconnect people immediately, from the very beginning, with what's intimately theirs. What's true for you? If you want to meditate with your eyes open, keep your eyes open. If you prefer them closed, close them. Experiment, switch between the two. If you are sleepy, it is a good idea to keep your eyes open. It helps to wake you up a bit. Other times you'll have your eyes open and you'll feel they want to close—not because you are sleepy, but because they just want to close. And if they want to close, then let them close. Feel your way through. Become very intimate with your own experience.