Month: April 2020

Cross-legged Quiet-sitting

On By Bin SongIn MeditationLeave a comment

Hi, My name is Bin Song. I am a Ru scholar, therapist, and college professor in the disciplines of philosophy, religion, and theology. The audio is written and recorded by me to guide your practice of cross-legged quiet-sitting Ru meditation.

And this will be the second among seven postures of Ru meditation that I intend to introduce through this series of audio broadcast.

The posture of cross-legged quiet-sitting originates from ancient Hinduism, and migrates to China following Buddhism in around the 2 century C.E As I mentioned in last audio, the attitude of the majority of Ru scholars towards this posture in the beginning was to resist it, or simply not practice it. The major reason is that this posture was normally practiced by monks and nuns in monasteries in a very isolated way at that time, and Ruism in general opposes social disengagement and isolation.

However, in time, Ruist scholars started to practice and were quite fond of this posture. There are two major reasons for the change of their attitude:

(1) Firstly, although social engagement is a central commitment for Ru ethics, this ethic does not preclude those scholars or scholar-officials from enjoying leisure, ease or simply having a quiet time to regather and recharge from their busy life schedules. This means that when the time and situation allows, it would not be a bad idea to have a more extended period of time to practice quiet-sitting in a more intensive way. In this case, the already very popularized cross-legged Buddhist meditation became a readily available option. In the more developed stage of neo-Confucianism, around 16-17th century, Ru scholars like to organize local meditation groups to go into mountains for an extended period of quiet-sitting retreat, and during these retreats, the cross-legged posture was frequently practiced. Another good time to practice cross-legged quiet-sitting is during night and before one’s sleep. At this moment, all those busyness and agitations during one’s daytime cool down, and one’s mind does not need to think about any particular thing other than finding ways to enter a sound and deep sleep. In this way, a cross-legged quiet-sitting on one’s bed will be a very beneficial practice to prepare one’s deep sleep.

(2) Secondly, Ru scholars found that compared to quiet-sitting on a chair, the cross-legged posture puts human body in a more concentrated position, which will modify how the breathed air circulates and moves in their body. Their experience indicated that the practice of this more concentrated posture can help to mitigate or cure certain diseases. Since I have practiced this posture for many years, I would like to use some of my personal experiences as examples to explain it, although you can also find plenty of evidences from writings by those Ruist scholars in history.

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I am right now 38 years old, and have practiced double-cross-legged quiet-sitting Ru meditation for one decade, and it helped me to mitigate or cure diseases such as insomnia, sleep paralysis, stomachache, toothache, and asthma, among many other benefits to enhance my mental health and general well-being. Let me tell some brief stories, so you can get a sense of what the therapeutic effect of meditation looks like.

When I am 20s, I was a very bad sleeper, and suffered a lot from sleep paralysis and insomnia. When my mind was too stirred and occupied, I normally woke up but could not move my body, and this is called a disease of sleep paralysis. One of the worst cases of sleep paralysis I suffered happened during my sophomore year in college, when I tried to read intensively the very abstruse and obscure Chinese translation of German philosophers. And I clearly remembered that is Schopenhouer and Nietzsche. I tried very hard to do the reading, exhausted my brain, and just couldn’t fall asleep, and even couldn’t get up when I finally fell asleep. I had to withdraw from my college to stay at home for about two weeks. During that two weeks, I did nothing but watching TV, and drinking coca cola to temporarily recover from it. After that, I made three decisions, firstly, never read Chinese translations of German philosophy any more; secondly, read ancient Chinese philosophy more; and three, start to learn and practice meditation. As mentioned, after many years of meditation practice, I am an extremely good sleeper now. The sleep paralysis completely disappeared, and even a small cup of coffee during the night would not deprive me of any sleep. And I sleep faster, and shorter than most of my family members. For instance, I started to sleep around 10:30 pm yesterday, and am sitting right now on my desk to write this transcript starting from around 6:30 am. This is my normal life schedule and I feel great about it because of the sleep quality I get.

Scientifically speaking, I find the reason why meditation practice can elevate sleep quality is that the frequency of electro-magnetic wave that is exuded from our brain when we enter the deeper level of meditation is very similar to the one when we are in deep sleep. So, a practice before sleep is actually to exercise our brain to prepare it for deep sleep. However, sometimes, we can also become super energized and super awake because of the practice of meditation before sleep. If this happens, it just means that we have extra energy in our body to move and to act, so my solution is usually to get up again, do some reading, writing, or some other household stuff so as to get back to sleep later. Believe me, you will not feel exhausted by this as long as you get the needed sleep in time. However, for professionals and busy people, this state of extra energy doesn’t happen quite often, so you do not need to worry too much about this side effect of the practice of quiet-sitting before sleep.

Cross-legged quiet-sitting meditation also helps to greatly mitigate my asthma in the spring of 2017. I was in the graduate school to pursue my second PhD of religious studies in the U.S. at that time. My life was extremely stressed by writing the dissertation prospectus and trying to get it passed. Because of the high work pressure and also the changing spring weather, I caught a cold, and it developed into a bad asthma that I never had before. Apart from ordinary medications provided by my doctor, I continually practiced cross-legged quiet-sitting when the symptom of asthma got worsened. The deep, delicate and very effective deep breathing during the process really helped a lot. Fortunately, I never caught a similar asthma after that. But for people that have a chronic issue of respiratory disease, I would highly recommend the practice as a supplementary therapy.

The third example I will raise is pain control. I have great experiences to quickly mitigate my acute pains using the method of cross-legged quiet-sitting in the case of stomachache and toothache. Let me describe the case of stomachache here. My body recently succumbs to a habit of stomachache during the few weeks when fall changes into winter. During this time, whenever I eat something that is not hot or warm, my stomach just feels uneasy about it. I tried to change my diets, and added some new elements of food to avoid the pains. But sometimes, the pains just happen suddenly and intensively without any prior sign during night. Last fall, I had two very bad scenarios when I had to wake up during the middle of night from excruciating stomachaches. After I went to bathroom to do everything possible to control the pains, eventually of no avail, what I remained to do is to double-cross my legs, focus upon my breathing and my lower abdomen, and start to practice quiet-sitting. What surprised me is that after practicing it for a while, it feels like a very warm pair of hands are doing a deeply healing massage to my belly, and after some time, the pains disappeared completely. This happened twice to my body in the same season! What is interesting is that I read similar stories by ancient Ruist scholars when I did researches on Ru meditation, but when it actually happened to my body in almost exactly the same manner, it just caused a great feeling of marvel.

Scientifically speaking, pain control due to meditation practice is actually starting to be evidenced and researched by scholars in varying traditions and in varying disciplines. Apart from the physical massage that our body is doing to itself due to deep breath and the specific meditative posture, the mechanism why meditation can control pains, I think, is similar to why hypnosis can also do the same job. When we meditate deeply, our attention is more extensive, deeper, and more focused. As a result, our whole span of consciousness, including sub-consciousness, will be modified to alleviate the sensory and affective component of the acute pains. I do not believe that we can completely eliminate the physical cause of our pains all together using meditation; but given my experience and my research, I am certain that it does have this effect of mitigating acute pains.

Good, enough examples for the second reason why cross-legged quiet-sitting was practiced by Ruist scholars. Let me talk of its method.

There are seven major points of the method. Because the upper body part of the posture will be almost the same as quiet-sitting on a Chair, I would not use too many words to explain this part.

  • Cross you legs. This can be done in multiple ways. You can cross your feet and put them under your legs. You can also put either of the feet upon the thigh on the other side. This is called single-cross-legged quiet-sitting. The most difficult one for most of people is that you double-cross your legs. You will put the back of your right foot on your left thigh, and then, put the back of your left foot on your right thigh. This most difficult one has two orders: either your right lower leg is over the left one, or your left lower leg is on the right one. The pictures I show beside the audio is how I do double cross-legged quiet-sitting. If your body is not flexible enough, you will find it very hard to cross any leg to do this quiet-sitting posture. In this case, crossing your two feet and put them under your legs will be normally an easy start. Please do not worry over the fact that you cannot cross your legs. When I started to practice this posture, I cannot double cross my legs either. However, I singled cross my legs, and practiced it for a long time. One day, and I clearly remembered that was a day when I went to swim during the spring of 2010, I sat on the bench beside the swimming pool, and suddenly, I can double-cross my legs. And the story continues, in the beginning, I can only let my left lower-leg over my right one. But in time, I can do the other way as well. So, for beginning practitioners, do not worry about whether you can pursue the most difficult and concentrated form of cross-legged quiet-sitting meditation. As long as you persist in practicing in whatever posture fit for you, you will always get benefits of it, and one day, you can command all available postures.
  • Put a cushion under your butt, so as to make your butt a bit higher than your knees
  • Make your backbone naturally stacked-up. No pop-up nor slouch of your chest.
  • The Head naturally lines up with your back up.
  • Eyes closed or leave a slice of vision open broadly.
  • This is slightly different from the one of the quiet-sitting on a chair. Since you can sit for relatively a longer time using this cross-legged posture, you can close your mouth, let your tongue touch the gum of your upper teeth. In time, there could be some saliva gathering up in your mouth, and since the saliva is a liquid very smooth and delicate, letting it run down along your tongue, and then, swallowing it will furthermore lubricate your throat and other related parts of your body, which will feel very good.
  • You can make your hands cupped, and put them below the lower abdomen. Or palms down, and put them on your knees. You can also put them in other places or use other hand gestures, as long as you feel comfortable. During deep meditation, sometimes you may feel you want to move your hands and arms a little bit, such as drawing some shapes or figures in the air; this is also completely normal. As long as you do it in the balance of discipline and spontaneity which I mentioned before, you can enjoy whatever you intend to do during meditation.

Ok, these are the seven major points of cross-legged quiet-sitting meditation. Several caveats before concluding this audio:

  • Do remember to protect your joints when you do this posture of meditation, particularly your knees and your shoulder. They are the most exposed parts of your body during this posture. You can try to wear something or put a blanket on your legs if the temperature in the room is moderate or the outside weather is windy.
  • Long meditation is less ideal than short meditation but with more times of practices each day. So a 15-30 minute practice for two or three times a day will be ideal for beginning practitioners.

Good, this is the end of this audio on cross-legged quiet-sitting meditation. I hope you have a nice day, and take care!

Quiet-sitting on a Chair

On By Bin SongIn MeditationLeave a comment
Audio: Quiet-sitting on a chair, by Dr. Bin Song.
Video (picture in picture): Quiet-sitting on a chair, by Dr. Bin Song.

Hi, My name is Bin Song. I am a Ru scholar, and a college professor in the disciplines of philosophy, religion, and theology. This audio is written and recorded by me to guide your practice of Ru meditation using the posture of quiet-sitting on a chair.

As I explained in How to Breathe during the Ru Meditation, the focus upon a specific posture is less important than the focus upon breathing for the practice of Ru Meditation. However, this does not mean that one should not practice varying postures of Ru meditation. Instead, I would like to emphasize that compared to breathing, it is equally important that practitioners can command all the static and moving forms of “postures” so as to extend the state of energy equilibrium, or the state of centrality in a Ruist term, to both static and moving states of our body.

Let me use one metaphor to explain it. The state of centrality achieved during the breathing practice is like the inner body of a lake, while the static or moving postures of body during the practice of Ru meditation are like the surface of the lake, which is sometimes still but sometimes agitated depending upon the weather and the environment. The goal of Ru meditation can be described as such: if our life is like the life of a lake, then, no matter what surface state the lake is experiencing, our inner body is always tranquil, quiet and full of vital energies. For achieving this goal, it is much more important to encompass both static and moving postures of meditation, rather than merely focusing upon any specific one of them.

Let me explain the significance of varying postures of Ru meditation in another perspective. The practice of concrete postures of Ru meditation is to model in a micro scale what happens more frequently in a broader macro scale of life. As I will explain in this series of audios, I intend to introduce 7 postures of Ru meditation: sleeping, cross-legged quiet-sitting, quiet-sitting on a chair, standing, walking, eight brocade exercise, and the yang-styled 24-move Taiji martial arts. As you heard, some of these postures are more static, and some of them are more dynamic. However, human life is obviously more complicated, more social, and more far-reaching than the performance of these concrete meditative postures.

From the perspective of Ru philosophy, being able to deal with real life issues, conducting oneself properly in varying human relationships, and constantly embodying the major principles of Ru metaphysics and ethics, such as harmony and humaneness, in one’s daily life, are of course far more important than commanding good meditative postures and ideal breathing. Nevertheless, the benefits we get from the practice of Ru meditation is that it can help human individuals to realize those metaphysical and ethical principles in a micro scale, and then, gradually, to enable us to be an exemplary person, the Ruist junzi, in those broader stages of human life.

As mentioned by one of the canonical texts of Ruism, the Great Learning 大學, before one can govern a state, or align one’s family, everyone must be dedicated to cultivating their persons. So, before we are more sufficiently involved in varying stages of human life, we should be dedicated to the practice of Ru meditation. And the gist of Ru meditation is, firstly, to achieve the state of energy equilibrium, or the state of centrality, during one’s breathing practice, and secondly, to extend this state to the practice of both static and moving postures of Ru meditation. As mentioned, we will introduce 7 postures in our audios for you to practice this gist.

Among all these 7 postures, let’s talk of one of the most Ruist at first, which is quiet-sitting on a chair.

So far as my research shows, the invention of this posture by Ruists took place in the same time when the so-called “neo-Confucianism” arises to react to the increasingly flourished Buddhism in ancient China. And the timeline is around the 10th or 11th century.

As I mentioned in the brief introduction of Ru meditation, Ru practitioners are scholars and scholar-officials. Apart from the dedicated works of learning, education, and scholarship, they had so many things to care and manage in their households, schools, the governments and other workplaces. This means, even if they were fond of meditation, their occupied life schedule required them to immediately get out of meditation, and deal with tangible issues in their life. In this way, the normally Buddhist style of meditation, which requires a crossed-legged posture, a secured and quiet space, and sometimes an extended time period of practice, would be thought of by these Ruist scholar-officials as too isolated and socially disengaged. Therefore, rather than crossing one’s legs and letting every thought come and go in one’s mind in an isolated space, why not quietly sit on one’s chair, to clear one’s mind, re-gather oneself, to nurture an attitude of reverence towards things at hand, and thus, stay centered in one’s everyday life? This is the central motif for Ru practitioners to invent and practice this posture of quiet-sitting on a chair in this period of time.

Before I describe to you the major points of the posture, let me elaborate its characteristic and significance a bit more. “Chair” is a very normal piece of furniture, and you can basically find it in any place where your life is seriously engaged. It is in your study room, in your office, around family dinner table, in your classroom, or in any other private or public meeting room. Therefore, if you know how to meditate on a chair, at least for a few minutes or even some seconds, you will know how to remain centered, focused, and re-energized in your daily life.

Let’s imagine that you are right now in a very important conference with your colleagues and boss in a business meeting room. The boss is going on and on, sometimes on the topic, and sometimes not. Although you know the meeting is important, you feel quite exhausted by it. Then, you can start to meditate on your chair. You just need to sit nicely according to the method I will describe in the following, put your vision broadly on objects in front of you, and then, focus on your breath. Once you have a deep, slow breath, you start to let those bossy words appear on the screen of your inner-mind; you understand them, follow them, but your attention is actually put on the entire universe, the heaven, the earth and the human beings, which include but is not limited to those words. In this way, you can nurture a specific kind of attitude of reverence, dedication and seriousness towards your own work and your own worth, while being able to reenergize yourself during this work time in an uninterrupted way. You get it? Right? So the benefit to meditate on a chair is huge.

Let’s use another example to explain. Almost every adult has an experience of being interviewed for a job. Before you meet those interviewers, as a candidate, you are normally required to sit for a while in a room or a space separated from the interview room. I will tell you, this will be a perfect space and time to do a quick quiet-sitting meditation on a chair. Close your eyes, focus on your breath, feel all the energy flowing around you who are right now sitting nicely in the middle of heaven and earth. You need to remind yourself that you are special, you are unique, and while attending to the needs of those interviewers are important, you also need to be awesomely authentic to be and do yourself. And then, you take a deep breath; start to visualize everything you have prepared or anticipated for the interview. Per my experience, this practice of quiet-sitting meditation on a chair will contribute very positively to your interview.

Sounds good? Yes, remember the three features of Ru wisdom: simple, consistent, and adaptable to change. You already get two instances why it is so in the case of quiet-sitting on a chair.

Now, a final example before talking of its method. You know, almost no couples do not fight. We are human beings, we have our own views, and arguing with each other between a couple in our household is not only inevitable, but indicates that we invest our life upon each other, we care each other, and care our family. However, if inappropriate emotions are intertwined with inappropriate words during the process, squabbles will develop into fights, and fights will develop into wars. So, how can you nicely exchange ideas with your spouse without getting mired into these annoying and exhausting family in-fights? I will tell you, when your spouse forcefully expresses their views, you can quietly sit on your chair using the method of Ru meditation. At this moment, you pay attention to your breath, calm it down, and you listen to your spouse carefully and peacefully. During the process, you intend to nurture an inner feeling of love, mutual-bond and respect even though you also need to manifest your genuine self and exchange ideas with your spouse. Since the quiet-sitting meditation happens rightly during the middle, it will greatly calm down yourself, and thus, prevent the interaction between a couple from deteriorating into an undesirable family in-fight.

Good, enough examples for the significance of this posture. Let me get to the method part. The method of quiet-sitting on a chair is actually quite simple. It comprises the following several major points:

(1) Make sure your hip a bit higher than your knee. This may mean you need to put a cushion under your hip, or, you need to sit towards the edge of a chair. A chair with a hard surface will be better than a softer one, since sitting softly would make people sleepy. A too high chair which cannot have you put your feet, or a too low chair where you need to squat a bit to sit, is not ideal for beginning practitioners either. However, most chairs are not made as such, so you will find it fine to meditate using this posture almost everywhere.

(2) While sitting on a chair, the position of your backbone is really the key. Starting from our neck, our backbone caves in, caves out, and finally, caves in again towards our tailbone. So, make sure you neither pop up your chest to make the backbone super straight, nor slouch yourself to block your tract of breathing. Make sure you can feel the natural stacking-up of varying parts of your backbone skeleton: cave in, cave out, and finally, cave in again. In a word, the key to sit rightly in this posture is that you need to use minimal efforts to position yourself so as to make varying parts of your body naturally and harmoniously fit together. In a Ruist term, you need to find the pattern-principle 理 of your body so as to sit there nicely and joyfully.

(3) After you position your backbone well, then, your head naturally lines up with it. No nodding, no looking upwards; neither shall your head lean towards either of the sides. Still, let’s follow the same principle, use your minimal effort to make varying parts of your skeleton fit together.

(4) For your eyes, you can either close them or leave a slice of vision broad and open, just as what I explained in the previous audio on Ru breathing.

(5) The distance between your feet is about the same as your shoulder. Maker sure it neither too wider nor too narrower. Your toes are forward, but do not make them rigidly forward, like right in the angle of 90 degree. No, you do not need to do that. You just need to give yourself a little bit discipline, line up with the effortless position of your body, and then, sit there nicely and quietly.

Basically, the look of your upper body in this posture will be exactly the same when you do crossed-legged quiet-sitting. However, since this is sitting on a chair, your lower body has its unique position.

After you sit in this way, you just need to focus on your breath using the method of Ru breathing which I explained before.

Good, that’s all about quiet-sitting on a Chair. If you have any questions or comments to discuss with me, I would look forward to seeing them below the audios. You can also send me an email you can find in the contact part of my website, or find me in the facebook group “Friends from Afar: a Confucianism group.” Have a nice one, and You take care!

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