Learn to Meditate: Zen Yoga Breathing and Sitting Position Part 1

Learn to Meditate: Zen Yoga Breathing and Sitting Position Part 1

“Learn to Meditate.”

 Many mentors and coaches or even medical doctors recommend meditation for relaxation, better health and personal and spiritual growth.   Even though meditation is gaining much popularity, many people don’t actually practice meditation daily.  How to sit while meditating?  Choosing a proper sitting position is very important.  How do you breathe during meditation?  We will explore various types of Zen Yoga breathing methods.

Yukiko’s Earlier Blogs on Meditation:

In my earlier blogs (vlogs) I have explored our spirituality in relationship to business.
I see meditation as one of the most important tool to achieve peace, happiness and freedom, if combined with a certain mindset. We are cultivating intuition and a funnel of spiritual intelligence when we meditate.

• 3 Simple Ways to Tap into Your Intuition.
• Spiritual Intelligence in Your Life and Business.
• Mindful Walking Meditation: 10 simple rules

Meditation Sitting Positions:

This meditation instruction is for beginning people.  If you have been meditating for a long time … well 10 years or longer… you may still benefit from this.  So please be open-minded.   

 If you are advanced, you may sit in a half lotus, full lotus or even Zazen Seiza (kneeling Rock position.)
Many serious students have purchased lots of different types of cushions.

My intention is for the viewers of this YouTube and readers of my blog to get started right away without finding a meditation teacher or a group and before ordering special meditation cushions.

Over the years as I taught and facilitated meditation and Yoga workshops, I noted many students can improve their sitting postures.  

 Zen Yoga Concept of a Balanced Posture:

 I’d like to introduce a Ying  and Yang principle of Jokyo Kajitsu.  （上虚下実）
The upper body is empty, relaxed and the lower body is full, strong and strengthened.

Like the plant, tree with its roots, branches and leaves.  Our physical body must reflect the way of Nature. 

Meditation is not just about relaxing.  There is a dynamic relation between tension and relaxation.  That will allow us to achieve a balance of tension and relaxation.

Sitting Position:

In order to achieve this balance, we have to bring the legs in a certain relationship to the lower body.  I recommend for beginning students of meditation to sit on a low chair so that your legs, particularly your thighs are slightly higher than your hips and the thighs fall into the hip sockets at an angle.  

I don’t mean to offend  any men.  In general the Western men are very tight in their hip sockets and it is strenuous for them to sit cross-legged.   Even your proud muscular gym goers.   Perhaps it is another external ego driven symbol people assign to themselves of being better or becoming worthy.  A full lotus or Seiza, head stand or phenomenal super yogic posture… none of them make you a better person or more advanced meditation practitioner.

When you get the thighs to slide into the hip sockets in an organic way, your shoulders relax. 

When you situate yourself in a comfortable sitting position suitable to your body structure and condition, you will be able to straighten and lengthen your spine.  The image you have is piling up one vertebra on top of another.  It is as if your upper body is suspended from the seventh chakra (top energy center in the crown of the head) along the spine and through .  

Suspended from the ceiling.
From the sky.
From the heaven.  (whatever image works the best for you.)

The chin is down but not hard against toward your chest.
The chest is up but not pumped up high as to stress and jam into your lower back.

 To Summarize the Sitting Position:

• Sit on a low chair
• No couch to slouch Or lean into a back of the chair 
• Place a pillow, cushion or rolled up mat under your feet
• Thighs should be raised and align into the hips sockets at an angle
• The upper body suspended with an invisible string from above
• The shoulders are down, chin gently down
  
• The energy flows down to your elbows and lower arms into your hands.
• The palms rest on your lap (one on top of the other)

Breathing During Meditation:

In  Zen Yoga beginning meditation, we concentrate on the lower abdomen as we breathe.

1]  Focus on the Lower Abdominal Area:

This technique is called the Lower abdominal breathing or Hara breathing.
(1) Your focus is on the navel area. (Tanden, Hara)
(2) As you breathe in, you abdomen expands.
(3) As you breathe out you abdomen gets smaller.
(4) Not just the belly in the front but let the entire lower body; abdomen, side of hips and the lower body expands and shrinks like a balloon as you inhale and exhale.

2] Breathing through Nostrils:

Ideally you would like to breathe through the nostrils.   Actually this conscious breathing is very difficult for many people as if they aren’t used to breathing. 
It is very important to breathe in through the nostrils.
But you can compromise and breathe out through the mouth.
Practice to breathe in and out quietly and peacefully.
With  a gentle and soft face.  (I’ve seen so many ‘serious’ students with really hard, desperate looks as if they are running hard for life.)  

Pranayama, the art of Yogic breathing utilizes nostrils, mouth, tongue, mind focus in postures.
There is no right or wrong.   

3) Mind focus is on breath:

“I am breathing in.”
“I am breathing out.”

There are many images, objects and symbols, sounds used in meditation.    Focus on breath is a way to transform people’s habitual mindset.  In general people don’t think wisely but use their head too much that comes from their programmed belief system.  Leaning to activate a vital energy center, Hara, has a major shift in the way they begin to think.  As the Proverb says and  as James Allen’s book  , “As a Man Thinketh”  wrote, we are already urged to think in our hearts. 

4) Gazing:

I’ve been asked often.  “Yukiko, where do we focus with our eyes.”
Some schools say “never to close your eyes during meditation.”
There is a task of specific focus and concentration during a particular type of meditation.
If you choose to close your eyes, you must not drift into a dreamy state.  Rather you must continue with a particular assigned task. 

If you are keeping your eyes open, then gaze at a spot on the ground (floor) about one to two feet away from you.  Just see and not stare. 

Experiment with Open-mindedness:

There are 76 Schools of Yoga. There are many teachings from different schools of Buddhism.  There are many New Age Techniques.  There is no such thing as “One Right Way. “   No right or wrong.  However something is much more effective and you gain a faster result.  Even if you meditate daily, if you aren’t meditating suitable to your condition and situation with the proper mindset, your progress may be slow.

Eventually, it is recommended that you find a teacher and a group to meditate with.  

The Purpose of Meditation:

Meditation is far more than just learning to relax.
Or even just get closer to the Universe, light or god.

It is my humble opinion that we must develop a balanced life that allows us to have an abundance of harmonious and meaningful relationships (love), physical health and resources (money and time freedom) to make our dream come true. 

To Your Peaceful and Abundant Life,
Yukiko Iino