Freedom of Movement
New meditators often struggle with the idea of sitting still. One of the inevitable first questions asked at a beginners’ sitting is whether one must remain 100% perfectly still, or whether it’s okay to shift, scratch, and so forth.
While some traditions like zen are fairly strict in this regard, vipassana is less rigid: one should make a reasonable effort to remain still, bringing such impulses to conscious awareness, then making a considered decision about whether the movement is necessary or not.
But whether it is strictly enforced or not, the underlying rationale is the same in both schools of thought.
In our daily lives, the overwhelming majority of our actions are ruled by habit: if your nose itches, you scratch it; your knee hurts, you change your position. This is a great evolutionary advantage, because it frees your conscious mind from spending time thinking about trivial matters, so that you can pay attention to more important things.
But nature applies this ability too broadly, and acting unthinkingly out of habit also causes harm and gets us into unexpected trouble. Habit isn’t guided by wisdom or compassion or empathy, and it negates our freedom to react to the events of our lives in a well-considered way.
In meditation, one of the benefits of sitting still is gradually developing the ability to insert a little wedge of time between itch and scratch, between ache and move, or in general between any stimulus and our habitual response. By simply watching the itch rather than scratching it, we become a little less reactionary; we regain the freedom to choose how we respond and the opportunity to choose actions which are more wise, compassionate, and beneficial.
At first, this requires spending a lot of time in your head, and lots of effort trying to observe, interrupt, and override your previously unexamined habits. But you begin to see real-world benefits, and with practice you gradually become less reactionary by default… and also a kinder, wiser, and more compassionate person.
At some point you realize that being vigilant about your habitual behaviors is less effort now than when you first started. It no longer feels like you’re overriding your natural habits; it feels like you’re simply responding naturally. You’ve developed the skill, seen the real-world benefits, and broken the yoke of your old habits, at the low cost of some hours spent sitting around not scratching yourself!
This is one of the benefits of meditation, and why most schools of Buddhism emphasize being physically still while meditating.
Sitting still can also relate to an even more fundamental Buddhist idea: how much of our behavior is driven by desire and aversion.
During sitting meditation, the impulse to move is generally a manifestation of aversion. We perceive a sensation in the body such as an itch or an ache, and we want that sensation to stop.
But Buddhists see desire and aversion as the ultimate causes of human suffering. We want the world-and our experience of it-to be something other than how it is, which makes us dissatisfied and unhappy. Ultimately, the Buddhist philosophy addresses how to acknowledge, accept, and embrace this disconnect between what we want and what the world can provide.
Part of that is learning how to accept conditions we don’t want, but are powerless to change. This is where sitting still comes in: by not scratching that itchy nose-no matter how badly we want to-we are practicing and building up the patience, forbearance, and equanimity that will be needed when we face much greater challenges, such as our own aging, sickness, and unavoidable death.
It was in the midst of this aspect of sitting still that I began considering one particular insight that I’d like to share.
If one takes this orientation toward accepting the world as it is to an extreme, Buddhist philosophy might imply a kind of universal acceptance of life’s conditions, even to the extent of complete passivity: “This is how things are, and any attempt to change things is an act of aversion that ultimately leads to suffering.”
While that’s not really the Buddhist mindset, I found it an interesting object for consideration. And when I applied it to sitting practice, I came upon the idea that all volitional movement of the body must be a manifestation of dissatisfaction. Because if there is no desire or aversion, there is no need to change one’s circumstances, no motivation to move. What reason would there be for a being-freed of all desire and aversion-to move in any way?
Obviously, that’s a theoretical question, since no one is truly free of aversion; we all have itches, get hungry, go to the toilet, and fear aging, sickness, and death. But the idea that dissatisfaction underlies all movement has been a fruitful idea to turn over in my head, and has provided a new way to consider my bodily movements and the motivations behind them.
Playing with that concept has made sitting still during meditation a more active and engaging activity. It has also made it much easier to be physically still during sits!