The question of the cushion
On the small specific decision of what to sit on for meditation — and on the years it took me to find the right answer, which turned out to be unfashionable.
I have, over the twenty years I have been doing some form of seated meditation, used a great many different things to sit on. A zafu — the round Japanese-style cushion. A larger crescent-shaped cushion. A folded blanket. A small foam block. A meditation bench, in two different heights. A chair, on the rare occasions the floor was not available. The right cushion is not, as I had thought when I started, a simple matter. The wrong cushion can prevent a practice from ever really developing.
I am writing about this in the hope that the lessons I learned slowly might be useful to someone who is just starting out, or to someone who has been struggling with a practice that is not quite working and has not yet considered that the cushion might be the problem.
The years of the zafu
For about eight years I sat on a standard zafu — a round cushion about thirty centimetres tall, filled with buckwheat or kapok. The zafu was the recommended cushion at the centre where I had first learned to meditate, and I assumed it was the right cushion for me.
It was not. The zafu, for my particular hips, tipped the pelvis slightly backward, which meant the lower back was always slightly rounded. The slight rounding meant the small muscles of the lower back were always slightly engaged during the sit, and after about twenty minutes the engagement would become uncomfortable. The sit, after twenty minutes, was largely a negotiation with the lower back.
I tried a higher zafu. I tried using two zafus stacked. I tried a folded blanket on top of the zafu. None of these fully solved the problem. The hips, with my specific anatomy, did not work well on a round cushion.
The years of the bench
About six years ago I switched to a small wooden meditation bench — the kind that lets you kneel with the lower legs tucked under, and that supports the weight of the body on the angled top of the bench. The bench solved the lower back problem entirely. The pelvis was tipped slightly forward by the bench's design, which let the lumbar spine fall into its natural curve.
But the bench introduced a different problem. The position, while comfortable for the spine, was uncomfortable for the ankles. After about thirty minutes the small fold of the feet under the bench would start to ache, and after forty-five minutes the ache had become significant enough to interrupt the sit.
I tried different bench heights, different angles, different placements of the feet. The aches got smaller but did not entirely go away. The bench was better than the zafu but it was not quite right.
The years of the chair
Finally, about two years ago, after years of trying to make the floor-based options work, I tried sitting in a chair. A specific chair — a small wooden one with a flat seat and a straight back, placed about thirty centimetres from a wall so I could lean lightly against the wall during the sit. Feet flat on the floor, hands resting in the lap, spine supported but not collapsed.
The chair, for my particular anatomy at this stage of life, has been the answer. The lower back has no complaints. The ankles have no complaints. The hips, no longer asked to do anything they do not want to do, are not the limiting factor. The sit can extend to an hour without the body interrupting.
What I learned, slowly
That the romance of the cross-legged floor posture is, in many people's bodies, mostly an obstacle. The historical reasons that meditation was practiced on the floor have to do with the cultures in which the practices developed, where floor sitting was the normal posture for most of daily life. In those cultures, the hips were prepared for it.
In modern Western bodies, the hips are not prepared for it. We have spent forty years in chairs. Asking the hips to suddenly take on the cross-legged position for an hour of meditation is asking them to do something they are not equipped to do, and the body will, in various ways, protest until the cushion is adjusted to meet the body where it is.
On the unfashionableness of the chair
There is a small cultural prejudice in meditation circles against chair-sitting. The chair is seen as the practice of last resort, the option for the elderly or the infirm. This is, on the basis of my own experience, mostly nonsense. The chair, when used properly, supports a quality of sit that many floor-based options cannot.
If you have been struggling with your meditation cushion for years, give the chair an honest try. A small simple chair, placed near a wall, with the feet flat on the floor and the hands resting in the lap. The position should feel comfortable for the spine. The ankles should have no work to do. The sit, in this position, should be able to extend to forty-five minutes or an hour without the body becoming the limiting factor.
The cushion that supports a long sit is the right cushion. The cushion that looks the most authentic is, often, the wrong cushion. Choose the cushion that lets the body disappear from the practice, so the practice can be about what it is supposed to be about, which is not the position of the body.