AT as Expedient Means

Can the Alexander Technique concept of "Direction" be used as an expedient means?

I have suggested in the past that most Zen meditation is shikantaza, or "just sitting".  
Although much has been written on how to do 'just sitting' it's actually pretty simple: it's just sitting, what ever comes up is OK, just sit.  
Just sitting does not include much judging, grasping or aversion.
I  think it is also perfectly fine to define shikantaza with AT technical terms: universal awareness, inhibition of end-gaining and the view that anything other than just sitting is end-gaining.  That really sums it up nicely.

But what of direction?  This is also an AT technical term that is extremely important to the AT.   I have suggested in the past that if one employs direction constantly, it begins to just run in the background as a sort of underlying intention - an intention to go "up!", an activated antigravity reflex, an increased tone of body and mind, relaxed but not flaccid  in a word: "ready".  It can run in the background during Zen sitting.   I have suggested that this direction, running in the background actually informs and explains how to do the physical part of just sitting: how to be upright while not engaging in end-gaining.  

But many people find the concept of "just sitting" to be confusing in it's simplicity.  Or they come to Zen practice with ideas and goals that seem to make "just sitting" seem inadequate or even impossible.

So to teach "just sitting" there seems to be two broad approaches. Based on what I have read and heard, the first is to be supportive.  By this I mean a teacher might be a sympathetic ear, or a cheerleader, or they can explain in any number of ways what "just sitting" means.  They might point out, or even help resolve, barriers to "just sitting".  They might smack you to help you let go of wrong ideas or opinions.  Or they can simply embody it and live intimately with their students.  Of course, I don't really know, I'm not a Zen teacher.

The other approach that I've seen to help students with Shikantaza is to offer to students what is sometimes called "expedient means".   Inherent in this term is that there is a goal, and that this "expedient means" is a mean to a goal.  So "expedient means" are techniques to help Zen students get closer to "just sitting".  

This later teaching technique, "expedient means", is extremely problematic.  Shikantaza is about setting aside judging, grasping and aversion, but expedient means involve taking these up to some extent.  Expedient means is setting a goal where none exist, and then suggesting grasping and aversion when it is, in fact, grasping and aversion that is the problem.   Also practicing expedient means creates habits of mind that eventually will have to be resolved.

I can offer my own story as an example.  I came to the zen practice after reading the Three Pillars of Zen.  I wasn't very happy with my life, and I thought that if I worked hard I could change and become enlightened and, I suppose, live happily ever after.  My "take away" from The Three Pillars was that I needed to work on a Zen Koan (most likely "What is the sound of one hand clapping?").  I arrived at the San Francisco Zen Center ready to work hard.  I went to zazen instructions, which took about 1/2 an hour.  They talked about how to navigate the formalities of the meditation hall.  They talked about posture, but because I took a class in yoga in college I did not think I had to pay much attention.  They might have said something about breathing, but I can't recall: I was waiting for them to give me my koan to work on. Finally, the instructor asked if there were any questions.  "What about a koan?" I asked.  They said they didn't do much koan practice at the SFZC.  At that point I wished I had paid more attention.

But I did get it into my mind to count my exhalations, 1 to 10 and then start over again.  I did this for years.  Many week long intensives.  I had many very well regarded teachers, but really I did not understand anything that I heard.  Years later I asked if it would be OK if I just followed my breathing instead of counting my breaths.  I recall my teacher being rather exasperated and refusing to tell me what to do.  But I did then follow my breathing for over a dozen years.  One night after sitting all day in a Zen monastery my mind was just so completely exhausted.  I just simply could not go on dragging my mind back to my breathing over and over again.  I had had enough, I was fed up, and I just couldn't do it anymore.  It seemed such an abusive, mean thing to do to my poor little brain.  Regardless of how gentle I was at bringing my attention back to my breathing it involved generating a dislike for what was going on in the present, and making an effort to redirect my attention.  It might sound like a trivial amount of effort, but I had done it so much, over such a long time that I was exhausted: I had had enough.  I recall sitting outside on the walkway near the creek late at night.  I was alone, I let my hair down, I sat informally on a seza bench.   I just sat there.  It was sublime.   

Later I told a teacher what I was doing, and he replied that this was the practice of the Buddhas and ancestors.  So I stuck with it.  

At first (I am now embarrassed to say) I was angry at my teachers: "Why didn't they tell me just to sit years ago?"  But then I slowly came to the realization that they had been telling me this, but I couldn't understand them.  I do wonder if young men in particular, feel they need to work hard- work up a sweat - stay up all night in the full lotus posture - struggle - grapple with their mind, to make progress.   Perhaps it is simply a gracious offering to suggest to someone who is entrenched in the belief that they can not 'just sit' that they try an expedient means, at least temporarily.

This effort to make progress using expedient means, such as 'following the breath', or 'being mindful' also set up habits in me.  I found what I thought were methods of using my body and mind to help me sit 'better' zazen.  From pulling up my chest to 'stay sharp' to sitting with excessive lordosis avoid distractions.  Habits of mind included a distinct aversion to sensations that I thought meant I was falling asleep, or, of course, 'thinking too much'. 
 If I had to characterize my last few years of sitting I might say I've been unraveling all the bad habits I have accumulated practicing expedient means.  

I'm now a big fan of just sitting.  Or if pressed I might say that I try to allow zazen to sit zazen.  And I can be strident in my opinions, but I'm trying to be more openminded.  

To that end, perhaps we need to be gracious to anyone who feels they need to do something while sitting.  I don't really know, I'm not a zen teacher, but I'm open to the possibility.

But expedient means are dangerous  as I've said above.  They create and reinforce a view of life that there is lacking, that there is goal that must be reached, that 'doing' is the means to get there.  These views produce habits of mind that will have to be resolved at some point.

Here is the question that I am asking: If one wants to take up an 'expedient means', what is the least toxic?  What 'expedient means' will lead us the least astray?

-Koan practice has been suggested, but I don't know that much about it.  But it seems that if one does koan practice it is important to work closely with a teacher.   It does seem to take hard work, and I do worry about experiencing the 'Zen Sickness' that Hakuin Ekaku seemed to experience.
-A 'body' practice has been suggested and is popular in a large part because modern Americans are quite alienated from their body.  In addition, sensations from the body are always 'present' which is a great antidote if one is troubled by a wandering mind.  Bringing ones attention to the body, especially the hara, can be very grounding.  But there are pitfalls, including becoming less social, becoming sleepy or overly quiet, becoming more distant from our environment.  Also, body oriented practices risk that we might attribute some meaning to these sensations.  I've recently read about the body-self neuromatrix and the sentient neural hub.  It really seems to me that watching the body sensations is about as 'real' as watching reality TV.  
-There are mind based practices: trying to be 'mindful'.  Many writers suggest that Zen practice and mindfulness are synonymous and I believe it is widely accepted.   Mindfulness is very popular, you read about it all the time in the newspaper.  It seems to help with a host of modern problems, and it is recommended by Google to their employees.  But mindfulness is an expedient means.  One has identified their present state as undesirable and one makes an effort ('doing'), to drag the mind back to something else such as 'the present'.  I'm not saying that mindfulness would not be helpful for the vast majority of Americans, but I do not think this is Zen practice   Maybe it's my residual arrogance...   Maybe you think that your mindfulness is really 'just sitting'.  Well try this: give up trying to be mindful and see how it goes. 

 I'm here to recommend 'just sitting'.  If you feel you want something else, please consider the AT.  Zen students are well versed in inhibition of end-gaining  but they do not use these terms.  But this is fine.  'Stopping' is absolutely essential to all activities including zazen.   Direction is the least toxic of the 'expedient means'.  It is as distant from 'doing' as possible and will not incur the pitfalls of a body based practice.  That is, it references a body part but does not encourage feeling it.  It involves intention and energy.  It does not involve much doing - it is like wishing hard for better weather.  And finally, it has a geographic direction.  Directions can be classified as either internal (I am letting my back and torso widen) or external, (I am allowing my shoulders to lengthen towards the walls). Directions can be either positive, (I'm allowing my neck to be free) or negative (I'm not pulling down on my neck).  It would seem to me that a Zen teacher could prescribe just the right direction to meet a students particular needs.  

In addition, the use of direction as an expedient means contributes a benefit that body and mind based expedient means do not.  Direction, if correctly taught by a qualified AT teacher, encourages students to inhibit pulling down and shortening of the physical body.  Skeletal muscles attach and insert into different bones with a joint in between.  Muscles do not actively expand, they just actively contract.  Thus, any contraction of a skeletal muscle will invariably shorten and/or contract the body.  Direction  inevitably but indirectly suggests to the muscle not to contract.  Muscles contract during sitting because of fear, clinging and aversion.  Others might say that they contract due to habits of body and mind.  In my years of sitting I have never found a significant thought or emotion that was not accompanied by shortening or contracting.  But check for yourself.  If your experience is different, let me know.
      Dogen talked about a hairs breath deviation results in a mind that is lost in confusion.  I think that this deviation is actually muscle contraction: the body can be lost in confusion as well.  Or there is no difference.  To use direction is to set ones intention on going upstream.

The AT is a contribution to Zen practice.  It is at least as importnat to Buddhism as feminism and western psychology.  It teaches the foundations of zen sitting practice explicitly and clearly: inhibition, universal awareness,  end-gaining .  These qualities  with the addition of direction, provides the key to bringing Zen practice into everyday life: social engagement.  Finally, what I am suggesting here, is that if one really wants an expedient means,  the use of direction is the most effective, least toxic practice and is helpful in ways that other body and mind based expedient means are not.

But to understand the use of direction takes a few individual lessons from a qualified AT teacher.  To actually teach how to give directions, to become an AT teacher, takes years of education.   

Unfortunately, in all the whole wide world, there is not one Zen teacher that understands the benefits that the AT offers to Zen students, let alone has the qualifications to both teach the AT and teach Zen.