Is Sitting Dangerous?

It would seem that sitting is dangerous.  Very dangerous.

This blog entry is based on a study that I read in the British Medical Journal (BMJ Open 2012;2:e000828 doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2012-000828).  The title of the study is "Public health
Sedentary behaviour and life expectancy in the USA: a cause-deleted life table analysis" and it was done by Peter T Katzmarzyk and I-Min Lee.  But I also believe that the work work of Timothy W. Cacciatore is very important.

The authors reviewed studies on the mortality associated with sitting and television viewing from a meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies.   The primary outcome was the life expectancy at birth.  The estimated gains in life expectancy in the US population was 2.0 years if this population reducing excessive sitting to <3 h/day.

This study will not tell you how many years you will gain if you spent less time sitting.  And it won't tell you how many years you will gain if you give up sitting.  It studies populations and thus is of most interest to social scientist and policy makers.  

But I can not help but stick my head into it.  Not being a scientist this study does seem to suggest to me that if I sit less than three hours a day I'll live two year longer.  What is two years?  I can imagine if my employer moved me to a new building that was made with toxic paint and would take 2 yrs off my life, I would only go there under considerable duress.   I can imagine being a cancer victim who has only a year left.  I would beg to take an toxic, incredibly expensive drug that would only add about a month to my life.  Two years is huge.  But if my employer offers me a chair to sit in and I gladly sit in it.  Should I be afraid of the chair?

How scary is the chair?  I'm 55 and never smoked.  But if I had smoked a pack a day for 13 years it would shorten my life the same 2 years.  Sitting in that chair seems to have the same impact on my lifespan as smoking 94,900 cigarettes.

My chair is starting to scare me.

This blog is about developing groundwork for the question of how to sit zazen physically.  What kind of things do we think about when we wonder how to arrange our bodies to sit?  Among the thought must be: is it shortening my life?  Should I be afraid of both my chair and my zafu?  Is there a way to do zazen that does not shorten my life?

One aspect that I find really fascinating is that the authors use of "Sedentary behavior"  in their title.  It is not at all obvious to me that sitting is synonymous with being sedentary.  All sitting is not the same.  Biking is done while sitting, but riding a bike is a great form of exercise.  Is the sitting for an hour durring a home game of professional soccer match the same as the last hour of sitting in a cubicle of a customer call center?  Is sitting in a equestrian saddle the same as sitting in car stuck in traffic?  It would seem that the authors intuitively believe that the problem is a sedentary lifestyle but the study can be criticized by their assumption that all sitting is the same and that it is always sedentary.

Is it sitting that is the problem or is it a sedentary lifestyle?   Is sitting just a surrogate marker for the real underlying problem?

But let's go one step further.  Is a sedentary lifestyle really the problem?   The segments of my life  that have been the most sedentary have been while I was in the monastery and durring week long retreats.   Zazen is the most sedentary activity that can be imagined:  "Don't move!"   Zazen is more sedentary than sleeping!
   And yet I have never felt more alive, more vibrant, than durring and after these retreats.  It is just inconcevable that long periods of zazen shortened my life.  In contrast, for me the same amount of sitting at work infront of a computer is stifling, smothering, deadening.

It's not the sitting that takes 2 years from our life.  And it not being sedentary.  It is collapsing that is dangerous.  What is collapsing?  Watch children.  When playing and running about they will be using themselves quite efficiently in the midst of gravity, always responding to the changing stimulus by going up and out, lengthen and upright, neither tense nor flaccid   In technical terms their antigravity and righting reflexes are active.  They go all day without fatigue.  Sit them down in a chair in front to a TV and they are initially upright and fully engaged   But after a few minutes they collapse.  No longer playing with gravity they slump and give up.

It is the slumping, the collapsing,  the abandonment of our antigravity and attitudinal reflexes, the forsaking of our upright heritage that is damaging.  I don't know exactly how this shortening and narrowing decreases our life span.  Perhaps it is the compression and devitalization of our internal organs, perhaps the decreased respiratory function.  Maybe the flow of chi is impinged.

But we can not blame the chair.  We need to be honest and take responsibility for ourselves.  The problem is what we are doing, not our environment.  Our chairs provide a stimulus for us, like any other part of our environment.  It is how we respond to that stimulus that is the problems.  We have covered over our ability to respond efficiently while in a chair, blanketed our inborn reflexes with the comforting quilt of habit.

Our sitting habit is a comfortable friend who is trying to kill us.  It will take two years from our life if we follow it.

That being said I still think the chair is a nasty, nasty thing.  I'm fit, have had plenty of experience in Zen practice and lots of lessons in the Alexander Technique.  Still, sitting in a chair is the most challenging activity in my life.  I can maintain a sense of going up while sitting in a seiza bench or on a zafu much more easily.  And standing is fun and easy.

I believe that the AT is at the center of how to sit physically.  The AT is the yoga of Zen.  But the benefits to studying the AT do not end with ability to sit upright or the ability to bring one's zen practice into everyday life.  The AT, it seems, will help you live much longer.



OK.  Here is an update.  About 30% of my time at work is sitting at a computer.  But I have began to loath the chair.   Chairs are a strong stimulus to contract, collapse.  My betters can choose how to respond to such stimuli.   But I, being no better than your average Joe, find myself without any sense of "up" after an hour or two in my chair.  So, being handy, I went to work on a weekend and raised my desk to standing height.  I instantly knew that this was the right thing to have done!  My work now meets me at my own level and inspires me to go up!

But now I have a new problem.  Standing is a static posture and taking a static posture can highlight imperfections in use.  The small study in the AT with pediatric laparoscopic urology residents suggested this.  And musicians certainly will agree.  Even neutral postures, such as zazen, can highlight "poor use" with pain.  So I worried about standing more than 2 to three hours.  Would I be uncomfortable?

I read an article just yesterday in my local newspaper about a fellow, much like me.  He also raised his work station to standing height but found that it hurt his knees to stand.   He then installed a treadmil so he could walk while at his desk.  Perhaps he avoided the effects of his imperfect use while standing.  Myself, I welcome a bit of discomfort if I can use it prompt me to inhibit and direct.  But I wanted a plan B.  What could I do if I needed a break from standing and didn't want to buy a treadmill?

 When in a pinch, one tends to fall back on ones strengths.  Being handy, I made this thing upon which I can sit.   I not believe anyone who see it would call it a "chair".  I'm not sure anything like it has been made before.  But when I sit cross legged on it my eyes are at the same height as when I am standing.  I can also perch on it.  Actually I can do a number of things with my legs all the time keeping my eyes at the same height.  (I tried, but failed, do design it be be a "kneeling chair" as well).   Not being an engineer, the first prototype failed disastrously durring construction in my woodshop.  Surviving, I shouldered on and am now very happy with this thing.   I don't use it much.  I use it to eat lunch, which I do at my desk - I hate to stand and eat.  Also I use it at the end of the day as fatigue sets in.

My coworkers tend to groan quietly, shake their heads and roll their eyes when they see me on that thing.  I don't mind.  I just wag my finger at them and say "95,000 cigarettes!"

perching with a leg up.

Standing.  Also have storage room for my bike!

perching

Sitting cross-legged with supported

full lotus at work!!

Yoga vs The Alexander Technique

Which is more useful to a Zen student: the Alexander Technique or Yoga?

Where can we go for expert opinion?

Well, let's go to the offering at Tassajara this summer.  Tassajara is a monastery run by the San Francisco Zen Center.  Its location is remote, a sunken mountainous valley.  It is well established, well regarded.  In the winter it is closed to allow Zen students to follow an ancient traditional soto zen schedule without distraction.  In the summer it's open to guests.  It's a bit like a resort for those wanting some peace and good food, well away from electronic distraction in a rustic setting.  Nice natural hot springs.  I have good memories of being a student there.  Anyway, this year they have 27 special programs to appeal to summer guests on a number of topic related to Zen practice.  Of these 27 programs, nine of these programs mention Yoga in their description.  Real good.  I also counted up how many of these special programs had to do with some aspect of the Alexander Technique.  I found, uh, zero.  None.  I think this is rather typical of Zen practice places that hope to meet the needs and interests of guests.

For someone who feels that it is the AT that describes how to physically do Zen practice and illuminates how to bring practice into everyday life, this lack of summer programs is disappointing.

I posted a blog earlier about what the Yoga of Zen should look like.  I think I've written enough about the intersection of Zen and the Alexander Technique to evaluate it in contrast to Yoga.

So here we go: Zen VS the AT.

I'll be the judge.  I'll award one point for each category.

Which describes the attitude one should have with zazen?
I am not a yogi.  I've taken some yoga classes and have a lot of respect for Iyengar yoga.  It is a rigorous discipline - a complete and focused path to liberation.  It has some similarities to Zen practice.  But it is not Zen.  Yoga is a process of refinement or path of purification.  It is 'doing'.  A yogi applies effort over a period of time.   Zen is seeing directly who we already are.  It is fundamentally 'non-doing'.  It is done in this moment, with a hammer or a shout, or with reading or writing.  For the average Joe, this non-doing is an odd thing.  It seems to be hard to grasp.  For me it was a singularly unique activity, until I stumbled upon the AT.  The AT is not 'not doing' but it is also not at all 'doing'.  It is a description of how to approach Zen practice from outside the Buddhist tradition.  It is very interesting.
One point for the AT.

Which more accurately describes how to physically sit zazen?
Well, the Full Lotus is a yogic posture, and yogic books and teachers describe how to sit in detail.  I've even met a Zen teacher who came to Zen from his Yoga practice.  He was told that the goal of Yoga was to sit well in the full lotus for long periods.  This prompted him to take up Zen as a profession.  The AT, on the other hand, does not teach you how to do anything.  One point awarded to Yoga?  Not so fast.  Zen practice is not simply sitting in the full lotus.  It is not a mechanical endeavor.   You can sit zazen while sitting in the half lotus, Burmese position, on a seza bench, in a chair or lying down.  Zen practice is not fundamentally a mechanical adventure.  Does the AT have anything to offer?  The AT is, are in part,  concrete tools of 'inhibition of end-gaining' and 'direction' to help student to be free from habit.  For me, zazen is about ending inexhaustible delusions and entering into boundless dharma gates.  What stands in my way is nothing but habits of body, speech and mind.  Habits of self.  Hence, the AT is a teaching about how to sit zazen independent of posture.
One point for the AT

Which will help us to sit in the full lotus?
To be fair, full lotus is the ne plus ultra of zazen postures.  But take a look at this posture.  With the exception of the hip joint it's a very neutral posture, upright and relaxed, nearly anyone can do it.  Although it really helps to have good external rotation of the hip joints, sitting in the full lotus does not take any special strength or flexibility.  It does not help to be able to do a bunch of downward dogs or planks or corpse poses.
  It is true that your average Joe in the US does not have the external rotation of this hips to sit in the full lotus.  But you can just do your best while sitting in a really tall zafu and over a few years your will naturally develop all the flexibility you will need in the hips.  Clearly yoga can accelerate this process.
What about the rest of the body?  Do you know anyone who sits zazen with a lot of pain in shoulders, neck or back?  I was at zen sitting where the assembly would finish a day of sitting by massaging each others shoulder by standing in a circle!  And we say that Zen is a path to end suffering?  People have pain not because they lack the flexibility, strength or stamina.  People have pain because of their habits.  These habits themselves may be painful, and they prevent us from employing our antigravity reflex.  We then struggle to hold themselves up and develop muscle tension.  Being upright is the basis of zazen regardless of the sitting, standing etc, and the AT gives us the tools to be upright.  Overall, the AT more accurately describes how to sit zazen.
One point awarded to the AT.

Which is safer?
First, is yoga safe?  Much has been written about the possibility of injury from yoga recently, but in fact nothing is safe.  Getting out of bed is dangerous.  Heck, I've even heard stories about being injured while sleeping.  Shouldn't the real question be: Do the benefits of yoga outweigh the risks of practicing it?  And of course, all schools of yoga are not the same and teachers vary widely.  And those who are foolish will find some way to injure themselves even if they do not practice yoga.  I have a lot of respect for the Iyengar school: with their focus on technique, safety and the quality of their teachers. But the fact that there is so much debate does sugest there is some risk in practicing yoga.  Of course, hopefully the yogi will be better prepared for the slings and arrows that life inevitably will fling at us.
  Regarding the AT, I'll say that it is the safest learning activity that exists.  AT teaches one how to use themselves better.  It leads to greater efficiency  poise, improved balance and breathing.  It improves our ability to accurately sense our bodies.   With better use comes much less risk of injury.  I base this on my review of all the scientific studies I've found on the AT.  Even in the big British Medical Journal study with hundreds of participants there were not only no injuries, but no unwanted effects at all.  Zero.  In all the studies on the AT I've not read of one unwanted effect.
One point awarded to the AT.

Which is faster?
Students of the AT spend time taking classes.  In addition, most AT teachers recommend spending time doing two 10 min "lie downs" a day.  How many classes will be needed?  It is not really clear.  How long will it take you to learn french?  Ones interests and abilities vary, as does the skill of the teacher to meet your needs.  Traditionally there have been recommendations, but I really do not know what they are.  But you can look at the scientific studies that have been done.   Most studies seem to use between 6 lessons and 24 lessons.  Or they study the teachers of the technique who can be considered experts.  The biggest study was the BMJ study.  It showed very significant benefits a year after the study.  The best result were people who had 24 lessons, but those who had only 6 lessons plus a prescription for exercise also got quite a lot of benefit.   Here in the US, lessons are usually about an hour, but in the UK I hear they are more likely 1/2 hour.  At two lessons a week you are done in 3 months.
How about yoga?  Say you practiced Yoga twice a day for 10 min plus an hour twice weekly for 3 months.  It would be undoubtedly helpful. But then no yoga for 9 months?  Surely you would have lost nearly all benefits   I have the most respect for B. K. S. Iyengar.  If you read his introduction to Light on Yoga it is clear that yoga is a progressive practice that has the potential to lead the Average Joe, through hard work, from his mediocre existence to a Yogic Sainthood.  It is a progressive practice.  And I think that most yogic teacher would say that a steady lifelong practice is essential.
One point for the AT.

Which feels better?  
We all want to feel good.
We scrunch ourselves into our car or the bus to go to work.  We hunch and strain and collapse all day at work.  Maybe we don't feel bad but we definitely don't feel great after work so we go to yoga.  In class we work out all the kinks, open up this and stretch out that.  We feel stronger and more flexible.  Then we go home and do exactly the same things in the same way as we did the previous day.  The next day we get up and do it all again.  How long to you feel good after Yoga?
We are like a nice drapery.  But instead of hanging ourself in the window, enjoying gravity and using it to straighten ourselves out we bunch ourselves up in a pile in the corner.  Then once a day we go to Yoga to shake ourself out.  Well yeah, it feels great!  But why not learn to use and enjoy gravity to achieve the stature and grace that we are heir to?
One point for the AT.

Which can be taught more efficiently?  
There are limited numbers of both yoga and AT teachers.  Yoga can be taught in groups.  Maybe teaching yoga safely requires smaller groups that allow for individualized instruction, but clearly it is well suited for groups.  The AT can not be taught in groups.  Introductory classes can be given to groups and a new student might get a taste of the AT, but I believe the vast majority of AT teachers believe it can not be taught to groups.  This is a huge barrier to bringing the AT to Zen students.  There are actually very few AT teachers, fewer that are qualified through the Society of Alexander Technique Teacher.
However, I am not aware that anyone has tried to teach the AT for a group of Zen students.  There are similarities between Zen and the AT, and I believe that these similarities make it easier for student of one to practice the other.  In any event, a conclusion for now is clear.
One point for yoga.

Which is more faithful to the idea of unreliable sensory information?
 This may seem like an odd question.  In the AT there are a number of ideas that are taught.  One of the most interesting is that our senses do not provide a reliable basis on which to act.  The AT teaches another basis for our use beyond what "feels right".  In fact, AT teachers really are not very interested in what the student is feeling.  But Yoga is different.  Yes, most yoga studios that I've seen have mirrors, in part to provide visual feedback to the student in the hope that this will supplement their kinesthetic sense enough to guide them to do their poses correctly.  But in the classes that I have taken I'm frequently told to do particular things with my body with the assumption that I know where that body part is and that I can feel it correctly.  Frankly, I think there is an unspoken realization that students fail at this quite a lot.  Hense, the frequent personal attention by the teacher, the mirrors and the injuries.  But because yogis have no other basis upon which to do an activity they have no choice but to rely on their sensations.
One point for the AT.

Before we add up the score, let me say this.

Really the AT cannot be compared with Yoga.  Yoga is a set of discrete independent activities (asanas, breathing activities, meditations, etc)  that are done throughout ones life to improve ones life. Without practice one regresses.  The AT is completely different.  There are lessons to take but only initially.   There is some commitment over a period of 3 months or so to acquire the tools and an understanding of the technique.  Or one can spend 3 years to become an expert and have the ability to teach the technique.  But then, really no more lessons are needed.  This is because the AT is not a body of discrete independent activities.  At the end of ones AT training one has only gotten to the starting line.  After a body of lessons one is able to use ones body/mind to it's best advantage while doing any activity.  There is no "Alexander technique activity".  It's simply with you to use while you sit, eat, speak, hang drapery or suffer the slings and arrows that flesh is heir to.  You can even employ the technique while you do yoga!

I know a middle age woman who has done quite a bit of yoga over the past several years.  She's now starting an educational program that will require long hours sitting in class.  She's worried about the effects of all the sitting on her body.  What good was all that yoga if you can't do what you did when you were a teen?!  I believe that she feels she is sitting at the pinnacle of her yogic practice and fears she is easily toppled by sitting in a classroom.  Yoga has failed to make her adequately supple and strong enough to sit in a chair!  It also has not improved her proprioception enough to be able to sit for long periods without harm.    She does amazing backbends and her hamstrings are supple beyond belief, but what good has this done her in daily living?

The problem is that Yoga does not improve how one does things.  Sure, classes will improve strength, flexibility and even mental attributes.  But it does not inform how to do things.   How do you sit on your drive back from a yoga class?  How do you cut vegetables, cook at the stove and eat dinner?  How do you sit in a chair in class or on a zafu durring zazen?  You don't need strength, flexibility or endurance or shoulder stands to do these everyday tasks.  To do them better you need the tools that the AT offers.

So both Yoga and the AT are useful for the Zen student.  But start with the AT.  It's a trivial time and monetary commitment compared to Yoga and Zen.  But by having studied the AT you will be able to do everything you do well.  And for me, to do something well is happiness.

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. 

 

On Being a Hero

Occasionally, I try out the idea that when you see something you hate in others, what is really going on is that you are feeling how much you hate that atribute in yourself.  And when you see something wonderful in someone else you are really admiring that aspect or feature in yourself.

I really admire generosity and compassion in others.  And I see it quite a bit in others.  The other day as I was driving my passenger asked me to stop to give a bag of food to a roadside beggar.  I've driven past hundreds of needy people, but have never stopped.  And I've walked by hundreds of panhandlers and almost never have given anything.  Where some give 5% of their earnings to charity, I've never given that much, and as I get older and richer I give less and less.  And, no, I'm not generous in other venues, not with my time or energy.  I rarely remember my relatives birthdays or aniversaries.  I can give other examples.

I wanted to be quite clear about this because otherwise I might give you the wrong impression.  I want to be sure the reader understands that although I have a bit of credibility having done a heroic act, I am certainly not a hero.  And not actually a very generous or compassionate person.  I want to establish my credibility on doing a heroic act without claiming to be a hero, or even a particularly nice person.   

Here in the US there are many people who's kidneys do not function.  To live, they undergo dialysis several times a week and have many difficulties.  The difficulties are such that some prefer to die.  It's very hard on people.   Many of these people can be cured of their kidney failure by receiving a transplant.  Mostly, kidneys are harvested from a deceased donors.  Some receive transplants from relative.   As it turns out, if you (and yes, I do mean you) are otherwise healthy, you can donate one of your kidneys to a friend or relative with little risk to your health.  But that still leaves many people living for years on dialysis, and dying from renal failure when they could have been saved.  Donating a kidney actually saves a life.

My local kidney transplant service has done hundreds of kidney transplants.  Family members helping a relative who has renal failure, friends helping friends.  The interesting thing is, and it is not well advertised, is that you don't have to know someone in need to donate a kidney.  This type of donation is called non-directed donation, or anonymous donation.  It is not very common.  I was the eleventh person to do this at my local transplant service.

I bring all this up for two reasons.  First, to tell you to consider doing the same thing.  The second is to say that someone referred to those of us who have donated a kidney anonymously as a "hero".     That really floored me.  Sure, it is a heroic gesture - to perhaps put yourself at some risk for someone else.  But few things will get me more angry than someone trying to call me a "hero".

"Heros" only exist in them minds of boys who read comic books.  And I say this having met a man who was medic and who's mind has been shattered by his experiences in Vietnam.  I work daily with veterans and my respect for them has no bounds.  And yet there is not a hero among them.

There are simply only two kinds of people, those who step up and do the right thing in whatever the present moment is sending to them, and those who shy away from doing the right thing.  Mostly, thank god, the present moment has never been too challenging for me.  Really, I've only done a few very heroic things.  The first time was when I went skydiving, and sitting on the edge of an open door high above ground I jumped out.    It was the right thing to do, and distinctly difficult.  The next was about an hour before the kidney donation.   The nursing staff had me undress completely, put on a hospital gown and then lie down in a heated bed.  They explained that removing a kidney from a body that was nice and warm goes better than if the donor is cold.  On the one hand it was nice, as I get anxious I also get cold, so it was nice to be in warm bed.  But it was then that I was struck with the frailty of my puny, quite tentative existence.  I was really afraid.  But I did it.  Donating my left kidney was the best thing I've ever done.

It was a heroic act, but I am not a hero.  What we are doing right now - in the present moment - defines us as either a hero or simply your average Joe.  

Yesterday I also did something a bit heroic.  I jumped off a 25 foot cliff into the White Salmon River in Washington state.  I was on a white water rafting trip, and half way we had to portage our boat around an impassable waterfall.  As the trail got close to the base of the fall, we were given an option.  We could either leap 25 feet off a cliff into the pool were the rafts were waiting for us, or we could continue to hike down the trail to the rafts.  The right thing for me to do was jump.  

Are you wondering how this is even remotely heroic?  You have to understand that I am a middle age, white federal employee who has a very predictable and very low stress life.  I'm a Zen student who is quite content spending long hours facing a wall and breathing.  For excitement I might try curry fries instead of the usual straight ones.  I wear white tall cotton socks with my sandals if the weather is nice.  There is nothing at all appealing about falling 25 feet.  I hate the anxiety, I loath fear, I don't like being in cold water, I have acrophobia.  I do not need the excitement.  It was unfortunate, really quite unfortunate, that the choice to jump off the cliff was the right choice.  There was never any doubt.  I don't know why.

There were about 15 people ahead of me.  As I made my way very slowly I felt waves of fear.  I've had many emotions in my life, and I suppose some emotions are complex, and if explored more genuine emotions might underlie them, or coexist with them.  But if I were to spend the rest of my life on a couch exploring this feeling of fear I doubt I would find much else.  The fear was  pure, distressingly distinct.

But I am a student of the Alexander Technique.  As a trainee to become a teacher I am really committed to practicing the technique as much as possible.  So in the midst of the fear I stopped.  Stopped with all the concerns about the future, stopped with the end-gaining.  Then I directed, rather course and firm directions: "Let my neck be free to let my head for forward and away, let my torso lengthen and widen..."  By the time I got to that point all the fear was gone.  Completely gone and all I felt was an intention and a sensation of uprightness, and calm.  Not an altered state, but exactly how I feel while standing on line to get on the bus to go to work in the morning.  Just calm, nothing special.

I wish it was that easy.  In the next moment the guide starts talking again, commenting that the person who just jumped did not tuck her arms when she hit the water.  He then told us that someone earlier in the day had dislocated her shoulder because she failed to follow these instructions.  The next thing I knew the fear was back, a really horrible sensation.  I would shuffle a few steps closer to the edge - engulfed in fear, before, again, remembering to inhibit and direct.  And again, the fear promptly left me in peace.  And again, the instructor, reminding us to really jump because if we just stepped off the cliff we would hit a shelf just under the water.  Again fear, and again, the AT inhibition and direction, again peace.  But once again the instructor.  It turns out there is a shelf on the far side also, which, if one over-jumps, one will surely meet.   He instructed the remaining few that when we got to the cliffs edge we should first look down, look to the center of the river, and jump to that point.  He said the area of fixation is the area of your impact.   The fear was back in force.  I told myself when I get to the jump off point, I would stop, inhibit and direct, tuck my arms in, fix my gaze in the center of the river and carefully jump.

When it was my turn, I got to the edge and just fucking jumped.  No looking, no tucking, no nothing, just get this fucking thing over with! 

So these are my credentials - feel free to judge my street cred.  But based on this, I offer my readers advice of how to be heroic in whatever life, whatever the present moment, offers to you.

And why should the Zen student care?  Because Zen is largely about being in the world and healing it's ills.  It is about bringing compassion and enlightenment to everyone everywhere.  It is not about being selfish - not about being your average Joe.  It is about being heroic.  A socially engaged Buddhist is heroic.  It may mean guiding civilians across a battlefield to safety, it might mean licking stamps on a letter, it might mean smiling to a stranger.  I don't think anyone can say what is right for you.

Hopefully, nothing ever difficult will ever face any of you.  Hopefully you will always be able to do the right thing without any discomfort, any pain, any fear.  But perhaps there might be selfish concerns that present challenges.

I believe that I would be quite foolish to think that there is Joe here, and that this Joe has a body and an emotion that I label fear.  Joe, fear and tight contracted body are one thing.  There is no difference.  The tight contracted body starts with the primary control.  Inhibiting and directing of the primary control brings conscious control to any situation and helps us act based on our fundamental intention as opposed to self concerns.

Buddhist saints might only need their meditation experience to insure they are heroic in all social engagement  But for the rest of us we should consider classes in the Alexander technique.

Practicing the Alexander Technique will make you heroic.  Good for you!

 

Primary Control

I've suggested in past posts that the "primary control" is pivitol in learning how to physically sit zazen and how to bring Zen practice into everyday life.  Alexander also thought the primary control is one of the key features in his Technique.  But it's also true that it is not well defined.
I've read a very good article on the subject by Gerald Foley, one of my many betters, entitled Untangling the Primary Control.  Frank Pierce Jones also wrote about the primary control.
Alexander used the term quite a bit, but never definitively defined it.  He seemed to use term 'primary control' as either a physiological condition or as an instument that can be controled.

As a physiological condition, the primary contol is a condition that exists.  It is a state of the head-neck during activity.

As a instument that can be controlled, or employed, the primary control is the use of the area of the head/neck region.  Once this instrument is employed correctly one can expect an improvement in the function of the rest of the musculature.  It is primary because it is of central importance in improving the global use of the self.

The distinction may seem like a fine line, but it is important because Alexander claimed that Rudolph Magnus proved the existance of the primary control.  Magnus published over 300 papers and was nominated for a Nobel Prize just prior to his death at age 53.   His studies included posture as a reflex activity.  His team used animals who had their cortex disconected from the brainstem - the decerebrate animal.  The cortex is the thinking part of the brain.

The brainstem is important for several reasons.  Ten of the 12 crainial nerves emerge from the brainstem.  One of which controls the sternocleidomastoid and trapezius muscles via the accessory nerve (CN XI).   One of the main functions of the brainstem is to conduct the impulses from the cortex.  It also controls the posture, balance and adjustments to poise.  All activities it controls are reflexive.

Magnus and his team adhered to a clear distinction between habit and reflexes.  Habit is always acquired behavior and arrises from conscious action.  They initially were voluntary actions from the moror cortex.   In contrast, reflex behaviour is inherent and innately given, withdrawn from all voluntary actions.  This is evocative of Kants a proiri knowledge.   Reflex activity takes place in response to stimuli even if the cortex is removed.  

Magnus studied the brain stem.  He kept decerebrate animals alive and found that they were able to do quite a lot of reflexive activities that govern movement, posture, and balance.

So on the face it appears that Alexander was wrong when he claimed that the work of Magnus supported his work.  Alexander felt that he could influence with his cognition the primary control to improve basic use but Magnus seemed to prove that the reflexes he discovered have no input from the higher centers.  Some of the confusion is that the brain stem just happens to be in the base of the skull in close physical proximity to Alexanders 'primary control'.  Some of the confusion might be based on Alexanders agressive coaptation of any scientific evidence that would give him better footing in medical establishment.  Also, perhaps Alexander was confused because he was not a scientist.  This might be controversial, but scientist first and formost study science.  They stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before them.    In my very limited study I have not found that Alexander studied science at all.

I think that Alexander was wrong that Magnus work supported him, but if we broaden our discussion we can see that the AT does have firm scientific support in claiming that the primary control or brain stem function can be influenced by the cortex.

I've read that Magnus found two categories of reflexes: the 'attitudinal reflexes' and the 'righting reflexes'.   The attitudinal reflexes receive input from the inner ear (labyrinths that gives us a sense of balance via CNVIII)  and the muscles and joints in the neck which are rich in sensory receptors.  In these reflexes, the head first drawn to a fixed position and then the tonus is distributed to the truck and limbs.  The posture of the head/neck is imposed on the rest of the body.  Apparently it is a very enduring reflex.  These reflexes come into play when one stands or sits down, or when a cat jumps.  In the startle reflex the first muscles to be tensed are the neck muscles enervated by the accessory nerve (CN XI).

The second group of reflexes are the righting reflex which takes over when an animal is ready to return to a normal posture.  Again, normal tonus if restored under the influence of the head/neck.  For example, time lapse photos of a cat held upside down and then dropped show the first changes are in the head/neck.

Magnus found that in both categories involving he brainstem, the head/neck relationship is the instigator and the rest of the body follows.  I've never read anything about Magnus that did not summarize his work as the "head leads and the body follows".

Another important point to bring up is that not all animal brains have the same ratio of cortex to brainstem, and the influence that animals might have over their reflexes vary.  For example, a lizard or frog has little if any ability to learn to change their behavior.  All their behavior is reflexive to stimuli,  genetically hard wired.  Cats and dogs have some ability, they can be trained and learn to inhibit some reflexive activity.  Monkeys more so.  But humans are very plastic in their ability to change.  In our evolutionary setting, such plasticity served us well, as evident by our seeming domination over all things.  But it seems to be a basic tenant of the AT that the modern world has put unique stresses on us  for which we are not well prepared - such as sitting at the computer all day in a constant low level of stress and worry.  Our beautiful righting reflex is not up to the task of bring us back to a fully lifted stature after spending hours hunched over a computer.   Our habits have overwritten our instinct.

This does not make Magnus wrong.  Magnus was quite right that the righting reflex are subcortical and inaccessible to direct conscious control.  But they can be covered up, obscured and debauched by poor use for which evolution has not adequately prepared us.  This is understood in medicine.  Consider the patellar reflex.  When your GP heads towards your knee cap with her rubber mallet you naturally tense up.  "I hate it when she smacks my knee with that thing!"  and you tense your thigh.  She knows that a patient who actively tenses the thigh will interfere with the proper demonstration of the reflex and lead to a falsely subdued response.   She tells you to grip your hand together and pull your arms apart.  You do as you're instructed while wondering "Why is she having me doing this?"  You forget to keep you thigh tense and Smack! goes the hammer and up goes your leg - a normal patellar reflex.  By distracting you your GP was, temporarily, working a decerebrate patient.

Is our original righting reflex destroyed by our "training"?  It does not make sense that we would be wired to actually lose it.  Yes, cover it up and obscure it by years of poor use, but I believe it is a fundamental tenant of the AT that it is not lost.  But most of us believe it is lost.  We go to yoga classes, spend years studying dance and gymnastics to try to relearn the grace and poise of our youth.  My conception of the AT is a "good news" model.  You have not lost anything: Praise be!  Just stop doing all that bad stuff you learned by mistake!

But how?  How do we interrupt the learned patterns to allow our default reflexes to again express themselves?  We must interrupt right at the first manifestation of misuse. If indeed the "head leads and the body follows" then we must interrupt at the head/neck area.  And with what should we interrupt it?  The same tool we used to set it wrong in the first place.  There is already tremendous input into the brainstem from the cortex.

In practical terms: First, stop.  You've got to stop the debauched program. Just stop.  Next use that big cortex of yours.  Tell the sternocleidomastoid, the trapezius and the numerous muscles in the neck and back to not pull down.  It's a bit tricky to do this - an AT teacher can help.  Now keep doing this and off you go!

I've heard it said that some AT students, durring their first lesson, as they are guided out of a chair, exclaim: "I didn't do that!  Yes, obviously I got out of the chair, but I didn't do it!"  It's a fascinating statement.  The student has used a debauched program thousands of time over her lifetime to get out of a chair.  And now, for the first time since childhood, has not interfered with the primordial brainstem reflex.  The feeling (sensory feedback) of standing up is so different from the accustomed feeling that the only conclusion possible is that she didn't do it.  Moreover, that sense of self resides mostly in the cortex.  And the cortex in this case, was actively not getting out of the chair.  So maybe she, in fact, did not get out of the chair.  Who did?  

I have been trying to place the AT directions in the center of my life for a bit over a year.  Stopping and directing as much as I possibly can all my waking hours.  I find it changing a bit from the course thoughts directed to my primary control.  It is sometimes just feeling like an intention that underlies all my activities.  And it does not feel like I'm alone, every being on the earth plays with gravity and a lot of us think up! quite a bit.

Playing at the Intersection of Sensation and Suffering

Pain is a very serious issue for many people, so they might reasonably ask, "Will the AT help with my pain?"  I want to say right upfront that I would not claim that the AT will help with pain.  The AT teaches conscious control of self which leads to better use of the self.  It does not diagnose any pain syndrom and does not treat any malady including pain.  Does the AT help with pain?  Well, it certainly might, but if it does it's a happy byproduct.  I imagine some who have pain might walk away: "Why would I want to pay for lessons in something that does not claim to help me with my pain?"  That is reasonable.  Others might linger a bit and ask "Well studies do suggest that AT can help with pain, so tell me: How might the AT help with my pain?"  I think AT teachers should have something to say to this.  Further, I think it is compassionate to market the AT to those who suffer from chronic pain.  They really need any help they can get.

And suffering from chronic pain is a big deal.  I'm not talking about the "duka" or dissatisfaction that is at the core of the Buddhists first noble truth.  I'm talking about the effect of chronic pain which is terrible.  Not having had chronic pain, it is not really my place to talk about it, and I apologize if I am insensitive in my ignorance, but I would like to make a few comments.

Attitudes towards pain has changed quite a bit in my lifetime.  As a middle class child in the US in the early 60's, I was expected to sit quietly while the dentist drilled cavities without any anesthetic.  These memories are still vivid.  While studying medicine 15 yrs ago I was taught that the patient has pain if she says she has pain.  And that it should be taken seriously and treated, with narcotics if necessary.  Now, in Oregon, more people die from prescription narcotics than from illegal drugs.  Yet chronic pain is still very much an issue (back pain is the sixth largest expense in managed care) and it is very difficult to treat.  Increasingly the medical establishment is working with other providers to help sufferers.  There seems to be greater openness in the medical community - an opportunity for other professionals.

There have been insights into the science behind chronic pain.  This blog entry is based on an article written in the Journal of Dental Education by Ronald Melzack, Ph.D who is a professor Emeritus at McGill University.  The article was recommended by a reader, Tim Kjeldsen: Thanks!  You can read it at

http://ipcoregon.com/pdf/pain_and_the_neuromatrix_in_the_brain.pdf

My last blog was also based on this article, but the focus was on it's implications on the reliability of our senses.

I have read it four times, slowly, and an not confident I can summarize it.  Please read it.
The author says that current pain theory has evolved away from the Cartesian concept of mind/body separation and the concept that tissue injury is the sole instigator of pain, to a much more complex theory.  The author has studied the phantom limb pain phenomena.  This refers to the very genuine limb pain that can seem to be produced by a limb that has been lost.  This phenomena suggests that the production of the awareness of pain is independent of the body part that seems to be effected.
   He says that there is a "body-self neuromatrix" which is a gridwork or template.  It is a very complex, widely distributed, communicating, cyclical processing neural networks that has inputs from the body sensory apparatus, the mind, and the endocrine system.  Outputs also go to a sentient neural hub which produces the continually changing stream of awareness.
If the body-self neuromatrix decides these inputs are adequate, it triggers outputs that include behavioral changes, stress regulation changes, cognitive changes as well as the sensation of pain.

Central to this formulation of pain is a notion of homeostasis.  It supposes that the body is always striving to maintain equilibrium.  You're body is good at 98.6 degrees ferinheit, and maybe OK with 98.5 but much lower and your feeling uncomfortable, you look for a jacket, you're shivering.  The homeostasis model mostly seems to work, but I doubt it was developed by a perimenopausal woman durring a hot flash.

The body self neuomatric then has a simple job.  It takes all these inputs and and answers the question "Am I OK?"  If it decides that homeostasis exists it does not trigger these pain perception + action programs + stress-regulation programs.  If it decides that homeostasis does not exist then all these are triggered.  I suppose these outputs are the brains attempt to re-establish homeostasis.

I think this is a delightful model for several reasons.  First, it finally defines pain not as some solid, real thing, but as one part of the creation of an incredibly complicated body-self neuromatix with many inputs.  Second, it defines "suffering".  "Suffering" is the entire package of outputs from the body-self neuromatrix if it has decided that homeostasis has been lost.   Third, it gives me a framework that I can use to explain how the AT might help with suffering.   Finally, it gives us so many opportunities to intervene and suffer less.

This model as explained in the article says that inputs from the mind, sensory apparatus and endocrine systems all contibute to unsettling the body-self matrix.  But I think it extreemly important do consider: can these inputs have a calming, palliative influence?  It seems obvious to me they can.  If I am well fed and rested I will be less likely to be upset by a minor sprain?  It's alarming to see that there are so many inputs to irritate the body-self neuromatix, but it is equally hopefull that we can use these same pathways to placate it.

Obviously the AT can help with chronic pain by improving use and thus minimizing the noxious muscular input to the body-self neuromatrix.  This is the classic understanding.  But there are a few other ways that the AT can influence the body-self neuromatrix.
  - First, is that it can influence the "tonic inputs from the brain" (tonic sensory input adapts slowly to a stimulus), that is attention, expectations, anxiety and depression.  I think it can be quite healing for the chronic pain suffer to take a break from spending time with those who are concerned about their pain.  Chronic pain sufferers are surrounded continually by solicitous caregivers, coworker, family and therapists.  Everyone is wrapped up in the persons pain.  But not the AT teacher.  Pain, or lack of it, is not the issue.  In fact the AT is not really interested in sensation at all.  Durring a lesson pain issues are set aside and students work on learning how to inhibit and direct.  What a relief!  How healing!
  - Second, the AT teaches, in part, a unified field of awareness: up, front, back, both sides (and even down).  Not that anyone suggests ignoring pain, but the training is to be aware continually of everything else as well.  This unified awareness changes the "phasic inputs from the brain" (phasic receptors adapt rapidly to a stimulus).  That is, the AT helps teach the brain to input a broad variety of inputs into the body-self neuromatrix: not just the one-pointed fixation on pain.
  - Third, there is an emphsis on the primary control, the relationship of the head, neck and back.  The primary control is the key to not contracting and pulling down.  The primary control is the gateway to enter the startle reflex, it is the threshold that must be crossed to enter into a habit.  The AT teaches inhabition and direction of the primary control to allow one to use oneself consciously, to use onself in a new way.  The effect then is to alter the "tonic somatic input".  Chronic pain, as well as PTSD, are characterized by axial rigidity.  The AT gives students the tools to intefer with this habit.  As the students employ these tools this rigidity diminishes.  When it does, the input from the body to the body-self neuromatrix changes from being irritating to homeostasis to being reassuring.  There may still be big somatic sensory inputs, but instead of the mind being preoccupied with intense narrow preoccupation with neurotic thinking and the body tensed and pulled down, the pain will be combined with global awareness and a tall and wide stature.  These will be reassuring to the body-self neuromatrix.

Try this next time the dentist is coming at you with her drill.  Stop yourself.  Then think "I wish my neck to be relaxed to allow my head to go forward and up.  And I want my torso to be long and wide."  Put plenty of energy into this, but be sure not to actually "do" anything.  You will see that your dental experience will be transformed.  Sure, huge sensory input!: she's drilling your tooth!  But you won't be suffering: your body-self neuromatrix is combining the irritative tooth sensation with palliative input from the brain and body.  The body-self neuromatrix is saying "Wow, lots of tooth sensation! But the brain is otherwise calm and focused, not crazed like it usually is when bad things are happening.  And the body is not all tightened like it is when we're panicing.  So maybe we're OK, maybe for now there is no need to press the "NOT OK!!" button."
You can actually play with this.  While the dentist is having at you, stop your inhibiting and directing and concentrate on the drilling.  You can feel your thoughts chang, the body tightening and the panic set in.  Then go back to inhibiting and directing and feel the body-self neuromatrix back down.  Although this sounds like simply playing at the intersection of sensation and suffering, it is actually important work.  The dentist is a fairly safe place to play, but I'm sorry to say that there may be more significant slings and arrows coming at us at some point.

I humbly suggest that the thrust of pain research should be to find ways to anchor us homeostasit.  How can we convince the body-self matrix that we are still in homeostasis even if there are big somatic inputs?  Sure, the AT helps with pain through better use.  But at least as important is that it anchor us in homeostasis.  It gives us the tools to use our bodies and minds in such a way as to reassure our body-self matrix that we are indeed 'OK' despite other stimuli that would normally "put us wrong" and produce suffering.

Zen practitioners explore this while sitting.  Zen student get plenty of experience in influencing tonic and phasic inputs from the brain in the midst of significant sensory input.  Few westerners can sit on a cushion, and not move for 40 minutes, without some significant sensory inputs that tend to nudge the body-self neuromatix out of homeostasis.   There is an interesting Buddhist Geeks podcast (#249) with Rob McNamara.  He is a weight lifter, who, like me, is very interested in how to practice physically.  Playing at this intersection of sensation and suffering burns off the undergrowth and fertilizes the forest of compassion.

Ultimately, the Zen student can not ignore what the Heart Sutra has to say about chronic pain: it is empty, without an abiding independent reality.  It is so hard to understand this, but so important, I think, if we want to find true liberation from suffering.  The body-self neuromatix theory shows us that pain does not have an enduring, seperate existance, that it is empty.

It may take time for the Zen student to creatively engage pain till it's emptiness can be preceved.    But since the effects of chronic pain are so serious, it makes sence to aquire all the skills to reassure the body-self neuromatrix.   Zen and the AT gives us overlapping tools to inhibit the manufacturing of suffering.  My experience is that 30 years of zen practice is very roughly equivalent to 20 one hour lessons in the AT.

And you?

Sensory appreciation and the Body-Self Neuromatrix

If there is one defining feature of Zen, is the emphasis on the posture while in meditation.  Universally, Zen teachers are strikingly upright and expansive.  And this emphasis can also be found in Japanese Zen teachings.

This Blog is about how to sit upright.  For many it may sound silly.  Many think it happens "naturally" or comes with experience without any effort.  Some might think they already sit upright just fine, thank you very much.  Others might say "Well, I feel my body and rely on the sensations to guide me.  I can feel when I'm leaning over, and I can feel my self making an adjustment, and then I feel upright.  If I feel upright I am upright."
It's this last group that I want to talk to.  The fundamental assumption in this blog is that the sensation we get from our bodies is not a reliable basis upon which to make decisions about how to do something.  You may feel like you are leaning one way, when in fact you are not.  You may feel tightness around your chest when it may, or may not be, tight.

I have lots of examples from my own life, but I have not shared them because I'm sure it would not convince anyone.

This post is based on an article suggested by a reader, Tim Kjeldsen.  He suggested reading:

http://ipcoregon.com/pdf/pain_and_the_neuromatrix_in_the_brain.pdf

I have found it very interesting and highly recommend it.  It has to do with chronic pain, but the theory of the existence of a "Body-Self Neuromatrix" has relevance here.  The article from the Journal of Dental Education by Ronald Melzack, Ph.D who is a professor Emeritus at McGill University.  Apparently he is an expert in phantom limb phenomena.  This is when a person feels a perfectly real limb, that is not actually present.  Since this non existent limb can hurt, brain researches have had to throw out the old Cartesian concept of pain as a sensation produced by tissue pathology.
The body-self neuromatrix is thought to be a group of very complex, widely distributed, multiple, communicating, cyclical processing neural networks.  The inputs into this matrix include all the sensory inputs, but also cognitive inputs such as cultural inputs, personality, past experiences, etc.  Inputs also include from the the endocrine and immune systems.  Obviously complicated, but hey, it's brain science.
While the input and output from the body-self neuromatrix sound very complicated, the functions sound are pretty simple.  It decides "Am I OK?".  If it decides "Not OK" it triggers pain perception, actions and alters stress regulation.  I'll write more about this later.  But more germain to this blog entry is that the output from the body-self neuromatrix is projected to a sentient neural hub - in which the stream of nerve impulses is converted into a continually changing stream of awareness.  This is where the experience of movement is created.

To back up a bit, I used to believe that "I" exist somewhere in my brain.  I get accurate sensory information directly from my body and make decisions based on this.  Brain science does not support this at all.  Setting aside for now the location of any "I" in my brain, I clearly am not sensing my body at all.  Sensations from my body are constantly mixed up with a whole lot of other inputs, mixed and remixed, and fully processed.  When done it goes to the sentient neural hub and it is here that the stream of awareness and experience of movement is created.

I had to think about this a bit.  And please read the article for yourself to be sure I'm getting this right.  When concepts are complicated I reach for metaphors.  I hesitate to do this because I have to acknowledge my limits to think clearly and write effectively.  Sorry.  Here is the way I see it: Trying to feel my body while sitting in order to figure out if I'm upright is like figuring out what is happening in the middle east by watching a powerpoint presentation on the middle east given by a EU prime minister.  What the powerpoint presentation tells me is based on intelligence from the middle east, but also politics, economics, cultural issues, etc.  Will the powerpoint give me a good idea of what is going on?  Uh, maybe.  Is it adequate to make a decision to go to war?  Yeah, I'm thinking WMD here.  Is this slideshow adequate to make decisions to "adjust" your posture?

There are two other articles I've read recently that have moved me.  One was from a recent issue of Buddhadharma that talked about the Heart Sutra, which is the most commonly recited teaching at the zen groups that I have attended.  It is a simple but uncompromising denial of the inherent nature of anything and everything.  There is nothing with an abiding separate self.  Everything is empty.
It is relatively easy to see how our powerpoint presentation is empty.  But what about my eyes?  My ears, nose, body and mind?  Where is the solid reality in my ideas of myself or the sensations and stimuli?

The other wonderful article from Buddhadharma is by Reb Anderson regarding the "three turnings of the wheel", which really helps to organize the above.  The first turning has to do with the four noble truths: there are real problems in life, there is a reason for these problems and ways to help resolve them.  The second turning is the teaching on emptiness of all things.  The third turning combines the two teaching and enables us to act.

The AT explanes how to physical sit and how to bring our practice into everyday life.  Unlike yoga, the AT is based on intention and non-doing.  Like zen sitting it is based on a fundamental deep acceptance of the present moment - of who you are.  Both the AT and Zen are also in step with the body-self neuromatix theory.
 

A Few Thoughts on Improving the Use of the Self

By "good use" I mean reliably completing a task efficiently, accurately, safely and reliably.  Maybe "good use" should also enable us to learn new tasks quickly and to undo unwanted habits.  Here is my feeble attempt to be more classical:  Good use is being able to do the right thing when confronted with a stimulus that usually puts you wrong.  I'll say that this includes ones' responses to emotional stimuli.  Considering that some people define happiness as doing a task well, I think that good use is important.

I've been telling people that students of the AT learn how to use themselves better.  It seems like a transparent and simple statement but people always look at me strangely.  They look like they have no clue about what I'm talking about. Why is it hard to grasp the phrase "learning how to use yourself better"?  Most tools I buy come with some instructions.  Every tool has a proper way to use it; and poor use of the tool leads to inefficient, perhaps dangerous use.  Proper use of a good tool leads to great satisfaction.  Why is it so weird to think of the body as a tool?  Is it not the most important tool?  Is it reasonable to aggressively pursue any instructions?

I made a huge error in the above paragraph.  I made the assumption (or perpetuated a common wrong presumption) that "use of the self" is equivalent to the "use of the body".  I'm ashamed - it's a bad habit of mine.  When I say stimulus I mean anything that prompts some kind of response, be it a thought, feeling or physical action.  Speaking of the self as a unified self - where body, mind, feelings are not seen as separate - taxes my very modest abilities.  I find it very hard to be concrete, to give examples and I fear being vague or intellectual.  My readers deserve better.  Oh well, I might as well be thorough in making my mistake.

To help me grasp what "the use of the self" means I've heard AT teachers use analogies such as 'teaching us to drive an automobile without the parking break'.  Or that 'the AT shows us how to not stand on the garden hose while watering the lawn'.  Analogies such as these create a feeling that an idea is being communicated, but I'm suspicious that analogies actually say very little - at best.  More likely they are misleading.

It seems we spend a lot of time on improving the self-as-a-tool, but no time thinking about how to use it better.  We improve the tool by sharpening it with Tai Chi, tempering it with yoga, oiling it with massage, elongating it with yoga, and allowing the chiropractor and Rolfer to align it.  This is all real, real good.  But what about how we grip the knife?  How much pressure to use?  At what angle?  It's not an either/or question.  Cooking schools teach both sharpening and knife use technique.  We can argue about which is more important, but I think good use is more fundamental.  Good use allows one to enter into any new situation with the best possible advantage.  And every situation is a new situation.

Perhaps the "use of the self" seems like an odd concept because we have never heard of anyway to improve our use.  With no conceivable way to improve the "use of the self" we naturally find some way to consider the task unimportant.  Well, given how easily the internet has made information on the AT acessible to teachers of all stripes there is no excuse for this ignorance.

Maybe you believe that you can use feelings somehow to guide you to learn or relearn an activity.   Maybe you think you feel when you are not sitting up straight.   Maybe you think that you can improve your use of your body by divining the meaning of the feelings you get while sitting.  I tried that for 20 years and failed.  Ok, sure, you think that I'm a loser and you aren't.  But take a moment and look around the meditation hall at the end of a long sitting.  Everyone is bent and twisted and leaning.  And they all feel they are sitting up pretty straight.  Maybe you think you're different.  OK, I won't challenge you.  Just consider that using your interpretations and ideas about the meaning of the sensations that you have gotten in the past are not useful in guiding your present use.

My AT teacher suggested that the notion that ones feeling can reliably provide a basis for improved use is very common among those starting to study the AT.  It's very hard for me to believe.  Maybe I should just skip this topic since I've written about it elsewhere.   But I'll say here that stimulus provides information to help one decide what next to do.  But it does not help you to actually DO anything.  Sensation or feeling only provides feedback on what is going on in the present moment.  To think about the stimulus that you have had in the past, make decisions about its meaning, and use those decisions as a basis to inform your present use is just crazy, it's nuts.  I get that you might not know what else to do, and to abandon such craziness is scary.  But there is a much better way.

 But it seems that few have taken a step back and considered if there is anything one can do to improve the ability to learn how to do things.   To improve piano lessons I would take lessons and practice, practice, practice.  If I don't succeed at first I'll just keep trying.   A piano teacher does not teach you how to learn, they will only teach you how to play the piano.  Who teaches you how to learn?  I don't want to minimize the effects that training, dedication, will power, nutrition, genetics, good coaching, family support, etc have on good use, but I am talking about more fundamental issues. 

Why is it that some people just "make it look easy."   They can make a difficult task look effortless.  One mark of mastering any task is that there is nothing extra being done.  When one muscle group is contracting the antagonistic muscles are relaxed.  There is no tension.  Look at Michael Jordan, stream a Astaire-Rogers film.  As you watch there is some part of your brain ("mirror neurons") that creates the sensation of same movements in your brain - and is a sublime feeling.

One feature of that might be found in Astaire-Rogers-Jordan at peak performance or use is that they are rather present.  They are not daydreaming or obsessed with a particular outcome.  They are 'in the moment'.  They are more attentive to the means where-by they are acting, and not so concerned about the gaining a particular end.  Sure, there is a big commitment to winning or making a great movie, but they are able to set it aside while enguaged with the task.  It's a nuanced task to set aside a strongly desired goal (WIN!!) to 'be in the moment'.  An athlete might refer to this as 'the zone'.  This might also be a feature of what Buddhist refer to as samadhi.

There might be other features of good use.  Try tapping your head with one hand, nice and rhythmically.  Not too tough to do.  Now try adding on, at the same time, rubbing you belly with the other hand.  Surprisingly hard to do?  Do you feel your body tense as you try harder?  Once you do it, once it really clicks in, does you body feel loose and relaxed?  Does it feel like you learned something brand new, or did you just manage to relax enough to let it happen by itself?  Now try speeding up one hands' activity.  Do you feel the tension return along with the stimulus to speed up?  Did everything fall apart?  Anytime you try to make an improvement does the tension come back?  What I find is that whenever I try to change anything I become more tense.  The very impulse to making an effort to improve creates tension and tightness in my body.

FM Alexander seems to have found this as well - and was quite exasperated trying to improve on his customary activity without tensing up.   Finally, he developed a technique where one learns to inhibit the desire to do an activity while directing ones self not to tense up, and to continue to inhibit and direct right up to the point of doing the activity.  Or any activity.  Or all activities.
I don't know if a teacher of the Alexander technique would agree with my assessments here, but I think it's a simple yet classic explanation of the technique.  What is more interesting is that it is a complete explanation of how to sit zazen.