Yes, there is a classic meditation posture. Yes, there are many reasons for it, and they all serve one’s clarity of mind, observation and direct perception of emotions, and alignment of inner and outer realities. With the help of proper posture, right attitude and action in one’s life, in time and with practice, non-two or non-dual understanding is possible.
Today’s meditation focuses on embodiment. If asana is nothing else, it represents the fact that we are incarnated beings. We have taken on a form, use that form in many ways, and – for the vast majority – identify ourselves with form. The latter is not embodiment; it is delusion. When one sits in a chair, one has not become the chair. When you and I incarnated, we did not become the body, just as we do not become a chair. But, by some curious mechanism in the human psyche, human beings set their identity by form. Some examples include:
- I am man, or I am woman, or I am both man and woman.
- I am black, white, yellow, red, and so forth.
- I am a mother, I am a father, I am a carpenter, I am an artist, etc.
- I am sick, I am well, I am tired, I am …
None of these speak of embodiment either. They are delusion as well.
Embodiment is a set of inner conditions whereby one subjectively cognizes and has the sensations of being more than this complex form and the complexity of forms that we have created or sustain in our lives. Embodiment is presence.
