Ilchi Lee

To meditate for over 30 minutes while sitting elegantly with legs crossed, lower back straight, and face wearing a peaceful expression: this is one of the simple wishes Dahnhak beginners bring with them to training. After new members sit with legs crossed for only a few minutes, the legs start to ache, the shoulders become uncomfortable, and the back starts to curve like an old spring that has lost its resilience. How can we sit both comfortably and correctly?

 

The posture most commonly used in Dahnhak and Brain Respiration practice is sitting with legs half-crossed. We place a mat or cushion that isn’t too thick on the floor and then sit on top of it. One leg—either left or right is fine—is bent with the foot pulled deeply in toward the body and the other leg is bent and placed on top of it. The shoulders and arms are relaxed, and both hands are placed comfortably on the thighs with palms facing up. The upper body is rotated gently several times to the right and left to properly align the spine and position of the knees. The lower back is positioned in such a way that its natural curve is maintained, and the head and neck are held erect. A correct posture is maintained when the spine is straight and all other parts of the body are relaxed. All the muscles of the face are relaxed and the eyes are calmly closed. Try this and see how you feel. Does your posture feel correct and comfortable?

“It becomes comfortable when it’s right,” says master Sunghee Kim of Bethesda Dahn Center in Maryland . When our sitting posture is correct and comfortable, we can more easily enter into deep meditation as Ki and blood circulation is stimulated in the whole body. The sitting position starts to become uncomfortable if we lean or twist to any one side.

If your knees are too high off the floor with legs half-crossed, sit on a cushion or on a folded blanket for comfort. In this way the knees are maintained at a height lower than that of the pelvis, which allows a person to sit for a long time more comfortably. For people with lower back pain, another method is to use a back jack (floor chair). You should try to gradually relax your stiff upper and lower back, hips, and hamstrings and sit comfortably without the help of sitting props.

Forcing yourself to hold perfect posture can actually cause tension, so it’s important to develop your posture a little bit at a time. “Correct posture is important. But you should get rid of any obsession with adopting perfect posture from the start,” stresses master Jungsook Hong of the Newton Dahn Center near Boston , Massachusetts . Even if you can sit posed only a few minutes at first, you’ll be able to gradually increase this time as the posture becomes more comfortable.

One of the reasons sitting postures are difficult to hold properly is inflexibility, so you should first relax your body with Doin exercises (meridian exercises) before beginning meditation. Master Hong recommends the following three techniques. First, lie comfortably on your back, spread your feet about shoulder width apart, and shake your legs to the left and right lightly for two to three minutes. Second, sitting or lying down, focus on breathing out. As you exhale, send out through your fingers and toes the stress that has accumulated in your body. Third, sit with both legs stretched out in front of you and grab your toes with your hands, bend at the waist, and pull your body forward. The key here is to breathe out slowly as you are bending forward.

“It’s particularly important to focus your awareness on your lower back and hips when doing the third exercise,” adds master Jisun Jung of Ahwatukee Dahn Center in Phoenix , Arizona . “Most people try hard to bend their upper back and neck when they do this movement. They want to touch their forehead to their knees.” However, doing so won’t relax your back. If you stretch forward from the waist, with your upper body comfortably relaxed, you can more easily relax your hips as your awareness and energy move further down your body. Once your hips relax, the sitting posture becomes easier to maintain comfortably.

We feel greater dignity, and confidence, as our sitting posture be-comes stronger and more developed. Like a magnificent tree with solid, deep roots, we feel beauty in ourselves, sitting with one part of our bodies fixed firmly to the floor and the other parts of our bodies stretching toward heaven. We do this and recall the words of the ancient scriptures that tell us humanity is the link between Heaven and Earth. Master Kim urges practitioners, through regular training, to experience those moments of joy in our sitting postures, when we feel beauty.

 

The Art of Sitting

Here, we introduce the “Art of Sitting” spoken of by Dr. Ilchi Lee, founder of Dahnhak. His explanation sounds abstract, almost poetic. If we actually follow these guidelines, however, we realize that this explanation provides us with very concrete help:

Sit down. Close your eyes and straighten your lower back. Twist your body five or six times to the left and right. Find your body’s center of gravity. Both knees and coccyx align to form a triangle. Think of your spine as a pillar erected on the base of this triangle. Your head sits atop this pillar. You get the feeling that your arms support this pillar at the left and right in order to keep your head in place. Completely relax your arms, feeling as if your hands are dangling from your trunk. Relax your neck and shoulders, and feel your head sitting very lightly atop your spine. Feel how light it is. It seems your head might fly away on a breeze.

Feel your eyes, ears, nose, and mouth attached to your head. Gently close your eyes, as if looking at the end of your nose. Your pupils will naturally point downward. Relax your eyelids. Feel them lightly covering your pupils, thin membranes like the wings of a dragonfly. Imagine there is another eye between your eyebrows. Feel in your mind that this eye is open and looking at a light far off in the distance.

Normally, we are rarely aware of our sensory organs. We almost never think of our sensory organs as separate from ourselves. This is why we are tricked into thinking that the phenomena we perceive through our senses are the substance of reality. Sitting in such a posture, however, I come to feel my “self with sensory organs.” My “self,” with eyes, a nose, ears, thoughts, and emotions, sitting here like this. Who is this “I” sitting here? I cast my mind toward the distant void of heaven, toward the deep abyss, far away. I cast my mind far, far off into the distance. I enter into deep, deep peace. I go off far, far away.

This is the posture, the mind of meditation.

For more information about Dahn Yoga & Ilchi Lee, please visit Dr. Ilchi Lee’s official website.

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