The technique:
19. Without support for feet or hands, sit only on the buttocks.
suddenly, the centering.
This technique has been used by Taoists in China for centuries, and it is a wonderful technique -- one of the easiest. Try this:
Without support for feet or hands, sit only
on the buttocks. suddenly, the centering.
What is to be done? You will need two things. First, a very sensitive body, which you do not have. You have a dead body; it is just a burden to be carried -- not sensitive. First you will have to make your body sensitive; otherwise this technique will not work. So first I will tell you something about how to make your body sensitive, and particularly your buttocks, because ordinarily your buttocks are the most insensitive part in your body. They have to be. They have to be because you are sitting the whole day on your buttocks. If they are too sensitive, it will be difficult.
So your buttocks are insensitive -- they need to be. Just like the soles of the feet, they are insensitive. Continuously sitting on them, you never feel you are sitting on your buttocks. Have you ever felt it before this? Now you can feel you are sitting on your buttocks, but you have never felt it before -- and you have been sitting on your buttocks your whole life, never aware. Their function is such that they cannot be very sensitive.
So first you have to make them sensitive. Try one very easy method... And this method can be done to any part of the body; then the body will become sensitive. Just sit on a chair, relaxed, and close your eyes. Feel your left hand or your right hand -- either one. Feel your left hand. Forget the whole body and just feel the left hand. The more you feel it, the more the left hand will become heavy.
Go on feeling the left hand. Forget the whole body, just go on feeling the left hand as if you are just the left hand. The hand will go on becoming more and more and more heavy. As it goes on becoming heavy, go on feeling it becoming more heavy. Then try to feel what is happening in the hand. Whatever the sensation, note it down: any sensation, any jerk, any slight movement -- note down in the mind that this is happening. And go on doing it every day for at least three weeks. At any time during the day, do it for ten minutes, fifteen minutes. Just feel the left hand and forget the whole body.
Within three weeks you will feel you have a new left hand, or a new right hand. It will be so sensitive. And you will become aware of very minute and delicate sensations in the hand.
When you succeed with the hand, then try with the buttocks. Then try: close your eyes and feel that only two buttocks exist; you are no more. Let your whole consciousness go to the buttocks. It is not difficult. If you try, it is wonderful. And the feeling of aliveness that comes in the body is in itself very blissful. Then, when you can feel your buttocks and they can become very sensitive, when you can feel anything happening inside -- a slight movement, a slight pain or anything -- then you can observe and you can know. Then your consciousness is joined to the buttocks.
First try it with the hand. Because the hand is very sensitive, it is easy. Once you gain the confidence that you can sensitize your hand, this confidence will help you to sensitize your buttocks. Then do this technique. So you will need at least six weeks before you can enter this technique -- three weeks with your hand and then three weeks with your buttocks, just making them more and more sensitive.
Lying on the bed, forget the whole body. Just remember that only two buttocks are left. Feel the touch -- the bedsheet, the coldness or the slowly coming warmth. Feel it. Lying down in your bathtub, forget the body. Remember only the buttocks -- feel. Stand against a wall with your buttocks touching the wall -- feel the coldness of the wall. Stand with your beloved, with your wife or husband, buttock to buttock -- feel the other through the buttocks. This is just to "create" your buttocks, to bring them to a situation where they start feeling.
Then do this technique: Without support for feet or
hands... Sit on the ground.
Without support for feet or hands, sit only on the buttocks. The Buddha posture will do;
PADMASANA will do. Or
SIDDHASANA will do, or any ordinary asana, but it is good not to use your hands. Just remain on the buttocks; sit only on the buttocks. Then what to do? Just close your eyes. Feel the buttocks touching the ground. And because the buttocks have become sensitive, you will feel that one buttock is touching more. You are leaning on one buttock, and the other is touching less. Then move the leaning to the other. Immediately move to the other; then come to the first. Go on moving from one to the other, and then by and by, balance.
Balancing means that both of your buttocks are feeling the same. Your weight on both of the buttocks is exactly the same. And when your buttocks are sensitive this will not be difficult, you will feel it. Once both your buttocks are balanced,
suddenly, the centering. With that balance, suddenly you will be thrown to your navel center, and you will be centered inside. You will forget the buttocks, you will forget the body. You will be thrown to the inner center.
That is why I say centers are not meaningful, but centering is -- whether it happens at the heart or at the head or at the buttocks, or anywhere. You have seen buddhas sitting. You may not have imagined that they are balancing their buttocks. You go to a temple and see Mahavir sitting, Buddha sitting; you may never have imagined that this sitting is just a balancing on the buttocks. It is -- and when there is no imbalance, suddenly that balance gives you the centering.
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Meditation technique No. 20
