RSS FeedsWhat Gollum Can Teach You About Meditation
Body and mind are not two separate things, but one interconnected whole. Events that affect one inevitably affect the other and your posture can affect what goes on in your mind. The best example I’ve ever seen of this is Gollum from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. If you watch the special features, there’s a section on Gollum, and some footage of how Andy Serkis scrunched up his body to get into character. It was a brilliant performance, and there are even comments on the video of how his contortions really helped his performance a perfect example of body affecting mind.
Try this for an exercise. Slump and slouch, really crinkle your body up. Put on a sad face, and now try to feel cheerful. If you get that far (I usually start giggling halfway through the exercise) you’ll probably notice that it just feels wrong. A cheerful soul wants to stand tall, stick his chest out and smile. Even the simple act of smiling can have a lifting effect on our mood.
So, when we sit and meditate, it is important to become aware of your posture as any slumping, slouching or drifting off into sloppy positions can have an affect on our meditation. Different traditions have different thoughts on what the ideal posture is, but they all have a common element, the hips should be slightly elevated, thus allowing the spine to be straight. It should be straightforward to achieve this position of you are sitting in a chair, but if you are sitting on the floor, using a meditation cushion will help you get your hips in the right place.
The easiest way to get it is to simply imagine your head is being drawn towards the ceiling by an imaginary force. It’s a head-fake but it works beautifully. So long as your hips are slightly elevated, the head-fake will work wonderfully.
