The Three Pillars of Physiological Tegridy
This week's bi-monthly, once-monthly weekend SOFCast Newsletter, 08 October 2022
Recently, I've been conducting posture experiments using Kevin Mackay's online course (you can find him and the gumroad link here @KevinDMackay on twatter).
The exercises require initial preparation, including filming yourself in the middle of various everyday tasks. This kind of thing is fascinating for those who may have never done it before, even those who have. Kevin says we often don't see ourselves as someone else may do. It reminds me very much of Reichian face exercises I often do in the mornings. Staring at myself in a mirror as if I'm someone else and analysing this person's character or emotional state.
This added an extra dimension to my bodywork; I've never filmed myself to this degree. So far, I've utilised a drone for filming myself running and walking and a phone to film myself working on the computer and doing various other tasks. I can say this; I disliked my posture.
If I were to see myself walking down the street like someone else would, I wouldn't necessarily be impressed by it. I cut myself some slack; however, I am a lanklet, a member of a chosen race, the big beautiful people. Being a part of a fallen, shrunken world, I believe my posture has suffered. Trying to engage with your typical worthless manlet in conversation and having to bend down to their pathetic height - or whatever else…running into door frames or ceiling fans. You tend to develop a slouch.
While going through his excellent course, which I recommend you all have a go at, got me thinking about my decades-long meditational practice, particularly in the context of my Zen. An approach that is very insistent on foundational posture.
The great Zen Patriarch, Master Dogen, explicitly states in his work 'Shobogenzo' that the mind and body are absolutely one. He does so in several passages about posture and breath (free copy of Shobogenzo on muh discord server).
The older I get, the more I realise the hard truths of our condition. Besides the verbal window dressings that I find so annoying, useless and distasteful (a favourite pastime of this species), bodily discipline is a fundamental requirement of transcendence. It is also a requirement of day-to-day life, a life well lived. The question is this: how many of us consistently combine all of these elements?
I recall men who ran "game" (PUAs, probably still do) obsessing over posture in various forums in the 2000s. They tried to fix it to appear confident and maintain frame or command authority when femoids were present. Since it is generally accepted, as is customary of their sinister natures, that their reptilian hindbrains notice it and a slouch they do not like. Fair call. Posture influences how you are seen by both femoids and other men. The reason is simple: lousy posture indicates that you're fucked somehow. Stressed, depressed, whatever else.
It is also a requirement of successful meditation practice. My master told me numerous times that posture, position, and breath are critical to success in practice. This bodily integrity deepens our ability to notice what is going on and to know the mind or to notice no-mind, or to not notice no-no-mind.
In my experience, these three factors are critical to concentration or mindfulness. You can run this experiment yourself. If possible, sit up straight, breathe slowly and deeply, and note the breath. Compare this to when you're slouched and breathing irregularly. The mental states that arise are entirely different when this is done for sufficient time.
Therefore, I contend that in life and practice, the initial pillars we should work on and maintain are:
Breath
Posture
Mind (noticing mind)
All else is downstream.
In zen, these "foundations" are considered an inseparable whole - because they are. For the average wordcel Westerner, I believe most of us require work on posture and breath. I think that if posture and breath are functioning, the mind will sort itself. At least in a rudimentary sense. Of course, meditation is not just a calm mind; there's much more to it than that. But I digress. Since thoughts and emotional states are very much downstream of the autonomic and enteric nervous systems' influences. Ancient pre-cursors to biological vibrancy. When physical and biological integrity is at its point of maximum resonance, there is less chance you'll be insane. Or go on discord servers and rant about this or that theory or some dumb text and how words are exact replicas of reality. All the wonderful flavours of horseshit people who don't breathe or sit properly blabber about, trying to furiously think their way out of a physiological state. All very, very serious men with very, very serious ideas.
I have recently gained access to an electroencephalograph (EEG) for my now-in-real-life practice. I've used this and other devices on myself (and my first clients).
It is handy, as certain brain states are associated with autonomic balance. It's an excellent yardstick to measure how the clients' breath impacts their mental state. The evidence is clear - Up straight, breathing slowly promotes a wonderfully balanced autonomic response.
On the other hand, slouching and shallow breath promotes quite the opposite. With a good posture, my autonomic balance seemed to be promoted more quickly than the average with myself. You'll remember that we can find the point of the organism's maximal biological resonance by measuring the venous return. And undoubtedly, good posture is a must for finding this sweet spot. I've begun to look into how posture affects thoracic pressure and vacuum. I have no doubt there is something to that.
In one interesting experiment, Japanese researchers took video from a ceiling camera positioned downward to track the movement of the head of the meditators. They did this to groups of zen monks, ordinary people, and derrangeoids. I've lost this paper somewhere, which is frustrating. However, the diagrams they drew of the tracked movements looked something like this:
In short, the insaneoids weren't stable at all. Their head and body movement looked rather like a spider web.
What of the normies? Well, they were having a normal one.
And the monks? Barely moved at all. Less so than my shitty drawings indicate. Interestingly, the average zen monk slows his breath down to perhaps 4-5 draws per minute in this experiment. I don't recall the breath data for the neurotics. Presumably, it was much higher than this. Statistically, normies who are having a normal one tend to breathe about 15 times per minute. I'd love to find this paper again.
So, I thought I'd leave you with this. Kevin's course is excellent, and I recommend you all give it a go - if only to become more conscious of yourself. Even I, who have worked for many years with these modalities, now have much data to sift through and much work to be done to improov a bit more.
It goes hand in hand with our breath work, a deepening of our lives, vitality, and practice.
All the best
-A