86 Lotus

In a circle on the bare hardwood floor of the large front room he called the buddha hall the master had arranged eight thick black mats and on top of each mat a fat round cushion. The master sat down on one of them and adjusted his legs and robe until he was comfortable.

"Sit down," he said.

The master gestured to the remaining mats and cushions, inviting us all to take seats on the floor around him. He very briefly introduced himself, invited us to call him Kudo, and then prompted us to introduce ourselves. We did so briefly. There was no idle chitchat.

Our first lesson began.

The four fundamental principles of zazen, the master told us, were body, mind, breath, and return. The master stated that the fundamental practice of Zen Buddhism was sitting meditation and as he explained the six alternative postures the master tried to demonstrate each one. The first the master could not do and for this he apologized. The master had hurt his knee, he said, but even before the injury, he added, he had never been able to sit in the full lotus position—the legs crossed, the foot of each leg resting on the upper thigh of the opposite leg. The master allowed a minute or two for us to struggle with the full lotus. None of us was able to assume the full lotus position for more than just a few seconds without serious pain.

Except for Stewart.

A slender and athletic man who looked several years short of thirty Stewart had just plopped down on his cushion as soon as the master asked us to sit and hardly using his hands even to lift his knees and lower legs Stewart had easily and comfortably assumed the full lotus. His hands, one on top of the other, palms up, he rested on his heels.

We much less limber students were all impressed.

The master grinned.

"Every time I offer this class I have at least one student who can do what I can't," the master said. "From the very beginning I wanted to be able to sit like that," he added, "but I have just had to accept the fact that I can't."

Stewart, we learned, was a student also of yoga and the master encouraged us all to do, if we could, just as Stewart was doing and also practice yoga. The full lotus was the preferred posture, the master explained, but if that were not possible for us then we should sit in the half lotus posture, he said, and he offered direction and demonstrated. The half lotus—my left lower leg flat on the mat, the heel of my left foot tucked into my crotch, the foot of my right leg resting on top of my left thigh—was the way I had been sitting at home for the past three months. It was relatively easy and not uncomfortable for me.

But the master pointed out that my right knee did not touch the mat.

"We sit in a three-point stance, left knee, right knee, and the two bones at the bottom of the butt," he said. "That's the posture that is most stable and lets us sit steady and still for the longest time."

I tried to adjust.

"In Zen," the master added, "we sometimes say we sit on our bones."

A dozen smaller, flat black mats, each a foot to a foot and a half square, were stacked behind the master to his right. He reached over and grabbed a handful and passed them around. One or two of these could be placed beneath our cushions, the master explained, to raise up our butts so that our knees more easily touched our big mats or if necessary, the master added, we could even stack two of the big round cushions called zafus one on top of the other and sit on them. We all experimented with the small mats, sitting with them beneath our zafus or beneath a knee, in order to create a stable three-point posture. With a minor adjustment I was able to get both of my knees on the mat and to sit without the aid of the small mats. Four of us were now able to assume and to maintain the half lotus.

The master then demonstrated the quarter lotus, a posture like the half lotus except that one foot rests not on the thigh of the other leg but on the calf; and then the Burmese posture, both forelegs flat on the mat; and finally the seiza posture. All of us recognized seiza, the kneeling posture in which the cushion is placed on its side between the legs and ridden like a saddle to support the butt, from illustrations we had seen in books and magazines. One woman who had been unable to assume any of the lotus postures was able to sit seiza.

That left only Harold.

A man about fifty or so and, like me and the master, overweight, Harold needed a chair. The master got up and brought one in from the kitchen and showed Harold how to sit erect on the front half of it, his spine straight and not resting against the back of the chair, a small cushion under his butt to keep his hips higher than his knees, his two feet flat on the floor.