IMAGINE THAT YOU GET A JOB AS A MODEL FOR AN artist who’s going to carve a statue of Avalokiteśvara, the buddha of infinite compassion. Avalokiteśvara is to be seated holding the wish-fulfilling gem in front of the lotus flower (padma) of the heart, and your alignment must be perfect! All you have to do is sit in that pose and not move.
It takes extraordinary focus to picture what Avalokiteśvara looks like, bringing your attention again and again to rest along the plumb line of your body. Releasing the palate in silent contact with a softening tongue and feeling a smooth, steady breath unfold, you begin to experience all the physical patterns associated with inhaling. You then drop even more deeply in, observing as the breath effortlessly turns around; the exhalation dissolves all those endless forms back to their roots, like petals falling from a flower. The centers of your ears are directly over the centers of the shoulder joints, so they’re aligned exactly on the coronal plane of the body; your hip joints are centered in that same precise line. The back of the diaphragm spreads, and you notice that right around the twelfth thoracic vertebra, a radiant point of awareness is forming a warm, vibrant circle. You envision yourself having four arms, but you know not to pinch any of the shoulder blades together or the artist will kick you out and hire someone else as the model. So you drop back into the breath and feel more arms growing—just a few at first, but then an infinite number sprout and reach up out of that warm, vibrant area in the middle of your lower back. The center of each palm tingles, and you realize you can actually see through the palms as you reach out to all other sentient beings, but you’re not distracted by this visual stimulation. It’s hard work and you start to sweat, but if you release the palate and the muscles in the back of the tongue, your mind clears; you feel an extension along the spine, out through sides of your body, and then up through the crown of the head as if you are growing bigger and taller. The pose feels easy, steady, and buoyant. You cultivate a vivid sense of concentration and form and, at the same time, the ability to dissolve and let go.
This is how alignment was taught in ancient times before the study of anatomy and theories of biomechanics and postural alignment became the norm. In those days, alignment was embodied through visualizing deity forms, which brought the finer qualities of the emotions, sensations, and thought patterns into the breath and body. Artists trained for generations in a highly disciplined manner to reproduce in their sculptures and drawings exactly what sages had discovered to be, through lifetimes of practice and visualizations, optimal forms of alignment. Forms that would facilitate a physiologically awake and open, integrated, and finely tuned state of being that is perfectly suited for contemplative practice. Symbolic representation of this kind of esoteric knowledge followed prescribed patterns and proportions that were described in minute detail so that one could meditate on a deity form and feel correct alignment. In those days, teachers didn’t bother describing the alignment of joints or any of that dry, boring anatomical stuff. Instead, they went right for the source—the deity form—and breathed right into it.
