In the body, we ordinarily identify with the upper body. If you try to sense, where in the body am “I”, it is somewhere within the upper body. All of our energy and attention is focused in the upper body. The reason for this is biological – to protect the vital parts of the body: the brain, eyes, nose, mouth, ears, neck, heart, lungs. The body maintains an instinctive, passive awareness of the upper body in order to protect it. The lower half of the body is treated as just an extension of this upper self. This attitude is reinforced by chronically overexerting the mind, and consciousness is compressed even further upwards into the head. Thus, we tend to become upper-body-oriented and head-oriented.
Consciousness is not limited to the upper half of the body. As a meditation method, invert the default the upper body consciousness by deliberately identifying as the lower body. Contemplate the following: my brain, face, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth are located in my feet. The ankles are the neck, and the legs are the lungs and heart. The lower abdomen, the gut, is center point of the body, and around this point I invert the consciousness. This lower body, from the feet up to the lower abdomen, is my true self, it is “me”. I am the lower body: the feet think, the legs feel and breathe. I see, hear, smell, and taste from the feet. The feet are tender and sensitive and fragile – they contain the brain and the eyes. All knowledge, memory, and intelligence – the whole mind – is stored in and originates from the feet. The legs are the heart, full of love and compassion, allowing and accepting every feeling and every hurt. The feet, legs, and lower abdomen need to be protected at all costs. All energy in the body must go downwards, to the lower body. The feet and the legs and the lower abdomen have the answer.
In this way, let the default, passive, and protective sense of self be in the lower body. As this contemplation becomes more and more intense and real, the vital energy of the body will flow downwards and accumulate in the lower body. The lower body becomes warmer, and the upper body becomes cool and empty.
Ordinarily, too much heat accumulates in the upper body because the energy of consciousness has constantly been pulled upwards. Imagine a tall bookcase where all the books are placed on the upper shelves, and the lower shelves are empty. This bookcase is in danger of tipping over – it is top-heavy, its center of balance is too high. Similarly, in the body, if consciousness is constantly pulled upwards into the upper body, the body becomes top-heavy, unbalanced. Through intentional lower body consciousness, the center of balance shifts downwards, and you become grounded and balanced.
Painter Pablo Picasso’s paintings often depicted the body anatomy of his subjects as absurdly mixed up and inverted. Imagine your own body in such an anatomy where the vital organs are in the lower body, and in this way bring identification and consciousness into the lower body.
A crucial portion of the lower body is the gut, the area of the lower abdomen. Ancient meditators emphasized a point just two inches below and inwards from the navel as the center and source of the life force. Taoist practitioners refer to this center as the lower dantian, while Zen practitioners use the Japanese word tanden. The vital life energy, Qi, is produced in this center, and flows throughout the body. If there are blockages in the body, the flow of Qi is disrupted, and the body and mind become imbalanced and ill. In our age of information overload, knowledge work, and head orientation, the greatest blockage is against the lower body. This method of lower body consciousness unblocks the path downwards, and the life energy of Qi again flows into the lower body.
This method is essentially 18th century Zen master Hakuin Ekaku’s introspective meditation method. Hakuin taught a method of drawing Qi energy downwards from the lower abdomen (the “Cinnabar field” or “ocean of Qi elixir”) into the lower body. In his book, Yasenkanna, he relates an intriguing story of how he came to learn the method from a cave dwelling sage known as Hakuyu, after struggling with “Zen sickness” – complex physical ailments which were incurable by any medicine of the time or any mind-based meditation methods. Upon practicing lower-body consciousness for three years consistently, his persistent physical ailments disappeared. He also credits consistent practice of the method for his physical vitality and health into old age, as well as for enabling him to go deeper into many koans and meditation methods which were blocked for him earlier.
The ultimate purpose of this method is to bring consciousness to the tanden, the true center of balance of the body and the source of all life and energy. However, this is very difficult to do when one’s body is top-heavy and head-heavy. Thus, the first stage is lower-body consciousness – becoming bottom-heavy – and then the second stage is tanden consciousness, which is the true center of the body.