What do you think?
Rate this book
The Posture of Meditation: A Practical Manual for Meditators of All Traditions
What does it mean to awaken through the living body?
In this essential guidebook, Will Johnson shows how meditation, too often misunderstood as a mental practice, can be immeasurably enriched through an embodied approach. The Posture of Meditation features a range of simple practices based on the principles of alignment, relaxation, and resilience. This classic book—now with a new section detailing the transformative power of the path of somatic meditation—has helped thousands of people to begin their meditation practice, to refine it, and to experience depths they never thought possible.
In this essential guidebook, Will Johnson shows how meditation, too often misunderstood as a mental practice, can be immeasurably enriched through an embodied approach. The Posture of Meditation features a range of simple practices based on the principles of alignment, relaxation, and resilience. This classic book—now with a new section detailing the transformative power of the path of somatic meditation—has helped thousands of people to begin their meditation practice, to refine it, and to experience depths they never thought possible.
176 pages, Paperback
First published October 22, 1996
56 people are currently reading
177 people want to read
About the author
Will Johnson
70 books19 followersWill Johnson received his B.A., magna cum laude, in Art and Archaeology from Princeton University in 1968. After graduation, he worked for several years as an art critic in New York before moving to the west coast of North America where he began actively exploring gazing, moving, and sitting meditations. He became a Buddhist practitioner in 1972 and was trained as a Rolfer™ in 1976. He began the formal sharing of the practices of Embodiment Training in 1995.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
December 17, 2019
In no way "a practical manual." Much space wasted rhapsodizing on "energy fields", "feeling tones", argument by analogy, and general woo. The author is literally a Rolfer, and concludes the book with an advertisement for Rolfing. As might be expected, he seems to be under a number of factual misconceptions, including that gravity supports the body (no, that's the normal force) and that the military teaches recruits to pull their shoulders back in order to restrict the flow of sensations to their brains (certainly not because it moderates the flexion of the thoracic spine [1] or reduces the risk of shoulder injuries when performing heavy labor [2]).
In terms of practical proposals relevant to physical posture, The Posture of Meditation offers the following:
* Elevate the hips above the knees to put the pelvis in anterior tilt and the lumbar spine in neutral / mild extension instead of flexion. This is actually a really good suggestion! I just wish it weren't buried in 100 pages of crap.
* Sway back and forth to find a position of minimum effort in which your torso isn't cantilevered out over your basis of support (your butt) to minimize the amount of muscular force you need to keep yourself up. Again, good suggestion.
* Don't worry too much about getting into full lotus position, but if you sit in an asymmetric position, alternate your asymmetries (ie, left leg over right leg today, right leg over left leg tomorrow). Sounds reasonable.
* Body scan to find parts under tension and release it. Very standard meditation manual material.
* Observe the tiny movements of the rest of the body with every breath, and don't try to still them.
* Relax (minimize cantilevering) in everyday life.
That's it! You no longer need to read this book. Please don't.
In terms of practical proposals relevant to physical posture, The Posture of Meditation offers the following:
* Elevate the hips above the knees to put the pelvis in anterior tilt and the lumbar spine in neutral / mild extension instead of flexion. This is actually a really good suggestion! I just wish it weren't buried in 100 pages of crap.
* Sway back and forth to find a position of minimum effort in which your torso isn't cantilevered out over your basis of support (your butt) to minimize the amount of muscular force you need to keep yourself up. Again, good suggestion.
* Don't worry too much about getting into full lotus position, but if you sit in an asymmetric position, alternate your asymmetries (ie, left leg over right leg today, right leg over left leg tomorrow). Sounds reasonable.
* Body scan to find parts under tension and release it. Very standard meditation manual material.
* Observe the tiny movements of the rest of the body with every breath, and don't try to still them.
* Relax (minimize cantilevering) in everyday life.
That's it! You no longer need to read this book. Please don't.
February 11, 2022
A book about the body as an active part of meditation, not just a static sested position. Fascinating and not what I was expecting. For me, something missing in books I have read about meditation.
July 26, 2025
“Great grace enters effortlessly into the actions of a person who can move resiliently.”
Fast read. Changed my perspective of not only the purpose of meditation, but the way in which it intentionally diminishes suffering of the mind & body.
Fast read. Changed my perspective of not only the purpose of meditation, but the way in which it intentionally diminishes suffering of the mind & body.
November 14, 2022
It’s hard to believe that any activity as fundamentally simple as zazen—all you do is sit there and breathe—could become complicated, but the human mind (my human mind, anyway) can complicate anything. Though I’ve been doing this for thirty years, sometimes I approach the cushion in the morning and think, wait a minute, how do you do this again? I’ll be in the middle of sitting with no idea what the hell I’m doing or why I’m doing it. Could somebody give me a hand here? (The answer, I’m afraid, is no.)
When that’s true, it’s good to have a book that brings you back to basics. The Posture of Meditation is such a book for me. I found it to be a seminal text when I first read it, a number of years ago, and corresponded for a while with the author, Will Johnson. I followed it with his next book, Aligned, Relaxed, Resilient: The Physical Foundations of Mindfulness, but since then had lost track of him.
I was reminded of him recently when Tricycle advertised an online course he was doing.[1] I’m sure that would be worthwhile, though as a bookish person I avoid online activities. But that advertisement took me to his website, where I discovered he’s been a prolific writer for years, exploring his take on meditation with a number of books.[2] He also leads workshops and does private consultations, heading an organization called the Institute for Embodiment Training.
The Posture of Meditation isn’t really about posture (a subject that sounds boring even to me). You can find more persnickety instructions on posture elsewhere, including the famous book Zen Training by Katsuke Sekida. Will Johnson’s book actually relates a whole take on meditation, that it is primarily an activity of the body, not the mind. In that he echoes a host of teachers, Eihei Dogen for one (and Soto Zen in general), also Reginald Ray in the Tibetan tradition and various teachers in other traditions. Most people have the feeling that meditation is something that you do with your mind once you’ve found a posture to settle into. For Will Johnson, finding that posture is the whole thing. Skip the mind and stay with the body.
His discussion of posture is simplicity itself. Find some sitting posture in which you can comfortably get the hips above the knees, tilt the pelvis forward slightly, then gently stack your vertebrae as if you were building a tower out of building blocks. You do that from the inside, not the outside. Once you’ve done it correctly, there should be no strain. Gravity doesn’t pull you down when you’re properly aligned. It holds you up.[3]
Posture is one of the three vital ingredients in sitting meditation. The next is relaxation: allowing yourself to feel the weight of gravity. You give into that and don’t fight it, trusting that your alignment will hold you up. In doing so, you profoundly relax. Relaxation is at the heart of Zen sitting (and for Will Johnson, all sitting).
That, I would say, is the first paradox of Zen. No one who sees that posture for the first time would ever call it relaxing, and early attempts tend not to be relaxing at all. Mine certainly weren’t. But over time—we’re talking about months, possibly years—you find that it is indeed relaxing. It’s the most relaxing thing you can do (other than conking out completely). Relaxation is at the heart of the posture.
The reason relaxation is so important is that we have spent our whole lives tensing against things, holding ourselves back from them, pushing them away. In doing so we’ve created what Wilhelm Reich called body armor, the tension that most people carry around in their natural state. When the body relaxes, past traumas come up (along with all kinds of other crap that for one reason or another we tightened against). That’s why people are so startled at what comes up when they meditate. The subconscious, according to Reich, isn’t a part of the brain. It’s located in the soft tissue of the body.
You’re not analyzing your trauma when this happens. You’re re-experiencing it, in a setting that is safe. Once you finally do that, with no holding back, your body can untie the knots that have made you perpetually reactive. Your reactivity isn’t primarily in your mind, though we think of it that way. It’s in the body.
That’s why the third aspect of Johnson’s instruction, which in a way is the most controversial, is important. When we take this posture, we’re basically sitting still. But we allow the physical movements that arise. We’re still, but not rigid. Rigidity only makes the knots tighter. Resiliency allows them to relax. The fierce militaristic posture that some Zen students maintain is counterproductive.
A couple of years into my sitting practice, my physical reactivity was bizarre. My arms flew all over the place. My torso pivoted on its axis. My head suddenly turned sideways. I was also, at the same time, experiencing the deep ecstasy of sitting in a way that I’ve never felt it since. But those things needed to happen on the way to a deeper relaxation. As Johnson says, you hit plateaus when your sitting feels perfect, everything just right. Then the process starts all over again. Alignment allows a new relaxation, the relaxation brings new things up, and you welcome those things with resilience. It’s a cycle that continues as long as you sit.
The first edition of this book was most important to me, but at this point you should definitely buy the second, even if you own the first, because Johnson has added a whole new section, which in some ways is summed up by one of his subtitles: The Path of Somatic Dharma. Those words describe what this practice is all about.
I honestly can’t recommend this book too highly. People often ask about foundational books, and to some extent it depends on what the student is looking for. But for basic instruction in sitting practice, and an attitude toward it that will be fruitful as long as you live, you can’t do better than this one.
[1] https://learn.tricycle.org/?utm_sourc...
[2] https://www.embodiment.net/about
[3] In a video he made toward the end of his life, Sojun Mel Weitsman talks about tension and tenseness. There’s a certain amount of tension necessary for the posture, just as there’s tension in the wires that hold up a bridge. But elsewhere, ideally, there should not be tenseness in the muscles. When there is, you don’t fight it, which would make you even tenser. You just bring attention to it. https://berkeleyzencenter.org/dharma-...
www.davidguy.org
When that’s true, it’s good to have a book that brings you back to basics. The Posture of Meditation is such a book for me. I found it to be a seminal text when I first read it, a number of years ago, and corresponded for a while with the author, Will Johnson. I followed it with his next book, Aligned, Relaxed, Resilient: The Physical Foundations of Mindfulness, but since then had lost track of him.
I was reminded of him recently when Tricycle advertised an online course he was doing.[1] I’m sure that would be worthwhile, though as a bookish person I avoid online activities. But that advertisement took me to his website, where I discovered he’s been a prolific writer for years, exploring his take on meditation with a number of books.[2] He also leads workshops and does private consultations, heading an organization called the Institute for Embodiment Training.
The Posture of Meditation isn’t really about posture (a subject that sounds boring even to me). You can find more persnickety instructions on posture elsewhere, including the famous book Zen Training by Katsuke Sekida. Will Johnson’s book actually relates a whole take on meditation, that it is primarily an activity of the body, not the mind. In that he echoes a host of teachers, Eihei Dogen for one (and Soto Zen in general), also Reginald Ray in the Tibetan tradition and various teachers in other traditions. Most people have the feeling that meditation is something that you do with your mind once you’ve found a posture to settle into. For Will Johnson, finding that posture is the whole thing. Skip the mind and stay with the body.
His discussion of posture is simplicity itself. Find some sitting posture in which you can comfortably get the hips above the knees, tilt the pelvis forward slightly, then gently stack your vertebrae as if you were building a tower out of building blocks. You do that from the inside, not the outside. Once you’ve done it correctly, there should be no strain. Gravity doesn’t pull you down when you’re properly aligned. It holds you up.[3]
Posture is one of the three vital ingredients in sitting meditation. The next is relaxation: allowing yourself to feel the weight of gravity. You give into that and don’t fight it, trusting that your alignment will hold you up. In doing so, you profoundly relax. Relaxation is at the heart of Zen sitting (and for Will Johnson, all sitting).
That, I would say, is the first paradox of Zen. No one who sees that posture for the first time would ever call it relaxing, and early attempts tend not to be relaxing at all. Mine certainly weren’t. But over time—we’re talking about months, possibly years—you find that it is indeed relaxing. It’s the most relaxing thing you can do (other than conking out completely). Relaxation is at the heart of the posture.
The reason relaxation is so important is that we have spent our whole lives tensing against things, holding ourselves back from them, pushing them away. In doing so we’ve created what Wilhelm Reich called body armor, the tension that most people carry around in their natural state. When the body relaxes, past traumas come up (along with all kinds of other crap that for one reason or another we tightened against). That’s why people are so startled at what comes up when they meditate. The subconscious, according to Reich, isn’t a part of the brain. It’s located in the soft tissue of the body.
You’re not analyzing your trauma when this happens. You’re re-experiencing it, in a setting that is safe. Once you finally do that, with no holding back, your body can untie the knots that have made you perpetually reactive. Your reactivity isn’t primarily in your mind, though we think of it that way. It’s in the body.
That’s why the third aspect of Johnson’s instruction, which in a way is the most controversial, is important. When we take this posture, we’re basically sitting still. But we allow the physical movements that arise. We’re still, but not rigid. Rigidity only makes the knots tighter. Resiliency allows them to relax. The fierce militaristic posture that some Zen students maintain is counterproductive.
A couple of years into my sitting practice, my physical reactivity was bizarre. My arms flew all over the place. My torso pivoted on its axis. My head suddenly turned sideways. I was also, at the same time, experiencing the deep ecstasy of sitting in a way that I’ve never felt it since. But those things needed to happen on the way to a deeper relaxation. As Johnson says, you hit plateaus when your sitting feels perfect, everything just right. Then the process starts all over again. Alignment allows a new relaxation, the relaxation brings new things up, and you welcome those things with resilience. It’s a cycle that continues as long as you sit.
The first edition of this book was most important to me, but at this point you should definitely buy the second, even if you own the first, because Johnson has added a whole new section, which in some ways is summed up by one of his subtitles: The Path of Somatic Dharma. Those words describe what this practice is all about.
I honestly can’t recommend this book too highly. People often ask about foundational books, and to some extent it depends on what the student is looking for. But for basic instruction in sitting practice, and an attitude toward it that will be fruitful as long as you live, you can’t do better than this one.
[1] https://learn.tricycle.org/?utm_sourc...
[2] https://www.embodiment.net/about
[3] In a video he made toward the end of his life, Sojun Mel Weitsman talks about tension and tenseness. There’s a certain amount of tension necessary for the posture, just as there’s tension in the wires that hold up a bridge. But elsewhere, ideally, there should not be tenseness in the muscles. When there is, you don’t fight it, which would make you even tenser. You just bring attention to it. https://berkeleyzencenter.org/dharma-...
www.davidguy.org
June 3, 2015
Checked this out from the library but there's so much good stuff in here I will be buying this for my own library!! Anyone practicing and/or teaching meditation should take a look at this. Johnson explores the importance of posture in meditation and life and provides some beautiful insights and practical exercises.
June 28, 2020
This is a short book - more a pamphlet - with a few helpful exercises and thoughts on posture in meditation. If you have meditated before, this will offer some useful ways of thinking about alignment, relaxation, resilience, and their relationship to one another. However, there is very little here that will be new for you.
What's most disappointing for me is that the author goes beyond providing practical guidelines and makes some claims without evidence about the effect of good posture on the habits of discursive thought. That is to say, discursive thought cannot occur with perfect posture; and perfect posture is necessary for detaching from discursive thought. Other meditation schools make these claims too - they don't come out of nowhere - but this book states them as a matter of fact without any proof. Are they true? I can't say yes or no with certainty, but I'm inclined to say no based on other reading and my own experience. I can say with certainty that this is a disputed matter among different schools - not a matter of fact - and that at least some schools of Buddhism would completely disagree. I find it reckless to throw down these hypotheses as if they were indisputable.
So I think this book could be dangerous for beginners. It's helpful to pay attention to posture, but you will frustrate yourself if you cling to the idea that success in your practice requires an endless perfectionism, as the book ultimately suggests.
Avoid, unless you are an experienced meditator specifically interested in reading about posture.
What's most disappointing for me is that the author goes beyond providing practical guidelines and makes some claims without evidence about the effect of good posture on the habits of discursive thought. That is to say, discursive thought cannot occur with perfect posture; and perfect posture is necessary for detaching from discursive thought. Other meditation schools make these claims too - they don't come out of nowhere - but this book states them as a matter of fact without any proof. Are they true? I can't say yes or no with certainty, but I'm inclined to say no based on other reading and my own experience. I can say with certainty that this is a disputed matter among different schools - not a matter of fact - and that at least some schools of Buddhism would completely disagree. I find it reckless to throw down these hypotheses as if they were indisputable.
So I think this book could be dangerous for beginners. It's helpful to pay attention to posture, but you will frustrate yourself if you cling to the idea that success in your practice requires an endless perfectionism, as the book ultimately suggests.
Avoid, unless you are an experienced meditator specifically interested in reading about posture.
June 26, 2021
A book that adds body-fullness to mindfulness; a timely reminder that the goal of sitting is not the Hollywood version of sitting like a stone statue, immune to sensations.
The author offers the goal of expanding our types of conscious awareness to include soma. A good discussion about why the goal of sitting is not to achieve some special pleasant state, freeze all motion into an illusion of outward stillness and perfect posture, or shut sensation down in the illusion of single pointed concentration. By letting the body align more naturally and leaning in to its felt sense, bodily distractions no longer impede meditation as they are no longer distractions.
The author offers the goal of expanding our types of conscious awareness to include soma. A good discussion about why the goal of sitting is not to achieve some special pleasant state, freeze all motion into an illusion of outward stillness and perfect posture, or shut sensation down in the illusion of single pointed concentration. By letting the body align more naturally and leaning in to its felt sense, bodily distractions no longer impede meditation as they are no longer distractions.
December 27, 2023
5 stars for the first half, 1 star for the second. This book says it is a practical manual for mediators of all traditions. In the first half this is true. The perspectives on alignment, relaxation, and resilience as well as the recommended exercises are great. Then the book moves on to focus on Eastern philosophy/religion which is not the path I walk. It was difficult for me to find relevance for my own personal reasons to practice meditation.
In summary: I highly recommend the first half, but I only recommend the second half if it is relevant to your spiritual practice....all others should quit while they're ahead.
In summary: I highly recommend the first half, but I only recommend the second half if it is relevant to your spiritual practice....all others should quit while they're ahead.
December 4, 2023
This is an amazing book. My friend suggested I read it and my first reaction was "what? a whole book about the posture? I do understand it's important and I could imagine a good couple of pages detailed instruction on that, but a 100 pages book?!" But I started reading and was amazed as to how much depth there is to this: why it's important, what it does and how to achieve it - or rather move in the right direction. So very glad to have read it! I know I'll re-read it again in the future, when I'm ready for a deeper understanding.
March 8, 2022
I wouldn't trust this book's claims of "what the Buddha meant" in his teachings, nor its claims that the higher meditative attainments are based on posture, totally disregarding sila, samadhi, and panna...
Other than that, I do believe it articulated what constitutes a good posture, and pointed out a good framework on how to effectively evaluate your posture during meditation.
Other than that, I do believe it articulated what constitutes a good posture, and pointed out a good framework on how to effectively evaluate your posture during meditation.
August 21, 2019
An excellent little book on the physicality of meditation. Three short chapters on relaxation, alignment, and resilience to develop the body. When talking about meditation the mind is often emphasised at the expense of the body. A quiet mind is cultivated through a body free of tensions.
July 15, 2020
Light, short, straightforward book that helped to clarify for me the connection between body and spirit, how breath and energy move or are restricted in the body and their influence on the mind. Very much recommended as a worthwhile read!
January 15, 2018
A thorough and very good account of how to realize the posture of meditation, and the implications of doing this for your practice and your life.
February 16, 2019
Very simple, concise and clear information on how to actually sit.
February 5, 2020
This slim volume is an excellent set of guidelines for using posture and body positioning as a tool for meditation. Easy to read and easy to work with, while still elegantly written.
October 24, 2020
در اکثر کتابها در خصوص تمرکز تقویت حافظه و یادگیری به لزوم مدیتیشن برای آماده نمودن ذهن اشاره شده این کتاب به صورت ساده و کاربردی مدیتیشن را به صورت عمای آموزش می دهد
March 17, 2021
Helpful
I read this as part of my Certification in Meditation Instruction and it was helpful to the course. It was easy to read and enjoyable, as well as informative.
I read this as part of my Certification in Meditation Instruction and it was helpful to the course. It was easy to read and enjoyable, as well as informative.
February 11, 2023
Tranformative.
It's like day one again in 1987 when I was first introduced.
If you think you know how to meditate?
Think again. Transformative
"I Guarantee It."
It's like day one again in 1987 when I was first introduced.
If you think you know how to meditate?
Think again. Transformative
"I Guarantee It."
October 8, 2023
such an amazing book. I’d recommend it to anyone, meditators or else wise to deepen there wisdom of mind-matter phenomena
January 29, 2025
5 stars. If nothing else, your back will thank you.
July 10, 2024
Yikes. I found some practical value in this book, but it wasn’t at all what I expected. Rife with claims about somatic focused meditation as able to stop thoughts — which is patently *not* the point of meditation, even somatic concentration meditation. It gets pretty woo.
January 4, 2019
Whether you're a Hindi, a Buddhist, or anyone who meditates, everyone sits. A nice book on the basics that will fit in your purse. It is less than a 100 pages.
February 24, 2025
Expresses an approach to meditation that begins in the body and its posture. Love this perspective, and the way the author expresses it.
The last couple chapters are mid, where the authors tries connecting their philosophy to a way of life. But before that, loved the book.
The last couple chapters are mid, where the authors tries connecting their philosophy to a way of life. But before that, loved the book.
July 29, 2010
Will Johnson writes a wonderful book on the posture of meditation, and in the process delves into the act of meditation itself. Three gestures - alignment, relaxation, and resilience, combine to form a stable, relaxed, and open form capable of simply being aware. There are occasions where he describes patterns of sensations similar to that of insight meditation, which I found very understanding of the process. With my personal introductory experience with the Alexander Technique I've found this book to be extremely useful and complementary.
Read
August 14, 2024im not going to finish this but wanted to get this quote down somewhere
“…we mock ourselves into a condition of suffering by wanting things to be different from what they are. Any desire keeps us removed from the ability simply to accept ourselves and the conditions in which we find ourselves. If we can uproot our constant, frantic tendency to want things to be different, then we can bring an end to the pain and suffering that that tendency constantly creates.”
“…we mock ourselves into a condition of suffering by wanting things to be different from what they are. Any desire keeps us removed from the ability simply to accept ourselves and the conditions in which we find ourselves. If we can uproot our constant, frantic tendency to want things to be different, then we can bring an end to the pain and suffering that that tendency constantly creates.”
February 20, 2014
Meditation posture is often neglected as in "sit back comfortable, straighten your spine and relax". Meanwhile your posture can be a great help or a great hindrance in your practice.
Many of us struggle while at the start precisely because of the wrong posture that creates additional tension (instead of relieving it) and invents pains out of thin air.
Definitely worth reading.
Many of us struggle while at the start precisely because of the wrong posture that creates additional tension (instead of relieving it) and invents pains out of thin air.
Definitely worth reading.
April 7, 2016
I regard this as probably the most important meditation book ever written. It changed not only how I understand and practice sitting meditation; it changed my life. But this is just one of several books by Will Johnson which offer exceptional guidance in embodied mindfulness practice. And they are all equally valuable, though this one is the best to begin with in my opinion.
July 15, 2016
This book is of great interest to those who are practicing meditation in that it gives useful instruction on the actual sitting part of the practice. If you are not comfortable sitting, it is very difficult to fall into meditation. The Posture of Meditation is full of useful tips on how to find the best posture for you, how to align yourself, relax and be resilient.
June 4, 2010
Short but beneficial
July 16, 2013
Small book but very useful. Not. To be under estimated by its size. Condensed practical wisdom. It works inwardly, once yougrasp the points. This is a rare find.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews