THE TUSH IS NOT FOR SITTING!
Or
HOW DOES ONE SIT CORRECTLY?
©2007 Mark B. Anstendig
A great number of health problems and conditions are most probably caused by posture. And the probable cause of most bad posture is the belief that the buttocks were made for sitting.
Contrary to most human belief and practice, the buttocks are not made for sitting.
The buttocks are large muscles that become uncomfortable or actually hurt when one tries to sit on them. This becomes obvious when one tries to sit on a hard surface. But people still make the mistake of thinking one should sit on the buttocks, causing furniture manufacturers go to extremes to make their chairs, sofas, and other seats soft enough to be comfortable when one sits on the buttocks. That, in turn, has fostered myriad health-impairing physical conditions and generally poor health due to the bad body positions and resulting bad posture that occur when sitting on the buttocks.
The thighs are the parts of the body that were designed for sitting. On chairs, one should set oneself down on one's thighs, and nothing else. That means one should sit far enough back on the chair for the thighs to be completely supported by the seat of the chair. The buttocks should stick out behind the thighs and should not support the body at all. The chair should be quite flat or, at most, ever so slightly contoured to the thighs, with only enough firm padding to allow sitting for long periods, and nothing more.
When sitting in the lotus position, one first sets oneself down on the thigh that will be lowest (the thigh of the leg, on which the upper foot and ankle will rest), which is usually the right thigh with right-handed people. From the knee to just before the buttocks, the thigh should totally engage the floor. Once the thigh is totally flat on the floor, one then patiently works the chakras/release-points and the breath until the body releases enough that one can also get the second thigh flat on the floor and straighten up, without allowing the first thigh to lift off the floor in any way (this can take quite a long period of work over many months/years for the beginner). One then places the second ankle (left ankle in the above example) onto the first ankle. One then works the release points and breath, etc., until one can get both thighs flat on the floor and then straighten one's back to perfect posture. All the time one keeps the thighs flat on the floor, not allowing them to raise up at all in front or back, i.e., at the knees or just before the buttocks).
That the thighs are completely flat on the floor while in lotus position is absolutely essential to the correct effect of that position throughout the whole Path and, subsequently, throughout the rest of one's whole life.
In no case whatsoever, should one ever sit on the buttocks. Doing so, besides being uncomfortable, especially on firm surfaces, will cause many wrong alignments of many key parts of the body and lead to less than optimal health, if not outright bad health.