By: Bob Zeglovitch
What do you do with your hands when you are just sitting? In the Soto Zen style of sitting, the hands are held in a very particular way. Suzuki Roshi describes this in Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind:
Your hands should form the “cosmic mudra.” If you put your left hand on top of your right, middle joints of your middle fingers together, and touch your thumbs lightly together (as if you held a piece of paper between them), your hands will make a beautiful oval. You should keep this universal mudra with great care, as if you were holding something very precious in your hand. Your hands should be held against your body, with your thumbs at about the height of your navel. Hold your arms freely and easily, and slightly away from your body, as if you held an egg under each arm without breaking it.
If you are new to this style of sitting, these instructions about what to do with your hands might seem unimportant, a bit fussy, or even esoteric. That is understandable, but I suggest that you give it a try and stick with it for a while. There is utility in holding your hands in this manner. You can get a sense from Suzuki Roshi’s instruction of the quality of mind (great care) that is being expressed directly by the cosmic mudra. Also, the hands are not separate from the mind—they function as a barometer for the mind’s condition. If you find that your hands are pressing tightly against each other, or that you are holding them up rigidly, it is an indicator that you are perhaps striving too hard in your meditation or otherwise grasping and clinging. You can relax a bit and ease up on the mudra to find that quality of “great care” again. If you find that your mudra has collapsed, such that the “beautiful oval” is no longer present, you are probably drifting off in hazy thoughts or becoming sleepy. You can adjust by finding the mudra again with some precision, and seeing how the mind wakes up accordingly.
If your hands are resting in your lap, the oval will likely be centered around the hara (soft belly and lower abdomen), which is considered the seat of the body’s physical and energetic power in Asian medical traditions and many Western mind/body therapeutic systems. This helps to serve as an embodied reminder to to rest your consciousness in this place, grounding yourself and getting out of your head. You may need to experiment a bit with where your hands rest naturally, so that you can maintain the mudra with some ease while also allowing your shoulders and arms to be relaxed.