When we practise meditation, there is a need to have a comfortable seat and a good posture. The most important feature of the posture is to keep our back straight. To help us do this, if we are sitting on a cushion we must make sure that the back of the cushion is slightly higher than the front, inclining our pelvis slightly forward. It is not necessary at first to sit cross-legged, but it is a good idea to become accustomed to sitting in the posture of Buddha Vairochana. If we cannot hold this posture, we should sit in one which is as close to this as possible while remaining comfortable.
The Vairochana's posture include crossed legs in vajra posture, right hand placed in the left hand, palms upwards, with the tips of the thumbs slightly raised and gently touching. hands held about four fingers' width below the navel, straight back but not in tense, the lips and teeth that are held as usual but the tongue touches against the back of the upper teeth, head that is tipped a little forward with the chin slightly tucked in and shoulders that are level and the elbows are held slightly away from the sides.
Another feature of Vairochana's posture is the preliminary breathing meditation. It prepares our mind for developing a good motivation. When we sit down to meditate, our mind is usually full of disturbing thoughts. These thoughts would hinder us to immediately convert into a state of mind that is a virtuous one which is needed as our motivation. A negative, disturbed state of mind is like pitch-black cloth. We cannot dye pitch-black cloth any other colour unless we first remove all the black dye and make the cloth white again. In the same way, if we want to colour our mind with a virtuous motivation we need to clear away all our negative thoughts and distractions. We can accomplish this temporarily by practising breathing meditation.
To perform breathing meditation, we have to be settled down comfortably on our meditation seat. We begin by becoming aware of the thoughts and distractions that are arising in our mind. Then we gently turn our attention to our breath, letting its rhythm remain normal. As we breathe out we must imagine that we are breathing away all disturbing thoughts and distractions in the form of black smoke that vanishes in space. While as we breathe in we imagine that we are breathing in all the blessings and inspiration of the holy beings in the form of white light that enters our body and absorbs into our heart. We should maintain this visualization with each inhalation and exhalation until our mind has become peaceful and alert. If we concentrate on our breathing in this way, negative thoughts and distractions will temporarily disappear because we cannot concentrate on more than one object at a time.
