Decades back, one of my teachers (Reb Anderson, former abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center) wrote a book called “Being Upright”. One meaning of the book title was that Reb was advocating that we be “upright people”, in the sense of acting in a way that is honest, trustworthy, dependable, and generally in integrity. Another meaning was that he was literally advocating a posture to aim for when meditating – sitting with a tall, extended, alert, and “upright” spine and neck.
But a third meaning of his book title was a physical metaphor for the psychological activity of mindfulness meditation. When we are being mentally upright, we are simply present and awake, sitting with dignity, balance, and clarity, and we are not mentally falling forward, nor backward.
Falling forward in this metaphor is grabbing on to life in a way that creates problems. A most dramatic and obvious example of that is addictions, where a compulsion pushes us to lose our upright poise and fall forward into behaviors that we later regret. Something doesn’t have to be a full-blown addiction, however, for it to be an example of us being driven to grab after money, approval, achievement, the latest news, and other forms of pleasure. When we are upright in our meditation, we enjoy pleasant moments when they arise, but we let them travel on when it is time for that, without trying to inappropriately grab hold of them.
(As an aside, I once had someone explain to me that one of the best ways mindfulness meditation can help with addictions is to cultivate the ability to “be upright while falling forward”. The invitation here is, even while giving in to an overwhelming addictive compulsive urge, to still stay alert, spacious, self-friendly, and merely observing what’s happening in clear detail. Enacting this plan might not stop an immediate binge experience, but it may have it last for less time, and be less likely to happen again.)
We might also lose our uprightness by falling back away from life. This can take the form of procrastination, avoiding difficult conversations, other forms of avoiding dealing with tasks that are unpleasant, being in denial about problems, or anything else that has us push away, avoid, or fight with engagement with our real life. The uprightness of mindfulness has us instead meet pain and difficulty with openness and acceptance.
Cultivating a mindful orientation of “being upright” makes it more likely that we will engage life in a constructive, spacious, and dedicated way, and have fewer experiences of tripping towards things, grabbing after its pleasures, or falling away from life, trying to avoid its difficulties.
(As a second aside – I’m also tickled that the title of the autobiography of spiritual teacher Alan Watts, “In My Own Way”, also had triple meaning – he did things his unique way, he was on his own spiritual path, and he recognized that he self-sabotaged)