When you begin meditating, you can find yourself doubting the way you practice various techniques. This questioning is no different when it comes to meditation postures. So, how should you sit while meditating? Here’s a quick rundown of some best practices.
Traditional Meditation Posture
The traditional meditation posture is sitting down with the legs crossed, eyes gently closed, and with the hands resting in the lap. Additionally, with our hands, we cup the right hand with the left while the thumbs lightly touch pointing up towards the navel. It’s important to keep the back straight.
With the back straight, we can breathe naturally. When we breathe naturally, our mind becomes fresh, and it receives energy along an open spine. During meditation practice, we don’t want to turn off our minds but disengage from the everyday chatter of the monkey mind. If can’t keep a straight back then we risk losing our concentration, or we could fall asleep.
Can I Sit in a Chair?
Not everyone will be comfortable sitting on a meditation cushion or the floor. You can sit on a chair, on the couch and you can even lie down (more on that in a bit). Again, the important thing to remember is keeping the back and spine straight.
If you prefer sitting in a chair, simply follow the same instructions found in the traditional posture instructions. However, while sitting in a seat, you’ll obviously have your feet on the ground. Use the back of the chair to support your spine and place your feet flat on the floor.
Meditation While Lying Down
For those who also practice yoga, you’ll be familiar with corpse pose. If you’re not familiar with corpse pose, it is typically the final pose done in a sequence of poses where you lie on the floor relaxed with your arms and legs slightly open.
Corpse pose can be used as a meditation posture since while lying on the floor the back and spine are straight. The biggest downside to this position versus sitting in the traditional posture or a chair is that it’s easy to fall asleep. If you find yourself dozing off, then you might want to try something different.
Why is it so Important to Keep the Back Straight?
There’s a popular misconception that meditation is a practice to zone out and turn the mind off completely. There is no doubt that meditation can help us relax and improve our overall health, but we don’t want to be falling asleep or disengage completely from the mind.
During meditation, we practice concentration. It’s this attention exercise and subsequent strengthening of our attention that leads to more mindfulness in our daily activities. For this, to strengthen, we need a clear mind and a clear mind is possible with a straight spine.
The Next Steps
After finding the meditation postures that work best for you: traditional, sitting or lying down, try five minutes of breathing meditation.
Here’s a video to get you started!
Originally appeared on CharlesMinguez.com
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Image: Pixabay
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