Regarding practice in the lotus pose.
If we need quality prolonged meditation, then we need to select an optimum position for it. Or even a category of poses. First category – these are different recumbent poses. The most comfortable one is – Shavasana. But if you meditate for a long time and lying down, then you can accidentally fall asleep. Or simply will not have the cheerfulness, clarity. After all, meditation is not trance, but a state of increased activity of consciousness. Another category of poses are different standing postures. From this category we got all these “pillars” and “trees”, there are many variants. Standing meditation are very popular in different systems, because they are very “active”. In these exercises the ability to meditate is well developed. But standing meditations have a minus too – it is hard to get into a deeper state in them, because the CNS (Central Nervous System) is obliged to watch our equilibrium, so we don’t fall, and therefore our CNS is a little bit excited and can’t fully relax.
Thus, the most stable position – Shavasana, but it leads to a sleep or trance (pronounced yin). The most active category of poses is standing postures, but they prevent a deeper relaxation (pronounced yang). There is a golden mean – sitting postures. But we need to sit with a straight back, if we lean back to a wall or a chair (sofa), then, first of all, we have a “Shavasana side effect”: our meditation is “shifting towards yin” (we lose our vivacity of mind), and there is a pressure on the tail bone and the sciatic nerve, which is very harmful. If we lean forward, when the breast comes over on the stomach and the head is hanging down, it is harmful for the neck muscles and internal organs (there is an excess of capacity and pressure, creasing of muscles and organs). Therefore, the sitting practices with your back straight and an easy shift of the center of gravity from the coccyx to the perineum are most useful meditations in terms of prolonged qigong state.
Imagine my dear readers, that I will insult you in public – rude, mean, without any reasons. You will experience, to say the least, anxiety and pain. If you know how to be attentive to your body and reactions, you will see how at the same time the muscles of your body are changing their tonus and start light cramping and some wiggling, and you will mention some kinaesthetic changes (coldness of the limbs, or vice versa, you throw in the heat). I’m talking about the fact that our body is controlled by our nervous system, and we are often powerless to control our reactions.
And such a person sits in a lotus. There are thousands of thoughts and memories in his head, thousands of irritants inside and around him. The body reacts, it stiffens. And you’re sitting, pretending that you’re Buddha.
But you are not Buddha, your time is going and stress is accumulated. After a while you become sick, the body does not know how to relax, and then numb.
Therefore, a person who has not yet learned to relax, don’t need to practice in lotus, this person is not ready for this posture. There are some special exercises in order to be ready for lotus posture, but this is only one side of the case.
One day, a friend of mine, went to Andrew Sidersky seminar in Kiev (Ukraina). When he returned, he was surprised that Andrew can’t meditate in lotus: for a limited time Andrew can “climb” into even more difficult asana, but can’t abide in it for long, because, as I tried to say above, his mind is still restless and every second creates stresses that build up in the body.
Therefore, the main task of the practitioner is to develop the ability to stay in the states of qigong, ie in a very quiet, relaxed state. In such states, if you also have prepared your body, the hip joints are mobile, your cords are flexible, so you can sit in lotus for long hours and you don’t become numb, don’t get sick. Until then, practicing in lotus doesn’t make sense: it doesn’t help, but only disturbs your meditation, creating excess of stress. Not to mention the injuries to the knees and ankles, which inevitably pursue an intense and unprepared person.
So, firstly you need to get into such position, which is convenient and safe, and with the evolution of your body and the quality of meditation – your posture will evolve too, from the more simple to the more complex one.
1. Sitting on the edge of a chair (to avoid squeezing your balls)
2. Sitting with crossed legs
3. Sitting with crossed legs, but the lower leg is pulled out and the foot is slightly ahead
4. In Sidhasana
5. In half-lotus
6. In lotus
All these poses, starting with number 2, are full meditative pose. Just position number 3 and above – do not lead to the upper leg bone kinking muscles and veins of the lower leg, and yet all the poses, starting with number 2 – are asymmetrical, leading to a twisting spine, light creasing to the internal organs. Therefore for long practices pose number 6 is ideal, “The Magic Lotus”. This is a symmetrical posture. The whole body, muscles and organs are not trapped and may remain relaxed and in good condition. The key word here is “may”, if you naturally come to this position and not raping your body and mind, as well as if you entered correctly into this posture.
If you noticed, I don’t know any mystical bonuses from meditation in lotus posture, jut purely physiological, which good enough for me. It is a very stable and healthy state of the body that could lead to the most alert and active meditations. Once again. It seems to me, that it’s better to have a quality meditation on a chair, than to torture yourself in lotus. It’s like in life – is better to learn multiplication tables or tensor analysis? But it all depends on the level of the student and the tasks he is facing today. At some point, it is important to know by heart multiplication tables. Moreover, the child pressured by higher mathematics will only get sick. But the time will come and then before you know it … look at him; even the tensor analysis wasn’t needed – as the child grew up as doctor and not as a mathematician!
