(Course) Beginner's Mind Day 3 - Poses

Day 3 of Beginner's Mind by Mind Masons. In this talk, we will briefly cover typical meditation poses. We will briefly go over various poses, mostly centered around seated poses. Following this talk, you should practice using my 10 Minute Breath Counting meditation.

Transcript

Hello,

Good day again.

Welcome to day 3 of Beginner's Mind.

Today we're going to cover meditative poses.

Before we do that I'd just like to offer that I hope that yesterday's information was useful for you.

That you're able to carry some of it forward,

That some of it sank in.

And I hope that your practice went well yesterday as well.

And I would encourage you to remain patient with the process and just keep showing up every day.

So meditative poses.

Meditative poses tend to gain a lot of traction in discussions because they are a bodily sensation,

A bodily phenomenon and we tend to gravitate to those more.

And folks tend to spend a lot of time tinkering and fiddling,

Purchasing things,

Things like that to throw at these poses as a means of distracting from the actual aim of meditation which is within not without.

So most meditative poses are seated in one way or another.

And regardless of what pose you're in,

When you're seated,

You're going to get into that pose,

Consciously place the hands somewhere.

Now this could be more or less wherever you want or need to.

They can go on the knees,

Somewhere on the thighs,

In the lap.

What you're after is whatever is going to be most comfortable for you,

Based on your arm length and body type,

Whatever is not going to create strain in the neck and shoulders and the back.

And not necessarily strain immediately but whatever you can reasonably assume is not going to create strain in a few minutes.

So that's what we do with the hands.

When we're in these seated positions,

We want to get into them into a position that our lower body can be relaxed so that our pelvis rests at a natural angle.

And what I mean by a natural angle is not a forced contrived position necessarily,

But a natural angle that supports an erect and relaxed spine and back.

And I don't necessarily mean a spine that is as straight as the wall,

Because that's not the natural angle of a spine.

The spine is naturally curved,

Right?

That lardotic kind of curve to the spine.

So we set the conditions for that by relaxing the lower body and letting the pelvis land at a natural angle to support the back in that position,

Which leads to less strain later on in the practices.

So as far as these seated positions go,

First and foremost is cross legged.

So when you sit cross legged,

It's just like in kindergarten or grade one or whatever,

You literally just sit cross legged,

Consciously place the hands,

Sit tall,

Place the hands hold out straining,

Close your eyes,

And you meditate.

There's also the half lotus position,

Like so,

Kind of a variant of the cross legged position.

And what we're doing here is bring the one leg on top of the other,

If you have the flexibility to do so.

And what this does is relieve some of the pressure points because there's more broad surfaces in contact with the surface beneath you.

The broad areas of the sit bones are in contact,

The more broad areas of the legs are in contact,

Vice,

Cross legged where there's a lot of points and pressure points.

So if you have the flexibility to get into it,

Half lotus is definitely a good one.

Moving on from half lotus is the full lotus position with both feet up.

And if you have the flexibility to get into this one and stay in this one,

Which can be challenging especially at first,

So if you don't have the flexibility don't push it.

But this just takes all the benefits of half lotus and doubles them.

More of those broad surfaces in contact with the floor,

More stability,

Less wobbling,

And it can if you have the flexibility for a facility that nice natural pelvis angle.

Now you probably saw me toss this to the side,

Cushions,

Pillows or whatever.

So a cushion or a pillow is very very useful to elevate the pelvis,

The hips,

So that the pelvis can rest at that natural angle.

You can get into these positions better and the spine can be erect with its natural curvature.

So you don't have to have a fancy meditation cushion,

You can,

Absolutely welcome and they're fantastic.

But it can be simple,

It can be a thick couch cushion,

It can be a pillow from your bed.

Whatever can help you elevate your hips to a level that the pelvis can tilt a little bit more naturally to help gain that stability.

There's also the option to,

If you're sitting cross legged or in whatever position,

Provide some padding underneath the knees.

So that the knees are supported,

There's less strain on the hips and you don't get those pressure points and those points of pain.

I would encourage you that if you don't need the padding,

Don't use the padding.

But if you do,

There's no harm in it,

Please go ahead and add underneath your knees.

For any of you with bad backs like myself,

There's also the option of sitting with your back to the wall.

Maybe you're on the floor at first,

Maybe you're on a cushion or whatever,

But you can put your back to the wall and gently lean back and rest your back on the wall,

Taking some of the strain out of the back if that feels good.

You can also kneel to meditate,

You don't have to sit.

Kneeling is still a nice low posture,

Keeps you low to the ground,

Lowers your centre of gravity,

Gives you some balance and it is a good meditative position.

Now when you're kneeling,

I wouldn't suggest that you just kneel on the floor,

That's going to put a lot of strain on the ankles and on the knees.

What you can do is you can take something like one of these meditation cushions and you kind of maneuver it into a wedge shape.

If you would put a knee on either side,

Then you would then rest on it like so.

So my weight is down through the cushion,

But I'm still in that nice low kneeling position.

It doesn't have to be a meditation cushion that you use to do that,

You can use anything.

Yoga blocks,

I've used wadded towels or folded towels,

Anything to help prop yourself up.

You can also meditate seated in a chair,

This is a popular one for a lot of beginners and it is perfectly fine.

Don't let anybody tell you that it's not,

I started in a chair.

Chair is going to be great for people that have tight hips,

Bad backs,

Bad knees,

Anything.

And when you're seated in that chair,

Try and keep the same points in mind.

You want to relax the lower body,

You're going to have the feet nice and flat and relaxed on the floor to help ground you.

And then you're going to sit up tall with the back at a natural angle and relaxed and your hands placed consciously somewhere.

So sitting in a chair is a perfectly valid and viable option that you can pursue,

Especially at first.

No matter what pose you use though,

A couple of the finer points relating to the upper body,

When you're in that pose,

Relaxing the shoulders down,

Keeping the head upright and neutral or tilted slightly down and what that's going to do is elongate the cervical spine and relieve some of the pressure on the spine.

Muscles of the face are relaxed and not tense so if you happen to notice that you're holding or gripping anywhere in the face or that there's tension in the face,

Take a second to relax it.

And that's it,

Just let the body be as it is.

Don't force any more than we've talked about kind of striving for,

Don't force it.

Lastly is lying down.

I don't discourage people from lying down but I also don't encourage it.

There's some people I know that kind of need to lie down according to their body and their body type,

Lying down is the most comfortable and the most productive for them and that is totally valid and can totally be the case.

But the reason I don't encourage people to lie down when they meditate is that what else do we do when we lie down?

We sleep.

And so if you lie down and meditate and the signals to your mind when you're lying down and relaxed and meditating are to be relaxed and be present and be focused and be alert,

That can lead to problems when you go to lie down and go to sleep.

Or vice versa,

Right?

Especially in the beginning,

You lie down to meditate,

The mind takes over,

You fall asleep.

So while lying down is valid and viable if that's what you need for your body,

That's fine.

I would encourage you to do one of the upright seated positions,

You would encourage that alert presence and that energy.

And this is all keeping in mind that there are types of meditation like yoga nidra that you do lie down for intentionally and that's okay but that is a separate type of practice from what we are learning here.

So I hope that's been informative.

I hope you can take one of these poses that we've talked about and modify it to your body type.

And as always,

Be adaptable.

What feels good this week might not feel good next week.

If you need to pad the knees one week,

Not the next and then again the week after,

Who knows.

Roll with it,

Be adaptable,

Be patient and as always,

Consistent.

Thanks and I hope you enjoy your practice today.