Position while meditating

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This topic contains 2 replies, has 2 voices, and was last updated by  Anonymous 8 years, 11 months ago.

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  • July 10, 2016 at 7:50 am #1133

    Anonymous

    Hi there, I’m Shannon, and I’ve been practicing with The Mind Illuminated as my meditation guide. Currently I go back and forth between Stages 3 and 4.

    Here’s my question:
    I’m disabled and can only sit upright for about 20 minutes (after that I have increasing pain, weakness, and autonomic problems like dizziness and rapid heart rate, despite good posture — this is characteristic of my disability). I am curious to see if I can extend my sitting time as I progress through the stages, but at this point I have been unable to, and don’t anticipate it happening.

    Due to my limitation, I’ve been sitting for 20 minutes in a chair, then I have a chime go off and I lie down to practice another 25 minutes. This has been working for me — I do a brief body scan after lying down and I’m able to return to focusing on the breath within a minute. I would just lie down for the whole session but I feel that sitting has some benefits over lying down and helps me get into the session.

    My question is: as I advance through the stages, if I am not able to increase my sitting time, is the brief time that I spend changing my position going to interfere with my progress? Would it be better to switch to lying down for the full 45 minutes at some point, and if so, when would be a good time to start experimenting with that?

    Thanks so much for your time!

    July 13, 2016 at 11:19 am #1140

    Blake Barton
    Keymaster

    Hi Shannon,

    Welcome to the forum. It sounds like your current approach is working for you at this time in your practice. There may be a point where you don’t want to switch postures during your meditation. This point could be in stage 6 where you are working on exclusive attention. When you get to this point, you can experiment with moving to see if you are able to return to exclusive attention in a relatively short amount of time. There is also something to be said for the skill of re-establishing exclusive attention in a timely manner.

    As you progress, you will develop a feel for whether or not changing postures in hindering your progress, and adjust accordingly.

    It will be interesting to see if when you get to physical pliancy if your symptoms subside. This usually happens in stage 8. Please keep us informed.

    Good Luck with Your Practice,
    Blake

    July 13, 2016 at 12:38 pm #1141

    Anonymous

    Thanks so much, Blake! I really appreciate it. I will continue as I am for now, and experiment once I start working on exclusive attention. If/when I achieve physical pliancy I will drop back in to post about how it affects my symptoms.

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