meditation-postures

The speaker discusses different types of meditation and the importance of training the mind. They mention various postures for meditation, such as cross-legged sitting, sitting in a chair, or even lying down. They emphasize the need to stay awake and aware during meditation. The speaker also mentions the practice of scanning the body for tension and relaxing it. They conclude by stating that meditation is a state of awareness and knowing, different from falling asleep. Hi everyone, I thought I'd do a podcast today on meditation, the use of meditation, the types of meditation, just the things that I know about it, the things that I found useful. Now most people, and let's start with that, most people are interested in the calming effect of meditation. They see it as a way of achieving tranquillity or a tranquilising effect without medication. So it's just a way of relaxing. The easiest form of relaxing is just to slob out, you know, on a chair, just slob out and just take it easy, maybe listen to some music or whatever. And a lot of people do this or have a drink or whatever. Those methodologies, they're not going to result in any mind training. And most of the meditation techniques that are used are designed to train the mind and to, in effect, make it calmer or more able to cope with all the ups and downs that we all experience during life. I've just been completely stressed out by trying to do some recording on another system and I could do with a bit of tranquillity. So I thought I'd do this podcast as a way of talking about that. So training, people don't like the idea of training. They don't like the idea that you have to do something specific, you have to do some sort of practice. But it's actually the most useful thing that you can do. It's not going to lead to a constant state of calm. People do meditation, regular meditation, twice a day, whatever, they still find that they get angry about things. So I'm quite angry at the moment because of the difficulty I've had this morning with trying to achieve something, which should be simple but wasn't. So OK, let's go through the different forms of meditation that you may have come across or you may have seen. The most usual one, the most usual association that people have with it, if they're not coming from a Christian or Islamic or Judaic foundation, is probably going to be some form of cross-legged sitting. Now this comes from the Dharmic religions you know, the Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism I think is classed as a Dharmic religion as well. I can't remember, there's three main Dharmic religions but it doesn't matter. This is the tradition that we're used to, sitting quietly and calmly in a cross-legged position. But there's other positions that you can use, you can sit in a chair, because that's what you're used to doing. The thing is you're trying to keep awake, you're not trying to enter a sleep mode. If you have problems with sleep, then take up hypnosis or take up something that is going to help you with that. But if you want to do meditation, you're trying to actually wake up. You're actually trying to train the emotions and the mind. So yes, you can sit in a chair. This is sometimes called the Western posture or the Egyptian posture. It's used in Paganism because a lot of the systems that we have around now have adopted, even in Christianity, they've adopted the methodology of the Buddhists and applied it to their own needs. Okay, so the posture. Let's talk about the cross-legged posture on the ground. This is not necessary but a lot of people are determined to do it and they quite often injure themselves because it's not natural. In India, it's quite natural for people to sit on a cushion or to sit on a chair. Lots of cultures are in that position and find it quite natural and quite easy. It's not for Westerners, I should say. It is if you've been doing it for a long time. So the easiest way is not a half lotus or a full lotus, especially if you're elderly or it's not natural to you. If you don't find it easy or natural, you're liable to do yourself injury with it. So there's a thing called the tailor pose which is just very simple. The legs are, in fact I'm using it at the moment, it's just both legs are, the knees are, they may be up a bit because you may not be very flexible. Eventually they may go down. And one of the first things that you can do in the tailor pose, you can look it up, it's used in yoga. Yoga will in fact make you more flexible so you'll be more able to use the lotus posture if it comes to that because you're just stretching the limbs so you develop and in a lot of ways the Hatha yoga or the physical yogas that are very popular in the West, Iyengar yoga and all sorts of different forms of yoga are a preparation in many ways for more complex postures. And when you hear people saying, well if you do the lotus it seals all the gates, it seals the energies and it's, you know, absolute rubbish. This is something that works for people who are used to it and also have associations with it and use it as their main practice but it's not necessary. It may be easy for you to do if you're in Japan's zazen or kneeling posture, that may be one way of doing it. A good way to do it is to to begin, you know, you won't be able to necessarily go right down into the kneeling posture so use a pillow or a cushion between your ankles and your buttocks. That can work quite well. What else is there? Standing posture. Standing posture is used in some traditions, sometimes with a mudra or a hand, oh yeah, the hand postures. Hand postures, again, you'll see people talking this, that and the other. They're important if you understand what they're doing and why they're there. They're another form of associative, they're kind of like a way of remembering something where maybe you were doing stuff on retreat or you were taught by a teacher to do things a certain way and you find those useful. So again, this is part of the training, the stillness. Now, are there any other postures I can think of? I can't think of any more at the moment but, you know, you can sit in a deck chair or in a bubble bath if you want. I mean, as long as you don't fall asleep, why not? And there's people who, I mean, for example, in the Sufi tradition, quite often people just sit slumped like you see people traditionally, it's probably a stereotype, people slumped in a Mexican hat in Mexico. The Islamic Sufis sometimes use that kind of posture. They do a type of, it's a kind of relaxation called drifting where they go into a sort of sleep, semi-sleep state or a waking dream. It's like dream yoga in Tibetan yoga. Anyway, so let's assume that we're going to sit in some way where the back is straight, that you're awake, the head is straight and now what are you going to do? Well, funny enough, the first thing you're going to do is probably scan through the body in some way to see where tension is and where tension is arising and relax that. And in yoga, this is sometimes called yoga nidra or yoga sleep and it's done, you can do this, you can, that's another posture. You can lie on your back on the floor, maybe with a pillow for your head, that's very relaxing, very good for yoga nidra or yoga sleep and it's done at the end of a lot of physical yoga sessions. But if you do that, the tendency is to actually physically fall asleep and if you fall asleep, then you're asleep and you'll get some, that may be what you need. That may be what you need. You may need a bit of sleep to recuperate and feel more relaxed. People always feel better after a nap, so that may well work for you. But it's not meditation. Meditation is a state of awareness and a state of knowing more, being more, being aware, being aware of what's going on. Okay, I've rapped it on for 10 minutes, so I think that's long enough for today, so I'll see you again next time. Bye now.