Interesting, Chris. I wonder if adopting more painful positions helped the
meditation of those people, or you.
By "helped", I mean if it helped to make it more satisfactory to either the
student or teacher, or both.
I think it's good to break new ground in our practice, maybe by adopting a more
balanced or more compact posture; or by sitting longer; or by incorporating
exercises or stretching to help our ultimate relaxation; or by changing our
diet; or, etc.
Sometimes making a change, even an arbitrary one, can change things.
A case in point is the Bamboo-Breathing taught by Sekida in his book ZEN
TRAINING. At a certain point in a sit, a practitioner can change the rhythm of
breathing, and this will be enough to break the usual pattern of a sit, and
enable some changes. It's very effective (he teaches it well, so I won't go
into it).
Sleepiness is not always good to chase away, I think, though. When properly
embraced or when we are quite lucky, Samadhi can come on when we are relaxed
and sunken 'way down, without our eyes closing.
Of course if we fall asleep and nod repeatedly, as we do when we sit sometimes,
it's not altogether unpleasant, and I think even this does something good for
us (although it disturbs our neighbors to the left and right). Usually we
don't waste too much time this way, because the bell rings and we get up and
walk kinhin, and then sit again, maybe a little refreshed.
Did you know?: There's a method of practice in which the sitter sits all night
and sleeps in lotus pose. People say that the legs really ache for the first
year doing this, but after that the body likes it and the sleep is very good.
I think usually only monastics practice this. It has a name in Japanese...
"Za-" somthing. No, not Zazen! Zasui, I think. It's been years since I
thought of it.
By the way, I've heard other parents say that having kids drove THEM to
drinking too, but at least your poison is Coffee, not the other. ;-)
--Joe
> Chris Austin-Lane <chris@...> wrote:
>
> I first became aware of the tactic of avoiding fatigue by adopting more
> painful sitting positions (full lotus over 1/2; 1/2 over Burmese) by trying
> it myself; I then noticed other young and eager folks doing similar and a
> few times had a conversation about the relative good vs. evil of sore legs
> vs. a sleepy brain. [snip]
------------------------------------
Current Book Discussion: any Zen book that you recently have read or are
reading! Talk about it today!Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Zen_Forum/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Zen_Forum/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
[email protected]
[email protected]
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[email protected]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
