I won't get into it in detail and will avoid a long rant, but I think it is
time to let go of the militaristic approach and sit in comfortable positions
that are not physically damaging or painful, and allow students to enjoy the
meditation practices...
If this means letting go of some traditional forms, my apologies to some of
the more insistent teachers, but over 30 years of practice and watching the
physical damage and negative impact on meditation practice to many students
has convinced me that this is necessary, at least in the West.
Meditation practice should not be about pain in the legs. We should practice
meditation because it feels good and improves the quality of our lives...
pain is a natural warning that something is wrong in our approach.
Brett "Bud" Breitwieser (brettb@rajah.com)
Zen Site: http://zenbud.com
Rajah Networking: http://rajah.net
Walking, Trike, Greens: http://rajah.ws
The Dragon: http://rajah.org
-----Original Message-----
From: Dave Stevenson [mailto:dave.stevenson@durham.ac.uk]
Sent: Monday, August 12, 2002 3:48 AM
To: Shakuhachi@communication.ucsd.edu
Subject: Re: Seiza sitting position... ouch... "Hello, legs?"
Derek Choice / Funk Logic wrote:
>
> snip
>
> Does the proper positioning of a pillow, or any other technique, seem
> to allow progress and a conditioning for this position? Or, do a lot
> of players eventually migrate to a chair for most practice sessions?
> Alternatives?
>
a cushion(zafu) helps or you can easily make (or buy) a seiza bench.
http://www.zenmtnemp.com/sitting_benches.htm
but in the end its just a matter of getting used to it. Knee walking
(suwari waza?) helps but
this may be just because sitting seiza is a relief after doing knee
walking!
____________________________________________________
<a
____________________________________________________
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Feb 03 2003 - 09:09:53 PST