By: Ilchi Lee
How beneficial it is for your mind and spirit when you meditate for at least 30 minutes a day – seated elegantly with legs crossed, straight lower back, and a peaceful expression on your face. But for most newcomers, meditation means sitting with legs crossed for perhaps only a few minutes, legs aching, shoulders heavy, and spine curved in defeat.
How can we sit both correctly and comfortably? Ilchi Lee, founder of Dahn Yoga and Brain Education, gives a simple answer. He recommends sitting on a thin mat on the floor with your legs half-crossed, one foot pulled firmly next to your body, while your other leg is bent and placed on top of the first. Relax your shoulders and arms, and put both your hands gently on your thighs with your palms facing up.
Slowly rotate your upper body five times to the left and then to the right to naturally position your spine and knees. Hold your head and neck erect. Relax your facial muscles and slowly close your eyes. Check for the correctness of your posture – your spine is straight; the rest of your body is relaxed.
As Ilchi Lee states, “When your sitting posture is correct and comfortable, you can enter more easily into a deep meditation as Ki-energy (life-force) and blood circulation is stimulated in the whole body.”
If your knees are too high off the floor with legs half-crossed, sit on a cushion or on a folded blanket. If you experience lower back pain, use a floor chair. Eventually you will learn to sit comfortably without the help of sitting props. According to Ilchi Lee, “Do not force yourself to hold a perfect posture, as that can cause tension; develop your posture a little bit at a time.”
Sitting postures are difficult to hold properly because of the body’s inflexibility. So before starting the meditation, relax your body with meridian-stretching exercises. Ilchi Lee suggests this method: “Sit with both legs stretched out in front of you, grab your toes with your hands, bend at the waist, pull your body forward, and slowly exhale as you stretch forward.”
You can feel great dignity and confidence as your sitting posture becomes stronger. Ilchi Lee affirms, “You can feel the beauty inside yourself, sitting with your lower body solidly on the floor (Earth), and your upper body stretching upward (Heaven). As a human being, you are the link between the two.”
As Ilchi Lee has observed about the inspirational dimension of meditation, “We are usually unaware of our five senses. We almost never think of our sensory organs as separate from ourselves. Thus, we are tricked into thinking that the phenomena we perceive through our senses are the substance of reality. Sitting in meditation, however, I come to feel my self with sensory organs. My self, with eyes, nose, ears, thoughts and emotions, sits here like this. Who is this I sitting here? I cast my mind toward the distant void of Heaven, far, far off into the distance. I enter into a state of deep, deep peace.”
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