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catmandu
USA
4 Posts |
 Posted - Mar 16 2018 : 6:33:02 PM
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I meditate without back support. I've always energetically held the spine straight, like I would in a yoga class where I am using strength to lengthen the spine upward. There are so many instructions about relaxing the shoulders or relaxing the jaw that I'm wondering if maybe I should be resting with the spine "kind of straight" instead of actively holding it straight.
Thanks! |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Mar 16 2018 : 6:54:55 PM
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I came out of Zen, which is about a rigid, unsupported meditation posture, and Iyengar hatha yoga practice, which is similarly rigorous. But I've always done AYP with supported spine (a thin pillow in my lumbar as I sit against the wall in bed), and never looked back.
By all means, keep up the asana class, it's a fantastic practice. And keep asking yourself these sorts of questions in your asana practice - they're the right questions to be asking.
But when doing AYP, let all that stuff go. Set yourself reasonably upright, with pillow, and just let it all happen. Let go. If you find yourself occupied with these thoughts, great, that's just more juicy distraction to pull yourself back to mantra from. Mantra mantra mantra always mantra. |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Mar 16 2018 7:01:11 PM |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4514 Posts |
Posted - Mar 16 2018 : 7:12:00 PM
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Hi Catmandu,
Good advice from Jim there. If you need to have back support to be able to sit comfortably, then it is a good move.
There can be advantages with moving towards being self-supporting though, as long as your sitting position is comfortable. One simple advantage is that it means that you can practice anywhere, even if there is no back support available.
Using a meditation cushion can help, as it changes the angle between the thighs and the spine. With less of an angle, the back will tend to support itself without any need to use the muscles to stay upright.
Gradually, you will find that over time, your posture will become straighter whilst still being self-supporting.
What I would not recommend is that you use physical effort in order to keep your back straight during sitting practices. Asana should always be relaxed and comfortable, which includes seated asanas. 
Christi
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catmandu
USA
4 Posts |
Posted - Mar 17 2018 : 08:56:35 AM
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| Thanks to both of you, Jim and Christi. Those are some good points for me to think about. I have a little bit of Iyengar training so from what you two have said I think what's happening is that the level of attention to form I use in asana practice is probably too much for meditation. Perhaps, "don't slump" might be a better instruction to myself than "sit straight." |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4514 Posts |
Posted - Mar 17 2018 : 11:34:49 AM
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kensbikes100
USA
192 Posts |
Posted - Mar 21 2018 : 10:56:32 PM
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I try to let my Iyengar training complement my pranayama and meditation in AYP. First, while I find Iyengar training rigorous and demanding, it is always considerate of my difficulties, such as the current limited capability in my right hand and wrist. We are always encouraged to use props to make sure we can safely practice the pose to achieve its fundamental objectives within our current capacity. Having read Yogani saying that Siddhasana is a preferred position for DM, I use my knowledge of that asana from my Iyengar training and my reading of Light on Yoga and Light on Pranayama to fully understand Siddhasana and at least to know the rigorous form of it. I find I can better trace the sushumna while in the more rigorous form of the pose. And when I change to the DM phase of the sitting practice, I generally remain in Siddhasana. Sometimes I get some position change, but it is not a concern for the mantra process.
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Mar 24 2018 : 4:53:17 PM
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kensbikes100 and catmandu,
I have over 35 years of Iyengar yoga practice under my belt, including a 2 hours daily practice for a few years. I've studied with some of the top teachers,. and I am well acquainted with the minutiae of form and alignment. I totally understand how deep and helpful and wonderful it can be to invest attention to these things during asana practice and during daily life.
But I would very, very, very strongly encourage you to forget every iota of it while doing AYP practices.
Wonderful though that stuff is at all other times, it's a tenacious distraction/hindrance/mind trap during these internal practices (exception: it is indeed helpful know-how while setting up your siddhasana the first time. But only the first time!).
I love Yogani's line about if Jesus Christ appears on a chariot offering to take you on a tour of the heavens, thank him politely but gently return to mantra from this distraction. It's comparatively easy to let go of stress and so-called negative distractions in meditation and related practices (e.g. samyama). It's harder to let go of all the nice, helpful, juicy, righteous spiritual distractions....including proper hatha posture/alignment, however refined that stuff might be.
Meditating with a pillow tucked into your lumbar, against a wall, in bed, as suggested by Yogani and endorsed by me above, is a good way for alignment-oriented hatha yogis to let go of all that stuff.
Years from now, I'll bet good money you will have come around to this view. I'm hoping to save you time. Good luck either way with however you choose to proceed. |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Mar 24 2018 5:02:04 PM |
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Will Power
Spain
415 Posts |
Posted - Mar 27 2018 : 5:07:02 PM
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Thanks for the pillow tip Jim!
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Arunachala Bhakta
Finland
30 Posts |
Posted - Mar 28 2018 : 07:04:24 AM
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Yes, thank you very much Jim and karma of all of us, for these reminders of favouring easy goin in sittings.
As I'm in the very beginning of my AYP practices(4 months) , I'm extra thankful for your rigid inputs on this subject. Here comes my two extra pranams to you Jim, for saving my time and adding more peace to my sittings:
I've now moved from floor to bed to give ease to my feet and I don't anymore struggle half of the sitting time
trying to keep my lump upper back as straight as possible, even though it sometimes (2-3 times per month..) resulted in nice experiences, as when Susuhmna kicked in I lost body consciousness and pose came self supporting, and mantra finally got to sweep of some older issues than current discomfort of poor asana..
Update after sitting on bed with lumbar support for two days:
Constant ecstacy which was totally gone for 2 months is back and the rest period had to be doubled. Powerful stuff, this easiness!
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Edited by - Arunachala Bhakta on Mar 29 2018 03:22:58 AM |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Mar 29 2018 : 10:55:30 AM
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Hopefully you will get past this distracting phase of ecstasy quickly and your practices will be quietly quotidian and unremarkable. That will likely coincide with your letting go of desire and expectation for the former.
As for sweeping of old issues, I have mildly bad news for you: Everything stays. Every single issue. That's all we are, in the individual personas we consider ourselves to be: a congealed accumulation of issues. No issues, no Arunachala and no Jim.
The only thing that "sweeps" is our urge to resist. And that has nothing to do with stuff (object). It's a shift of perspective (subject). That's the only change; every other apparent change is just more drama - creating new issues to layer above old issues. |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Mar 29 2018 10:56:06 AM |
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Arunachala Bhakta
Finland
30 Posts |
Posted - Mar 29 2018 : 5:17:05 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Jim and His Karma
Hopefully you will get past this distracting phase of ecstasy quickly and your practices will be quietly quotidian and unremarkable. That will likely coincide with your letting go of desire and expectation for the former.
As for sweeping of old issues, I have mildly bad news for you: Everything stays. Every single issue. That's all we are, in the individual personas we consider ourselves to be: a congealed accumulation of issues. No issues, no Arunachala and no Jim.
The only thing that "sweeps" is our urge to resist. And that has nothing to do with stuff (object). It's a shift of perspective (subject). That's the only change; every other apparent change is just more drama - creating new issues to layer above old issues.
Sittings are now quite peaceful, no distraction nor desire for ecstasy. But in daily life I don't mind it at all. Self-pacing has been taken care of.
Letting go/sweeping of past karma, is something that I thought I've been doin and experiencing all the time with meditation..
It's fine if everything stays, but better if it stays somewhere else than in this body-mind that I'm currently using to realize and to get back to my Self, as these old issues still keep me quite busy and distracted from my true nature.
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kensbikes100
USA
192 Posts |
Posted - Aug 14 2018 : 1:45:42 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Jim and His Karma
kensbikes100 and catmandu,
I have over 35 years of Iyengar yoga practice under my belt, including a 2 hours daily practice for a few years. I've studied with some of the top teachers,. and I am well acquainted with the minutiae of form and alignment. I totally understand how deep and helpful and wonderful it can be to invest attention to these things during asana practice and during daily life.
But I would very, very, very strongly encourage you to forget every iota of it while doing AYP practices.
Wonderful though that stuff is at all other times, it's a tenacious distraction/hindrance/mind trap during these internal practices (exception: it is indeed helpful know-how while setting up your siddhasana the first time. But only the first time!).
I love Yogani's line about if Jesus Christ appears on a chariot offering to take you on a tour of the heavens, thank him politely but gently return to mantra from this distraction. It's comparatively easy to let go of stress and so-called negative distractions in meditation and related practices (e.g. samyama). It's harder to let go of all the nice, helpful, juicy, righteous spiritual distractions....including proper hatha posture/alignment, however refined that stuff might be.
Meditating with a pillow tucked into your lumbar, against a wall, in bed, as suggested by Yogani and endorsed by me above, is a good way for alignment-oriented hatha yogis to let go of all that stuff.
Years from now, I'll bet good money you will have come around to this view. I'm hoping to save you time. Good luck either way with however you choose to proceed.
Jim, if I recall, Yogani recommends using Siddhasana. In it and during pranayama I find the perception of energy at the root and lower abdomen more natural and relaxed than other seated positions, and can better initiate and terminate the breath cycles, which is the only control action we are supposed to take. With Siddhasana I use a lumbar cushion against a wall, and a small wool rug between my sitbones and the floor and between the ankle bones and the floor.
I don't energeticaly hold the spine straight, since it mostly remains straight by itself, with out any further control actions from me. When I enter position I make it straight, but if it changes it is just something that the mantra work took me to, and it is not of concern. My intentional work is only to initiate pranayama and later to engage the mantra and to gently return to it when I find I am not aware of it. Also to stop when the little timer bell sounds.
Usually my position changes within the 25 minutes of sitting. I usually don't realize it until I come out of an unaware state (samhadi?). Then I restart the mantra and stay seated until the little timer bell rings.
My mental process is not divided, except as nature would take it. I don't forcefully attend to the asana or to firmly maintaining the sushumna-tracing or the mantra-cycling. I basically do not attend to the Siddhasana positioning, or the sushumna-tracing, or the mantra except as directed. I learned that over 35 years ago, actually.
Thank you for your input and for your understanding. From your reply to me in this thread I felt the need to clarify and explain myself. |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Aug 15 2018 : 6:09:07 PM
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After more than 35 years of blithely letting go, does it really matter what I think?
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kensbikes100
USA
192 Posts |
Posted - Sep 13 2018 : 11:28:53 PM
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Jim, with all due respect: for the practices I choose for myself, no, it does not. I believe i am applying the techniques of Yogani as directed. Why we differ, I truly do not know. Maybe I have not had as much experience at letting go as you have, or maybe the ball of yarn one may call my karma is wound up a lot tighter than yours. But I have to proceed from where I am at. Using Siddhasana I do experience the benefits of pranayama and meditation. I can't say it's right or wrong, but it does seem to be good.
I've also discovered that to make a subtle change in technique, like to change from the mantra learned in the Maharishi's system to the one given by Yogani, is not easy. I thought it would be, but I was wrong. Now I'm thinking it doesn't matter a lot. Sometimes one mantra of the other starts spontaneously. AYAM works quite well, but sometimes I feel them both, and other times I only feel the old one. I don't really want to make more changes
Clearly what you are doing is good for you. |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Sep 14 2018 : 9:34:57 PM
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I sympathize on the mantra issue. FWIW, I have an echo-ing mind. I even sometimes silently (and unconsciously) mouth the last word of a sentence after speaking. I'm pretty used to it, and can work around it, but everything strikes twice for me, mentally.
So when I upgraded to the final mantra enhancement (Sri Om Sri Om Ayam Ayam Namah Namah), it was really quite tough, as you might imagine! The double-ups themselves started doubling up, mentally. Very confusing. And it dredged up some old anxiety I'd suppressed about the issue. I had to face it, because this mantra made it so stark. But I seemed like the very worst person for this mantra, and began to get super homesick (om sick?) for vanilla "ayam".
Then I realized that whatever neurological quirk afflicts me could be seen 1. as a disruptive force for this new mantra, or 2. precisely the thing the mantra is perfectly contrived to address. So it was either the perfect nightmare....or the perfect antidote. I capriciously chose the latter.
Yoga (even hatha) seems to be like that. You often need to take the hard route, the very wrong-seeming one. For example (please please nobody try this without an insanely experienced teacher!) you're not supposed to do inverted asanas when you have high blood pressure....but the cure for high blood pressure is....yep....inversion (practiced with extreme gentle carefulness and sensitivity...a very advanced practice).
So I decided to frame it as "perfect antidote". I kept at it, and the boingy-boingy echo stuff gradually subsided both in the mantra and elsewhere, too. I simply let it echo. mulishly following the practice, figuring that the neuro thing - and any suppressed anxiety about that thing - was just more experience to Let Go of. The mind keeps finding "special cases" - forms of experience that seem exempt from being let go of during meditation. In my experience, that doesn't ever end; you just keep broadening your engrained (via practice) instinct to always favor the counterintuitive letting go response.
The friction point isn't a push, it's a pull. Friction teaches us where the resistance is. It's never about the thing, it's always about our resistance. It's our guide as we engage in that infinite broadening of the surrender. I was blessed with lots of juicy new letting go fodder by practicing this mantra. I just had to stop considering the friction a bad thing.
I wrote a poem about this a long time ago, come to think of it. |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Sep 14 2018 10:01:08 PM |
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BlueRaincoat
United Kingdom
1734 Posts |
Posted - Sep 15 2018 : 03:47:11 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Jim and His Karma
So I decided to frame it as "perfect antidote". I kept at it, and the boingy-boingy echo stuff gradually subsided both in the mantra and elsewhere, too.
Amazing! Thank you for sharing. |
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Dogboy
USA
2294 Posts |
Posted - Sep 15 2018 : 1:05:59 PM
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quote:
The friction point isn't a push, it's a pull. Friction teaches us where the resistance is. It's never about the thing, it's always about our resistance. It's our guide as we engage in that infinite broadening of the surrender. I was blessed with lots of juicy new letting go fodder by practicing this mantra. I just had to stop considering the friction a bad thing.
Resonates here |
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kensbikes100
USA
192 Posts |
Posted - Sep 25 2018 : 10:35:06 PM
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quote:
[i]
... trimming ...
So I decided to frame it as "perfect antidote". I kept at it, and the boingy-boingy echo stuff gradually subsided both in the mantra and elsewhere, too. I simply let it echo. mulishly following the practice, figuring that the neuro thing - and any suppressed anxiety about that thing - was just more experience to Let Go of. The mind keeps finding "special cases" - forms of experience that seem exempt from being let go of during meditation. In my experience, that doesn't ever end; you just keep broadening your engrained (via practice) instinct to always favor the counterintuitive letting go response.
... more trimming ...
Generally I learned in Transcendental Meditation, and see no conflict in DM, that essentially whatever happens during meditation is to be categorized as "thoughts." The only other significant item of awareness during meditation is "mantra." The only way to deal with whatever is not the mantra is to gently return to the mantra when I notice I am not doing the mantra.
In so doing I let go of the thought, idea, sensation, or emotion, several times in every sitting. The only third entity is samadhi, if it occurs. Again, it is something I have no control of.
When I first learned it I would meditate wherever I happened to be at the appointed time - at home, in my dormitory, in the university cafeteria, or on the commuter train in rush hour crowds, sitting with my massive backpack sitting on my lap. These days I do it where I can be comfortable crosslegged, half-lotused (an easier version of padmasana), in vippasana, or in siddhasana. I find the slouching when I just pick a nice chair is not comfortable by the end of the session, and the discomfort lasts beyond the end of the sitting session.
So whatever happens in meditation stays in meditation! |
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lalow33
USA
966 Posts |
Posted - Sep 25 2018 : 11:56:14 PM
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| You are so Las Vegas, Ken! |
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kensbikes100
USA
192 Posts |
Posted - Sep 26 2018 : 3:07:28 PM
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You mean it works in Las Vegas, too? Who'd a thunk it?
And I think I should have said "virsasana," where you sit on your shins with you feet going straight back. |
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Actively or Passively Keep the Spine straight
