Meditative postures or meditation seats are the body positions or asanas, usually sitting but also sometimes standing or reclining, used to facilitate meditation. Best known in the Buddhist and Hindu traditions are the lotus and kneeling positions; other options include sitting on a chair, with the spine upright.
Meditation is sometimes practiced while walking, such as kinhin, doing simple repetitive tasks, as in Zen samu, or work which encourages mindfulness.
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali describe yoga as having eight limbs, one being asana, the meditation seat. The sutras do not name any asanas, merely specifying the characteristics of a good asana, stating: [1]
स्थिरसुखमासनम् ॥४६॥
sthira sukham āsanam
Your [meditation] seat should be steady and comfortable. Yoga Sutras 2:46
The Sutras are embedded in the Bhasya commentary, which scholars including Philipp Maas now believe are by the same author; [2] it names 12 seated meditation asanas, possibly all cross-legged, including Padmasana, Virasana, Bhadrasana (now called Baddha Konasana), and Svastikasana. [3]
Sitting positions, often cross-legged, provide a stable base for meditation, and have been used for the purpose in Buddhism and Hinduism for many centuries. These include Padmasana (full lotus), Ardha Padmasana (half lotus), Siddhasana or Muktasana (also called Burmese posture, sitting with the knees on the ground and the feet tucked in close to the body), [4] [5] and Sukhasana (any easy cross-legged position). [6] Other possibilities are the kneeling postures Virasana (sitting between the heels) and Vajrasana or Seiza (sitting on the heels). [7] Another sitting posture, Baddha Konasana (Cobbler's Pose), is suitable for people who can sit with the feet together and both knees on the ground; B. K. S. Iyengar states that to meditate in this position, the palms should be held in prayer position over the chest, which demands some practice for balance. [8] Seymour Ginsburg, describing Gurdjieff meditation, suggests that such compact positions help the meditator to "include the entire experience of ourself in our attention." [6]
The lotus position in particular can be extremely uncomfortable for Westerners who have not practised sitting cross-legged since early childhood. They may, in the words of the yoga and meditation teacher Anne Cushman, be practising "self-torture ... apparently believing that bruising your inner thigh with your ankle is crucial to spiritual awakening." [7] The pose can cause beginners knee pain [8] and injury. [9] [10] Baddha Konasana is a safer alternative, provided the knees are not pushed down. [11]
Cushman notes that since meditation is not a posture, no particular posture is required. All the same, she writes, a formal method is helpful, and the asana chosen needs to be stable and comfortable, as the Yoga Sutras state: on the one side, few people would wish to hold strenuous postures like Downward Dog for half an hour or more; on the other side, a restful posture like Savasana (Corpse Pose) might be comfortable but would more likely lead to sleep than meditation. The cross-legged postures are simple and stable, restful for the muscles, but active enough to keep the practitioner awake. The spinal column needs to be erect and in balance; this poise lets the muscles of the back relax, and this in turn allows the attention to be focussed on the breath. [7] These conditions can be met by a variety of postures with or without support, whether a cross-legged posture such as Muktasana, a kneeling posture, or sitting on a chair with the back vertical and the feet on the ground. [7] The traditional support for sitting meditation is a zafu cushion; this elevates the hips above the knees, allowing practitioners with stiff hips to have the spine straight and upright. [7]
In various traditions people meditate in other postures. People who find sitting cross-legged uncomfortable can sit upright on a straight-backed chair, flat-footed and without back support, with the hands resting on the thighs, in what is sometimes called the Egyptian position. [6]
Orthodox Christians may practice the meditation of hesychasm sitting on a stool, as was recommended by Saint Gregory of Sinai. [12]
Theravada and Zen Buddhists sometimes vary their sitting meditation by meditating while walking, often very slowly so as to be mindful of each movement. [13]
Standing meditation or zhan zhuang is practised in the Chinese martial art training system Yiquan . [14]
Yoga is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-consciousness untouched by the mind (Chitta) and mundane suffering (Duḥkha). There is a wide variety of schools of yoga, practices, and goals in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and traditional and modern yoga is practiced worldwide.
Lotus position or Padmasana is a cross-legged sitting meditation pose from ancient India, in which each foot is placed on the opposite thigh. It is an ancient asana in yoga, predating hatha yoga, and is widely used for meditation in Hindu, Tantra, Jain, and Buddhist traditions.
Ashtanga vinyasa yoga is a style of yoga as exercise popularised by K. Pattabhi Jois during the twentieth century, often promoted as a dynamic form of classical Indian (hatha) yoga. Jois claimed to have learnt the system from his teacher Tirumalai Krishnamacharya. The style is energetic, synchronising breath with movements. The individual poses (asanas) are linked by flowing movements (vinyasas).
An āsana is a body posture, originally and still a general term for a sitting meditation pose, and later extended in hatha yoga and modern yoga as exercise, to any type of position, adding reclining, standing, inverted, twisting, and balancing poses. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali define "asana" as "[a position that] is steady and comfortable". Patanjali mentions the ability to sit for extended periods as one of the eight limbs of his system. Asanas are also called yoga poses or yoga postures in English.
Pratyahara or the 'gathering towards' is the fifth element among the Eight stages of Patanjali's Ashtanga Yoga, as mentioned in his classical work, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali composed in the 2nd century BCE. It is also the first stage of the six-branch yoga (ṣaḍaṅgayoga) of the Buddhist Kālacakra tantra, where it refers to the withdrawal of the five senses from external objects to be replaced by the mentally created senses of an enlightened deity. This phase is roughly analogous to the physical isolation phase of Guhyasamāja tantra.
Pashchimottanasana, Seated Forward Bend, or Intense Dorsal Stretch is a seated forward-bending asana in hatha yoga and modern yoga as exercise. Janusirsasana is a variant with one knee bent out to the side; Upavishthakonasana has the legs straight and wide apart.
Siddhasana or Accomplished Pose is an ancient seated asana in hatha yoga and modern yoga as exercise suitable for meditation. The names Muktasana and Burmese position are sometimes given to the same pose, sometimes to an easier variant, Ardha Siddhasana. Svastikasana has each foot tucked as snugly as possible into the fold of the opposite knee.
Jain meditation has been the central practice of spirituality in Jainism along with the Three Jewels. Jainism holds that emancipation can only be achieved through meditation or shukla dhyana. According to Sagarmal Jain, it aims to reach and remain in a state of "pure-self awareness or knowership." Meditation is also seen as realizing the self, taking the soul to complete freedom, beyond any craving, aversion and/or attachment. The 20th century saw the development and spread of new modernist forms of Jain Dhyana, mainly by monks and laypersons of Śvētāmbara Jainism.
Vajrasana, Thunderbolt Pose, or Diamond Pose, is a kneeling asana in hatha yoga and modern yoga as exercise. Ancient texts describe a variety of poses under this name.
Virasana or Hero Pose is a kneeling asana in modern yoga as exercise. Medieval hatha yoga texts describe a cross-legged meditation asana under the same name. Supta Virasana is the reclining form of the pose; it provides a stronger stretch.
Simhasana or Lion Pose is an asana in hatha yoga and modern yoga as exercise.
Gomukhasana or Cow Face Pose is a seated asana in hatha yoga and modern yoga as exercise, sometimes used for meditation.
Baddha Konasana, Bound Angle Pose, Butterfly Pose, or Cobbler's Pose, and historically called Bhadrasana, Throne Pose, is a seated asana in hatha yoga and modern yoga as exercise. If the knees rest on the floor, it is suitable as a meditation seat.
Bharadvajasana or Bharadvaja's twist is a twisting asana in modern yoga as exercise.
The Vimānārcanākalpa is a 10th to 11th century text on Hatha yoga, attributed to the sage Marichi.
Mindful Yoga or Mindfulness Yoga combines Buddhist-style mindfulness practice with yoga as exercise to provide a means of exercise that is also meditative and useful for reducing stress. Buddhism and Hinduism have since ancient times shared many aspects of philosophy and practice including mindfulness, understanding the suffering caused by an erroneous view of reality, and using concentrated and meditative states to address such suffering.
Frank Jude Boccio is a teacher and one of the originators of mindful yoga. He is known both for his teaching in centres across America, and for his 2004 book Mindfulness Yoga: The Awakened Union of Breath, Body and Mind, which describes a practice that combines yoga as exercise and Buddhist meditational practice.
Ashtanga yoga is Patanjali's classification of classical yoga, as set out in his Yoga Sutras. He defined the eight limbs as yamas (abstinences), niyama (observances), asana (posture), pranayama (breathing), pratyahara (withdrawal), dharana (concentration), dhyana (meditation) and samadhi (absorption).
The Dattātreyayogaśāstra, a Vaisnava text probably composed in the 13th century CE, is the earliest text which provides a systematized form of Haṭha yoga under that name, and the earliest to place its yoga techniques under the name Haṭha.
Props used in yoga include chairs, blocks, belts, mats, blankets, bolsters, and straps. They are used in postural yoga to assist with correct alignment in an asana, for ease in mindful yoga practice, to enable poses to be held for longer periods in Yin Yoga, where support may allow muscles to relax, and to enable people with movement restricted for any reason, such as stiffness, injury, or arthritis, to continue with their practice.
