sitting meditation posture, knee health, jhana constipation

sitting meditation posture, knee health

Here's one of the most important things I've learned through experience, trial and error, regarding knee health, sitting postures, and I've tried lots of healing modalities, eastern, western.

Right mindfulness, sati and sampajano regarding the four postures, all the time. Samma sati is not just for liberation, if you train yourself to be really sensitive to what a healthy knee (and body) feels like, and what an unhealthy knee feels like, and using yoniso manasikara to investigate the causes of healthy knee feelings (smooth, empty), versus unhealthy knees (stiff, pain, joints cracking), and all the subtle grades in between,

Then when you try out different modalities, yoga, taiji, pushups, whatever, you'll start to build up a database in your mind of what the benefit of each action is, how much you need to do of each to maintain current knee health, how much is needed to improve it, etc.

There are many ways and combinations of modalities that will work, but the key is you have to do them regularly (many, many times a day).

You can be the most bendy flexible yogi in the world, but if you stay in one static posture all the time, energy in your body is going to stagnate after a while, you have to alternate movements and postures from time to time, no fixed rule, best to just train right mindfulness to be alert to whats going on so you can intuitively make adjustments.

So number one is mindfulness. This includes the memory faculty, you have to remember the different gradations of healthy to unhealthy knee feelings, what you did to improve and maintian it, and what aggravates it.

Number two is you gotta keep moving and changing postures regularly, knowing where your limitations are. If you're trying to do long sits, increase sitting times carefully and gradually if there's pain and discomfort.

If you have a sedentary job, set an alarm that forces you once on hour for (1 to 5 minutes, trial and error to determine) do some stretching and movement.

Number 3 is keep improvising, trying different things, and eventually you figure out quick efficient ways to keep all your body parts in good order.

because poor health is conditioned ever so gradually and slowly over the years, most people don't see it coming. That's why the memory aspect of right mindfulness is so important, so you remember what the good health state feels like and what you did to keep it from slipping away. Conversely with the bad. Know what you did that makes the healthy feel uncomfortable and deteriorate (samma sati + samma vayamo )

Sampajano, clear comprehensiion, moment to moment is also so important. If you clearly feel whats going on in your body, you will know how to assess and capitalize on that knowledge. You'll figure out how to do very quick, efficient actiions to maintain good health and keep it from declining. Compared to someone who is unmindfully just doing different modalities without really feeling and paying attention, you can waste a lot of time, energy, risk injury.

cjmacie knee therapy

Not to give up hope, folks...

(from a suttacentral discussion thread)

In my early 30's (1970's), my knees & hips were in bad shape -- crepitus (noisy), pain with using stairs, etc. Looking pretty dismal, and not good for the future. Probably from lots of "jogging" back in the 1960's when it was 1st fashionable, but on pavement / asphalt and with not very cushioned "tennis" shoes, as they were then.

Once a notable experience -- knees were quite problematic, working in a 2nd floor office with 20-odd steps up and down several times/day. One weekend went skiing (had been off/on), getting better at it, spent whole weekend virtually with bent knees in & out with the turning and moguls, etc. After that all knee pain and creaking GONE. Probably a combination of getting circulation really going through the tissues, and strengthening the muscles -- so the weight is carried by the muscles, not so much on the joint faces.

So, over the decades, some occasional soreness, esp right hip, but not critical nor worsening. 1980's-1990's fair amount of TaiJiQuan (TaiChiChuan) and QiGong (DaoYin), which increased tissue stamina, flexibility, and especially balance greatly.

Then about 10 years ago (ca. age 65) started "meditation", first sitting, then (probably competitively) trying other ways of sitting. Japanese style sitting on folded-under calves didn't work at all. Cushion sitting at first difficult, painful. Keeping at it, got easier with persistent (but not fanatical) practice, i.e. couple of times/week. Then started 8-10 day "Vipassana" or "Jhana" retreats, noticing the flexibility, ability to sit cross-legged, even to 1/2 lotus, continuously improving. Like going skiing for a week -- first couple of days creaky, painful; then day 3 or so onwards wonderful progress.

Now it's fairly stable -- can sit sorta 1/3-1/2 lotus, easily 1 hour; at times 1.5-2 hours. S/t come out of it and relax the knees and ankle for a minute or two and switch sides (left-over right from right-over left).

From 40-50 years ago thinking the trajectory was toward being crippled rather young, it was amazing how practice (and some care) was able to change that situation.

Then there's the admonishing of the Burmese / Mahasi monks (read about and witnessed a couple of times in weekend retreats at Tathagata Meditation Center (San Jose, Calif)) -- pain in the legs? you wussy Westerners. Just toughen through it - note it, use it in mahadhatu practice,... Seriously, at least two teachers taught as much. And the stories of Westerners visiting Burma/Myanmar and observing the locals toughening through it, even with painful, bleeding limbs. Maybe extreme, but there's something to the matter of overcoming conditioning to comfort at any cost.

Don't know about elsewhere, but at "Vipassana/Insight Meditation" movement retreats around here (Northern California, where retreat centers abound), the familiar scene -- people come early, pick their favorite spots in the mediation hall, and pitch their camp -- erect a shrine to comfort, with a couple of cushions, extra bolsters of various sorts, blankets, shawls, etc. Then going to the Tathagata Center (mostly Vietnamese devotees/yogis) -- there they take a mat, one ca. 2-inch cushion, and make do with it. Some even no mat/cushion, in 1/2 or full lotus on the hardwood floor.

Bottom line: You folks still in your 30's, 40's, 50's, not to despair. The human body is formed by what it does, and can s/t unbelievably adapt in response to function (practice).

Relaxing in taiji = passadhi-sambojjhanga

Relaxing in taiji is the same as passadhi-sambojjhanga

In Taiji, the “relax” they talk about, the key to unleashing the sublime power of internal energy (the same energy experientially felt in the 4 jhanas), is exactly the same as the bodily and mental pacification that comprise passadhi-sambojjhanga (pacification awakening factor, #5 of 7sb).

Not relaxing is what keeps people from experiencing genuine taiji power, not relaxing, or not pacifying sufficiently the body and mind in one’s samadhi, is what prevents the 4 jhanas from happening.

ZMQ (Cheng Man Ching) was a famous disciple of Yang Cheng-Fu (who needs no introduction).

The Word “Relax" in Tai Chi Chuan by Professor Cheng Man Ching (鄭曼青).

"I have been practicing Tai-Chi Chuan for over fifty years. Only recently have I started to fully understand the word “relax”. I remember my Tai-Chi Chuan teacher Yang Cheng-Fu who did not like to talk much. He used to sit all day without saying a word if no one asked him questions. However, in our T’ai-chi class he would tell us to “relax” repeatedly. Sometimes it seemed like he would say the word hundreds of times during the practice so that the word could fill up my ears. Strangely enough he also said that if he did not tell me of this word that I would not be able to learn T’ai-chi in three life-times (meaning never). I doubted his words then. Now that I think back, I truly believe that if he did not keep reminding me of the word “relax”, I doubt if I could have learned T’ai-chi Chuan in six life-times.

What is the meaning of “relax” in T’ai-chi? Here is an example to help you understand the word. When we go visit a Buddhist temple we usually see a statue of Me-Lo Buddha. The one who has a big rounded stomach with a big smile on his face. He carries a large bag on his shoulder. On top of this statue we see a motto: “Sit with a bag. Walk with a bag. It would be such a relief to drop the bag.” What does all this mean? To me, a person himself or herself is a bag. Everything he or she owns is baggage, including one’s children, family, position and wealth. It is difficult to drop any of one’s baggage, especially the “self” bag.

T’ai-chi Chuan is difficult to learn. To relax in practicing T’ai-chi Chuan is the most difficult phase to go through. To relax a person’s mind is the most significant obstacle to overcome in practicing T’ai-Chi. It takes a great effort to train and exercise one’s mind to relax.

jhana constipation

There’s a saying that on average it takes 10 years of taiji practice before one actually becomes a beginner (accumulates enough internal energy to the point where one can tangibly feel and work with said energy).

It’s a subtle art. But it’s actually ridiculously easy. Exactly in the same way, first jhana, and getting micro spurts of second jhana is actually incredibly easy. You just have to train yourself how to fully relax properly (physically and mentally). Just as with taiji, jhana is the same, in that it won’t match the sutta descriptions of jhana bliss at first, for most people, even when you’re doing the method correctly.

For most people, you’ll be stuck in a jhana constipation phase for a long time. What this phase feels like is body pain and discomfort. So even though you’re doing the relaxing (passadhi-bojjhanga) correctly, people will just associate correct meditation with physical pain and not want to continue. This is really the main difficulty with jhana attainment, is people don’t have the patience to wait for all the energy blockages to melt (it can take years). It’s like a hen sitting on an egg, it takes time.

Internal energy is the ability to produce heat, force, luminosity on demand. The energy blockages (felt as pain and constipation) melts from heat and force. A good second jhana literally feels like glaciers (cold, stiff regions) in your face, chest, have melted into torrential rivers of piti sukha juice flooding everywhere.

Ice melts into pitisukha juice, piti sukha juice is further refined into just sukha vapor (3rd jhana), and the sukha vapor is sublimated into luminosity and emptiness (4th jhana).

Jhana is actually ridiculously easy to do, it’s just that it won’t feel like a proper jhana at first, and people don’t have the belief and mental fortitude to persist in the practice. Usually when people start to believe is when they get a partial jhana experience, maybe on a 10 day retreat, one of the main energy channels partially melts, you still have body pain but you get some partial bliss, then you start to believe in the process.

If you nourish viriya, the internal vital energy experientially felt as heat and force, then this becomes your viriya-sambojjhanga. If you follow the worldly way (non celibacy), maybe when you’re young and healthy you can still get various stages of jhana occasionally, but you wonder why your results are inconsistent and unstable. And when you get older, you wonder why jhana doesn’t appear at all even though you’re still doing the technique correctly.

Celibacy, keeping 8 precepts well, noble silence is what nourishes your internal energy, making the heat, force strong enough to melt all energetic blockages. For the lay people who get a little taste of jhana, and believe in the process, but fail to progress, probably what kills them is lack of celibacy. When the heat, force, start to build up, the body and mind become virile, health becomes vigorous, and the way lay people respond to this is by trying to get laid or masturbating. When you do that, you lose heat and force. And you never make net progress because you always take one step forward and then one or two big steps backward. And then life ends, what a waste.

Summary:

Jhana is ridculously easy to do, it just won’t feel like jhana unless you have the patience to work through the (usually painful) process of the energy blockages melting. The way people respond to pain is to start thinking (which kills the passadhi-bojjhanga) or stop samadhi practice altogether thinking it doesn’t work.

Lay people also kill their jhana potential by trying to get laid and/or masturbating. This kills your heat and force, the tools that melt the energetic blockages.

relax, 2. celibacy, 3. noble silence

knotty36

Greetings Frankk,

Very interesting post! Of course, I don’t know you, but it comes across like views based on personal experience more so than theoretical speculation. In any case, I’d be interested in hearing your response to a question I have for you.

Regarding…

What, then, would you say about the sexual cultivation of energy? Obviously, very firmly entrenched in the same culture which gave birth to Taiji, what relation would you say it has to the cultivation of jhana? Honestly, I have my own thoughts; but, again, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to hear your views without any interference from my own.

frankk

38m

Besides just following AN 3.16, with alternating 4 postures as needed (instead of sitting all the time), you can really speed up the process of opening blocked energy channels with good exercises.

This is a big topic, so I’m not going to drop too much information and overwhelm you, but I have done meditation, yoga, taiji, qigong, for decades, and I have a lot of experience of what works and doesn’t work. If I’m recommending an excercise, among the millions of options out there, there’s a very good reason for it.

sun salutation:

A Very Slow, Very Easy Yoga Sun Salutation

I would advise those of you practicing brahmacariya, celibacy, in the pure EBT sense (no sex, no masturbation, not even one microsecond of lustful thought), don’t casually browse around on youtube randomly looking at exercise videos on the related videos sidebar. Your best bet is find a youtube video downloader, download the specifically curated videos I’ve recommended. Turn off wireless on your computer/phone most of the time, only turn on wireless when you go at safesites like suttacentral, do only what’s necessary, then turn wireless off, and turn your computer/phone off. Delete your facebook account, keep your phone in airplane mode as much as you can, get the slowest internet connection speed you can get away with. The faster your internet connection, the more you’ll be tempted to consume rich media. The slower and more sluggish your internet, the sooner you want to turn off your computer out of frustration.

This yoga video is really sublime. The guy is doing something that I thought I invented. Yoga tends to only hit orthogonal angles. You can open up your world by adding little twists turns to every yoga pose, and every subsection of several yoga sequence and pose, improvising and hitting angles of body tissue that the standard basic never addresses.

Before and after every sitting meditation, I exercise at least 5 minutes (some combo of yoga, taiji, qigong). In the sun salutation, the one part that I especially spend a lot of extra time on is the upward facing dog portion. In the video, the yogi turns left to right slowly, from the crocodile part before upward facing dog (backbend). I do that too, but I’m more flexible so my range of movement is way more turned than his is. I’m saying this not to brag, but to point out that you can really open the your hatha yoga practice by adding improvised twists and turns and undulations, circles and spirals into the framework. If you do 5 minutes before and after every sit, eventually you’re going to be really flexible.

opening eight extraordinary meridians

Eight Extraordinary Meridian Meditation Method/開通八脈法

This is an excellent way of doing step 3 of 16 APS (anapana). My suggestion to improve this taoist exercise would be don’t force your breath to coordinate exactly with the sequence in the video. Never forget the prime directive of taiji, and passadhi-bojjhanga (pacification awakening factor) - relax (body and mind), every moment all the way, all the time. The main purpose of the sequence is to stop vitakka and vicara (thinking and evaluation), to develop sensitivity to the movement of 4 dhatu experientially, combined with 16 APS, all in a completely relaxed way. Once you’re well versed in that exercise, you can try coordinating inhales and exhales as they suggest, but it’s not important to do that. What melts blocked energy channels is relaxation and noble silence. The exact sequencing of inhale exhale is more of an aesthetic.

neck exercises, especially the turtle (around 6min mark)

Hunyuan Taiji Silkreeling - Neck

When I was young, I had a desk job and got carpal tunnel syndrome. My hands were cold all the time, my wrists hurt, I went to the doctor. This was western medicine’s best strategy: They gave my a wrist brace to wear, and they had a name for the cold hands “renauad syndrome.” What a joke. They named the problem and gave me a extra pad for the mouse pad and a cast to keep my wrist immobile. If my problem was worse they’d probably prescribe painkillers. This was when I started to look seriously into yoga and qigong with earnest. When you’re in pain, you’re motivated.

The neck turns and neck circles are kind of obvious things to do, but the turtle qigong is really sublime, this is the exercise that I swore by, of all the qigong and yoga I ever learned. I didn’t just do it 9 reps in one set, once a day. I did it every hour. I did it every half an hour. And I fixed “renauds syndrome” without drugs, without wearing a stupid cast, by doing the opposite of what western “medicine” prescribed. Instead of immobilize my wrist, I made sure I moved it as much as possible, as well as my neck, my shoulders, my spine, every vertebrae in the spine. When I first try to do the neck exercise, I felt like a mannequin, my spine felt like it was just a single iron bar that could bend slightly. After a few months, my spine felt like two warm iron segments, after a year, 3 segments. After 10 years, I can feel every single vertebrae independently. It took over 10 years to get my hands really warm and comfortable. A big part of the problem was my mostly vegan diet. A meat eater, would probably fix the problem in less than a year doing the qigong I did to fix carpal tunnel and renauds sydrome.

bagua whirlwind palm

Wu family Baguazhang whirlwing palms organ/spine resetting video promo

I came across this video, I never did this exercise before, but I know its good. Not just good, spectacular. It’s similar to some other exercises I do, but this one is like a superset, it combines stretching, circling, and spiraling motions.

notes on the Dhamma

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