Skip to main content

FLT: cross leg sitting, right leg over left or vice versa?




Question on sitting posture


Question
So i have been sitting now regularly for about 3 and a half years, always in half lotus. I sit with my right foot on the left thigh and i'm very comfortable, however i can't do it the other way around. I'm wondering if this might lead to some sort of imbalance over longer time, especially because by family i have a quite rigid musculature even though i'm quite young. Are there any people with experiences of this kind on here and what did you do?
Thanks for any help

Here are my notes that I'm compiling into a book.


I've been sitting for over 3 decades, often intensively for over 6 hours per day. At the beginning of my path I could sit full lotus for about 5 minutes, most of the time I sat half lotus, or no lotus, with meditation cushion.

I stretch everyday (yoga, taiji, and common sense stretching) of hips and legs, and gradually improved flexibility. Now I sit 2 to 3 hours at a time in full lotus, no meditation cushion. All done gradually over time.

I do at least a few minutes of stretching/yoga before and after each sit.

 I found that it's much more effective, rather than doing all the yoga and stretching in one session a day for 60min, instead do anywhere between one to 15 min. many many times throughout the day. So spending the same amount of daily time stretching cummulatively, but stagger out many micro sessions as needed. Because depending on your lifestyle and habits, your body is going to stiffen up throughout the day, always do things to melt the tension and not let it calcify. You don't drink all the water you need once per day, your body would just pee most of it out. So treat stretching with the same mentality.

And each sit I do, I alternate whether I use left leg over right or vice versa so I no longer have a strong or weak side, they're balanced.

 I don't know that there is a 'correct direction' (left leg over right or vice versa) for cross leg seating. In the EBT (early buddhist texts) all that is mentioned is bending oneself into cross leg posture (pallankam abujhitva) and sitting with body straight (ujum kayam panidaya).



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Advice to younger meditators on jhāna, sex, porn, masturbation

Someone asked: Is porn considered harmful sexual.activity? I don't have a sex life because I don't have a partner and I don't wish to engage in casual sex so I use porn to quench the biological urge to orgasm. I can't see that's it's harmful because nobody is being forced into it. The actors are all paid well and claim to enjoy it etc. The only harm I can see is that it's so accessible these days on smart devices and so children may access it but I believe that this is the parents responsibility to not allow unsupervised use of devices etc. Views? Frankk response: In another thread, you asked about pleasant sensations and jhāna.  I'm guessing you're young, so here's some important advice you won't get from suttas   if you're serious about jhāna.  (since monastics are already celibate by rule)   If you want to attain stable and higher jhānas,   celibacy and noble silence to the best of your ability are the feedstock and prerequiste to tha...
Post a Comment
Read more

SN 48.40 Ven. Thanissaro comments on Ven. Sunyo's analysis

This was Ven. Sunyo's analysis of SN 48.40: https://notesonthedhamma.blogspot.com/2024/05/exciting-news-honest-ebt-scholars-like.html And here is Ven. Thanissaro's response to that analysis: I think there’s a better way to tackle the issue of SN 48:40 than by appealing to the oldest layers of commentarial literature. That way is to point out that SN 48:40, as we have it, doesn’t pass the test in DN 16 for determining what’s genuine Dhamma and what’s not. There the standard is, not the authority of the person who’s claiming to report the Buddha’s teachings, but whether the teachings he’s reporting are actually in accordance with the principles of the Dhamma that you know. So the simple fact that those who have passed the Buddha’s teachings down to us say that a particular passage is what the Buddha actually taught is not sufficient grounds for accepting it. In the case of the jhānas—the point at issue here— we have to take as our guide the standard formula for the jhānas, a...
Post a Comment
Read more

1min. video: Dalai Lama kissing boy and asking him to suck his tongue

To give more context, this is a public event,  * everyone knows cameras are rolling  *  it's a room full of children * the boy's mom is standing off camera a few feet away watching all of this * the boy initiated contact, he had already had a hug with Dalai Lama earlier and then asked Dalai Lama for another hug which triggered this segment  17 min. video showing what happened before that 1 min. clip and after, with some explanation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT0qey5Ts78 16min talk from Ajahn Acalo with his thoughts on Dalai Lama kissing boy, relevance to Bhikkhu monastic code, sexual predators in religion in general, and how celibate monastics deal with sexual energy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK2m0TcUib0 The child's comments about the incident in a filmed interview later https://www.marca.com/en/lifestyle/world-news/2023/04/18/643eba5d46163ffc078b457c.html The child: It's a great experience It was amazing to meet His Holiness and I think it's a great ex...
Post a Comment
Read more