January Round-Up

There's just two more days of this month and the "sitting challenge," before we move on to a whole new Daily Practice. I'd love to hear from those of you who had committed to sitting every day as to how it went. What kind of resistances did you find? Were you able to begin again if you missed a day or two or three? What keeps you from sitting when it's something you want to do?

I'll be posting a new practice for February tomorrow morning, but I do hope that you will continue to sit every day. And remember, consistency is perhaps more important than the quantity of time you put in. While it seems that for most of us, a good solid 15 - 20 minutes is a good minimum for touching the stillness that is possible to touch in sitting practice, it is still better to sit every day for five minutes than for one or two or three times a week for an hour.

Thank you for practicing!

frank jude

JANUARY DAILY PRACTICE: Some words of encouragement

If you are relatively new to sitting meditation practice, it may help to consider the following: Create a comfortable, private space to sit. It could be a corner of your bedroom, a walk-in closet or wherever you can have privacy. After even only a few days, the consistency of sitting in the same place will lead to a greater ease in letting go of other concerns and settling into 'just sitting.' The same thing goes with time: it's best, if possible, to sit at the same time(s) each day.

Sit so that your knees are lower than the top of your pelvis (the iliac crest). If you are sitting on a cushion, sit toward the front of it so that your pelvis tilts slightly so that your lumbar spine maintains its natural curve. If you are sitting on the floor, and your knees do not come to the ground, bring the ground up to your knees by supporting your outer thighs with rolled blankets or yoga blocks. You want to feel completely supported. As Patanjali describes asana, your posture should be stable and easeful.

Let your jaw be relaxed; perhaps your lips are even slightly parted. Eyes can be closed or partially open, but in either event, have your eyes rolled downward, as this helps stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system responsible for the relaxation response.

Rest your hands on your thighs, palms up or down, whichever you prefer OR use a traditional meditation mudra.


Decide before you sit how long you plan to sit and then sit there that long! Don't cut it short 'because it's not working' or because you're bored or think of something better to do! If at the end of the time, you'd like to sit longer, that's fine.

Sitting quietly, feel what is sitting. Feel the body 'in the body.'
Observe the ever-changing sensations and see if you can stay at the level of sensation and not rush to judge or mentally describe them.

Go into the sensation and see if you can realize the subtle presence of that which senses. Feel the sensation within the sensation.
Rest in just sitting.

Can you locate that which senses? Is there a defined boundary of that which is aware?

Let this be simple. Don't try to be 'spiritual.' Just sit free of any inner seeking for attainment. Let go of strategizing and simply be present to your life breath by breath. Practice radical acceptance.

Remember, there's room for all of it on your cushion (or chair).

metta
frank jude

JANUARY DAILY PRACTICE: Just Sit

For the beginning of a new year (and new decade at that) I think it could benefit all of us to get back to basics. A daily practice of sitting meditation has been shown to offer numerable benefits – most recently, a study shows that meditators age slower than the general public, most likely because of higher levels of telomerase, an enzyme that has to do with longevity.

And yet, though we know sitting is “good” for us, we find resistance to actually doing it! But the other day I read the following from Cheri Huber to my Mindfulness Yoga class:

Sitting in meditation opens our hearts. What wants to sit? Who we really are. What wants to be still? Stillness. The quiet, the peace, the well-being wants to be with itself, wants to experience itself. So when we sit, even if it’s a fidgeting, wiggling, hate-every-moment-of-it sit, what is sitting is that deepest part of us.

Continuing to sit reinforces that part of us who wants to sit. It also reveals the nature of the ego onslaught. Seeing that, our hearts open a little bit, and as our hearts open, there is more kindness. There is more ability to be present, to be open to and aware of something other than the conditioned structure that is maintaining itself against the inherent goodness of life.

It can certainly seem as if the person who wants to sit disappears as soon as we hit the cushion. We are bombarded with everything in the world, all our conditioned patterns, all our resistance, all our suffering. But that is all right, because there is room on that cushion for all that to be there, along with who we really are.

I love this passage because it reminds me of what Dogen Zengi says: that our sitting is already the expression of our inherent buddha-nature. We do not sit to become buddha, but express our awakening nature by and through sitting – even if a storm of emotion and thought is also happening!

So, if you have been thinking of starting a sitting practice; or if you have one that feels ‘stalled’; or if you sit regularly, let January be the month you really commit to ‘just sit.’ Don’t even think of it as something special: “I’m meditating now.” You don’t have to sit on the floor. Sit on a chair if your uncomfortable sitting on the floor. Don’t make a big deal of it. Just sit.

Take the next 30 days as a “Sitting Challenge.” You can commit to whatever you wish, but stick to it. Your commitment might be to sit one hour a day, either in one 60-minute block or two 30-minute sits or even three 20-minute sits. You can commit to sitting for ten minutes or even five minutes. At the very least, you can commit, as Jack Kornfield suggests, to ‘get your ass on the cushion.’ You will most likely find that getting your ass on the cushion is the hardest part, but once you do get onto the cushion (or chair) you’ll find you can indeed sit still for at least five minutes!

Please share your experiences, insights and questions.

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meaness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

-- Rumi