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In this episode, I’m going to address a question submitted by Anitta.

 Anitta writes:

I’ve noticed that when I meditate the thoughts or memories that rise up in my mind [are] often hurtful, unpleasant and negative. I’ve become pretty good on letting them go, noticing but not following them. It feels good to notice that I don’t _need_ to follow them, that I can simply choose not to think about the all bad stuff that used to dwell in my mind all the time before I started to meditate. I’ve also noticed that even when I’m not meditating it seems to be easier for me to concentrate on the good and neutral things – or not to judge things at all to be good, neutral and bad. This makes life easier, lighter even, if you understand what I mean.

How ever, I sometimes wonder if this is a form of denial. If and when bad memories or very hurtful thoughts arise during the meditation (or just when my mind idles during other normal daily activities), should I maybe take some time later to deal with them? And if so, what would be the best way to process them? Or is the answer simply to let go and stop over analysing?

This is a great question, Anitta. Thanks for asking.

Let’s explore denial, first. Then we can address the question of whether and how to examine negative thoughts and memories more deeply.

Letting go of thoughts, memories and reactions isn’t the same as denying them. To deny your negative reactions is to pretend they don’t exist. Denial involves keeping yourself from acknowledging negative events and your emotional reactions to them. Letting go, on the other hand, involves acknowledging what’s happening, noticing your reactions, then deciding they don’t serve you well enough to hold onto.

We define mindfulness as awareness without judgement. Awareness, acknowledgement, is the first part. Letting go is the second part, the non-judgement part. What you’re doing is fully accepting the negative then deciding not to dwell on it or cling to it.

Letting go of your reactions fosters clarity, because your thoughts and memories are less clouded by your own emotions. You’re calmer, so you can be more deliberate in the way you choose to react. You can react in a way that leads to more helpful and healthy outcomes for both you and others.

All of this means you can choose whether to let go forever, explore in more detail, or react in some way. What I’m saying is that mindfulness allows you a choice you might not otherwise get.

 

This Week's Peaceful Moment: Coyote, Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada (this image is copyright protected)

 

But, Annita asked, should you revisit the thoughts and memories at a later time? After a meditation session, should you go back and explore the negative thought or event using a more analytical approach?

Maybe yes, maybe no. It is a personal choice and it depends on the thought or the event. Sometimes, the healthiest thing to do is just let go completely. I was reminded of this the other day. A fellow instructor asked me to attend a meeting. I said I’d try, but then I brushed off the meeting, because I really didn’t want to attend. The day after the meeting, the instructor walked by me in the hall. He didn’t stop to chat as he normally does and he scowled as he said “Hello.” I quite mindlessly concluded that he was upset with me for missing the meeting (a conclusion based on my own guilty emotional reaction). When I later apologized to him, he said, “Oh, no worries. I just thought you might like to attend, but in the end I didn’t go, either.

 

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Have you taken an unplanned break in your meditation routine? Are you looking to get back on track? Here’s how to go about it successfully.

Getting back on track after a break doesn’t have to be difficult. All you have to do is let go of any negative feelings about the break, and follow a solid plan to re-create your meditation habit.

Let go and forgive

You may or may not have sour feelings about the break in your routine. If you do, it’s important to let go of them. Otherwise, they can create resistance to starting again, making it much harder to get going.

There is a host of negative reactions that might be coming up for you. Perhaps you blame yourself. You think you weren’t diligent enough to stick to your practice and you’re disappointed in yourself. Or maybe you believe you were the victim of an event that disrupted your meditation plans, and you consequently feel aggravated and helpless.

No matter what you’re feeling, to move forward, you need to accept that there was a break in your routine. It’s just what happened and now it’s time to move on. Assigning blame won’t help you get back on track. Neither will feeling hurt, irritated, discouraged, etc.

 

This Week's Peaceful Moment

In meditation practice, we have a saying: Every breath is a chance to begin anew.

Try this. Imagine yourself holding a coin between your thumb and index finger, your arm extended out in front of your body. Now, imagine yourself letting go of that coin, so it drops to the floor. It’s easy to drop that coin, isn’t it? Believe it or not, it’s just as easy to let go of blame, guilt, and all the other negative reactions you may have to the break in your routine. Just drop it.

Reflect

It’s worthwhile to briefly reflect on the reasons for your break to see if you can identify ways to better structure your practice going forward. It is, however, imperative that you forgive and let go, first! Otherwise, reflection will likely feed the negative emotions. It will also be less effective, because it won’t be objective.

Here are some reflection questions to guide you:

Did I set a reminder to meditate or did I try to chain my meditation to another habit? Was my reminder effective? Did I chain to the wrong habit? 

Was I trying to do too much, e.g., to meditate for too long in a given sitting?

Did I remember to reward myself for meditating? Was my reward adequate? Did I reward myself every time I meditated?

Was I trying to meditate at an inconvenient time or an unsuitable place?

Did I take any steps to adjust my practice once I noticed it wasn’t working well?

Did an event come up to disrupt me? If so, did I try to change my practice to work around it?

Any insights gained through reflection can be combined with the strategies below to structure your meditation routine.

Start small

To foster success, start with only as much meditation as you know you can do successfully, because success breeds success. Every time you meditate as planned, you increase the chances of meditating the next time.

There is nothing wrong with starting very small. I recommend building a new meditation habit by taking just three mindful breaths every day for a week or two, then increasing to  1 minute of meditation every day. Check out episode 66 at mindful15.com/reward for full instructions on structuring a habit successfully, and if you’d like more help,

 

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Sometimes, meditation feels like a struggle, but the points where we feel challenged are typically the best opportunities for growth in our practice. I know, if I’m feeling restless, bored, upset, frustrated… there’s something I need to learn to accept, something to which I need to apply non-judgemental awareness.

It can be difficult to sit on those challenging days, and very tempting to get up and and walk away. Of course, if you get up, you miss the opportunity to learn. Sometimes, a little attitude shift, a little re-orientation, is all that’s needed to keep you sitting in meditation.

This episode is inspired by what I learned in a guided meditation by Gil Fronsdal of the Insight Meditation Center in California. Gil is an inspiring and helpful meditation teacher. I listen to him regularly, and you can find his guided meditations and dharma talks at audiodharma.org.

 

This Week's Peaceful Moment

 

In the meditation, Gil coached us to find ease in our meditation, to sit easily with our breath. And, he said, if something came up to disturb this sense of ease, we could try to find ease with it, too. This coaching allowed me to relax into distractions and allow them to be present without feeling any dis-ease over their presence.

Would you like to give it a try?

Let's try a guided meditation with a build-in reflection period

For a 12-minute guided meditation to bring ease to your practice, forward the podcast or the video above to 1:24.

Next Week:

I hope you were able to cultivate a sense of ease during our meditation.  Don’t forget we publish a new mindfulness lesson every week on the Mindful15 Podcast. Next week, I’ll show you how to bounce back after a pause in your meditation practice.

If you’d like a reminder email, just go to mindful15.com/subscribe and subscribe to our newsletter. I’ll let you know when new lessons are online and I’ll also send you a free deep relaxation along with a copy of Your Meditation Action Plan, our step-by-step guide to building a healthy meditation habit that lasts a lifetime.

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When you notice a thought arising during meditation, you are coached to let go of that thought and return your attention to the breath. But, this is easier said than done, especially on days when your mind is very active. I have an alternative to struggling with your busy mind.

Through meditation, you learn to notice and accept the present moment, without judging it. Thoughts are simply phenomena that can arise in the moment. They can be noticed and let go.

In the beginning, most of us are not very good at accepting our thoughts without engaging with them. This skill requires a lot of practice, and even seasoned practitioners are sometimes challenged by their thoughts.

 

Peaceful Moment of the Week

 

The thing that typically stands in the way of accepting a thought is your reaction to it. Perhaps a memory of an argument pops into your mind and, before you realize it, you’re feeling aggravated and resentful. Or, maybe you think about that cute cat video you saw this morning on YouTube and automatically feel amused. These reactions can lead you into further thought. Recalling an argument might lead you to ruminate over all the things you should have said, for example.

The fact that you even had a thought, any thought, might also cause reactions. It’s common for meditators to feel frustrated, unsettled, or perturbed when thoughts come up. These reactions can be pronounced if you believe that your goal is to shut off your thoughts. (Once again, let me be clear: Meditation is NOT about getting rid of thoughts.) 

Learning to let go of thoughts typically occurs in three phases. Phase one involves learning to notice thoughts as they’re arising. Phase two is noticing your reactions to thoughts. Phase three is accepting your reactions so you can let them, and the thoughts go. It takes time and practice to progress through these phases.

On days when your mind is particularly noisy, practice can feel challenging - no matter which of the three phases you’re in. Here’s an exercise you can do on busy mind days.

Reflection Exercise for Busy Mind Days

This is an exercise that you turn to during a meditation session. While meditating, if you find yourself becoming frustrated with thoughts arising, or you feel you cannot meditate effectively because your mind is too active, stop meditating, and reflect, instead.

1. Stay in your meditation posture, with eyes closed.

2. Let go of your focus on the breath. You may still be aware of your breath in the background and that’s okay.

3. Reflect on the thoughts that were coming up. Don’t analyze them or look for what caused them. Instead, ask yourself the following questions:

When you noticed a thought come up, what did you notice?

How did you react to the thought?

How did the thought make you feel?

What, if any judgements did you make?

What actions did you take?

How do you feel right now? Take the time to notice not just your emotional responses, but how your body actually feels. How does your emotional responses manifest in your physical body.

4. If your mind is calmer, you can let go of the reflection and return to meditating. Just gently bring your attention back to your breath. But, it’s okay to choose to stick with reflection, instead. You could also cycle between reflection and meditation. Just cycle slowly and deliberately.

This exercise is effective, because it allows you to turn your attention toward something that is already stealing your a...

 

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I have a feeling that some will look at today’s episode title and scoff. They’ll think, “I already know how to meditate.” I hope you’ll give this episode just a little time, though. I believe it’s worthwhile to review basics now and again, because over time, it’s easy to become rigid about how to practice correctly, and this rigidity can get in the way or practicing successfully.

Fundamentally, there are three steps to meditation:

* Focus your attention on your breath.

* Notice when your attention wanders away from the breath.

* Bring your attention back to the breath.

That’s it. If you’re doing those steps, you’re doing it right!

The problem with best practices, guidelines, and rules

Meditation is simple. But you know it’s not easy. And that’s where best practices and guidelines can help - as long as they don’t become rigid rules.

Look, Mindful15 is all about presenting you with tips, tricks, and guidelines to help you succeed in your meditation and mindfulness practices. For example, I open every guided meditation with instructions for adjusting your posture. Why? Because proper posture allows you to sit stably and comfortably, thus making it easier to focus on the breath. But the truth is, you can meditate in any posture!

And, it’s important to understand that good posture is a guideline, not a rule. Knowing this gives you permission to meditate lying down on a day when your back aches. It tells you it’s okay to meditate on a park bench that forces you into a slouchy position. In other words, it doesn’t ever prevent you from practicing.

 

Peaceful Moment of the Week

 

Here’s my opinion on meditation lessons of all kinds: You should be open to what they have to teach you. Try them out. See if they help. Discard them when they don’t. Trying new strategies can help you navigate around things that might cause difficulty in your practice. But never adopt them as rules.

If you ever wonder whether you’re practicing correctly, all you have to do is go back to the basics.

But what about steps 2 and 3, you ask? When you notice your mind wandering, you can experience disappointment, frustration, anger, and a whole host of other negative emotions. These can make it difficult to get back to the breath. That’s true.

It takes practice to learn to let go of these negative emotions and come back to the breath. Actually, it takes time to even notice that these emotions are coming up. Then, it takes even more time and practice to learn to let go of them.

But you see, that’s exactly what you learn when you follow the three basic steps over and over. These steps instruct you quite plainly to notice distractions then refocus attention on the breath. They don’t say anything about feeling negative emotions, do they? If you keep working at just coming back to the breath, like the steps tell you to, you’ll learn to let go of reactions. Yes it’s tough. Yes, it takes patient practice, but the steps don’t steer you wrong.

Just follow the steps. (And come back to Mindful15 for some trips and tricks to make this easier.)

Invitation to meditate

For a 10-minute Back to Basics meditation, forward the podcast or the video above to 3:04.

Next Week:

Next week, somewhat ironically I suppose, I’ll have a new tip for you. I’m going to show you how to use reflection to deal with an overly busy mind. If you want to know when the new lesson goes online,

 

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At the end of some of my guided meditations, I coax you to set an intention to take your mindful state of mind with you as you move from the meditation into the rest of your day. But, why bother? Because setting an intention helps to lead you where you want to go.

Intention matters. In a study of long term meditators, D. H. Shapiro found that the results meditators achieved correlated with their intentions (1). Those who intended to pursue self-exploration achieved self-exploration. Those who wanted self-regulation attained self-regulation.

It’s easy to use intention to your advantage. Here are three ways to use intentions in your mindfulness practice:

1. Use intention to focus or to overcome obstacles during meditation

If, for example, you find it challenging to sit for 10 minutes, you might start today’s session by setting the intention to sit for the full 10 minutes no matter what comes up for you in meditation. You might set a timer for 10 minutes, get into meditation posture, close your eyes, focus on your breath, and say to yourself, “I intend to meditate until the bell sounds.”

You can go even further and add an intention about how you plan to deal with a challenge, “I intend to meditate until the bell sounds, and if I begin to feel restless, I will take one deep, relaxing breath.”

Setting an intention puts you in a mind set. It focuses your attention on what you want to accomplish. And, it can help remind you of an obstacle-handling strategy you want to apply.

Here’s another example. Perhaps you routinely find yourself getting frustrated or upset when a thought distracts your attention during meditation. You know that your reaction is not helpful, so you set this intention at the beginning of your meditation session: “I intend to be patient and kind with myself whenever I notice negative reactions to thoughts.”

 

This Week's Peaceful Moment: A Robin

 

2. Use intention to perform your daily activities mindfully

Intentions related to mindful daily activities can be broad or tightly-focused. First thing in the morning, for example, you might set an intention for the entire day: “I intend to be mindful of my reactions to other people today,” or “I intend to take three mindful breaths each time I pass through a doorway.”

But, you can also be quite specific: “During this meeting, I intend to be mindful of what Sanya says so I can truly understand her point of view.

3. Use intention to strengthen meditation habit-building efforts

If you’re working on creating a meditation habit, intentions can boost your efforts. In this case, you might use the same intention every day for several days or weeks, reinforcing your overall goal: “I intend to practice meditation today,” or “I intend to remember to reward myself once I’ve meditated.”

No matter what kind of intention you create, once you’ve set it, don’t ruminate about it, or fret over whether you’ll achieve it. Set it deliberately and then relax into it.

Reference:

Shapiro, D.H. (1992). A preliminary study of long term meditators: Goals, effects, religious orientation, cognitions. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 24(1), 23–39.

Invitation to meditate

For a 12-minute guided meditation including intention setting, forward the podcast or the video above to 2:07.

Next Week:

To follow up on our discussion about intention, next week, we’re going to explore goals. Do you have a meditation goal? Should you? Is it okay if your goal is different from some...

 

 

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When we set goals, we often look ahead to the finish line. We determine what we want to achieve and give ourselves a deadline by which we should achieve it. For example, your goal might be, “I want to establish a meditation habit by the end of this month.” Sometimes, we don’t even give ourselves a deadline in the future. We just expect ourselves to enact the behaviour immediately, e.g., “I am going to meditate every day.” When we fail to achieve our goal by the deadline, chances are good we’ll give up.

What’s missing from this goal-setting effort is an implementation plan. Reaching a goal typically involves performing small goal-directed behaviours on a consistent and regular basis. If, for example, you want to lose 10 pounds by summer, you need to make good eating choices every day between now and summer. It is the accumulation of little behaviours that leads to success.

If you want to establish a meditation habit, you need to meditate every day. Habits are created by consistently performing a behaviour and rewarding yourself for it. If you are inconsistent in performing the behaviour or in rewarding yourself, you won’t reach the goal. 

 

Peaceful Moment of the Week

 

To reach your goal, then, focus less on the end state and the deadline and focus more on those little, everyday, behaviours required to be successful.  Plan those well and schedule them appropriately, and you’re well on your way to reaching your goal.

To structure your goal-directed activities, follow these steps:

Set the goal. Be specific and clear.

Set the deadline, if applicable.

Determine the actions required to reach the goal. These must be achievable, and sufficient to reach the goal.

Schedule those actions, allowing yourself enough time to perform them.

Be aware that, during steps 3 and 4, you can go back and adjust both the goal and the deadline to better accommodate the actions and their schedule.

Imagine you decide to build a meditation habit in 12 weeks. This goal isn’t specific enough, so you clarify: At the end of 12 weeks, you want to be meditating 15 minutes every day, and you want that behaviour to be habitual.

Now, determine what you have to do to reach that goal. You could simply sit down to meditate every day for 15 minutes. The problem with this plan is it’s likely that you’ll have trouble sticking to this schedule in the beginning. In other words, this plan is not achievable. If you miss some days, you put yourself at risk of failing to reach your goal.

A more achievable plan is to start small, with daily meditation sessions that are easier to do and, therefore, less likely to fail. Over time, you’ll increase the meditation length until you bump it up to 15 minutes at the end of 12 weeks.

You might start with 1 minute of meditation in week 1, then bump up to 2 minutes in week 2, 3 minutes in week 3, etc. Of course to reach 15 minutes at week 12, some of you bump ups have to be bigger than 1 minute. Perhaps in weeks 10, 11, and 12, you’ll increase meditation time by 2 minutes.

Or, you could decide that the 1-minute increase per week is ideal, so you change the deadline from 12 weeks to 15 weeks. Both of these plans are achievable and the actions are sufficient to get you to your goal.

This focus on schedules over deadlines reduces overwhelm. Instead of looking far forward to a goal that might seem difficult to achieve,

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We’ve talked about how to improve willpower, how to create a habit and apply flexibility when troubleshooting your habit-building plan. But, we’re not done yet. I firmly believe, if you’re meditation goal matters, you should use every success-promoting tool you can find. Today, I’m sharing another of my favourites: visualization for overcoming obstacles. This technique can help you anticipate obstacles, plan strategies to deal with them, and mentally practice those strategies to boost your chances at success.

This technique is very simple. There are three steps:

1. Create a list of obstacles that could prevent you from achieving your meditation goals. Perhaps, you might become frustrated when outside noises intrude on your meditation, or maybe your kids are likely to interrupt your sitting. Write them down so you have a record you can review and update over time.

2. For each obstacle, document how you plan to deal with it successfully. If you become frustrated by noise during meditation, for example, you might plan to notice the interruption, take a calming deep breath, say to yourself “just noise,” and return your focus to the breath. If your kids interrupt your meditation, you might plan to slowly open your eyes, calmly remind them you are meditating, and ask them to respect your practice by waiting until you’re finished.

3. Visualize yourself enacting your plans successfully. Sit for just 3 - 4 minutes per day in a quiet place. Close your eyes. Imagine yourself meditating peacefully. After a minute or two, imagine the obstacle come up, then imagine yourself successfully enacting your planned response to it.

 

This Week's Peaceful Moment: A Chilly Fox

 

Visualization tips

Visualize only one obstacle per session. You could visualize a different one every day, or stick to one for several days, before moving to another.

Visualize often. Daily is ideal. It might be easiest to remember to visualize if you add your visualization session onto your daily meditation session, either at the beginning or the end.

Involve all of your senses in the visualization to make it as rich as possible. Imagine what you’re wearing, where you’re sitting, the time of day, the lighting, the temperature, how your body feels, what you hear, what you smell, etc. Don’t forget to imagine how you feel, especially after you’ve overcome the obstacle.

Let’s give it a try. Before we move on, stop this recording and think about one obstacle that might come up for you. Create a plan for overcoming it. Turn the recording on again to practice visualizing.

Practice visualizing now

For a 5-minute guided visualization to help you overcome obstacles to success, forward the podcast or the video above to 3:04.

 

Next Week:

Next week’s episode makes the case that practice schedules trump deadlines when it comes to self-improvement projects such as creating a meditation habit. If you sign up for the Mindful15 newsletter, you’ll be notified when it goes online. And when you confirm your subscription,

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Last week, I made the case that building a habit is the best way to reach your meditation goals, because habits eliminate the need for that unreliable resource, willpower. I showed you how to structure a habit in a way that will lead to success.

It’s possible, however, that your habit plan doesn’t work as well as it should, or that your circumstances change, rendering the plan ineffective. When these things come up, it’s crucial to review and revise your plan, and your biggest ally is flexibility.

I recommend reviewing your progress and your habit plan weekly. This doesn’t take much time. Just ask yourself: Did I have any difficulty following my plan this week?

If you had difficulty following this week’s plan:

If you missed a day, or struggled to perform the behaviour, or felt like you had to force yourself, then your plan isn’t optimal. Review the cue, the behaviour, and the reward, and revise as necessary to create a better plan.

Maybe you chose the wrong cue. Maybe you thought you’d be able to meditate immediately after your morning coffee, but it turns out the kids always interrupt you at that time. So, choose a different cue and try again.

Maybe the behaviour was too big, complex, difficult, or time-consuming. Make this week’s behaviour easier. Aim for something that is so easy you can’t possibly fail.

 

This Week's Peaceful Moment

 

Maybe the reward isn’t particularly rewarding, or maybe you’re forgetting to reward yourself. Find a better reward and/or create a reminder so you don’t forget to reward yourself.

Be flexible in how you approach the review and revision of your plans. There’s no one right way to do this. Aim to create a plan that works for you - and if it doesn’t completely conform to my guidelines, who cares? All that matters is that it works.

Here’s an example. I had a student who said she’d chosen a cue that worked, but it only worked during the week. It failed on weekends, because it didn’t reliably come up every Saturday and Sunday. She didn’t want to change the cue because it worked so well on weekdays. She decided to keep using it, but use a different cue on weekends - a flexible solution. She tried it and it worked. Perfect!

If you did NOT have difficulty following this week’s plan:

If your plan worked, just keep following it, but review it again next week to stay on top of any changes. You might also consider ramping up your behaviour. Do this only if you feel the current behaviour has become habitual, that is, you feel like you won’t skip it.

Ramp up very slowly. Make the behaviour just a tiny bit longer, or more difficult, or more complex. Ensure that you will be successful every time you perform the behaviour.

I recommended you begin a meditation habit with just 3 mindful breaths every day. To ramp up, you could move to 1 minute of meditation per day. The next ramp up would be to 2 minutes per day. The ramp up won’t feel like it requires a lot more effort, so it’s likely you’ll be successful.

 

If you want more guidance in habit planning, check out our new ebook, Your Meditation Action Plan. It provides a full 12-week, step-by-step program for creating a meditation habit using the principles described here. You’ll get it free when you sign up for the

 

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This second episode in the Meditation Misconceptions series is inspired by my unsuccessful search for stock meditation photos to include on the Mindful15 website. Although I’ve located thousands of beautiful photographs, I’ve had a difficult time locating imagery that’s suitable. Most photographs promote perspectives on meditation that, I believe, may be off-putting to potential practitioners.

There are three common scenes in meditation photography, and you will likely recognize all of them. The first features Buddhist monks in their robes.

 

Buddhist monks meditating

 

The second depicts a young, woman wearing yoga clothes. Most of the time the model is white. Typically, she’s sitting in half-lotus or full lotus-position, and her hands are held in a position that obviously has some special meaning (these are called mudras; more on them, below).

 

Meditating in the yoga tradition

 

The third common scenes is someone meditating on a beach, a mountaintop, a field of wildflowers or some other beautiful place. Again, most models are white and female, and they’re most often using a special hand position.

 

Inspirational meditation photos

 

Let me be perfectly clear. I don’t have an issue with any one of these photographs. I do not want to suggest there is anything wrong with any of them. Individually, they’re often beautiful, even stunning. Collectively, though, they create stereotypes that are inaccurate. They over-represent a specific type of meditation, practiced by a specific kind of person. They send a message that this is what meditation is supposed to look like - and that message is incorrect.

Images tell a story. Most stock meditation images tell stories that limit our understanding of who practices meditation and how they do it. I don’t know whether the imagery causes our limited beliefs, or our limited beliefs lead us to create specific imagery. Either way, I’m concerned that the limited perspective causes some to conclude that meditation isn’t relevant to them.

Let’s take sitting posture and hand position first. Both the lotus sitting position and the standard hand posture come from the yoga tradition. Again, it is not my intention to suggest that yoga-style meditation is wrong or bad. It’s an accessible and beneficial meditation style, but it’s not the only way to meditate.

Lotus and half-lotus position are wonderful postures for meditation, because they are highly stable. They allow the meditator to sit comfortably for long periods of time - if, that is, the meditator is flexible enough to sit in these postures. There are, however, many other options for those of us who cannot get into lotus position. We can sit in Burmese position. This is similar to a cross-legged position (an inherently unstable position), but the legs are laid one in front of the other. We can also kneel on a cushion or meditation bench, or we can sit in a chair. There are even other yoga positions suitable for meditation.

 

Burmese meditation posture, best done sitting on a cushion to elevate hips above knees

 

The hand position is called a mudra. Chantal M, from Mala Prayer tells us:

By definition, “mudra” is the Sanskrit word that translates into “seal”. It’s about connecting your chakras, aligning your sensory receptors and creates a deep connection with your mind, body, and spirit.

The “mudra” or rather, hand positions you use throughout your meditation will determine the flow of energy you receive throughout your bod...