Meditation Lying Down

[lennart]

Hey guys,

I have a little problem with my meditation practice. Recently my back becomes really tensed when I am sitting on my meditation cushion. So I thought about meditation lying down.

Do you think it's possible to become an advanced meditator with this or should I continue trying meditating on the cushion?

 

[Prabhaker]

@lennart

Meher Baba (Merwan Sheriar Irani was born in 1894 in Pune, India to Irani Zoroastrian parents.) for years together he was staring just at the ceiling of his room. For years together he was just lying dead on the floor, staring at the ceiling without moving an eyelash, without moving his eyes. He would lie down for hours together, just staring, not doing anything. Meher Baba stared and stared and stared. By and by thoughts ceased, movement ceased, and he became just a consciousness, he became just a staring. 

[lennart]

Thank you @Prabhaker

I will try lying meditation

[Prabhaker]

LIE DOWN AS DEAD. ENRAGED IN WRATH, STAY SO. OR STARE WITHOUT MOVING AN EYELASH. OR SUCK SOMETHING AND BECOME THE SUCKING.

LIE DOWN AS DEAD. Try it: suddenly you have gone dead. Leave the body! Do not move it, because you are dead. Just imagine that you are dead. You cannot move the body, you cannot move the eyes, you cannot cry, you cannot scream, you cannot do anything, you are just dead. And then feel how it feels. But do not deceive. You can deceive -- you can slightly move the body. Do not move. If some mosquito is there, then treat the body as if it is dead. It is one of the most used techniques.

Raman Maharshi attained his enlightenment through this technique, but it was not a technique used by him in his life. In his life it suddenly happened, spontaneously. But he must have persisted with this in some past life, because nothing happens spontaneously. Everything has a causal link, a causality. Suddenly one night Raman felt -- he was just young, fourteen or fifteen at the time -- that he was going to die. And it was so certain in his mind that death had taken over. He couldn't move his body, he felt as if he was paralyzed. Then he felt a sudden choking, and he knew that now the heart was going to stop. He could not even cry and say to another, "I am going to die."

Sometimes it happens in some nightmare -- you cannot cry, you cannot move. Even when you become awake for a few moments you cannot do anything. That happened. He had absolute power over his consciousness, but no power over his body. He knew he was there, that he was present, conscious, alert, but he felt he was going to die. And the knowledge became so certain that there was no other possibility, so he just gave up. He closed his eyes and remained there, just waiting to die; he waited there just to die.

By and by the body became stiff. The body died, but then it became a problem. He knew that the body had died, but he was there and he knew it. He knew that he was alive and that the body had died. Then he came back. In the morning the body became okay but the same man never returned -- because he had known death. He had known a different realm, a different dimension of consciousness.

He escaped from the house. That death experience changed him completely. He became one of the very few enlightened persons of this age.

This is the technique. This happened spontaneously to Raman, but it is not going to happen spontaneously to you. But try it. In some life it may become spontaneous. It may happen while you are trying it. And if it is not going to happen, the effort is never wasted. It is in you; it remains in you as a seed. Sometime, when the time is ripe and the rains will fall, it will sprout.

Every spontaneity is just like this. The seed was sown some time ago, but the time was not ripe; there were no rains. In another life the time becomes ripe. You are more mature, more experienced, more frustrated with the world -- then suddenly, in a certain situation, there are rains and the seed explodes.

LIE DOWN AS DEAD. ENRAGED IN WRATH, STAY SO. Of course, while you are dying it will not be a happy moment. It is not going to be so blissful while you are feeling that you are dead. Fear will take you, anger may come in the mind, or frustration, sadness, sorrow, anguish... anything. It will differ from individual to individual.

The sutra says: ENRAGED IN WRATH, STAY SO. If you feel enraged, stay so. If you feel sad, stay so. If you feel anxiety, fear, stay so. You are dead and you cannot do anything, so stay so. Whatsoever is in the mind, the body is dead and you cannot do anything, so stay.

That staying is beautiful. If you can stay for a few minutes, suddenly you will feel that everything has changed. But we start moving. If there is some emotion in the mind, the body begins to move. That is why we call it "emotion" -- it creates motion in the body. If you are angry, suddenly your body begins to move. If you are sad, your body begins to move. That is why it is called emotion, because it creates motion in the body. Feel dead and do not allow emotions to move your body. Let them be there, but you STAY SO -- fixed, dead. Whatsoever is there... no movement. Stay! No movement.

OR STARE WITHOUT MOVING AN EYELASH. This OR STARE WITHOUT MOVING AN EYELASH was the method of Meher Baba. For years together he was staring just at the ceiling of his room. For years together he was just lying dead on the floor, staring at the ceiling without moving an eyelash, without moving his eyes. He would lie down for hours together, just staring, not doing anything. Staring with the eyes is good, because you become fixed again in the third eye. And once you are fixed in the third eye, even if you want to move the eyelids you cannot; they become fixed.

Meher Baba attained through this staring, and you say, "How with these small exercises...?" But for three years he was staring at the ceiling not doing anything. Three years is a long time. Do it for three minutes and you will feel as if you have been lying there for three years. Three minutes will become very, very long. It will look as if time is not passing and as if the clock has stopped.

Meher Baba stared and stared and stared. By and by thoughts ceased, movement ceased, and he became just a consciousness, he became just a staring. Then he remained silent for his whole life. He became so silent inside by this staring that it became impossible for him to formulate words again.

Meher Baba was in America. There was one man who could read others' thoughts, who could do mind readings, and he was really one of the rarest mind readers. He would close his eyes, sit before you, and within a few minutes he would become attuned with you and he would begin to write what you are thinking. Thousands and thousands of times he was examined, and he was always right, always correct. So someone brought him to Meher Baba. He sat there, and this was the only failure of his life -- the only failure. But then again we cannot say it was a failure. He tried and tried, and he began to perspire, but he couldn't catch a single word.

Pen in his hand, he remained there and said, "What type of man is this? I cannot read because there is nothing to read. This man is absolutely vacant. I even forget that someone is sitting there. After closing my eyes, I have to open them again and look to see whether that man is there or whether he has escaped. So it is difficult to concentrate, because the moment I close my eyes I feel I am being deceived -- as if that man has escaped and there is no one before me. I have to open my eyes again, and I find that this man is there. And he is not thinking at all." That staring, that constant staring had stopped his mind completely.

OR STARE WITHOUT MOVING AN EYELASH. OR SUCK SOMETHING AND BECOME THE SUCKING. These are slight modifications. Anything will do... you are dead -- it is enough.

ENRAGED IN WRATH, STAY SO. Even this part can become one technique. You are in anger: lie down, remain in the anger. Do not move from it, do not do anything, just remain still.

Krishnamurti goes on talking about this. His whole technique depends on this single thing:ENRAGED IN WRATH, STAY SO. If you are angry then be angry, and remain angry. Do not move. If you can stay so, anger will go and you will come out a different man. If you are in anxiety, do not do anything. Remain there, stay there. The anxiety will go; you will come out a different man. And once you have looked at anxiety without being moved by it, you will be the master.

OR STARE WITHOUT MOVING AN EYELASH. OR SUCK SOMETHING AND BECOME THE SUCKING. This last one is physical and easy to do, because sucking is the first thing a child has to do. Sucking is the first act of life. When the child is born, he begins to cry. You may not have tried to penetrate into why there is this crying. He is not really crying -- it appears to us that he is crying -- he is just sucking air. And if the child cannot cry, within a few minutes he will be dead, because crying is the first effort to suck air. The child was not breathing while he was in the womb. He was alive without breathing. He was doing the same which yogis are doing underground. He was just getting prana without breathing -- pure prana from the mother.

That is why the love between the child and the mother is an altogether different thing from other loves, because the purest prana -- energy -- joins both. Now this can never happen again. There was a subtle pranic relationship. The mother was giving her prana to the child, and the child was not breathing at all. When he is born, he is thrown out of the mother into an unknown world. Now the prana, the energy, will not reach him so easily. He has to breathe himself.

The first cry is an effort to suck, and then he will suck the milk from the mother's breast. These are the first basic acts which you have done. Whatsoever YOU have done comes later -- these are the first life acts. They can be practiced also. This sutra says: OR SUCK SOMETHING AND BECOME THE SUCKING. Suck something -- just suck the air, but forget the air and become the sucking. What does this mean? You are sucking something; you are the sucker, not the sucking. You are standing behind and sucking.

This sutra says, do not stand behind, move in the act and become the sucking. Try anything that will work. You are running -- become the running, do not be the runner. Become the running and forget the runner. Feel that there is no runner inside, just the process of running. You are the process, a river-like process running. Nobody is there inside. It is quiet inside and there is only a process.

Sucking is good, but you will feel that it is very difficult because we have forgotten it completely -- but not really completely, however, because we go on substituting for it. The mother's breast is substituted by a cigarette; you go on sucking it. It is nothing but the nipple, the mother's breast and the nipple. And when the warm smoke flows in, it is just like warm milk.

So those who were not really allowed to suck the mother's breast as much as they wanted will smoke later on. This is a substitute, but the substitute will do. While you are smoking a cigarette become the sucking. Forget the cigarette, forget the smoker: become the smoking.

There is the object you are sucking, there is the subject who is sucking, and the process in between of sucking. Become the sucking, become the process. Try it. You will have to try it with many things; then you will find out what is right for you.

You are drinking water, the cold water is going in -- become the drinking. Do not drink the water. Forget the water, forget yourself and your thirst, just become the drinking -- the very process. Become the coolness, the touch, the entry, and the sucking that has to be given to the process.

Why not? What will happen? If you become the sucking, what will happen? If you can become the sucking, immediately you will become innocent, like a first-day, newly-born child -- because that is the first process. You will be regressed in a way. But the hankering is there. The very being of man hankers after sucking. He tries many things, but nothing helps because the point is missed. Unless you become the sucking, nothing will help. So try it.

I gave this method to one man. He had tried many things; he had tried many, many methods. Then he came to me, so I asked him, "If I give you only one thing to choose in the whole world, what are you going to choose?" And I told him immediately to close his eyes and tell me, and not think about it. He became afraid, hesitant, so I told him, "Do not be afraid, do not be hesitant. Be frank and tell me."

He said, "This is absurd, but a breast appears before me."

And then he began to feel guilty, so I said, "Do not feel guilty. Nothing is wrong in a breast; it is one of the most beautiful things, so why be guilty?"

But he said, "This has always been an obsession with me." And he said to me, "Please tell me first, then you can proceed with your method and the technique: first tell me why I am so much interested in the breasts of women? Whenever I look at a woman, the first thing I see is the breast. The whole body is secondary."

And it is not so only with him, it is so with everyone -- with almost everyone. And it is natural, because the breast of the mother was the first acquaintance with the universe. It is basic. The first contact with the universe was the mother's breast. That is why breasts are so appealing. They look beautiful; they attract, they have a magnetic force. That magnetic force comes from your unconscious. That was the first thing with which you came in contact, and the contact was lovely, it felt beautiful. It gives you food, instant vitality, love, everything. The contact was soft, receptive, inviting. It has remained so in the mind of man.

So I told that man, "Now I will give you the method." And this was the method I gave him, to suck something and become the sucking. I told him, "Just close your eyes. Imagine your mother's breasts or anybody's breasts that you like. Imagine, and start sucking as if there is a real breast. Start sucking." He started sucking. Within three days he was sucking so fast, so madly, he became so much enchanted by it. He told me, "It has become a problem -- I want to suck the whole day. And it is so beautiful, and such deep silence is created by it."

Within three months the sucking became a very, very silent gesture. The lips stopped, you couldn't even have judged that he was doing something. But inner sucking had started. He was sucking the whole day. It became a mantra, a JAPA -- a mantra repetition.

After three months he came to me and said, "Something strange is happening to me. Something sweet is falling from my head onto my tongue continuously. And it is so sweet and so energy filling that I do not need any food, there is no hunger left. Eating has become just a formality. I take something in order not to create any problems in the family. But something is continuously coming to me. It is so sweet, life-giving."

I told him to continue. Three months more, and one day he came just mad, dancing to me, and he said, "Sucking has disappeared, but I am a different man. I am no more the same man who had come to you. Some door has opened within me. Something has broken and there is no desire left. Now I do not want anything -- not even God, not even MOKSHA -- liberation. I do not want anything. Now everything is okay as it is. I accept it and I am blissful."

Try this. Just suck something and become the sucking. It may be helpful to many because it is so basic.

The Vigyana Bhairava Tantra vol one ~ Osho

[lennart]

Alright then I will begin sucking 

[eputkonen]

5 hours ago, lennart said:

Hey guys,

I have a little problem with my meditation practice. Recently my back becomes really tensed when I am sitting on my meditation cushion. So I thought about meditation lying down.

Do you think it's possible to become an advanced meditator with this or should I continue trying meditating on the cushion?

 

 

You can meditate while lying down.  There danger of falling asleep is increased, but as long as you don't fall asleep...you will be fine.

Meditation is not solely a seated practice.  In Buddhism, they talk about the four dignities of man - standing, walking, sitting or lying down.  And so while there is sitting meditation..there is also standing meditation, walking meditation, and lying meditation.  Really, you can meditate in any position and doing any activity.

So best wishes...hope you feel better...and just meditate lying down.  (sometimes with eyes close, open, or partially closed.)

Edited May 31, 2017 by eputkonen

[Dodo]

13 minutes ago, eputkonen said:

 

You can meditate while lying down.  There danger of falling asleep is increased, but as long as you don't fall asleep...you will be fine.

Meditation is not solely a seated practice.  In Buddhism, they talk about the four dignities of man - standing, walking, sitting or lying down.  And so while there is sitting meditation..there is also standing meditation, walking meditation, and lying meditation.  Really, you can meditate in any position and doing any activity.

So best wishes...hope you feel better...and just meditate lying down.  (sometimes with eyes close, open, or partially closed.)

And running meditation  The runner's high!

[lennart]

@eputkonen thank you

[Memeito]

I tried yesterday the "do nothing" meditation while lying and it was much easier, my mind was very calm, I had very few stray thoughts, but I would also get very sleepy and my eyes would close fast. Any suggestions?

[AlwaysBeNice]

Putting on a guided meditation or sound may be helpful not to fall asleep, or maybe coffee. 

It requires rather strong commitment for many I think, because it's so tempting to go: 'ehh fuck this world, peace out'.

Also you might want to be doing a more active kind of meditation, Shinzen Young suggests 'noting practice' for when you are easily spacing out.

Edited June 3, 2017 by AlwaysBeNice

[Memeito]

I tried various methods of meditations and positions, and if I am lying down I often zone out, start daydreaming or fall asleep...

The best posture is when I sit on a chair and keep my back straight(the lotus position hurts my knees and hips so I don't do it). The second best - on a chair with the back supported but the head straight. If I rest my head however, it's pretty much the same as if I am lying down - I quickly fall asleep.

[Mastral]

@lennart  I had the same problems when starting meditation but is seems something that can be overcome with good posture and gradual training.

Have you tried other forms of "sitting" meditation? Chair with back support or kneeling?

Also, you can also do other forms of meditation, all of which have been practiced in many traditions: standing, walking, movement meditation so that you can still meditate daily and give your back a break.

Edited June 3, 2017 by Mastral

[lennart]

@Mastral 

yes I have a cushion that is designed for both the kneeling and the traditional position. For me both hurt my back. I will definitely try  the movement meditation and continue withe the lying meditation.