What's Wrong With Meditating Laying Down In Bed?

[Joseph Maynor]

This is how I meditate.  I use an eye-cover to keep my visual field dark.  And I lay down in the comfort of my bed and meditate.  I never sit up, and I never do strong-determination sitting.  Why torture yourself with that stuff?  What do you gain by doing so?  It seems like my way of doing meditation is more comfortable.  Like floating on a cloud of pillows sometimes!  I've been meditating like this for over a year, 1 hour everyday.

I tried meditating sitting up a couple of times and it seemed overly burdensome.  As long as you are maintaining awareness, what does it matter if you lie down or sit up?  It seems like a lot of people are doing meditation in a way that's too hard.  What supports the belief that meditation should be done sitting up rather than lying down?  Sure, sometimes you fall asleep.  But not normally for me.  I've also fallen asleep sitting up too.  

Edited June 29, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[Prabhaker]

@Joseph Maynor

Patanjali’s Yoga has been very misunderstood, misinterpreted. Patanjali is not a gymnast, but Yoga looks like it is a gymnastics of the body. Patanjali is not against the body. He is not a teacher to teach you contortions of the body. He teaches you the grace of the body, because he knows only in a graceful body a graceful mind exists; and only in a graceful mind does a graceful self becomes possible; and only in a graceful self, the divine.

Step by step, deeper and higher grace has to be attained. Grace of the body is what he calls asan, posture. He’s not a masochist. He is not teaching you to torture your body. He is not a bit against the body. How can he be? He knows the body is going to be the very foundation-stone. He knows if you miss the body, if you don’t train the body, then higher training will not be possible.

The body is just like a musical instrument. It has to be rightly tuned; only then will the higher music arise out of it. If the very instrument is somehow not in right shape and order, then how can you imagine, hope, that the great harmony will arise out of it? Only discordance will arise. Body is a veena, a musical instrument.

The posture should be steady and should be very, very blissful, comfortable. So never try to distort your body, and never try to achieve postures which are uncomfortable.

For the Westerners, sitting on the ground, sitting in padmasan, lotus posture, is difficult; their bodies have not been trained for it. There is no need to bother about it. Patanjali will not force that posture on you. In the East people are sitting from their very birth, small children sitting on the ground. In the West, in all cold countries, chairs are needed; the ground is too cold. But there is no need to be worried about it. If you look at Patanjali’s definition, what a posture is, you will understand: it should be steady and comfortable.

If you can be steady and comfortable in a chair, it is perfectly okay – no need to try a lotus posture and force your body unnecessarily. In fact, if a Western person tries to attain to lotus posture it takes six months to force the body; and it is a torture. There is no need. Patanjali is not in any way helping you, in any way persuading you, to torture the body. You can sit in a tortured posture, but then it will not be a posture according to Patanjali. 
 

A posture should be such that you can forget your body. What is comfort? When you forget your body, you are comfortable. When you are reminded continuously of the body, you are uncomfortable. So whether you sit in a chair or you sit on the ground, that’s not the point. Be comfortable, because if you are not comfortable in the body you cannot long for other blessings which belong to deeper layers: the first layer missed, all other layers closed. If you really want to be happy, blissful, then start from the very beginning to be blissful. Comfort of the body is a basic need for anybody who is trying to reach inner ecstasies.

Whenever a posture is comfortable it is bound to be steady. You fidget if the posture is uncomfortable. You go on changing sides if the posture is uncomfortable. If the posture is really comfortable, what is the need to fidget and feel restless and go on changing again and again?

And remember, the posture that is comfortable to you may not be comfortable to your neighbor; so please, never teach your posture to anybody. Every body is unique. Something that is comfortable to you may be uncomfortable to somebody else.

Everybody has to be unique because every body is carrying a unique soul. Your thumbprints are unique. You cannot find anybody else all over the world whose thumbprints are just like yours. And not only today: you cannot find anybody in the whole past history whose thumbprints will be like yours, and those who know, they say even in the future there will never be a person whose thumbprint will be like yours. A thumbprint is nothing, insignificant, but that too is unique. That shows that every body carries a unique being. If your thumbprint is so different from others’, your body, the whole body, has to be different.

So never listen to anybody’s advice. You have to find your own posture. There is no need to go to any teacher to learn it; your own feeling of comfort should be the teacher. And if you try – within a few days try all the postures that you know, all the ways that you can sit – one day you will fall upon, stumble upon, the right posture. And the moment you feel the right posture, everything will become silent and calm within you. And nobody else can teach you, because nobody can know how your body harmony, in what posture, will exactly be steady, comfortable.

Try to find your own posture.

Try to find your own Yoga, and never follow a rule, because rules are averages. All rules exist for averages. They are good to understand a certain thing, but never follow them. Otherwise you will feel uncomfortable. Four feet eight inches is the average height! Now you are five feet, four inches longer – cut it. Uncomfortable...walk in such a way so you look like the average: you will become an ugly phenomenon, an ashtha walker. You will be like a camel, crooked everywhere. One who tries to follow the average will miss.

How you feel should be the determining factor. That’s why Patanjali gives this definition, so that you can find out your own feeling.

There cannot be any better definition of posture: “Posture should be steady and comfortable.”

In fact I would like to say it the other way, and the Sanskrit definition can be translated in the other way: Posture is that which is steady and comfortable. We would like to make a rule out of it, [but] it is a simple definition, an indicator, a pointer. It is not a rule. And remember it always: that people like Patanjali never give rules; they are not so foolish. They simply give pointers, hints. You have to decode the hint into your own being. You have to feel it, work it out; then you will come to the rule, but that rule will be only for you, for nobody else.

If people can stick to it, the world will be a very beautiful world – nobody trying to force anybody to do something, nobody trying to discipline anybody else. Because, your discipline may have proved good for you, it may be poisonous for somebody else. Your medicine is not necessarily a medicine for all. Don’t go on giving it to others.

But foolish people always live by rules. 

Osho, The Essence of Yoga, Talk #7

[Prabhaker]

1 hour ago, Joseph Maynor said:

What do you gain by doing so?

In the East it has been found, and found rightly, that the lotus posture — the way you must have seen the statues of Buddha; that is called the lotus posture… It has been a discovery of thousands of years that that is the most relaxed state of the body. But for Westerners who are not accustomed to sitting on the ground, the lotus posture is a nightmare! So avoid it, because it takes almost six months to learn the lotus posture; it is not necessary.

If you are accustomed to sitting on a chair, you can find a way, a posture, a chair made in a certain way that helps your body to relax all its tensions. It does not matter whether you are sitting in the chair or in the lotus posture or lying down on the bed. Sitting is preferable because it will prevent you from falling asleep.

The lotus posture was chosen for many reasons. If one can manage it without torturing himself, then it is the best, but it is not a necessity. It is certainly the best situation in which you can enter into watchfulness. The legs are crossed, the hands are crossed, the spine is straight; it gives many significant supports to being watchful. First, in this position, gravitation has the least effect on the body because your spine is straight. So the gravitation can effect a very small portion. When you are lying down, gravitation effects your whole body. That’s why for sleeping, lying down is the best posture. Gravitation pulls the whole body, and because of its pull, the body loses all tensions. Secondly, when you are lying down, if the purpose is to sleep then you should use a pillow because the less blood reaches to your mind, the less the mind will be active. The less blood reaches to the mind, the more possibility to fall asleep.

A lotus posture is a great combination. It has the least effect of gravitation, and because the spine is straight a lesser amount of blood reaches to the mind, so mind cannot function. In that posture you cannot fall asleep easily. And if you have learned the posture from your very birth, it becomes so natural. The crossing of the legs, the crossing of the hands have a significance. Your body energy moves in a circle; the circle is not broken anywhere in a lotus posture. Both your hands… one hand gives the energy to the other hand; your one foot gives energy to the other foot — and the energy goes on moving in a circle. You become a circle of your bio-energy.

Many things are of much help. Your energy is not being released so you don’t get tired. Your blood is reaching in a lesser amount so the mind does not function too much. You are sitting in such a position — your legs are locked, your hands are locked and your spine is straight — sleep is difficult. These are just supports; they are not essential.

It is not that one who cannot sit in a lotus posture cannot meditate, meditation will be a little difficult but the lotus posture is only helpful, not absolutely needed. And for the people from colder countries where sitting on the ground is not possible — their bodies for centuries; their parents and their parents’ parents from Adam and Eve… Have you seen any picture of Adam and Eve sitting in a lotus posture? In fact, it would have been very good for them, because sitting in lotus posture they could sit naked and yet nobody would have been very much aware of their nakedness. That’s how the Jaina monks sit, always in lotus posture. You cannot see their genitals. Their legs are crossed, their hands are crossed; this functions almost as a protection for their nakedness.

But if for centuries people have never sat, then it will unnecessarily create trouble; your body structure has taken a certain mode. It is better to follow the body and its wisdom: use a chair. The whole thing is you should be comfortable so that the body does not draw your attention. That’s why tension has to be avoided, because if you have a headache then it will be difficult to meditate. Again and again, your attention will go to the headache. If your leg is hurting, or if there is any slight tension anywhere in the body, it immediately alarms you. It is natural and it is part of the body’s wisdom.

-Osho

From The Invitation, Chapter 21

[pluto]

In my opinion nothing, do things how they suit you best, if it works for you and helps you continue my friend.

[starsofclay]

I have only ever meditated laying down... and it brings on the hypnagognic images very fast if that is what I am going for in my meditation. It is usually not recommended for beginners because it is much easier to fall asleep this way, so one must train themselves not to fall asleep. I can't ever imagine having to meditate sitting up, I probably just wouldn't do it!

[Nahm]

@Joseph Maynor i mistook you as serious about this stuff Jo.  Is my intuition so poor? 

[Joseph Maynor]

@Nahm I'll start meditating sitting up.  Thanks!

[Key Elements]

You risk falling asleep. Even if you are lying down on the floor, there is this risk. My PE teacher used to tell us this. The first thing he did before starting class was get the class to meditate.

His advice made sense to me because if we have insights we'll miss them.

[Nahm]

@Key Elements BOOOM!!!   

[Prabhaker]

On 6/29/2017 at 7:16 AM, Joseph Maynor said:

I lay down in the comfort of my bed and meditate.

 

[thesmileyone]

There's nothing wrong with lying down to meditate. If you do it in the morning you won't fall asleep. Nothing stops you falling asleep whilst seated or in lotus either.

The last position they put you in in most yoga, especially kundalini yoga, having moved energy around the body, is Savasana and this is how it looks. Does it look familiar?

 

[Forestluv]

I used to think laying meditation was a half-ass form. I even looked down on using chairs. I was a true half-lotus kinda guy until I did sensory deprivation tanks and went places traditional seated meditation didn’t. I was fully alert and reached deep relaxation states I didn’t know existed. I do both seated and laying meditation these days. 

[Jack River]

Isolated entities make meditation a habit/experience, but meditation implies awareness of such habits/experiences ..awareness of I am. 

Meditation never begins or ends, experiences & habits do.

Let’s not make what is beautiful/alive a dead thing. 

[Joseph Maynor]

This has been my best practice since I posted this a year and a half ago!

[Jack River]

15 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

This has been my best practice since I posted this a year and a half ago!

Own it dude?

Have you ever considered getting a hammock to put outside? Meditate outdoors 

Edited January 30, 2019 by Jack River

[Jack River]

Or even a mat to lie on would be most excellent. 

[Joseph Maynor]

5 minutes ago, Jack River said:

Own it dude?

Have you ever considered getting a hammock to put outside? Meditate outdoors 

Haha.  That's smart!  I've slept in hammocks.  That's one of the best experiences.

[Good-boy]

This is how I meditate ?

[Gabriel Antonio]

On 28/06/2017 at 11:38 PM, Prabhaker said:

Patanjali’s Yoga has been very misunderstood, misinterpreted. Patanjali is not a gymnast, but Yoga looks like it is a gymnastics of the body. Patanjali is not against the body. He is not a teacher to teach you contortions of the body. He teaches you the grace of the body, because he knows only in a graceful body a graceful mind exists; and only in a graceful mind does a graceful self becomes possible; and only in a graceful self, the divine.

Step by step, deeper and higher grace has to be attained. Grace of the body is what he calls asan, posture. He’s not a masochist. He is not teaching you to torture your body. He is not a bit against the body. How can he be? He knows the body is going to be the very foundation-stone. He knows if you miss the body, if you don’t train the body, then higher training will not be possible.

The body is just like a musical instrument. It has to be rightly tuned; only then will the higher music arise out of it. If the very instrument is somehow not in right shape and order, then how can you imagine, hope, that the great harmony will arise out of it? Only discordance will arise. Body is a veena, a musical instrument.

The posture should be steady and should be very, very blissful, comfortable. So never try to distort your body, and never try to achieve postures which are uncomfortable.

For the Westerners, sitting on the ground, sitting in padmasan, lotus posture, is difficult; their bodies have not been trained for it. There is no need to bother about it. Patanjali will not force that posture on you. In the East people are sitting from their very birth, small children sitting on the ground. In the West, in all cold countries, chairs are needed; the ground is too cold. But there is no need to be worried about it. If you look at Patanjali’s definition, what a posture is, you will understand: it should be steady and comfortable.

If you can be steady and comfortable in a chair, it is perfectly okay – no need to try a lotus posture and force your body unnecessarily. In fact, if a Western person tries to attain to lotus posture it takes six months to force the body; and it is a torture. There is no need. Patanjali is not in any way helping you, in any way persuading you, to torture the body. You can sit in a tortured posture, but then it will not be a posture according to Patanjali. 
 

A posture should be such that you can forget your body. What is comfort? When you forget your body, you are comfortable. When you are reminded continuously of the body, you are uncomfortable. So whether you sit in a chair or you sit on the ground, that’s not the point. Be comfortable, because if you are not comfortable in the body you cannot long for other blessings which belong to deeper layers: the first layer missed, all other layers closed. If you really want to be happy, blissful, then start from the very beginning to be blissful. Comfort of the body is a basic need for anybody who is trying to reach inner ecstasies.

Whenever a posture is comfortable it is bound to be steady. You fidget if the posture is uncomfortable. You go on changing sides if the posture is uncomfortable. If the posture is really comfortable, what is the need to fidget and feel restless and go on changing again and again?

And remember, the posture that is comfortable to you may not be comfortable to your neighbor; so please, never teach your posture to anybody. Every body is unique. Something that is comfortable to you may be uncomfortable to somebody else.

Everybody has to be unique because every body is carrying a unique soul. Your thumbprints are unique. You cannot find anybody else all over the world whose thumbprints are just like yours. And not only today: you cannot find anybody in the whole past history whose thumbprints will be like yours, and those who know, they say even in the future there will never be a person whose thumbprint will be like yours. A thumbprint is nothing, insignificant, but that too is unique. That shows that every body carries a unique being. If your thumbprint is so different from others’, your body, the whole body, has to be different.

So never listen to anybody’s advice. You have to find your own posture. There is no need to go to any teacher to learn it; your own feeling of comfort should be the teacher. And if you try – within a few days try all the postures that you know, all the ways that you can sit – one day you will fall upon, stumble upon, the right posture. And the moment you feel the right posture, everything will become silent and calm within you. And nobody else can teach you, because nobody can know how your body harmony, in what posture, will exactly be steady, comfortable.

Try to find your own posture.

Try to find your own Yoga, and never follow a rule, because rules are averages. All rules exist for averages. They are good to understand a certain thing, but never follow them. Otherwise you will feel uncomfortable. Four feet eight inches is the average height! Now you are five feet, four inches longer – cut it. Uncomfortable...walk in such a way so you look like the average: you will become an ugly phenomenon, an ashtha walker. You will be like a camel, crooked everywhere. One who tries to follow the average will miss.

How you feel should be the determining factor. That’s why Patanjali gives this definition, so that you can find out your own feeling.

There cannot be any better definition of posture: “Posture should be steady and comfortable.”

In fact I would like to say it the other way, and the Sanskrit definition can be translated in the other way: Posture is that which is steady and comfortable. We would like to make a rule out of it, [but] it is a simple definition, an indicator, a pointer. It is not a rule. And remember it always: that people like Patanjali never give rules; they are not so foolish. They simply give pointers, hints. You have to decode the hint into your own being. You have to feel it, work it out; then you will come to the rule, but that rule will be only for you, for nobody else.

If people can stick to it, the world will be a very beautiful world – nobody trying to force anybody to do something, nobody trying to discipline anybody else. Because, your discipline may have proved good for you, it may be poisonous for somebody else. Your medicine is not necessarily a medicine for all. Don’t go on giving it to others.

But foolish people always live by rules. 

Osho, The Essence of Yoga, Talk #7

Nice! Thanks for sharing. 

 

The odds of falling asleep while laying down are much higher.

I don’t do well in neither sitting nor laying meditation. That’s why I do Tai Chi (aka moving meditation).

[Rilles]

Meditate all the time. Sitting, laying, walking, working, travelling, playing.