Strong Determination Sitting Advice

[PG13]

Hi All,

Been doing mindfulness meditation for 20-30 min everyday for 6 months and sporadically for 18 months. Starting to do SDS and hope you can help me clarify a couple things.

1. Is the goal to create physical discomfort? If I sit in a chair for an hour without much physical discomfort, did I not get the most out of that session? Should I sit cross legged to get more discomfort in the same hour?

2. While I'm not moving, can I do self inquiry? Focus on my breath? Do Nothing technique? Does it matter?

3. Is the goal to go as long as possible or to tolerate the most discomfort?

Thanks for your thoughts.

[Azrael]

3 hours ago, PG13 said:

1. Is the goal to create physical discomfort? If I sit in a chair for an hour without much physical discomfort, did I not get the most out of that session? Should I sit cross legged to get more discomfort in the same hour?

2. While I'm not moving, can I do self inquiry? Focus on my breath? Do Nothing technique? Does it matter?

3. Is the goal to go as long as possible or to tolerate the most discomfort?

Thanks for your thoughts.

1. The goal is not to move for a certain amount of time. By doing this, physical discomfort and a lot of mind chattering (negative thoughts) will come up. When his happens, you should transcend that pain - meaning try to be really with it. Go into it until it disappears. When that happens, it at least feels like your nervous system cleans from unconscious programmings that you have. It's powerful. Sitting cross-legged will speed up the pains coming a lot.

2. You can do anything you like. There are different strategies. When the pain comes up, your main job will be to get along with that. Do whatever you have / want to do. From personal experience, I'd try to really join the pain. Go right into where it hurts the most and get a real good taste of what pain is.

3.  No, the goal is to transcend the pain and mental reactions to it. Meaning, you can reach a state in which the crudest pains come up and you just sit with a smile on your face because for you it's just a tingling sensation and no suffering is attached to it any more.

Cheers

[Donald]

@PG13 Just sit there and be . As simple as that! 

[Steven]

Notice the emphasis on STRONG and DETERMINATION.

[Jan Odvarko]

To me, strong determination sits are the best means to rewire the mind from its old pattern of rejecting unpleasant experiences to surrendering to them and fully joining them, as @Arik said. After some time, you will develop this "taste of surrender", or "taste of purification" as Shinzen Young says, and even pain will become quite enjoyable at times. You'll be shaking in pain like a washing machine during a spin cycle and yet smiling because you'll feel it's good for you. "I'm in pain - that's great, more opportunity to practise surrender. Let me see how intimately I can merge with it."

Just be careful - If the pain persists hours after you finish your sit, I'd suggest to take a few steps back.

 

[Azrael]

@Jan Odvarko epic video, dude. I binged-watched last October-November like every Shinzen Young video. He presents you with a good framework that one can use to understand and progress with the practice.

[Jan Odvarko]

30 minutes ago, Arik said:

@Jan Odvarko epic video, dude. I binged-watched last October-November like every Shinzen Young video. He presents you with a good framework that one can use to understand and progress with the practice.

His framework gets sometimes too technical for my taste, with all these graphs and formulas - this doesn't really work for me, but I guess for many western people it does the job. Nevertheless his scientific approach sometimes brings very useful insights that otherwise wouldn't be so obvious if they weren't expressed in technical terms.

[PG13]

@Azrael Thank you for the thoughtful reply.  It was very helpful.  Sorry for the much delayed thanks.  For some reason I couldn't see the responses to my questions for a couple months and figured no one had responded.  Thanks again!