Sitting
What to sit on for seated practice
Growing pains
When I first started sitting for meditation, I was in pain nearly all of the time. My hips were tight. I had to put many cushions under my knees because they could not relax onto the floor.
My shoulders and neck ached. Sometimes I got weird
stabbing pains in my head. Sound familiar?
During those years, I tried many kinds of sitting arrangements: cushions, kneeling benches, and blankets rolled and piled into different shapes.
Eventually, I relaxed.
I learned that doing gentle yoga before sitting can transform one’s experience, but the deepest relaxation happens from the subtle channels outward. In other words, muscles relax most deeply due to seated practice itself.
By the time I hit my mid-40s, I needed only a thin cushion under my butt. This tipped me forward slightly, put my knees comfortably on the floor, and my spine upright.
But my goal was to be able to sit with no cushion at all.
I reached this goal sometime in my 50s. And I have to say that to rest with nothing between me and the ground felt magical.
I sat sturdily on the triangle formed by my sacrum, thighs, knees, and feet. The triangle is a core component of yantras. I felt the energy of that form supporting my sadhana and every cell in my body.
But then it changed again. In my 60s, I developed degeneration in my left hip. Now I could barely walk let alone sit in a standard meditation posture.
The Western docs said I needed a hip replacement, but instead I got a ton of acupuncture and eventually found a wonderful physical therapist/pilates instructor. Now I am nearly pain-free, but I haven’t (yet) recovered the full range of motion needed to sit flat on the ground.
At 68 years old, I’m back to cushions. But the great thing is that now I have the opportunity to share decades of cushion wisdom with you. 🎉
Cushions
I’ve tried round, rectangular, and crescent-shaped cushions. I’ve tried cushions filled with kapok, cotton, and buckwheat hulls and covered with twill, linen, wool, and silk. Turns out that wool and silk are supposed be be good for enhancing your spiritual vibe. 🤷🏻♀️
I eventually settled on round cushions. Traditional zafus have always been too high for me, but lots of people love them. Here’s a nice video about how to sit on zafus.
I prefer looser, linen-covered, buckwheat hull cushions as the height is adjustable (just add or subtract hulls), and they shape really nicely to your body.
Kapok and cotton fill will be softer on your butt, but will eventually smush down. Buckwheat hulls will be harder, but as I mentioned, shapable to your body and basically indestructible.
Tip: Keep buckwheat (and yourself!) in a non-moldy environment or replace the hulls periodically.
Whatever style of cushion works for you, the best place to get it is from the folks at Sun and Moon Originals.
If you want a great, round buckwheat hull cushion that’s not very high, try Alona’s shop—Be a Pillowholic—on Etsy.
Kneeling benches
Kneeling benches come in various styles: static, foldable, tall, short, angled, flat, padded and unpadded. I tried one or two a long time back and never went far enough down the rabbit hole to find my perfect match. But Still Sitting is a great place to start your kneeling bench journey. I think the one pictured below looks pretty great.
Blankets
But I did go all in for blankets! I folded ‘em, rolled ‘em, and stacked ‘em. Blankets were my transitional objects, helping me to traverse the distance from standard meditation cushions to that glorious nothing.
I count as blankets the ones typically found in yoga studios, janky hotel quilts, and just random cloth that happened to be wherever I happened to want to do practice. I always made it work, sort of.
But my at-home standard was a folded, undyed wool blanket covered with a raw silk cloth. If you’re going for the blankie, try all wool, a blend of wool and silk, or stack silk on wool. It will make you feel better in a kind of je ne sais quoi way.
KaBu Zafu - the kneeling cushion
Here’s what I’m using today at 68 with a less-than-alpha hip. These are way too high to sit on in a standard posture, unless you are like 7 feet tall!
What is recommended by the makers, and what I do, is to balance my KaBu on its side and sit with it between my thighs in a kneeling posture. It’s surprisingly comfortable. Check out these lovelies here.
The chair
Don’t be too proud to sit in a chair. Or even sit up in bed if you are ill. The best practice is the one that you do wherever and however you are.
If you are in a chair, make it one that does not encourage slouching. Slouching begets tiredness which begets foggy mind and sleep. Couches (rhymes with “slouches”) are not recommended!
Likewise, if bed is the only place you can practice, sit up if you can so that you can breathe freely and your channels can flow. Having a clean, organized bedroom helps.
Notes for beginners
If you have just started sitting, here are some tips.
Your knees must be resting comfortably on the ground or be well-supported by cushions. If your knees are hanging out in the air, you won’t be able to sit for very long, and if you power on through, you will eventually end up with knee, hip, and sciatic pain.
Expect to make some false starts. It usually takes time to find the right style and size of cushion or bench or blanket for you. You might have to burn through some cash.
Alternately, get cushions for free from friends or from your local Buy Nothing club. Meditation cushions are like stationary bikes. People buy them with the best of intentions, and then they don’t follow through. So abandoned meditation supplies are out there just waiting for their forever homes.
Happy practicing!
with infinite love,
Shambhavi