A huge omission in modern meditation training is dealing with the physical aspect of practice. Not having the physical part right causes pain and discomfort not only in the back, but in the whole body – and also makes it very tough to focus and calm the mind.
Way back when, physical trainings from Yogic and Taoist traditions were an integral part of preparing for meditation practice. In Zen (my practice), as I understand the history, once it was brought to Japan from China, the Taoist physical practices were lost.
Now that may not have been a problem in the traditional Asian Zen model, in which lifelong monks did all of the meditation practice, and the lay community supported them financially. And anecdotal evidence shows that meditators in the East have almost no low back pain when meditating – why? Because they have been sitting on the floor, unsupported for their whole lives.
But nowadays in the West, regular folks like us want to pursue the same intensive training as the monks once did, but do so as lay practitioners and integrate the training into our everyday lives. The problem is, our bodies have been conditioned to have absolutely no idea how to sit in an unsupported manner for any length of time. Once we start sitting at desks and in cars all day, our posterior chain muscles turn off, our core goes weak, our hip flexors and hamstrings lock up, stress and tension build up in our muscles and our breath becomes short and shallow.
Unfortunately, beginning mediators in the West are given physical instructions such as, “sit straight, pretend there is a string pulling your head up to the ceiling” – and that’s it! And maybe, “if you have trouble getting in position, do these stretches”. This probably works fine for folks who don’t sit in chairs all day and have never had a back injury, but for the rest of us, it is woefully inadequate.
The bottom line is that you can’t sit comfortably in meditation for any length of time, or achieve the required mental focus, if your posture is off or if your back hurts.
So, to make the benefits of meditation more accessible in the West, we need to re-integrate the physical practices back into meditation training.
I am proposing to “change the game” of how meditation is taught in the West, by introducing a simple, repeatable physical conditioning program that can be used by meditation students of all experience levels. I am calling on all meditation teachers out there who are committed to making meditation more accessible to contact me so we can partner in creating and implementing such a program!
So pass the word, let’s get everyone meditating – pain free – it will make the world a better place 
A huge omission in modern meditation training is dealing with the physical aspect of practice. Not having the physical part right causes pain and discomfort not only in the back, but in the whole body – and also makes it very tough to focus and calm the mind.
Way back when, physical trainings from Yogic and Taoist traditions were an integral part of preparing for meditation practice. In Zen (my practice), as I understand the history, once it was brought to Japan from China, the Taoist physical practices were lost.
But nowadays in the West, regular folks like us want to pursue the same intensive training as the monks once did, but do so as lay practitioners and integrate the training into our everyday lives. The problem is, our bodies have been conditioned to have absolutely no idea how to sit in an unsupported manner for any length of time. Once we start sitting at desks and in cars all day, our posterior chain muscles turn off, our core goes weak, our hip flexors and hamstrings lock up, stress and tension build up in our muscles and our breath becomes short and shallow.
Unfortunately, beginning mediators in the West are given physical instructions such as, “sit straight, pretend there is a string pulling your head up to the ceiling” – and that’s it! And maybe, “if you have trouble getting in position, do these stretches”. This probably works fine for folks who don’t sit in chairs all day and have never had a back injury, but for the rest of us, it is woefully inadequate.
The bottom line is that you can’t sit comfortably in meditation for any length of time, or achieve the required mental focus, if your posture is off or if your back hurts.
So, to make the benefits of meditation more accessible in the West, we need to re-integrate the physical practices back into meditation training.
I am proposing to “change the game” of how meditation is taught in the West, by introducing a simple, repeatable physical conditioning program that can be used by meditation students of all experience levels. I am calling on all meditation teachers out there who are committed to making meditation more accessible to contact me so we can partner in creating and implementing such a program!
So pass the word, let’s get everyone meditating – pain free – it will make the world a better place