Personal and Spiritual Growth

Yes, you can meditate lying down. Meditation teachers treat it as a genuine posture, not a lesser one: Insight Meditation Center’s posture guide opens with the line “We can meditate sitting, standing, walking or lying down.” Lying on your back suits body scan practice, days when sitting hurts, and meditating in bed. The one real trade-off is sleepiness. Lying down is the posi...

A meditation chair is any seat that lets you sit upright, relaxed and alert without straining to hold yourself up. That can be an ordinary firm dining chair, a padded floor chair with a backrest, or a low kneeling stool. You do not need special furniture: meditation teachers include plain chair sitting in their own instructions. What matters is how you sit. Choose a firm, fla...

A meditation bench, also called a seiza bench, is a small, low wooden seat that you kneel astride: your shins rest on the floor, your lower legs fold underneath the bench, and your sitting bones rest on a slightly slanted top. It suits people whose hips do not want to cross, because it holds the spine upright without rotating the hips. For most people the choice comes down to...

To sit for meditation, pick a seat that lets your spine stay upright without strain: a cushion on the floor, a kneeling bench, or a chair. Then set the same few points every time: hips a little higher than your knees, a slight natural curve in the lower back, shoulders relaxed, chin slightly tucked, hands resting on your thighs or in your lap, and eyes either closed or restin...

A meditation cushion is a firm, raised seat that lifts your hips a few inches above the floor so your knees can drop below them and your spine can stay upright without effort. For most beginners the answer is a zafu (a round, firm cushion, usually filled with buckwheat hulls or kapok) placed on a zabuton (a flat padded mat that protects your ...