Sitting in the half-lotus position does not provide as firm a base because only one knee is weighted down by the opposite leg. To compensate for this, switch the position of your legs, if you can, with each sitting. If you find that this proves too difficult to do immediately, set aside time to gently lengthen the muscles of your legs, hips and groin; but beware that you don't pull a muscle or injure yourself in your eagerness, or you may have to take weeks to recuperate. Gradual, steady practice is advised and works for most people if they are loving, understanding and patient with themselves and, above all, if they are relaxed. Do not ever force yourself into a position or hold it when it brings on intense pain. It is not uncommon for misalignments to develop by twisting at the waist in order to have both knees touch the floor.

An effective way to help loosen the muscles that keep your legs from settling down on either side of you, so that they easily rest on the floor, can be done while sitting in a meditation seat. Sit on the very edge of your meditation seat with your feet placed shoulder-width apart and with your knees positioned directly over your ankles. Then lift one leg and rest the ankle of that leg on the thigh of the other, allowing the knee of the raised leg to descend out to the side as far as it can comfortably go, supporting it with your hands and then lifting it and lowering it over and over again. Each time you lower it, think that leg is relaxing more. Then set it again, and let go even more, trying to feel what may be necessary to have this happen. Be sure your hips remain level the whole time and that your legs sink lower and lower on either side. Be aware of and be mindful of everything that is happening in terms of your thoughts and deeds during this simple exercise. If, after your efforts, you cannot manage to sit comfortably in the full- or the half-lotus position, then you may wish to try the "free" position.

Should pain develop, stay with it for awhile. Observe it, rather than lamenting your lot or wishing you were elsewhere, squirming, trying to escape or braving it out while gritting your teeth. Staying with your pain, you will soon clearly see how to succeed in your effort by the way you sit, the way you breathe and/or by the way you view the situation.
Borrowing from another source, we can take this advice: "Be still and know." Whatever comes, allow it to happen. Do not avoid or reject, but take in whatever is happening, including your way of coping. Even if your reaction is to get out of the situation, providing you become fully aware of what is happening, you are no longer so thoroughly caught up in it. Be mindful of what is happening in the present, for only you are in touch with the events, their causes and conditions.

It may be beneficial for you to explore your response when sending loving-kindness to yourself. It may feel embarrassing, silly or unbecoming; you may even find yourself inexplicably crying. As practiced in the Theravada tradition, in combination with vipasyana,the meditation on loving-kindness is simple and profound, yet very effective, in reaching the sources of our deep suffering. It is Dharma at its purest, inasmuch as it addresses compassion as well as being intimate with pain. Do you experience pain as if it were an objectoutside of you, an intruder? This approach can generate meaningful insights into the workings of your mind and should be explored.

However, you should let discretion be your guide. Do not submit to pain for the sake of absolving yourself of a sense of guilt or to prove how well-intentioned or how willing you are to endure torture. Consider it, rather, to be an act of loving-kindness or as mindfulness practice. Either way, it is expedient. However, if you find the pain too distracting, stretch out your legs mindfully, take a rest and return to sitting. If you can simply sit and not be involved in sitting correctlyin order to achieve something, you will find yourself becoming increasingly quiet, your breath becoming more subtle and your muscles becoming more relaxed; then meditation ensues quite naturally.

Chest, Abdomen, Buttocks

Raise your chest a little, moving it forward, and sit so that the hollow part of your chest, the part that is at about the level of the base of your sternum (the den of your heart), permits your diaphragm to function unimpeded. Newcomers to meditation often experience obstruction and discomfort in the chest, and that is usually caused by the den of the heart not being low enough. Should that occur, focus your awareness on your abdomen and refrain from any effort; you should feel relief in a short time. Your buttocks should be protruding a little, and your back should be comfortably, easily erect. Sit relaxed and self-composed, settling into your lower abdomen. This practice has been found to be especially calming.

Hands

Sitting in the half-lotus position, make sure your right foot is on top of your left thigh. Your palms are turned up, with the back of your right hand resting in the palm of your left, while the back of your left hand rests at about the level of your tan-t'ien(or the lower part of your abdomen).

In the full-lotus position, the legs are crossed a little above the ankles, with the left leg uppermost. Here, the back of your left hand is cradled at the place where your legs cross.
When these positions become natural and comfortable, there is usually an accompanying sense of ease, silence and tranquillity.

Natural Breathing

The abdomen relaxes and expands as you inhale and contracts as you exhale. This is, indeed, natural; for when you exhale, the diaphragm moves upward into the chest, while the abdomen simultaneously contracts. The contraction not only assists in evacuating the lungs, but also stimulates blood circulating through the organs contained in the abdominal cavity by compressing the viscera.

Right Breathing

The abdomen is contracted as you inhale, and it relaxes as you exhale. This sort of breathing has been used in China since ancient times as a kind of physical and mental hygiene. Try both methods to discover whatever advantages each seems to hold for you, the practitioner, lest you get caught up in having to have things happen in only a certain way.

Breathing Practice

While you are relaxed, it becomes profoundly evident that breathing simply goes on and that there is the knowing that it does. You can intentionally breathe in a certain way, but the need for doing so is based upon some external circumstances bringing about the need for the intention, so that the matter of choice seems somewhat obviated; thus, intention seems to come about almost capriciously, in spite of yourself, as it were. This paradox exists in everything that we do. Meditation takes place in the absence of thought, and yet we think that without thought there can be no meditation. Perhaps the answer to this conundrum lies in the sequence of two separate events rather than in what seems their apparent opposition. For example, when you are actively paying attention to your breath, you cannot be calm; and so you are advised simply to relax so calm can ensue. Meditation is distinguished by absence of thought and a very characteristic sort of breathing, neither of which can be brought about at will. Control must first be relinquished. You circuitously bring that about by applying whatever you may have discovered about relaxation, and that is the full extent of exerting your will. The following rule holds true, whether you practice natural breathing or right breathing: When you sit down to meditate, sit easily erect, breathing through your nose.

At first, your breathing may be rapid and shallow. As you relax and have the attitude of neither accepting nor rejecting whatever arises, your breathing slows down and deepens until you find that you inhale and exhale, in a cycle, once every minute. Ease may be conceived of as the standard. At no time should anything feel forced or uncomfortable; rather, it should all just happen free of any concern on your part.

As you continue to sit, your breath grows finer and finer. You should devote, at the very least, five minutes each morning and each evening to this breathing-relaxation practice. Practice as often as you can during the rest of the day, wherever and whenever you happen to think of it. As the breath slows and becomes increasingly subtle, the mind stabilizes and grows calm.
As the mind goes, so goes the breath. To illustrate this, four kinds of breath are noted as evolving in the course of practice:

* The first is called windy breathto describe the sound that you make as you breathe.
* The second is known as gasping breath. Here, you no longer make any sound when you breathe but have the feeling that you cannot inhale enough.
* In the third type of breathing, the breath is even and silent and without any obstruction, but you have yet to feel calm. This is called air breath. These first three ways of breathing are still rough-hewn and still show signs of unrest.
* When there is neither sound nor obstruction, neither roughness nor softness, and in that very quiet time when you do not feel that you are breathing at all and breathing evokes no association of any kind, you have achieved the fourth kind of breath, silent breath.

It is the breath that harmonizes. If you find that you easily grow calm and that your breath quickly becomes fine, this indicates that your mind is easily stabilized. With continued practice, it may take only a few moments for your breath to be regulated, and then the need to breathe will diminish and vanish; and, with that, you will no longer be disturbed by anything. Your mind, at this stage, is said to be quiet and stable. On the way to this trouble-free state, however, there is bound to be much discomfort and restlessness. If this persists, and to help to harmonize the breath, you can try the following methods, progressing from one to the next as you grow proficient. Very relaxedly and unconcernedly count from 1 to 10 in all of these exercises:

* Count your breaths, calling one exhalation and inhalation just one breath;
* Count only your inhalations;
* Count only your exhalations.

When you have reached ten, resume counting from number one. Gradually, as your skill develops, you will be able to count to one hundred in ten groups of ten, without having your mind wander and without dropping off to sleep. However, should that happen, you are required to return to one and start all over again. As you grow more at ease, your mind and breath will, slowly and peacefully, become interdependent. Confusion and sleepiness decrease in all three breathing methods of concentration, and the mind is calmed as well.

When the goals of breath-counting have been reached, your next step will be to trace your breath. The mind, by this time, will be very calm and very concentrated. By tracing your breath, this calm and this concentration deepen until the breath is felt to enter and leave through all of your pores. As you continue in this way, you will come to experience yourself dissipating like a cloud and melting away like a fog, until there is nothing but voidness. When this happens, you find yourself freed of all sorts of illness, as the mind is established on a new, deeper level of quiet; and it is then that it is time to dispense with the method of tracing the breath.

Regulating the Mind

Meditation can improve your health, but its primary purpose is to enable you to be free of thought; because when this has occurred, wisdom shines brightly. With that aim in mind, then, we see that both counting the breath and tracing the breath are methods of regulating the breath and thereby the mind. If you are fully concentrated in this way, your thoughts are no longer confused or disordered. That is why people who have racing minds or who are involved in emotional turmoil are assigned the simple task of counting their breaths. It calms them in body, breath and mind. In body, they grow relaxed and free of tension, the breathing slows and deepens, and the mind grows quiet, calm and unperturbed.

As one continues in this practice, all but the finer states of mind disappear. Then, it is time to regulate the mind, for now it has become much less erratic. There are many methods of approach, but the one most favored is to have one rest his or her attention on just one point, and to consider any thoughts that arise to be like actors that appear on a stage and then leave. This attitude of passivity, of taking part less and less in what is happening, leads to concentration. Therefore, when you have succeeded in concentrating on the point of your choice, you are also free of disturbing thoughts; and, with continued concentration, the practitioner finds, as well, that fewer disturbing thoughts arise for the rest of the day. So, concentrate upon or relaxedly be aware of the tip of your nose, your navel or the point an inch and a half below it, in an area known as the tan t'ien,because your mind needs something to occupy it. Traditionally, in this practice the mind is said to be like a monkey that has been restricted to a small space, where it can no longer jump and skip about.

Two things plague you most when you are preparing the ground, as it were, from which meditation sprouts:

1. When you first sit down, your mind is restless and unstable. You are pulled in all directions, eager to succeed one moment and frustrated when things don't turn out the way you want the next. You may begin to ache, first in one place and then in another, so that all of your time is taken up trying to escape the pain or consoling yourself, or both. You may imagine yourself elsewhere, participating in events that have taken place in your life, or that events that are somehow important to you are taking place again. You may find yourself dozing off over and over again.

2. Through continuing practice, your mind becomes more settled, and discriminating thought diminishes; but there is still confusion, and you easily tire and doze off. It is to deal with these problems that you should sense the point an inch and a half below your navel and about an inch and a half in, which is in the area called the tan t'ien. This will not only correct your disordered thought and keep you from drifting off in reverie, but it also has a recognized physiologically stabilizing effect that results in mental and physical health as well. Again, you have to find the point to concentrate on that works for you. It might be the tip of your nose, your navel or the point an inch and a half below it. Whatever you choose to do, however, stay with it for the duration of the time that you have set aside for sitting. Beginners, especially, should make their practice more successful by finding the time to meditate when they are most alert, by eliminating discomfort and distraction and, most of all, by understanding the purpose of it all.

Insight Meditation

The method of concentration described thus far, in which you are to return to your object of concentration when you discover that you are caught up in discriminating thought, is a shallow way to grow calm and to stop wandering thoughts, because it involves thinking about the thoughts that arise, which is like adding fuel to a fire. It is not really a means of reaching calm, then, and so you must eventually abandon that method and take one more step to insight meditation. Ordinarily, you use your eyes to look outside. In this approach, you must literally put aside everything; close your eyes and observe and/or feel your discriminating thoughts. If you do, you will soon find you cannot hold onto them, dissolve them or send them away. Once this is deeply realized and you no longer struggle to hold onto them, dissolve them or send them away, you will know original stillness and emptiness. When this insight develops and you reflect in this way on a thought that arises, it quickly disappears and is replaced by voidness. This marks the creation of a radically new way in which the mind can work.

When you first set out to meditate, it may seem that your thought has lessened. After you have practiced for awhile, however, you will most likely feel that it has increased. What has actually increased is the realization of what has really been so right along, and this immediate and continuous source of suffering can serve as a lighthouse in the treacherous waters of samsara. This can be compared to not being aware of the dust rising in a room until a shaft of sunlight shines on it. In the same way, then, if you feel that you have too much thought, it is the first step toward enlightenment. Abandoning thought, persevering in the insight that permits this and delighting in this, usually over a long period of time, lead to a natural disappearance of thought. There is, instead, stillness. As you continue in this way, the stillness becomes more profound, for it becomes a stillness in which sudden enlightenment can occur.

Reciting the Name of Amitabha Buddha

As you may have realized, it is not unusual for thoughts to assail you relentlessly when you sit down to practice. Usually it is beyond your control, and, even with the best of intentions, one might eventually feel that there is no way to begin to practice. If you find that is more the rule than not for you, you might try the Pure Land approach, which is simply to recite the name of Amitabha Buddha over and over again. It is a very simple practice and can be very effective, but it requires a deep faith and a strong vow to be able to carry it out. However, if you sincerely recite the name of Amitabha,so that there is no other thought in your mind, and do this for some time, false thought will diminish.

Ch'an Master Che-Wu said that when a pure pearl is put into turbid water, the turbid water becomes pure. Similarly, when Buddha's name is put into a confused mind, that mind becomes Buddha. Ideally, reciting Amitabha Buddha should free you of defilements in this very lifetime and assure your rebirth in the Pure Land as a great, bright light in the Ocean of Suffering, meriting praise for the Mahayana sutras and all the patriarchs and Dharma Masters of the past. Should you have any reservations about this practice, it must be said that this simple act of reciting Amitabha is profoundly Buddhist, because it engages body, speech and mind in one concerted effort-the body by regulating the breath; the speech by confining it to a simple utterance; and the mind by a resolve which has been made and a vow which has been taken.

There are variations on this theme, as it were. You can recite aloud. You can recite silently. You can recite as you inhale. You can recite as you exhale. You can recite on both inhaling and exhaling. The rate at which you practice varies according to your particular needs and abilities, but this is true of any practice that you might engage in. The recitation should, in any event, proceed with the tranquility that comes from mind and breath depending on one another. As you continue in this way, the mind grows calm and the breath becomes shapeless. Then, it is as though only your original intention or vow functions, the recitation continuing on its own without disturbance or confusion until first the stage of no-mind is reached and then that of no no-mind s attained.

In The Sutra of Ch'an Samadhi it says that if a Bodhisattva meditates with nothing but the Buddha in mind, he obtains samadhi. This simple method of reciting the Buddha's name can rid you of discriminating thought, which is the false thought or the thinking that the common man is plagued with, and reward you with Right Wisdom; and because your breath is regulated, your health is improved too.