Obstacles to Meditation (physical discomfort)

[Aloka]

Ven. Guo Gu of the Tallahasse Chan Centre USA talks about obstacles to meditation. (approx 13 minutes)







Comments about the video are welcome.

[philg]

It was a bit difficult to catch all he said as the sound quality wasn't so good, with echoes masking his voice. He did have some excellent advice, although I would caution believing in 'energy channels' as a real thing. Posture is important to meditation as different postures have different effects. Poor posture can lead to pain and it's worth studying thousands of years of experimentation in meditation, now available to us, to find one suitable for you. The individual is important because people have their own issues such as old injuries, or arthritis, or just, like me, old age. The trick is in getting the balance between looking after your body, and finding a sustainable meditation posture which enhances your meditation experience.

We used to have a posture expert at the centre who would look at us as we meditated and later suggest improvements if he saw something was amiss. Unfortunately most of us don't have that, but I guess we could take selfies to study our own postures now and then to make sure we are not slipping, or maybe slumping, in our postures.