Things to do when doing standing meditation?

[markern]

I have read that many people don`t just stand and focus when doing standing meditation but do breathwork or active meditations or some sort of more active physical work. FOr example one guy wrote that after relaxing completely he would imagine hugging a tree and tehn trying to pull the tree backwards, forwards to the sides etc. I played arround with it a bit and that can be a real workout if you do it for some time. And it seems to activate ALL your muscles. SOme posters also write about learning to really use the poses actively but I haven`t read much more descriptions of how to do that than this. Anyone care to fill me in?

 

I am also wondering about what happens when you do more active meditations while standing. THey way I think of it is that if you just stand you get a certain effect but if you do for example fusion while standing you get a lot less of the original effect and exchange it with a fusion efect. So you are not just adding you are exchanging. Maybe the trade of is good but it still seems to me like it would be a trade of. In a similar manner I would supose doing Vipassana while standing would change the energetic process from what it is if you just let it be an energetic practice.

 

Any thoughts on this will be much apreciated.

[Encephalon]

I have read that many people don`t just stand and focus when doing standing meditation but do breathwork or active meditations or some sort of more active physical work. FOr example one guy wrote that after relaxing completely he would imagine hugging a tree and tehn trying to pull the tree backwards, forwards to the sides etc. I played arround with it a bit and that can be a real workout if you do it for some time. And it seems to activate ALL your muscles. SOme posters also write about learning to really use the poses actively but I haven`t read much more descriptions of how to do that than this. Anyone care to fill me in?

 

I am also wondering about what happens when you do more active meditations while standing. THey way I think of it is that if you just stand you get a certain effect but if you do for example fusion while standing you get a lot less of the original effect and exchange it with a fusion efect. So you are not just adding you are exchanging. Maybe the trade of is good but it still seems to me like it would be a trade of. In a similar manner I would supose doing Vipassana while standing would change the energetic process from what it is if you just let it be an energetic practice.

 

Any thoughts on this will be much apreciated.

 

 

The instructions I got were pretty clear; soft focus straight ahead, abdominal breathing, and mindfulness of your interior state. Vipassana is great, although I've practiced the dissolving method and recited positive affirmations in sequence with my breathing. I've even cheated and cued up Netflix documentaries on Buddhism and Asian themes when I needed help, but that's kind of a betrayal of the spirit of the discipline and I don't make a habit of it.

[Sloppy Zhang]

I think some types of meditations are best done with sitting. To do them when standing.... I don't know what will happen.

 

That said, there are a lot of different types of standing. There's standing for meditation, standing for martial arts, etc etc. Each of these has a different goal. B.K. Frantzis, in "Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body" teaches a standing practice used for dissolving. The point of this practice is to get to a spot where you stand and keep yourself there by relying on natural body alignment. In this way you can stand, but be as relaxed as possible.

 

Now if you look at some standing methods of, say, Yin style bagua, you'd get a slightly different flavor. While I think that style does have some standing meditation poses, it also uses standing as a method of conditioning. So you take a certain pose, and hold it. It's supposed to be difficult. It's supposed to make you feel uncomfortable at the beginning. Being able to stick with it is what builds the type of whole body strength that yin style bagua uses.

 

IMHO, unless you have gotten a lot of experience in a lot of different types of standing, don't be trying to mix and match stuff. Don't try to do a dissolving stance while trying to incorporate endurance building aspects of a yin style bagua approach, and don't throw in some sitting meditation aspects because you want to get it all in one go. It might not turn out so great. Then again, it might turn out great. I wouldn't do it unless I had a lot of experience, and was fairly comfortable that the two mixed well.

Edited October 16, 2010 by Sloppy Zhang

[electric gravity]

If your just talking about regular standing meditation then id say it is 110% all about alignment.

correct your alignment and relax deeper and deeper. One thing i do to help me with this is i internally tell my self to heal,relax and align and by repeating this in my mind ever so often my body responds with these three.

 

I also do my standing twice daily one with the eyes open 45 degrees and then eyes closed as they both do different things.

[island]

I practice 'embracing the tree' for 30 mins every morning and apart from relaxing and correcting alignment and emptying myself, i do breathing exercises in and out of the Bubbling Spring points and the Laogong points for 9 - 18 breaths each.

[Mal]

[z00se]

I think the benefit of doing standing meditation is that you are more grounded while you do it. You are grounded within your body, keeping your alignment good WHILE meditating and using energy. It's easy to become ungrounded while meditating sitting down. Meditation is hard on it's own but if you keep correct posture at the same time you improve your mind to be doing many things concurrently.

 

It then becomes easier to keep good posture while you are studying or working things out with your mind. While you are distracted. You can be very high, using high energies while still 'within your body'. It's the integration of the 3 pure ones, into tai chi, the perfect balance, yin-yang harmony.

 

I think to do it well it's not for beginners. But when you are good at grounding work, and then become good at higher level stuff, integrating them into one is the next step and where great benefit begins. When you can punch with perfect structural alignment and shoot the energy out at the same time the perfect harmony of tai chi is achieved and power of the punch is the greatest.

[ZhengLi]

Before I get into posture I grab a big imaginary weight, and use my body, from the feet up, to lift that weight to my shoulder height... I'm in the classic health stance (or Embrace the ball stance or whatever it's called). From their, without moving my skeleton, I'll grab somebody and try to pull them down towards my feet, but they resist it. I'll keep that activity going while I create resistance between my opposite arms and legs, creating an X (left hand to right foot, and vice versa), and try to separate that resistance with my whole body. So I try to keep those 2 actions going while I imagine a heavy bowl on my head, I try to push up and stretch my spine and breath into my central line.

 

Now I have 3 muscular actions, and no skeletal movement. I go to the first action, and make it heavier by an ounce. Then to the second, then to third. Making each one an ounce heavier. I continue this cycle of making each one heavier. Within a couple minutes, I pretty much reach my body's capacity.

 

The entire time I am trying to work on sung-gann and whole body connectivity. I am trying to reach for example 100 lbs of force, while still remaining sung-gann. It is a trial and error process because you will create tension, but at the same time you need to learn how to not create tension. You start off with one action, but eventually want a dozen. This will require your maximum physical and mental exertion, and you will gain a lot of energy from it. When a student asked Wang Xiangzhai,"How do you stand for at a time?", Wang replied "Only 15 minutes". 15 minutes of doing this type of work, for several dozen different muscular activities, making each one an ounce heavier every second, is going to be an immense amount of work. For the brain, and the body. Also, this means that Wang only considered this hard work to be standing, as opposed to just being in a posture. If you take those 15 minutes, and put them one after another, without breaking from the posture and no time in between, again we are talking about a LOT of work.

 

Another thing you can try to do is walk forward while you are standing, but without actually moving. Engage all the muscles required to pick up your foot, push it forward, put into the ground, pull it back to move the body forward, etc... All without actually moving the skeleton. This will burn quite badly after a few moments, but try it out it's quite interesting.

 

Hopefully this was helpful.

 

"...non-movement is actually a movement which is always being born and never ceasing"

 

"if form is clearly visible, force is dispersed, when there is no form, spirit is accumulated"

 

-Wang Xiangzhai

 

PS. I give you a lot of credit for even just playing with this on your own. It is not an easy method.

Edited October 19, 2010 by ZhengLi

[z00se]

Before I get into posture I grab a big imaginary weight, and use my body, from the feet up, to lift that weight to my shoulder height... I'm in the classic health stance

 

Maybe this works for you but....

 

Why create work for yourself? i remember the saying 'life is simple but everyone chases complexity' or something like that.

 

If you feel you are lifting heavier weights than what u actually are you are creating more work for yourself. Your muscles are working counter productive of each other. You should be practicing using all your muscles in unison to make life easier not harder. Yeah i can stand in the same spot and stress all my muscles against each other and be in a pool of my own sweat but what for? I could run a marathon and use a quarter of the energy by using my body efficiently, using my bones and a little muscular effort for maximum acheivement.

 

Practice doing what you want to achieve. If you want to make life hard for yourself keep doing what ur doing. If you want to have an easy and productive life practice that. Go with the way, don't fight against it. Go with the tao and life will be easy and blissful.

[ZhengLi]

Maybe this works for you but....

 

Why create work for yourself? i remember the saying 'life is simple but everyone chases complexity' or something like that.

 

If you feel you are lifting heavier weights than what u actually are you are creating more work for yourself. Your muscles are working counter productive of each other. You should be practicing using all your muscles in unison to make life easier not harder. Yeah i can stand in the same spot and stress all my muscles against each other and be in a pool of my own sweat but what for? I could run a marathon and use a quarter of the energy by using my body efficiently, using my bones and a little muscular effort for maximum acheivement.

 

Practice doing what you want to achieve. If you want to make life hard for yourself keep doing what ur doing. If you want to have an easy and productive life practice that. Go with the way, don't fight against it. Go with the tao and life will be easy and blissful.

 

It doesn't just work for me, it worked for the best in I-Chuan and Hsing-I, Guo Yunshen and Wang Xiangzhai, and students. The power that people can gain through this type of standing is phenomenal, the health and vigor that it creates is one of a kind. Professor Yu, my teacher's teacher, is in his 90's and still going strong. His other students I hear are incredible too, and this is the way they stand, do test of power, health dance, anything. They are working their body like this 6 hours everyday. They are relaxed, but still working hard. This internal work is called zheng li (opposing force).

 

Everything you say is correct, but you completely misunderstand zheng li. Zheng Li is a way to unify the body, you are connecting up all your muscles to do these tasks. It exercises the mind and body by the same action, that is mind-body connection. It is elastic, and it keeps the body young. Any tension will render your training useless or harmful. I highly recommend to seek out a teacher that truly understands zheng li. The other teachers I've seen and learned from did not have anything close to the teacher I have now that understands this principal. If kung fu was easy, everyone would be masters.