Hi,

At the moment I can't properly do any walking meditation due to knee/foot pains. This sucks. I have some ideas how to improve this condition, but it will take some time. Possibly a lot.
In the meantime, I'm facing the question whether it's a good idea to do sitting meditation without walking meditation before.
My teacher(s) keep asserting that it's very important to do X minutes of walking meditation, and then X minutes of sitting meditation afterwards, but don't really explain in detail why this would be important.
I'm aware of e.g. the goenka technique, where there's only sitting meditation. But noting seems to work very differently, so maybe those approaches can't be compared in this respect.

What's your experience with doing Noting-sitting-meditation without walking before? Is it much less effective or detrimental in other ways I'm not thinking of?

If they can't explain this instruction, you can safely ignore it. Pedagogical overemphasis on posture (what your body is doing while you're practicing) shows up in every tradition, probably because posture is the one element of student practice that teachers can see and evaluate directly.

I originally tried sitting perfectly without back support. I could sit for an hour but my back would continue to ache for days afterward. Now most of my formal vipassana practice happens while walking, and I only sit for concentration practice, mostly on a couch or chair.

If you're motivated, vigilant, and follow the instructions, posture is close to irrelevant. Don't stop meditating while your legs heal. I hope they get better soon.

Hi there, its late and I'm bored and i want to write about the dhamma, to inspire myself, so i thought I'd share some of my understandings with u, because I also wish to help others too and love sharing the dhamma!

The Thai and Mahasi tradition both emphasise the need for walking, Goenkha and the Mahayana don't seem to prioritise it the way the rest of the Theravada do.

In my last retreat, under guidance, I found by following the advice of my teacher, and alternating my practice consistently with walking and sitting meditation, I really stabilised a sense of investigative calm. In other words my centre of gravity really moved into equanimity for most of the day, instead of it being a peak experience in was a consistent experience. In the middle period of my one month retreat, I got slack with my walking, and liked calming out cause it felt good! Laziness and sleepiness became predominant, or significantly affected the development of my practice. Sayadaw U pandita Jr. proscribed consistent alternate practice of walking and sitting, and praised my results when I followed his advice, to the other students. By taking his advice and doing what he said, I was able to face what I wasn't willing to recognise, in my practice at the time. That I had become unmotivated and lazy.

When the practice gets stronger and more stable and concentrated you can sit more, but this can lead to laxity and sleepiness if the practice isn't refined enough, and then you need to go back to the alternate practice. I found when i was re-stablised in the third half of my retreat, I would be very discipline in the first half or two thirds of the day with my alternate walking and sitting practice. This would get me really stabilised and then I would allow my self to sit longer and go deeper in the afternoon and evening.

I said that, in response to the question about what are the benefits of sitting and walking meditation practiced together. This is my experience, and it is also in accord with the pedagogical theory of the Mahasi tradition.

But if you can't walk, don't beat your self up about it, you can't walk! So what can you do? How do you get around this need of energy that is provided by walking?

I would use the approach that Allan Wallace describes to negotiate the problems of laxity and excitation. Though he is talking about samadhi, the problem of laxity and excitation applies to both samadhi and insight! And actually, his advice is very in tune or similar to the advice given by the Mahasi tradition, within the context of the 7 factors of enlightenment.

Also if your having problems sitting cross-legged, sit in a chair, but one with out back support. It will stop sleepiness coming on as much, as it would in a chair with support.
Also standing meditation, takes effort, not enough to really help me get out of a sleepiness state, but if thats all that i/u can do its better than sitting! And does help increase the enlightened factor of effort.

So when they talk about the 7 factors of enlightenment, they make reference to balancing the factors, to help with laxity and excitation. So, to much/hard concentration or precisely effort(this can be insight based concentration as well), tires the mind and after a while the mind will get tired and sleepy. Also, to much laxity and relaxation will allow the mind to loose its object. You can never have to much mindfulness. So if your getting sleep you need to increase energy or effort, energy or effort is not concentration! And notice this effort is also translated as energy! You can also increase bliss, pitti another factor of the 7 factors of enlightenment, to help with laxity.

Proper concentration is built on the foundations of relaxation, strengthened with stability and refined with clarity. You can't have clarity with out stability of the object, you can't have stability of the object without relaxation.

So we have bliss/rapture/joy, effort/energy, investigation, mindfulness, concentration, calm/tranquility, equanimity/neutrality. So before mindfulness we have the active energising qualities that help counter act laxity. After mindfulness we have the relaxing states that help calm excitation. So, if your really good at this you use this stuff to help balance your laxity and excitation and get all 7 factors in balance and attain stream-entry, is the traditional Mahasi teaching. Yay. But its a bit easier doing this by just alternating walking and sitting, if you can!

Hopefully that is helpful, i look forward to any well researched questions. After you have made an effort to contextualise these ideas above. If you have no familiarity with them. The best way to do that is by ready at least three different authors explaining how to do this. Then you are not, missing the reality of the moon, for the conceptual label of the finger pointing to it. Or your seeing the concepts behind the words or unfamiliar language. Then your questions might be, good questions. In others words, I am asking you to do a little bit of work in response to the work and study, I have done to write this for u. And if you know what I'm talking about, lets praise the wonderful dhamma, cause these are pretty amazing teachings that I am attempting to past on, from my limited understanding.

Those last words are just for a broader audience, of answer seekers, which may or may not include you.

Now lets look at how we use the triad of relaxation stability and clarity to balance laxity and excitation! Which is used in Allan Wallace book to develop concentration. Though it is used in concentration there is not reason why it can't be used it insight too.

So clarity of the object, such as the rising and falling of the breath, helps with increasing alertness when you experiencing laxity (alertness is kind of the positive word for balanced/good excitation), sort of keeping the breath in continual mindfulness. Without to much effort, holding it with clarity will help counteract laxity, because laxity is a vague wondering awareness of the object that is not so clear because you are unmindful, and when you are unmindful concentration is weak, and when you are weak in concentration the object is not clear!
But push this, need for clarity to hard, and you will swing over from need to increase alertness because you are feeling laxity, into over exertion, creating tiredness and therefore laxity. So we need to be careful not to over counter balance!

Your mind is excited, relaxation helps with excitation, you sort of calm and relax, you don't worry as much about the clarity of the objects as much, instead you hold it more with and emphasis on stability or mindfulness and relaxation. But if you are too relaxed, again you swing over to the other side, and your problem is no longer one of laxity but again back to excitation, why because your not yet so sleep from continual deep relaxation for a long period, this relaxation was contrived to accommodate the excitation. In allowing your mind to relax to much, it begins to wondering for lack of mindfulness.
Or maybe you start to get deeply relaxed again, mindfulness and clarity return, the mind is nol onger agitated and changes into a very calm state. You get deeply relaxed to relaxed and you lose you clarity it becomes hazy, and with out clarity there is no object for the mind to hold onto, then your mindfulness weakens, and then of course you get sleepy again.
So again you need to increase alertness, you do, and the relaxation regains stability and clarity and...
You start to feel blissful, this is nice you get excited enjoying it, the mind starts wondering, (wow this is such an amazing state, i have to teach others what i have learned!) you lose your mindfulness and stability, so the clarity of the object disappears because your mindfulness is gone, so the associated bliss goes, but you mindfully notice this, and stabilise and relax the mind back onto the object and the awesome calm or bliss begins to return, so you get excited!

So here we are going back and forward, but we can use this model of relaxation, stability and clarity, to spiral up, eg. We get relaxed, we hold that with stability and clarity begins to form, along its associated calm or bliss. So we deepen the base of the relaxation, then stabilise the mindfulness of the object, ie continuing noting the rising and the falling, and then the clarity of the breath begins to deepen even more, we notice all kinds of details! Also the calm that is present becomes deeper, as you view the changing phenomena within the rising and falling of the breath, maintaining the stability of your object! And you start again looking for what needs strengthening, mindfully refining your relaxation stability and clarity, spiralling upwards.

As you are without walking understanding ways of balancing laxity and excitation will help. This is the most difficult problem for meditators walking or not, around which the seven factors of enlightenment and the triad of relaxation stability and clarity can help to balance laxity and excitation!

Kind Regards! Neem.

I guess I've often received good advice without an in-detail explanation. Although it's debatable if that's a good pedagogical approach (which I'm personally not particularly fond of), that's probably not a reason to discard good advice.



So far, consistently alternating between walking and sitting is what I've always done, and what brought good results, too. Which is why I'm not carelessly changing it. Thank you for your detailed reply. This seems exactly like an explanation I was looking for. So I'll watch out if laxity takes over, and if so, try to introduce standing meditation or very short walking if at all possible.

I'm getting a bit better a writing with punctuation, I hope I made some sense. Sorry to go on so long. It really is quite simple, watch out for laxity, etc.

I remember in my first 3 month retreat, trying to map out and understand the model of laxity and excitation with regard to the seven factors of enlightenment which is very often taught, that took my quite a while to get my head around it, and make a clear mind map of it on paper.

Good luck again, from Neem.