The Hands

jgpp

Hi,

When I have my hands placed one palm in the other with the tips of the thumbs touching, I find I can't really relax my hands. Having my hands in such a placement causes some exertion of energy. To have the thumbs pressed upon each other causes some effort and I find my mind constantly focusing on my hands and repositioning them into a more comfortable stance. I kind of press the thumbs together to lock them in place so they don't collapse. I have a sand bag where I rest my hands but still theirs a slight strain.

I feel if I can get my hands in a more relaxed position my meditation practice will become heightened.

Advice, experience?

Fenix

sometimes I get that feeling and sometimes my hands feel extremely comfortable. sry I cant help

Tikal2012

It sounds as if you have a problem with your hands being too tense. Am I right?
If that's the case then that's OK. You obviously don't want your body to be too tense, otherwise you wouldn't be meditating, but what you want to understand is that you don't want your body to turn into a bowl of porridge and just slop all over itself. When you start to meditate, your body might have tension, gradually you just let it go breath by breath and your hands will naturally settle into themselves. As you enter into a more advanced stage of the meditation your whole body, including your hands, will have entered this state of perfect relaxation, where it is not too tense, and not too lose.

santhisouk

Place your hands wherever it feels comfortable first. Just rested on your lap should be fine. You can even move them around to find where it is most comfortable. Once you find a comfortable place for them, you can now go back to single minded focus and breath, and once you reach that everything else falls into place and uncomfortableness including with the hands will also fade into the focus that you have reached.

Bodha8

The Mudra should reflect he type of meditation you wish to practice. If slight adjustments to your Mudra are required to all;ow you to relax more, then you should make them.

With Metta

jll

The issue is not your hands, its your monkey mind up to its old tricks. Once you solve the hand problem, it will be something else.

seeker242

The hands are usually not supposed to be completely relaxed. To press the thumbs together makes too much tension. They should just lightly be touching each other with just the tips, not pressing any way. What prevents them from collapsing is mindfulness of your posture.

Talisman

The issue is not your hands, its your monkey mind up to its old tricks. Once you solve the hand problem, it will be something else.

^^this

lightwithin

Having my hands in such a placement causes some exertion of energy.

I totally know what you mean. I find myself in the same position as well. I learned the cosmic/universal mudra is the proper position in Zazen and I tried to keep it as long as I could, but had to give it up for the same reason.

I've seen pictures of people meditating (from different traditions of Buddhism) with their hands just one cradling the other with no special position of the fingers, so I started doing that.

But then, even that felt like a strain, because I'm a fat person and having my hands in front of my huge gut also took some effort and it was throwing me off. So I ended up keeping my hands, palms down, on top of each of my knees. Which I also saw on a picture (on the Dharma Punx website). This is the position I use now and I find it very comfortable.

I'm aware the mudras have their purpose and meaning and that any hardcore Zen master would say I'm wrong to not do it, but I just went with what felt better.

but what you want to understand is that you don't want your body to turn into a bowl of porridge and just slop all over itself.

This is a great point to remember. Relaxation doesn't mean complete loss of muscle tone or sloppiness. I have to keep reminding myself of that over and over, not just while in meditation, but also off the cushion too.