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Have you ever felt soreness from meditation?
7788
Explorer
In your back. As a teen I've been slouching and it makes it quite hard to sit up straight in lotus position without back pain or leg pain for that matter. I haven't ever had to sit in that position. I stretch and am flexible but that position is hard, especially on my back. I really wish I hadn't sat slouched over in my chair all my life 
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Comments
Maybe try a chair with a straight back.
But how will I ever transition to normal meditation by sitting in a chair?
@7788 Hi!
I'm a personal trainer, if the rounded thoracic spine is not genetic it is likely you can fix the issue.
If you are mobile through the thoracic spine then it could be muscle imbalances.
What works is to do the direct opposite of the movement that caused it.
What you need to do is strengthen your upper back. Seated rows and bent over rows with a barbell are a great way to do this. It's a pulling movement that retracts your shoulder blades and will bring your shoulders back. Then stretch your chest and shoulders!
Lower back extensions and dead lifts will strengthen your lower back.
Once or twice a week would be all you need with strength training and remember to stretch.
This will help bring you into a much more upright position. It is your muscles that support the spine so by strengthening them you can create a more balanced posture
.
If you don't have access to a gym I can program a body weight only way to do this but adjustable weights are better
Many experienced meditators, including some teachers always use a chair.
There is no "normal" meditation. It is whatever works for you. Various people in our sangha use meditation cushions. meditation benches, chairs, rocking chairs, and other furniture.
You might try yoga, which I find to be balanced throughout the body (versus other workouts unless you are well trained in designing a workout or work with a personal trainer) and see if things improve. Also, you could spend a tolerable amount of time in lotus, or half lotus (or just cross-legged) and then increase time and change position. You are not "not meditating" just because of the position you sit in.
I believe It's muscle imbalances and lack of back strength, I'm a teen that slouches as many teens do. This was helpful, as were other answers. Thanks for the quick reply, have a nice night!
Meditation is an act of willingness to accept exactly where you are. A specific physical meditation posture is just another thing to not become attached to in a practice. Any stable, physically comfortable position that doesn't restrict your breathing or cause you to become drowsy is a usable platform to learn how to formally meditate.
@Earthninja - A PT? Are you based in Sydney by any chance?
While strengthening your back try walking or standing meditation.
. . . or Mr Cushion says try flying meditation . . .
Why do you think you have to make that transition?
In my group many people sit down on chairs, too, and one aged lady even in an armchair.
You may have to wriggle about until you find a comfortable position for you, but eventually you will become more flexible in the position you choose. Just because the Buddha is always represented so serene in his lotus position, nobody said lotus is the goal. The goal is to meditate.
@dhammachick no in Western Australia
@7788 let me know if you have access to any equipment but better yet a gym is a good place to work through any imbalances.
If the pain is centred in a particular spot in the lower back. It could just be a trigger point/knot
too.
I may not know much about meditation but I do know a little about muscles, here to help
Meditation is part focus. We do have weave in and out of focus at times in order to maintain our outter focus, or our meditative experience. When our bodily tensions becomes the focus, we have to weave out of that tension by gently easing it, loosen, and relax it to our comfort, all the while, taking a mental note of our easing, or soothing, and then lightening the grip on that tension.
The boy's a real asset. Hunts and fishes the dinner, helps you get your butt firm, meditates with you, and very cute to boot, if you've seen his picture on the pictures of members section .. :clap: ..
If all else fails, Mr Cushion has a highly regarded 'deck chair meditation' available . . .
Well that sucks LOL
I think that sometimes we westerners see a pic of some slim young person of Asian origin in lotus posture and think that we can and should sit like that...whoops.
A straight back is a good idea, as is what ever helps sit with a straight back.
My teacher -- the abbot of a Zen monastery in Japan -- once told me that for the first 17 years of his practice, his legs hurt ... a lot. This is not to indicate that if-you-ain't-hurting-you-ain't-doin'-it. It is to indicate that coming to terms with pain, whether physical or mental, is part of the tapestry.
Sitting on a cushion is stable and does allow for a more energetic focus on things other than stability. But that doesn't mean there are no other places or ways to sit effectively. So ... if there is trouble sitting on a cushion (and that is what you would like to do), experiment with more or fewer cushions under your butt. Try kneeling. Try and fail; try and fail ... that's practice.
My own experience was that during a seven-day retreat during which I was kneeling, the pain was so intense that I decided I might as well sit half-lotus thereafter. Which took some doing with knock-knees, but eventually things worked out.
Experiment. See what works for you ... not too hard; not too easy ... your life, your practice.
I think everyone experiences lower back pain when get started meditating. It goes away with time. The body gets accustomed.
You don't have to use a lotus position.
I never had lower back pain or sore knees. However in the beginning I encountered a discomfort between the shoulder blades. It feel as though an awl was being slowly twisted in. Painful. Eventually for most persons the pains seem to leave.
@grackle
Good point. Some physical pains in meditation have mental or emotional causes.
Those types of physical pains only fade when their mental or emotional causes are resolved.