Alternative Medicine

What is Standing Meditation?

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Standing meditation, or (“ZhanZhuang”) is a wonderful form of meditation which is integral to martial arts and QiGong. A daily, diligent standing meditation practice will create energy, provide deep relaxation and an amazing stress release.

Standing meditation has a number of advantages over traditional meditation including a lower likelihood of falling asleep as well as the ability to connect with the earth if you practice outdoors because many people are not willing to sit directly on the grass for moisture, insect or weather reasons.

Standing meditation requires a great deal of physical and mental exertion and is surprisingly demanding. Your standing meditation should be done daily at the beginning of your QiGong practice if you want to achieve the maximum benefit. Aim for a minimum of 20 minutes to a maximum of two hours. Any more than that is quite difficult unless you are very young or seriously studying martial arts.

The Basics:

“To begin with, it requires standing with feet in a parallel position and about shoulder width distant from each other. Next, you can take a long and deep breath and say the word ‘aaaah’ each time you exhale. The next thing you need to do when practicing standing meditation is, while exhaling, to release the tension from your neck and shoulders as well as face in manner that will help melt away whatever was causing tension in those places.

You need to also concentrate on feeling the energy that is within you and as it settles into your legs and feet as well as hips and belly, it will help makes a strong connection between you and the earth. You can then bend your knees (only slightly) which will enable you to feel the softest of feelings at the back of the knees.” - Natural Health Blog

It is very easy to go through the motions of standing meditation without achieving any of the real benefits. Like any skill, it requires an open mind, willingness to learn, patience and decent instruction.

There are a number of levels to standing meditation, the art of “sinking”, principles (relax, center, ground, calm, whole) and postures. It is essential to keep practicing and become dedicated to changing oneself to fully experience this life and body altering form of meditation. An well written, humorous and informative resource on standing meditation (without having to reading a book) is “13 Questions About Standing Meditation.”

Taken from the 13 Questions, are the following true paraphrased quotes from sprititual people when asked about the right point of contemplation:

“Since ZhanZhang is on the border between ‘physical’ art and spiritual ['pure' meditation], the following (paraphrased) quotes are highly appropriate.
Krishnamurti: ‘It doesn’t matter what you chant. If ‘Peace’ helps you, use that. I use ‘Coca-cola’.
Seung Sahn: ‘It only matters (a) if you believe in the practice, and (b) you don’t stop practicing. The practice can be completely ‘wrong’, and it will still work’. -” Practicalmysticproductions.com

Buy the Books: Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body or Warriors of Stillness
(both books have explanations and diagrams & all necessary info for a standing meditation practice.)

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