1 00:00:01,263 --> 00:00:20,467 Vico said in the how to meditate videos you mentioned that in the beginning you can place your hand on the stomach if you can't feel the rising and falling but is that advisable only for new meditators or can it be done later also or is it possibly considered a crutch and therefore not advisable? 2 00:00:24,652 --> 00:00:31,000 Sometimes crutches are advisable when you need them so 3 00:00:31,975 --> 00:00:42,693 use it as a crutch when you don't feel your breath but not out of a deep state of concentration. 4 00:00:42,773 --> 00:00:54,974 It might happen that your body became so still and your mind become so still that you don't notice your breath anymore. 5 00:00:54,994 --> 00:00:58,219 It's going in and out so subtle that you don't 6 00:00:59,077 --> 00:01:01,099 you can't find it anymore. 7 00:01:02,020 --> 00:01:16,676 So in that case it would be really unadvisable to take the crutch and put your hand because by that you would go out of the deep concentrated mind state. 8 00:01:17,297 --> 00:01:27,868 But if for some reason you are too, whatever, too nervous or too agitated or 9 00:01:27,848 --> 00:01:51,477 your breath is going too fast for you to even be mindful, to concentrate somehow, then you can put your hand back on the stomach and feel where it is, feel that you calm down a little bit because 10 00:01:51,457 --> 00:02:09,206 often an agitated mind makes the body nervous and the breath fast and way around the fast breath can make the mind agitated because it's working together. 11 00:02:11,089 --> 00:02:17,059 And just to qualify what the videos were, why I mentioned in the videos is really for new meditators because 12 00:02:17,663 --> 00:02:32,922 Whether or not you do use it later on, the point for a new meditator is that new meditators specifically have never spent much time looking at their breath, at their abdomen. 13 00:02:33,002 --> 00:02:35,745 So it's not a familiar object of attention. 14 00:02:35,825 --> 00:02:39,450 It's something that the mind is not used to focusing on. 15 00:02:39,530 --> 00:02:44,616 It's something that the mind is not able to even conceive. 16 00:02:45,878 --> 00:02:49,224 of how it should be or where it should be or what it should be. 17 00:02:49,805 --> 00:03:01,184 And so in order to give your mind an example or an idea of what the rising and falling is like, you put your hand on your stomach and you feel it rise. 18 00:03:01,785 --> 00:03:07,414 What often happens to new meditators is that they force so much 19 00:03:08,052 --> 00:03:16,894 the stomach, that they actually make the stomach rise when the breath comes, rise when the breath goes out and fall when the breath comes in. 20 00:03:16,914 --> 00:03:21,285 When the breath comes into the body, they let it out again. 21 00:03:23,206 --> 00:03:26,392 So it's a question that we'll ask meditators often in the beginning. 22 00:03:26,892 --> 00:03:29,637 Is the rising on the in-breath or on the out-breath? 23 00:03:30,619 --> 00:03:36,409 And surprisingly enough, many people will say the rising is on the out-breath. 24 00:03:37,251 --> 00:03:38,533 Because that's when they let go, right? 25 00:03:38,613 --> 00:03:41,518 They're tensing up and then they let go. 26 00:03:42,848 --> 00:03:48,234 Which means that they really have no clue about what the breath is. 27 00:03:48,314 --> 00:03:56,024 I used to do this to my Thai students, some of them who would be living quite stressful lives. 28 00:03:57,525 --> 00:04:02,471 I come in for reporting and say, so this is the rising and the falling. 29 00:04:02,511 --> 00:04:04,674 Is the rising on the in-breath or the out-breath? 30 00:04:05,855 --> 00:04:07,697 The rising is on the out-breath. 31 00:04:09,580 --> 00:04:11,522 It rises when you're in the out-breath. 32 00:04:12,869 --> 00:04:13,510 And they do this. 33 00:04:13,851 --> 00:04:15,975 And I say, okay, lie down on your back. 34 00:04:17,138 --> 00:04:21,887 Confused, but you have them lie down on their back and then put their hand on their stomach. 35 00:04:22,448 --> 00:04:23,350 And then you just watch it. 36 00:04:23,551 --> 00:04:25,174 The stomach goes like this. 37 00:04:26,858 --> 00:04:38,515 And so if you have trouble answering that question in the beginning, it's a sign that you're not familiar enough, or your mind is not familiar enough with the breath. 38 00:04:38,535 --> 00:04:45,305 And also that you have an incredible amount of stress, which most of us have if we haven't ever undertaken meditation practice. 39 00:04:45,926 --> 00:04:47,128 And so you need to 40 00:04:47,328 --> 00:04:59,042 jumpstart your mind and really give your mind a head start in understanding or in perceiving the rising and falling you can even not just put your hands on your stomach you can also lie on your back 41 00:05:00,625 --> 00:05:08,392 And then for sure you'll find that there's no way that the rising is on the out-breath, the rising is on the in-breath. 42 00:05:08,412 --> 00:05:11,255 When the breath goes in, the stomach will naturally rise. 43 00:05:11,295 --> 00:05:12,996 If you watch a baby, that's how it happens. 44 00:05:13,036 --> 00:05:14,698 And if you lie down on your back, that's how it happens. 45 00:05:14,718 --> 00:05:30,632 So the point of the beginner meditator using the hand is to become familiar with it, which doesn't apply later on, but there could be other reasons why you might do that, other reasons why you might even lie down in order to get more comfortable. 46 00:05:30,612 --> 00:05:38,277 If you have a lot of stress, lying down can be a good way to help your mind become more relaxed and more balanced.