Lying-Down Meditation
Lying down is a wonderful way to meditate if you can
manage not to fall asleep. And if you do fall asleep,
your sleep may be more restful if you enter it through
meditation. You can wake up from sleeping in the
same way, bringing full awareness to those first
moments of wakefulness returning.
When your body is lying down, you can really let the
whole of it go much more easily than you can in any
other posture. Your body can sink into the bed, mat,
floor, or ground until your muscles stop making the
slightest effort to hold you together. This is a
profound letting go at the level of your muscles and
the motor neurons which govern them. The mind
quickly follows if you give it permission to stay open
and wakeful.
Using the body as a whole as the object of your
attention in lying-down meditation is a blessing. You
can feel the body from head to toe, breathing and
radiating warmth over the entire envelope of your
skin. It's the whole body that breathes, the whole
body that is alive. In bringing mindfulness to the body
as a whole, you can reclaim your entire body as the
locus of your being and your vitality, and remind