First Impediment: How to deal with leg pains, soreness, aches, itchiness, and numbness while meditating?

Drowsiness, wandering thoughts, controlled breathing, sore legs and overall body tension…these are the most common problems that beginners frequently encounter while meditating, leading them to adopt a hesitant attitude toward meditation practice. In fact, overcoming these problems is a start toward making progress. This time, Venerable Guo Yuan, Master of Dharma Drum Mountain Meditation Hall, will explain the causes and remedies of the five major impediments in meditation. Learning more about these five hindrances can help us overcome the obstacles and go further in practice. 

Venerable Guo Yuan, Master of Dharma Drum Mountain Meditation Hall

First Impediment: How to deal with leg pains, soreness, aches, itchiness, and numbness while meditating?

When first starting to meditate, it's perfectly normal for beginners to feel body aches and pains. When your body has this physical reaction during meditation, ask yourself first whether you walk, stand, sit or lie down with a proper posture or not: Do you stand with good posture? Do you sit up straight? Does your sleeping position compress the heart? Do you always stay up late? All of this will directly affect the flow of our vital energy in the body. 

In modern days, people spend too much time sitting in front of computers and overwork their brain, resulting in shoulder, back and eye discomfort. These forms of physical discomfort will reappear during meditation practice. In fact, obstacles in meditation reflect the unhealthy lifestyle habits we adopt. Therefore, we should pay attention to our body position and adjust it, as needed, at all times. Do not wait until a physical problem appears to change your habits. This would be equivalent to torturing your body.

As for the pain in legs during meditation, this occurs because you have not become accustomed to sitting cross-legged. As a beginner, you can start with a short time-span practice, such as a 20-minute meditation, and gradually increase the sitting duration over time. With flexibility exercises, pre- and -post meditation body stretches and massage, and a healthy mind-body balance, leg pains would diminish over time.

When you feel pain in your limbs, you should never reject or resist it but, instead, accept it. As long as you don't have chest pains and headaches, the pain should not be a big issue. Our muscles tend to contract unconsciously when the body is in pain. During times like this, it is important to have an attitude of acceptance; accepting pain will cause it to diminish in turn. Next, try to relax tense muscles around tender spots. When we accept the pain and relax the tense muscles, the pain becomes more manageable. Soreness, numbness, and itchiness are signals of adjustments to the energy channels, or Nadis; therefore, we don't have to pay special attention to them. A good massage after meditation will lessen bodily discomfort over time. Besides, feeling a sense of coolness or warmness while meditating, is a good sign that there are fewer blockages in the energy channels of your body.  


Extended Reading:

Practice Chan Without Vexations

First Impediment: How to deal with leg pains, soreness, aches, itchiness, and numbness while meditating?

Second Impediment: Why do I feel drowsiness and leg pain when practicing in the Meditation Hall, even though everything feels fine during my meditation routine at home?

Third Impediment: Inability to Relax the Chronically Tense Body?

Fourth Impediment: Inability to Stop Unending Delusional Thoughts

Fifth Impediment: Meditation Makes Me Very Irritable, and Unable to Settle Down


Resource: Issue 383 of Life Magazine, Dharma Drum Publishing Corporation
Photos: Issue 383 of Life Magazine, Dharma Drum Publishing Corporation
Translation: Pin-an Chen (陳品安)        
Editing: Dharma Drum Mountain Editing Team, Keith Brown