Meditation Experiment

Sitting in a chair v. sitting cross-legged on a zafu

Oura ring charts showing higher Heart Rate Variability on a zafu than in a chair

Here is the audio for today’s Morning Journal:

Rest and Digest

Today I conducted an experiment in which I compared two methods of meditation.

During our recently completed Trip West, I sat regularly in chairs, not on a meditation cushion called a zafu.

I always travel with an inflatable zafu, which works great. But I figured it would be wobbly for meditation on our four-day train trip on The Canadian from Toronto to Vancouver. That’s when I shifted to using chairs.

I continued chair sitting the rest of the 19-day trip and thought I would probably continue sitting back home in Maine.

But I wondered.

What if sitting cross-legged on a zafu leads to a deeper meditation experience than sitting in a chair?

This morning I used my Oura Ring to measure Heart Rate Variability (HRV) during a 17-minute sit in what I call the Peach Chair back at the cottage in Ocean Park. My average HRV was 8 milliseconds. That’s how big the average variability between heartbeats was during that session.

Here at the condo in Biddeford just now, I sat cross-legged for 34 minutes on my kapok zafu. The average HRV for that session nearly twice as high—14 milliseconds.

Via my Oura Ring experience, I knew higher HRV was good. But I wasn’t sure why.

It turns out that elevated HRV is generally taken as a sign of greater parasympathetic activity and resilience. That’s the so-called “rest and digest” half of the autonomic nervous system. The other half, the sympathetic nervous system, is better known. It’s referred to as “fight or flight.”

Higher HRV leads to calming the system, conserving energy, and conserving long-term maintenance and readiness. Not to mention, from a spiritual perspective, deepening the stillness in which one might sense the presence of God.

I’m glad the swaying of The Canadian led me to try sitting in chairs. It’s quick and convenient in many settings.

But today’s experiment leads me to prefer cross-legged sitting on a zafu whenever that option is available without too much fuss.

I smile as I remember the day on the train when Darlene helped me become more flexible in my sitting practice.

We were in our sleeper car, with the bed folded into the wall. We were sitting on the leather seats watching the woods and lakes scroll by in our big window.

“What if we sat for a while?” I suggested, thinking we would arrange ourselves with hands in our laps, taking somewhat formal poses for a timed session of silence.

“I AM sitting,” she replied.

Exactly. It doesn’t take a Zen Master to sit on a train for a while without talking.

Back home, you might just look out at the ocean on a gray day in Maine and watch a seagull fly by: