Skeptics Welcome
We don't mind skeptics at all. Actually we love them!
Skeptics can be the smartest and wisest of
people.
Skeptics persistently test out and think through the excessive and
self-serving claims of windbags and manipulators; they can separate
truth from fiction and they extract the quality from the noise. We
need skeptics around to keep the BS level down. And because skeptics
filter out the baloney, they are also the likeliest sources of
actually valid new insights and ideas.
Indeed independence of thought is a great virtue. (We try to
practice it here!) At the same time, skepticism is pointless without
curiosity. So we hope you will find this fascinating, as we do,
and find enough here to develop an opinion of your own.
Because a person who isn't willing to listen to something
new also can't learn, or grow, or share in progress.
So thank you for your visit! We hope to be interesting and informative,
and in return we are also eager to hear your
thoughtful perspective and insights, so please communicate freely with
us and share what comes to your mind. We will get back
to you.
If you're still with us, thank you for being interested in the curious
development and experience of something new here.
Now seats might seem boring, if they were all the same, but I challenge you
to question your own concepts of what sitting is and ought to be.
You sit a lot, but have you thought how it affects you, makes your experience
and your life take on a certain way of being, which you might or might
not actually prefer, if there were an alternative? This new seat has impacts and
implications on many levels. It is our hope that you will give a
thoughtful review to the news you find here, including the features
and benefits of a new kind of seat that brings a new kind of sitting.
If you're willing to bring skepticism to a new way of sitting,
then be equally unafraid to reconsider your own current sitting arrangements.
Siddhasana.com's purpose is to communicate with you about the
Siddhasana™ Meditation Seat and related topics. The
consequences of the change embodied in using this seat, as compared
with others, relate to medical, physical and psychological
therapies and impact potentially measureable cognitive abilities as
well as subjective emotional experiences, from emotional depth to
emotional flexibility. Mental acuity, entertainment, happiness, even
bliss are all subjects that arise in connection with this seat,
particularly through the very concrete issues of posture which this
seat seems to help to rebalance.
We ask you, please, explore this website further, and don't be
bashful, let us know what you think! We love to connect with any
clear-minded person like yourself, because that is the way we improve
and strengthen our own knowledge.
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Known Problems:
These cats also make the point:
Chair sitting encourages poor posture.
Sit in a chair. Your tailbone might tuck under, trying to go flat on
the sitting surface of the seat. The tops of your pelvis shifts to
the back. The natural lumbar curve, in the small of your back,
disappears as your lower back slouches and hunches. The lowest rib
shifts backward, while the ribcage tilts top forward. The neck sticks
out diagonally from the shoulders and the head hangs out in front of
the chest. These are the normal consequences of sitting in a normal
chair. It leads typically to a slouching posture, and it is hard to
avoid.
Some people just stand up all day, it hurts their backs less.
There ought to be a better way to sit.
Cross-legged sitting is hard when we've sat in chairs all our lives.
Cross legged sitting is great for meditation. The ancient yoga books
describe several cross-legged sitting postures from the lotus posture
to the easy posture, and recommend cross-legged sitting.
Tom Veatch, the Siddhasana™ Meditation Seat's inventor, said, "I
try to sit cross-legged for meditation on the floor, and my knees
hurt, my ankles hurt, my feet fall asleep, my mind is tortured by the
discomfort; I find myself shifting position frequently; I have to sit
against a wall to hold myself up, to relax, or else I have to hunch
forward quite a bit to keep from falling backwards, and suffer the
burden of constant effort while sitting in pain." Many others have
this experience. Is that peace of mind? Is that the path to a deep
experience of inner calm? Or is it just self-torture?
There ought to be a better way.
We think we've found one.
If you are feeling skeptical, please be skeptical also about why slouching should be so acceptable to so many, and about why cross-legged sitting should have to be so painful.
And allow yourself to be curious about possibly valid alternatives. And please
read on!
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