Siddhasana™ Meditation Seat News

Tom Veatch Invents Cross Legged Sitting Device

          Contact: Eric A. Pattison / 206.384.2408 / ericpattison4495@gmail.com

Monday, March 4, 2013. Seattle Washington USA -- With final notification from the US Patent and Trademark Office of the Patent Pending status of his invention, Cross-Legged Sitting Device, Application Number 61771293, the story behind Veatch's invention can finally be unveiled.

This official notification enables public announcement for the first time, without loss of patent rights, of the invention, which has been under secret development for months.

Dr. Veatch said, "I'm thrilled to have discovered a seat that improves posture and makes cross-legged sitting easier." His invention provides for a cross-legged sitting device such as a meditation stool with downward, outward, and forward sloping sitting surfaces.

Would you design a seat so that the user would fall off of it? Fall off either side, the front, or all three? Most people laugh at this concept, saying Yes, that is obviously the wrong idea! Who would come up with such a crazy idea! Indeed it is laughable.

Yet Dr. Veatch's invention does exactly that. The thigh supporting surfaces, even the rear supporting surfaces, slope downward, outward, and forward, so that a ball placed on any thigh contacting surface will roll right off the seat.

Dr. Veatch discovered his invention while trying to solve his meditation posture issues. An active meditator who has practiced continuously since 1982, he always suffered from posture difficulties. "At twenty I could sit for half an hour on a marble floor in half lotus, but the knee stress was unimaginable, and I could hardly walk afterwards. Full lotus was limited to a few seconds. I always was on the fine line between improving my meditation posture and injuring myself. But I have to take it seriously because I've had five left knee surgeries including an ACL reconstruction and a transplanted meniscus. With a quarter million dollar knee, I have always had to be careful about my limits." With age, flexibility reduces. In a non-squatting culture, with a lifetime of sitting in chairs, flexibility is poor to begin with.

Finally, recently, Dr. Veatch decided to build the perfect meditation stool. "To achieve comfort, I needed to raise my behind. After a couple of prototypes taught me the height, slope, and depth I desired, I happened to hold in my hands the curved back of a chair that had been cut up for my experiments, and held it back-side up in a sloped but mostly horizontal position. Looking promising, I built a base for it, and sat on it. That was the moment of discovery. It was amazing."

Although yes, one tends to slide off the stool, the surprise is that because you are sitting in a cross-legged position close to the floor, your knees immediately come into contact with the floor, and you're locked in, solid. "Because my behind is up, my joint stress is much reduced. Best of all, with my hips tilted forward in this stably supported posture, my lower back is allowed, even encouraged, to curve inward like it's supposed to."

Raising your behind allows one to sit cross-legged without the flexibility of a yogi. Veatch's invention enables users to sit easily and comfortably in a stable, vertical posture while reducing stress on knees, ankles, and hip joints.

For more information about the inventor, see tomveatch.com