How to deal with back pain?

[m0rl0ck]

This must be a common problem as I am lean and my weight is below the average. So I was wondering if anyone managed to work out specific solutions to the problem.

I have occasional back pain that goes away or is greatly ameliorated when i start doing yoga for a while. I think the pain i experience is a caused by a mixture of weak back muscles, bad alignment and tension and the yoga puts everything straight and strengthens and relaxes the back muscles.

[thepea]

The only solution I've come up with is to shift the weight around periodically and like you said, sit for shorter periods and rest longer. Not very good when one is trying to get into deeper concentration.

As Goofaholix said if the pain subsides after you get up from seated meditation then you are in a position to observe this sensation. Be careful about placing importance on getting into deeper states of concentration, better to remain aware of the changing nature of concentration. If we work to hard we create self, if we do not work hard enough we suffer from sloth and torpor. Finding this delicate balance is challenging, we need to develop compassion for ourselves, how we treat ourselves is how we will treat others.

This is most likely a knot that has come to the surface and will work itself out, as previously expressed you are lucky to have this crop up. For me this is the practice, learning to observe these sensations, to study them as they manifest and strengthen and eventually subside, learning to simply sit with them and observe them in a detatched way, watching the mind react towards them and letting go of the reaction. With time this should naturally dissolve away but you don't know how long this will take.

I would suggest remaining on the ground as opposed to moving to a chair, we want to be careful not to practice avoidance. But as said be kind to yourself, you have to learn to work off your karmic debt.

[atipattoh]

Specifically, when sitting cross legged, my pain develops below my right shoulder blade after many hours of sitting (with intervals of rest). But it can be excruciating and the pain passes right through my body to my chest. I relieve it temporarily by shifting to a side sitting posture, putting more weight on my left buttock. But after awhile, as almost all the weight is on the left, a similar pain develops on this side.

Does anyone else have the same problem ? How do you deal with it? Any specific exercise for this particular muscle?

Try to check your hand position. Is your arm too close to your body? When it is too close to your body, there can be blockage at a point right beside the blade. The bone is pressing towards center. A lump is form that causing the pain. If this is the case, you need to get another person to help you release the blockage, i mean you need a traditional massage. Or can try imaging throwing baseball, then swing your hand full force. Some time it does work. But the lump will come very soon for frequent sitter or right after a retreat.
after you get this done, next time when you sit, sit with slight open arms and form a more round curve posture with your hand.
May google 'somdej wrk amulet', that is a better hand posture reference.
Hopes it help though is a bit 'late'!

[martinfrank]

Before I learned to sit in padmasana, I used a kneeling position which is used in India mainly by women, with the buttocks in the open palms of the feet. There are variations to it but they allow for a straight spine - important in yoga meditation. You could use such a position to relieve your back. Kneeling allows for intense concentration too.

Are you sure you're not trying to sit too long? You will still achieve high concentration if you do walking or reclining meditation for a few minutes every 30 minutes. If you achieve higher concentration, the back pain will vanish, but it seems at your present level you are torturing yourself.

Shifting to the right or left buttock (I know well what you mean, I've done it too) is a bad idea because your spine will be bent and then the whole point of sitting upright is gone. What happens if you sit without a pillow? Can you sit in half lotus position?

Like the other posters, I believe that your back pain is from a "knot" or tension in your back muscles. If you can feel the point, the pain may vanish if you focus on it. If not, it is best to change position every 30 minutes or less. High concentration doesn't depend on extra long sessions. More on making decisive steps, breaking through, letting go, knowing what you want to achieve in your session, don't you think?

QiGong helps me to get my body relaxed in the morning... 5 minutes is enough!

[bodom]

I hope this advice from Ashin Tejaniya is helpful to you:

PAIN / UNPLEASANT SENSATIONS / EMOTIONS

When you experience pains, aches and other bodily discomforts, it means you have a mental resistance to them and therefore you are not ready yet to observe these unpleasant physical sensations directly. Nobody likes pain and if you observe it while still feeling any resistance towards it, it will become worse. It is like when you are angry with someone; if you look at that person again and again you will become even angrier. So never force yourself to observe pain; this is not a fi ght, this is a learning opportunity. You are not observing pain to lessen it or to make it go away. You are observing it – especially your mental reactions to it – in order to understand the connection between your mental reactions and your perception of the physical sensations. Check your attitude fi rst. Wishing for the pain to decrease or go away is the wrong attitude. It does not matter whether the pain goes away or not. Pain is not the problem; your negative mental reaction to it is the problem. If the pain is caused by some kind of injury you should of course be careful not to make things worse, but if you are well and healthy, pain is simply an important opportunity to practise watching the mind at work. When there is pain, the mental feelings and reactions are strong and therefore easy to observe. Learn to watch anger or resistance, tension or discomfort in your mind. If necessary, alternate between checking your feelings and the attitude behind your resistance. Keep reminding yourself to relax the mind and the body, and observe how it affects your mental resistance. There is a direct link between your state of mind and pain. The more relaxed and calm the observing mind, the less intense you will perceive the pain to be. Of course, if your mind reacts strongly to the pain (i.e. if you experience pain as unbearable) you should change your posture and make yourself comfortable. So if you want to learn how to deal with pain skilfully, try this: From the moment you start feeling pain, no matter how weak it is, check your mind and body for tension, and relax. Part of your mind will remain aware of the pain. So check for tension again and again, and relax. Also check your attitude and keep reminding yourself that you have the choice to change your posture if you experience too much pain, as this will make the mind more willing to work with it. Keep repeating this until you no longer feel you want to watch the tension, the fear, the desire to get up, or the unwillingness to stay with the pain. Now you should change your posture. When you are able to bear with pain, it does not mean that you are equanimous. Most of us start off by trying hard to sit for a fi xed period of time, forcing ourselves not to move. If we succeed to sit for that full hour we feel great, otherwise we feel we have failed. We usually try to bear the pain longer and longer, i.e. we work on increasing our threshold of pain. However, in this process we neglect watching the mind and we are not really aware of our mental reactions to the pain. We fail to realize that developing a high threshold of pain does not mean that the mind is not reacting to the pain. If you stop forcing yourself to sit for a fi xed period of time and instead start watching the mental reactions in the ways described above, your resistance to the pain will gradually decrease and your mind will become more equanimous. Understanding the difference between equanimity and being able to bear with pain is really important. Mindfulness meditation is not about forcing but about under standing. Real equanimity is the result of true understanding of the nature of liking and disliking through observation and investigation. It is best to look at pain directly only if you cannot feel a resistance to it. Keep in mind that there may be a reaction at a subtle level. As soon as you recognize mental discomfort, turn your attention to that feeling. If you can see subtle mental discomfort, watch it change; does it increase or decrease? As the mind becomes more equanimous and sensitive it will recognize subtle reactions more easily. When you look at mental discomfort at a more subtle level you may get to the point when your mind feels completely equanimous. If you look at pain directly and if there is true equanimity, mental discomfort will not arise anymore. Remember that you are not looking at the reactions of the mind to make them go away. Always take reactions as an opportunity to investigate their nature. Ask yourself questions! How do they make you feel? What thoughts are in your mind? How does what you think affect the way you feel? How does what you feel affect the way you think? What is the attitude behind the thoughts? How does any of this change the way you perceive pain?

http://sayadawutejaniya.org/teachings/

[martinfrank]

I hope this advice from Ash in Tejaniya is helpful to you:

PAIN / UNPLEASANT SENSATIONS / EMOTIONS

http://sayadawutejaniya.org/teachings/

Really wonderful instructions for all of us. Thank you very much!

[atipattoh]

I hope this advice from Ash in Tejaniya is helpful to you:

PAIN / UNPLEASANT SENSATIONS / EMOTIONS

http://sayadawutejaniya.org/teachings/

Really wonderful instructions for all of us. Thank you very much!

Yes, wonderful approach indeed!
But, base on the OP description, it is more likely to be physical problem.

Btw, one may feel the pain even when he is not sitting, that means you should already be able to feel that lump with your hand. Try to search with your hand if your hand is flexible enough, from the area close to the bottom of the blade, slowly moving upwards. The location should be at between 30~40% area of the blade curve. It may be a small lump like the size of green bean. That means your blood vein already started to bend seriously. At this stage the pain is slightly felt even when you are not sitting. When it grow to the size of a peanut, the pain will be more obvious as long as you are awake. Don’t worry, it is not a tumor. If the lump develops to such stage, stop meditating. Get a massage ‘sifu’ to release the ‘knot’, 2~3 session will do. Then take precaution of your hand posture when you meditate. When you are used to the new hand position, it will become natural.

Too many monks take psychological approach when they are suppose to take physiological approach with this kind of issue; and teaching their student to follow their path, just to find themselves and the student suffer the pain at the later stage and calling it karmic result; as though the present suffering is the cause of the past kamma. They are corrects, it is karmic effect, but the karmic effect cause by current ignorant.

One unfortunate part in anapanasati is there is not mention of the hand posture. You can put it anyway you like as long as you feel comfortable and relax. Most meditation teacher will tell their student to relax their shoulder. And some may ‘purposely’ sagging the shoulder to feel ‘complete’ relax, not knowing they are doing the wrong way.
You may purposely sagging the shoulder and watch what is happening at the shoulder blade; both moving toward each other!

Actually; it is the elbow that you have to look into. Make sure it is not close to your body. If a small kitten can go through the space between your elbow and the body; that will be just fine! And pick up yoga will be good!

Wrong hand posture!
Correct hand posture!

May there be NO more monks and meditators suffer from such pain!

[Zom]

Does anyone else have the same problem ? How do you deal with it? Any specific exercise for this particular muscle?

Just lean on something. This is how I do it now, because I can no longer seat without a support precisely because of this kind of pain. Also, back and side strechings help a lot if we talk about physical exercises that can help in this case.

[bodom]

Does anyone else have the same problem ? How do you deal with it? Any specific exercise for this particular muscle?

Just lean on something. This is how I do it now, because I can no longer seat without a support precisely because of this kind of pain. Also, back and side strechings help a lot if we talk about physical exercises that can help in this case.

Sorry but this reminded me of this story:

Ajahn Chah Remembered

We used to sit for long hours at times, and the meditation hall for the monks was a stone platform -they don't use cushions in Asia. You have a square cloth, like a handkerchief, that you put down on the stone to sit on. I remember when I started, because sitting on the floor was so painful, I would arrive early at the hall and get a place where I could sit next to one of the pillars and lean against it. After about a week of being with Ajahn Chah, he gathered the monks together for an evening talk after the sitting and he began to talk about how the true practice of Dhamma was to become independent in any circumstance; to not need to lean on things. And then he looked at me. - Jack Kornfield

http://www.fsnewsletter.amaravati.org/html/27/27.htm

[Mkoll]

This is an excerpt from the transcript of Dr. Michael Greger's most recent year-in-review presentation about nutrition. I recommend reading the whole transcript or better yet, watching the whole presentation. Click here.

I've talked about COPD as a leading killer, what about, low back pain, like sciatica.

Low back pain, became one of the biggest problems for public health systems, in the western world, during the second half, of the 20th century. Chronic low back pain now affects about 1 in 5, disabling over 30 million Americans-it's an epidemic. Are people just lifting more heavy stuff? no. Mechanical factors, such as lifting and carrying, probably do not have a major role in this disease. Well then what causes it? I've touched on it before, Atherosclerosis can obstruct the arteries that feed the spine and it's this diminished blood flow that can cause back problems. This can be seen on angiography, showing normal spinal arteries on the left and clogged on the right, or on autopsy, where you can see how the openings to the spinal arteries can get squeezed shut by these cholesterol filled plaques on the right.
Autopsy, because back pain may predict fatal heart disease, just like clogs in the penile arteries-erectile dysfunction, can precede heart attacks, because it's the same disease-inflamed clogged crippled arteries throughout our body.
Now we have MRI imaging, that can show the occlusion of spinal arteries in people with back pain, and the degeneration of the disks-all linked to high cholesterol. Those with narrowed arteries appear about 8 and a half times more likely to suffer from chronic low back pain.
This makes sense. The disks in our lower back are the largest avascular tissue in the body, meaning our disks don't have any blood vessels. Thus, their nutrition just kinds of diffuses in from the margins, making them especially vulnerable to deprivation. Using MRIs you can measure the effects of impaired blood flow on that diffusion, and see how this can turn into that. By age 49, 97%, of the disks of those eating the standard American diet show at least grade 2 degradation.
Starting, in our teens, our disks are already starting to degenerate... starting, around age 11... As I've talked about, nearly all kids have the beginnings of atherosclerosis by age 10 in this country.

And sadly, low back pain is now common in children and adolescents, And it's getting worse. Just like kids now getting adult-onset diabetes, teenagers starting their lives out with a chronic disease. That's why it's never too early to start eating healthier to clean out the arteries in our heart, our spine, and throughout our bodies. To get you back into circulation, you need to get circulation, to your back.

[martinfrank]

I know back pain too. Who doesn't?

As Buddhists we should follow a Middle Way between believing that everything depends on matter and believing that everything depends on mind. We have MRIs of the crooked backs of amateur meditators and we have Buddhist nuns with backs straight as sticks.

I recommend to look at back problems from both views, the doctor's and the holistic psychologist's. What does your back want to tell you? Do you feel under pressure? Did you load too much on your shoulders? Do you force yourself to do sitting meditation beyond your motivation? Are you meditating in a competitive group? What happens if you meditate without a pillow and change from sitting to walking when you feel no more comfortable?

To make meditation a breeze, invest more in Morality and Understanding!

[Kumara]

Ajahn Chah Remembered

We used to sit for long hours at times, and the meditation hall for the monks was a stone platform -they don't use cushions in Asia. You have a square cloth, like a handkerchief, that you put down on the stone to sit on. I remember when I started, because sitting on the floor was so painful, I would arrive early at the hall and get a place where I could sit next to one of the pillars and lean against it. After about a week of being with Ajahn Chah, he gathered the monks together for an evening talk after the sitting and he began to talk about how the true practice of Dhamma was to become independent in any circumstance; to not need to lean on things. And then he looked at me. - Jack Kornfield

I recall reading that, at a much later time, AC admitted that all those tough training didn't do much good.

[Kumara]

I recommend to look at back problems from both views, the doctor's and the holistic psychologist's. What does your back want to tell you? Do you feel under pressure? Did you load too much on your shoulders? Do you force yourself to do sitting meditation beyond your motivation? Are you meditating in a competitive group? What happens if you meditate without a pillow and change from sitting to walking when you feel no more comfortable?

To make meditation a breeze, invest more in Morality and Understanding!

Agree, no need to be attached to any posture. As my teacher often say, meditation is mind work, not body work.