Padmasana (Lotus Pose)

Padmasana means the lotus pose, from padma, the lotus flower, and the upturned soles of the feet resting on the opposite thighs are meant to suggest petals. It is the most recognisable seated posture in the world, the one on every statue, and it is classed on this site as advanced, which surprises people.

Here is why. The lotus asks the thigh bone to rotate outwards at the hip through a very large range. If the hip supplies that rotation, the pose is comfortable and the knees feel nothing. If the hip cannot supply it, the rotation has to come from somewhere, and the only joint left is the knee, which is a hinge and rotates almost not at all. That is how people end up with a torn meniscus from a meditation posture.

So the honest position, after four decades of watching this: the lotus is not a goal, it is a seat, and it is a seat that suits a minority of adult bodies. The half lotus and the simple cross legged seat do the same job. The purpose of a meditation posture is to let you forget your body for twenty minutes, and any posture that has you monitoring your knees has already failed at that.

This is the single most important paragraph on this page.

Sit on the floor and let one knee fall out to the side with the sole of that foot against the opposite inner thigh. Now look at where the knee is. If it rests low, near the floor, your hip has good outward rotation. If it floats high in the air, it does not, yet.

In the lotus, the foot is placed up on the opposite thigh. If the knee was already floating, placing the foot up there does not create hip rotation. It simply puts a long lever, the shin and the foot, on the outside of a knee joint that cannot rotate, and every time you press the knee down towards the floor you are twisting it.

The rule: sensation in the hip and the groin is acceptable. Sensation in the knee is not. Not pinching, not pulling, not a dull ache, not a click. If the knee speaks, come out.

The work, if you want the lotus, is not the lotus. It is three minutes a day with the soles of the feet together and the knees supported on cushions, for a year or two. That opens the hip. Then the lotus arrives quietly, and the knees never enter into it.

Almost every discomfort in a floor seat is fixed by putting something under the sitting bones.

When you sit flat on the floor with the legs crossed, the pelvis usually tips backwards, because the hamstrings and the hips pull it that way. A backward tipped pelvis rounds the lower back, and a rounded lower back cannot be held upright for twenty minutes without effort, so the student slumps, then straightens, then slumps, and concludes that they are bad at sitting.

Put a firm cushion, a folded blanket or a meditation bolster under the back half of the sitting bones. Enough height that:

• the knees end up lower than the hip creases,
• the pelvis tips slightly forward,
• the lower back has a small natural inward curve,
• and you are not holding yourself up with your abdominal muscles.

For a stiff adult this can mean fifteen or twenty centimetres, which looks absurd and works perfectly. I have never seen anybody sit too high. I see people sitting too low every week.

The classical texts recommend a seated posture that is sthira and sukha, steady and comfortable, and the lotus was chosen because when the hips permit it, it is remarkably both. The crossed and locked legs make a broad low triangle of contact with the floor, so the body cannot drift or topple, and the spine can stack up over it with very little muscular effort. You can sit like that for a long time and forget you have a body, which is the point.

That is also the standard by which any alternative should be judged, and by that standard a firm chair passes easily. Every pranayama practice on this site, including Anulom Vilom and Nadi Shodhana, and every meditation, can be done sitting on a chair with the feet flat and the spine upright. Nothing whatsoever is lost. The breath does not know what your legs are doing.

What matters is that the spine is upright and unsupported enough to stay alert, the chest is open so the breath has room, and the arrangement can be held without fidgeting. Any seat that does those three things is the correct seat for you.

Feet going to sleep in a crossed legged seat is extremely common and usually harmless, but the advice to sit through it is wrong and I will not repeat it.

What causes it is pressure on the nerves and blood vessels as they pass through the folded legs. In most people the sensation returns within a minute or two of straightening the legs and nothing follows. But prolonged compression is not benign: clinical series of posture induced nerve palsy have documented foot drop following long periods in squatting, kneeling and cross legged positions, with a mean compression time of around two hours, and while most cases recovered fully within a year, a minority were left with lasting weakness.

So the practical rule is straightforward.

• Numbness or pins and needles: come out, straighten the legs, and wait until sensation is completely normal before sitting again.
• Alternate which leg is on top every time you sit.
• Sit higher, which reduces the pressure considerably.
• If the numbness does not clear within a few minutes, or if there is any weakness lifting the foot, see a doctor.

None of this is a reason to avoid sitting. It is a reason not to sit heroically.

Two to five minutes to begin with, and only lengthen once there is genuinely no sensation in the knees at all. A comfortable seat can then be held for twenty minutes or more, which is the length that most meditation and pranayama practices actually want.

A realistic route, over a year rather than a month:

• Months one to three: sit in the simple cross legged seat, high on a cushion, for ten minutes daily. Add three minutes a day with the soles of the feet together and the knees supported.
• Months four to six: add half lotus for two minutes at a time, alternating sides, and only if the bottom knee rests low.
• Months seven to twelve: extend the half lotus to ten minutes, alternating sides every sitting.
• After that: attempt the full lotus only if both knees rest low and silent in half lotus on both sides.

If you never reach the full lotus, you have lost nothing at all. Sit on a chair, sit up straight, and get on with the practice, which was always the point. There is more on building a home practice on the hatha yoga page.

This is the one table on the site where the top row is a warning rather than a starting point. Most adults should stay in a simpler seat.

Numbness that comes on within a minute is a nerve, not a stretch. Come out, straighten the legs, and use a different seat.

The lotus is the pose most associated with yoga and one of the few this site regularly advises against. It appears in the avoid list on three condition pages, and the reason is the same each time: the knee is asked to do what the hip will not.

• Yoga for back pain advises against it because sitting in a shape the hips cannot make rounds the lower back for the whole of a breathing practice.
• Yoga for neck and shoulder pain advises against it for the consequence higher up: a rounded lower back puts the head forward, and the neck pays.
• Yoga for weight loss leaves it out simply because it contributes nothing to the goal and costs knees.

What is wanted is a comfortable seat, not this particular one. Sit on a cushion with the knees below the hips, or use Vajrasana, and the breathing goes better. The counter pose, when the lotus is used, is Paschimottanasana, taken gently and only if the back allows.

What the lotus is actually for is sitting still to breathe, so if it is not available to you, nothing of value is lost by using another seat and getting on with Bhramari or Ujjayi. The seat matters, the shape does not. It is the third limb of the eight in the older sense of the word, which is set out in the eight limbs of yoga, and the Sanskrit is collected in the yoga glossary. Come out of it and lie in Savasana if the feet have gone numb, and read yoga for beginners over 40 before deciding to work towards it in your fifties.