over the chest, which demands some practice for balance. Seymour Ginsburg, describing Gurdjieff meditation, suggests that such compact positions help the meditator to "include the entire experience of ourself in our attention."

The lotus position in particular can be extremely uncomfortable for Westerners who have not practised sitting cross-legged since early childhood. They may, in the words of the yoga and meditation teacher Anne Cushman, be practising "self-torture