Standing Meditation – Right Hand Over Left or the Other Way?

Standing Meditation

Back in 2013 I posted 12 lessons on Facebook during the holiday season. In lesson nine I focused on the Standing Meditation where you overlap your hands over the tan tien (CV or REN 6). I stated, women put left over right and men right over left – and that I would write more on it later. Seven years later (lol) here it is…

When I was first exposed to this mechanic, I asked the instructor, “why?” His response… “That’s just the way it is!”

There’s more to this than ‘the way it is’.

Typically, the right side of the body is yang and the left side yin. If we give the value of male as yang and female as yin, whichever you are, that hand goes to the outside. There is no doubt that ‘hormonally’ differences between male and female are a present. However, that can alter with age and we have learned it can be altered through medical science. As well, the cultural qualities of behavior, intellectual ability, and roles given to the sexes have changed.

Aside from the traditional placement, here are some other guidelines for which hand is placed on the outside when doing this Standing Meditation. Whichever you choose, the outside hand represents expansive qualities.

  • You can use the ruling factors of right brain/left brain activity and which you would like to pull forward in awareness. That hand goes to the outside.
  • If you find something somewhere on one side of your body is contracted or is bothersome, then that hand goes to the outside until there is an expansive shift. [Often when that side shifts/opens the other side may have a reflective response. When that happens, you switch your hands – so’s to direct the physical or meridian energy to ease. I repeat this process until a semblance of balance occurs; at which time I go back to the traditional method]
  • Just place them whichever way feels natural to you – without judgement. That’s just the way it is. ?