Questions about meditation

"What should I do with my eyes when I meditate?"

In some schools of Buddhism, you meditate with your eyes open and in others you keep them closed. If your eyes are open, what you do with them depends on the kind of meditation you are doing. Generally, you look downward and shorten your gaze when you are doing meditations to calm and concentrate the mind. You lift your eyes and expand your gaze when you are meditating on openness and the environment around you.

A good approach to calm abiding (shamatha) meditation is to look slightly downward, letting your gaze fall about six feet in front of you, keeping it in soft focus and relaxed, neither too tight nor too loose. You can also use your eyes to help with obstacles when your mind is scattered, lower and shorten the gaze: when your mind is dull, raise your gaze and take in more space.

"And how about my hands? when I see pictures in the press of people meditating, they usually have their palms up with their index fingers and thumbs making a circle. Is this the right-hand position for Buddhist meditation?"

HAND POSITIONS ARE CALLED mudras, they are meant to encourage certain states of mind. the hand position you see depicted is widely taught in yoga to promote deep diaphragm breathing and concentration. In Hinduism, it symbolizes union with the divine. We are not aware of it being used in Buddhist meditation.

There are two mudras commonly used in Buddhist meditation. In the first, called "resting the mind", you place your hands face down on your knees or thighs, with the upper arms parallel to the torso. This allows your hands to relax and promotes a straight but not stiff back.

The other common hand position is the "cosmic mudra", which is widely used in Zen. In this mudra, your right hand rests in your lap facing up and your left hand sits lightly on top of it. The thumbs gently touch each other as if holding a piece of paper, forming an oval just below the navel. Since this is considered the spiritual and energetic center of the body, the mudra is called cosmic because we gently hold the universe in your hands. More practically, the circle often starts to collapse as our attention wander or we get drowsy, which is a helpful reminder to wake up.