Position while at dhamma talk

Q & A
1

Hello all,
So I went to a meditation and dhamma talk at my local monastery. The monastic who gave the talk was of the Pa Auk tradition. There were meditation cushions for everyone who wanted to sit on the floor which I used to sit in my usual burmese position with hands on my knees for both the meditation and dhamma talk. During one of the breaks the young woman sitting on my right showed me her phone where she had written the following message to me. “You’re not supposed to have your hands on your knees while receiving dhamma.” So I nodded to her and talk my hands off my knees not wanting her to feel like I was ignoring her as I took it as her trying to be helpful.
My question is is this a real custom? Did I do anything disrespectful? I have heard of not pointing your feet out in front of you which the man sitting diagonally in front of me was doing sometimes but I’ve never heard of this.

With metta

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2

Hello,

Its might be some sort of custom ( Burma related ?).
Nah you are not doing anything disrespectful. It’s possible the young woman simply taking literally from what she heard, without much investigation.
Pa-uk tradition rarely explain much of this aspect of Vinaya during retreat.
( Maybe due to language constraints- from Burmese ).

It this possible she is referring to certain part of 75 Sekkhiya Vattha

from Vinaya .
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/vin/sv/bhikkhu-pati.html#sk-part1

https://suttacentral.net/pli-tv-bu-pm/en/brahmali?lang=en&layout=linebyline&reference=none&notes=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin

26. I will not sit clasping the knees in inhabited areas: a training to be observed.

  1. Pallatthika
    ‘I will not clasp my knees while sitting in inhabited areas,’ this is how you should train.
    Na pallatthikāya antaraghare nisīdissāmīti sikkhā karaṇīyā.

65. I will not teach Dhamma to a person who sits clasping his knees and who is not ill: a training to be observed.

  1. Pallatthika
    ‘I will not give a teaching to anyone who is seated clasping their knees and who is not sick,’ this is how you should train.
    Na pallatthikāya nisinnassa agilānassa dhammaṁ desessāmīti sikkhā karaṇīyā.

Those are part of training for Bhante, or novice Samanera-samaneri only.
From what i understand its not applicable to layperson–

( you can double checked again with Bhante ,Bhikkhu Sangha). :pray:

Respectful proper posture is essential when you are in a community.
As lay person , we will be respectful and mindful during retreat

Side Notes
(its good to do the following as part of our mindfulness practice)

Avoid pointing your sole feet toward Tiratana/Altar Buddha, Tipitaka,(eq: Tipitaka collections) , or towards Bhante,Bhikkhu Sangha. ( sole feet is consider improper, disrespectful).

Avoid placing Dhamma haphazardly ( eg : Chanting book,paritta book, sutta etc) placing it at higher place or somewhere respectful.

Not wearing cap, (remove the cap during the Dhamma-talk) not speaking loudly, laughing during the Dhamma-Talk.
Be Mindful in Noble Silence. Applied sati-sampajanna while listening to Dhamma.

Out of respect to Sangha, we will sit at lower meditation cushion, not higher than Sangha. Remove cushion during Namaskara.

Switch off the Handphone during Dhamma-Talk. :wink:

Hope this can be helpful.

Mettacittena
Qzl

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Yeah, that can come off as a rude posture. Kind of like standing with your hands on your hips.

In Thailand at least, the best position is one leg in Burmese and the other leg bent to the side with the hands in anjali :pray: next best is hands in the lap :palm_up_hand:

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It happened to me too.
It seems that giving dhamma to whom with that poseture is breaking some Sila.

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To be clear, we aren’t just talking about touching the knees, right? It’s more like hugging the knees:

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I think “Burmese position with hands on knees” is something like this:

image

Yeah, it’s always weird to argue with people about etiquette. But I always found this a bit strange - Ajahn Brahmali even grasps his knees in one of the meditation training videos.

Resting hands in lap (or keeping it in anjali) is a great stressor, resting hands on knees is helps alleviate the tension a bit. So yeah, depending on local customs it might be read in a certain way, but I’d encourage anyone to be gentle with their body in their solo practice.

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We’re only talking here about Asian culture during public Dhamma talks. We’re not talking at all about how you sit (or whatever) when “solo” meditating.

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Thanks for all the replies as they have been very instructive. I had no idea this could be considered bad form. In future for public dhamma talks I’ll keep my hands in my lap just to be on the safe side. Also I feel like adhering to small things like this can help align the practitioner with certain aspects of the tradition.

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I don’t consider it rude, nor does the culture I am exposed to does, and it’s just personal preferences of some people to not like others do it. Sometimes, people over-admonish others.

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And you’re not supposed to be messing about with your phone either, on a break or not, that’s disrespectful!

I’ve only been to one meditation, I was amazed at how many people fidget.
I was equally amazed that when it was over, the amount of people that tore towards the door like getting off a plane that had just landed.

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Yeah that’s a really good point. In general I thought I had everything covered so I was pretty surprised to be admonished for just having my hands on my knees.