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“You can’t lie down here,” she whispered to me in the back of the meditation hall. I did look odd stretched out on the floor while everyone else was sitting on their cushions without complaint.

But I had my reasons, which I began relaying as she frowned down at me. I had been dealing with unexplained chronic pain in my neck and arms for over a year, and was out of work at the moment because my hands and arms couldn’t function properly. Downstairs, I had waited for someone to come along and press the elevator button because I couldn’t.

What this glorified gong ringer did not know was that the only way for me to practice meditation with others was lying down. It was the least painful posture I could take. I wasn't intending disrespect, just getting on the subway from Brooklyn to Manhattan in my wobbly condition felt like its own kind of pilgrimage to meditation.…