Practice Point: Lotus Mudra Flow

In a world that often feels overwhelming, the Lotus Mudra offers a gentle practice to open your heart and invite calm, compassion, and clarity.

Mudras are symbolic gestures or postures, usually performed with the hands and fingers, that help seal energy within the body to enhance your inner journey or emotional experience.

In Buddhism and Hinduism, the lotus symbolises the spiritual journey as it rises from muddy waters to bloom. It represents overcoming obstacles, perseverance, and spiritual awakening.

The Lotus Mudra, also known as the Lotus Seal (padma mudra), is a hand gesture that represents the blooming lotus flower. It is used to open the heart centre and tap into qualities like joy, compassion, forgiveness, and loving-kindness while promoting emotional balance.

The Lotus Mudra Flow is a beautiful practice that mirrors the lotus’s growth from muddy waters to full blossom. This flow is usually done seated, but there’s no reason you can’t explore it kneeling, standing, or even lying down.

 

Before you begin

Be cautious if you have any recent injuries or surgery to your fingers, wrists, or hands.

The Tummee.com website advises that people who are carefree, easy-going, and without a strong sense of purpose might need to avoid this mudra since they are already open-hearted, and practising it could create an imbalance in their perspective.

If you feel the Lotus Mudra is not right for you, try simply bringing your palms together at the heart (Anjali Mudra) or placing one hand over the other on the heart.

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The practice

Start in a comfortable seated position, either on the floor or in a chair. Take a moment to settle, feeling length in your spine and relaxing your shoulders.

  1. Bring your hands together in Anjali Mudra at the heart.

    Take a moment to turn inward, focusing on your heart or setting an intention of loving-kindness for yourself or others.

  2. Inhale to prepare for the flow.
  3. Exhale: Extend your hands forward, palms open and facing upward, keeping the little fingers connected—a symbol of openness and receptivity.

  4. Inhale: Turn your fingers back toward you, bringing your knuckles together and directing your fingers down, like planting a seed or creating roots.

  5. Exhale: Extend your hands downward, bringing the backs of your hands together in a grounding, stabilising gesture.

  6. Inhale: Slowly bring your hands up to heart level, spreading your knuckles and backs of your hands apart until only your fingertips touch. Then turn your fingers upward, bringing the palms together as if forming a bud at your heart. Sense the potential energy here.
  7. Exhale: Keeping wrists, thumbs, and little fingers connected, open your hands outward, spreading your fingers wide like a blooming lotus flower.

    Sense your heart opening.

  8. Inhale: Raise your arms upward, optionally bringing your forearms together, the lotus flower reaching for the sun.

  9. Exhale: Separate your hands, bringing them out to the sides before returning them to Anjali Mudra at the heart.

Repeat this sequence as many times as you wish.

Lotus Mudra flow from different positions

How can you adapting the Lotus Mudra flow for kneeling, standing or lying down?

  • For a kneeling or standing position, the hand gestures remain the same but the body might shift to accommodate the movement, for example, squatting or folding forward when bringing the fingers towards the ground or taking the heart to the sky as you raise the arms.

  • For a supine position, directions are relative to your body, with upward movements toward your head and grounding movements toward your feet.

    Another option is to flexing the wrists towards the ceiling for your gesture of openness and raising the lotus flower towards the ceiling instead of the head.

Opening the Lotus Flower

I learnt the “Opening the Lotus Flower” practice during a Yin Yoga workshop with Sarah Manning. This variation integrates the Lotus Mudra into a beautiful flow that embodies the lotus flower’s journey as it shoots upward and rises from the surface of the pond, inviting a gentle unfolding of the heart’s energy.

Start in a comfortable seated position, either on the floor or in a chair.

  1. Bring your arms to heart level, elbows out to the sides, and touch the tips of your longest fingers together.

    This position symbolises the surface of the pond.

  2. Slowly bring your hands together in Anjali Mudra (prayer position), creating the bud of the lotus.

  3. Keeping the wrists, thumbs, and little fingers connected, begin to gently open your fingers outward into Lotus Mudra as you simultaneously raise your arms upward and bring your forearms together.

    This flowing movement represents the lotus flower blooming and rising from the pond.

  4. Hold for a couple of breaths.
  5. Slowly reverse the movement: lower the hands, bring the fingers together, and softly move the elbows out to the sides to return to the starting position.

Sarah also shared an alternative variation that differs from the classic Lotus Mudra sequence.

Instead of fully opening into the Lotus Mudra, bring your fingers together and, before joining the palms, rotate your palms toward you.

As you lift your hands, bring the outside edges of your little fingers, hands, and forearms together.

This subtle adjustment targets the heart meridian and offers a different energetic flow.

  • Relieves tension in the chest, improves finger flexibility, and stretches the inner wrists.

  • Improves focus and calms the mind.

  • Calms the nervous system.

  • Releases emotional stress and bring emotional balance.

  • Helps promotes feelings of love, compassiong and self-acceptance, and enhances creativity.

Personal practiceDeb @ LaiLin Yogamudra, meditation, movement, mindfulness, relaxation