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Homemade Meditation Benches

3 comments
My friend, Lahiru, suggested  to make few meditation benches as a donation to Indiana Buddhist Temple few weeks back. I had no idea what a meditation bench was, but luckily he had a basic one with him. After few modifications to the design, here’s what we ended up with.
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If you like to make one at home too, here are the details.
I think this covers most of the stuff you need to complete this project and any questions are welcome in comments. Happy bench making !!

3 comments :

  1. Nice work Saliya :-)!!

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  2. Saliya,
    I have couple of questions, having build my fair share of benches, how do you stop the bench from wobbling and thus collapsing on the person using it.I have build quite a few portable sets much larger than this even using a bridge support I still get a wobble. also it seem a little small anybody to sit on with any security, or do not get the right use by thinking that someone could sit on those?
    Overall is a nice finishing job, I hope my wondering question are not understood as a criticism but merely collaboration of one woodworker to another to understand and improve each other's work, share ones experiences to the benefit of both.

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  3. Peter,

    I value your comment and you are correct that the moment you introduce hinges to the legs the bench tends to wobble. However, in this it didn't happen because of the way how a person would sit on them. Here's a link (http://www.dharma-rain.org/zazen/legs.html) to a website, which shows the usage of these benches where the person's legs go underneath the bench. The bench then acts as a support to maintain a straight posture. Also, if the person tilt to one side, the bench leg on that side will try close, but it's unable to do so because the leg on the other side will push to the bench seat and lock. I had an idea to add a collapsible bridge support to secure this further, but after testing out it seemed unnecessary. About the size, 1.5" x 7.25" board seems enough for a single person to sit comfortably.

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