Think Like A Monk #12 Breathe
小額贊助支持本節目: https://open.firstory.me/join/ckqovuxw9e42r0818h8tmvk4n 留言告訴我你對這一集的想法: https://open.firstory.me/story/cl06uhcgi0bu508060an3vj30?m=comment 上了英文字幕的影片版會在Youtube頻道唷 Follow我的Youtube頻道: The Reader Evita ---直接點 Follow我的臉書專頁: https://www.facebook.com/EvitaELC YT影片版: https://youtu.be/po7Sj_jGipQ (p.84) The physical nature of breathwork helps drive distractions from your head. Breathwork is calming, but it isn’t always easy. In fact, the challenges it brings are part of the process. I’m sitting on a floor of dried cow dung, which is surprisingly cool. It’s not comfortable, but it’s not difficult. My ankles hurt. God, I hate this, it’s so difficult. I can’t keep my back straight. God, I hate this, it’s so difficult. It’s been twenty minutes and I still haven’t cleared my mind. I’m supposed to bringing awareness to my breath, but I’m thinking about friends back in London. I sneak a peek at the monk closest to me. He’s sitting up so straight. He’s nailing this meditation thing. “Find your breath,” the leader is saying. I take a breath. It’s slow, beautiful, calm. (p.85) My first trip to the ashram was two weeks long, and I spent it meditating with Gauranga Das every morning for two hours. Sitting for that long, often much longer, is uncomfortable and tiring and sometimes boring. What’s worse, unwanted thoughts and feelings started drifting into my head. I worried that I wasn’t sitting properly and that the monks would judge me. In my frustration, my ego spoke up: I wanted to be the best meditator, the smartest person at the ashram, the one who made an impact. These weren’t monk-like thoughts. Meditation definitely wasn’t working the way I had thought it would. It was turning me into a bad person! ——————————————————————————————————————————— I was shocked and, to be frank, disappointed to see all the unresolved negativity inside myself. Meditation was only showing me ego, anger, lust, pain - things I didn’t like about myself. Was this a problem … or was it a point? ——————————————————————————————————————————— I asked my teachers if I was doing something wrong. One of them told me that every year the monks meticulously cleaned the Gundicha Temple in Puri, checking every corner, and that when they did it, they visualized cleaning their hearts. He said that by the time they finished, the temple was already getting dirty again. That, he explained, is the feeling of meditation. It was work, and it never done. ——————————————————————————————————————————— Meditation wasn’t making me a bad person. I had to face an equally unappealing reality. In all that stillness and quiet, it was amplifying what was already inside me. In the dark room of my mind, meditation had turned on the lights. In getting you where you want to be, meditation may show you what you don’t want to see. (P.86) Breathwork For The Body Mind As you’ve probably noticed, your breathing changes with your emotions. We hold our breath when we’re concentrating, and we take shallow breaths when we’re nervous or anxious. But these responses are instinctive rather than helpful, meaning that to hold your breath doesn’t really help your concentration, and shallow breathing actually makes the symptoms of anxiety worse. Controlled breathing, on the other hand, is an immediate way to steady yourself, a portable tool you can use to shift your energy on the fly. —