I spent a day with SHAOLIN MONKS

what I just want you to do is you just use your strength and just like hit it against my arm here you will hit you like it's a baseball bat yeah okay [Music] before we get into this episode I just want to say that this episode is going to be a little bit different than usual I'll be sitting down with these Buddhist monks to get insight into the mentality and discipline required to achieve these incredible frankly superhuman changes that they've achieved with their mind and their body and I know that most people can't adopt the lifestyle of a Buddhist monk so right after this I'll sit down with a meditation and mindfulness teacher brought on by the sponsor for this episode who made this episode possible headspace which makes the benefits of these practices approachable and available to everyone I recently started practicing meditation myself to see what all the buzz was about and it's completely changed the way that I live my life even only practicing for a few minutes at a time some of the things I discussed with the Buddhist monks today sound impossible but I've seen glimpses of this deep inner peace in my practices and I'm surprised that I thought this was all just a bunch of empty hype beforehand because I've seen it myself which is really weird to say but is also very exciting and I know headspace is known for their meditation but they go beyond that they also offer sleep mode for more restful sleep Focus mode for mindful activity and move mode for a mind-body fitness experience that helps strengthen yourself in all the ways that these Buddhist monks will be discussing today and I know we haven't gotten into it yet so I'm not going to bombard you with stuff like telling you to to look for more info in the description or telling you that you can sign up for a free 60-day headspace trial using Code anthony60 because we'll get more into that later okay but for now let's learn from these Buddhist monks hello master of the Shaolin Temple Europe hello Anthony and thank you very much for this invitation founder and Abbott of the USA Shaolin Temple what does being a Shaolin Master mean Master means you not only have martial arts skills you must have the philosophy knowledge right to share with different people I've been trained over 50 years over 50 years by now can't believe it or not can you believe can you believe that I started with the age of four doing let's say these physical activities already the development I would say for me was gradual I always like was part of it what we all in in encounter in our lifetimes is what we call suffering in all different types of variations there are methods included involved in these practices which are helping you to overcome the suffering and now this is a very important part you can live a life and avoid suffering but overcoming suffering is something different overcoming implies you felt it already but found a way now to still deal with it cope with it and that same type of suffering is just not appearing anymore because you have overcome it Shaolin Monastery is a Buddhist Monastery you are not allowed to leave the monastery and you have many many different rules that you need to let's say abide to while you stay inside the monastery if you want to develop something if you want to attain a new skill let's just say you want to learn another language the quickest way to learn this language is for the next 30 days you take care you have something to eat you have enough sleep and the rest of the time you study you don't watch television you don't go on social media you don't play any games you don't go out on party you don't drink alcohol you don't take drugs you sleep you eat and you train we hear a lot of things that almost feel like myths about what people who practice Kung Fu so the level to become a master are capable of we hear about finger punching about the Iron Head about having bones that are stronger than steel have you experience any of that have you witnessed anyone that has I just let you feel so or maybe I don't know if you have something to hit there oh boy you want me to Hitch oh you can take a piece of wood are you for real no take take any piece of wood there okay okay what I just want you to do is you just use your strength just imagine this would be your arm and just like you you hit it against my arm here somewhere on this right here you want me to hit how hard you you start you take it take it really strong like this hit you like it's a baseball bat yeah okay I'll hit medium first and it'll hit hard or just hit hard go you can go slow okay you think it's gonna go are you kidding this isn't affecting your skin for real Go Go harder so how does it feel for you it feels like I'm about to shatter this I mean like that's extremely hard that's extremely hard if you did that to my bones I think that my arm would break so that means now you can answer for yourself how it is you can feel it's all okay it feels it feels super human to uh I mean like you can you could see like you could just see the way your arms look here it looks like it the not just the musculature but the the skeletal base it feels like they're uh something different when it comes to the development of the body the more on the outside something is like located just like your skin yeah the quicker actually it is to change something about it yeah you're unhappy with your skin do a seven day treatment after seven days 14 days it's already possible to see some changes on the skin muscles tendons fascia blood vessels bones the more deep you start to go inside the longer the training will be needed so when I talk about the mind then in my way of how I understand it it is so super fine impossible to even put it into a form and now saying that you are transforming the Mind changing the mind it's the hardest out of everything if you cannot even change the skin if you cannot change the muscles if you cannot change the bones how do you want to know how to change the mind if you unlock something about the mind you unlock something at the same time simultaneously in regards to what is your body able to deliver I read that when you were younger you learned to break rocks with your head is that true is that just a myth that seems Legend I can perk and breaks on my head anytime I want anytime anytime do you want to do it right now because for many years you know soft discipline you have to charge yourself in life you have to discipline yourself you have to encourage yourself that way you can Master yourself in our lives you cannot change things overnight you have to take step by step and to be able to to build it like this you cannot overnight do this yeah you have to keep stretching your your physical stretch your brains discipline yourself you'll be able to do that so that's not just physical that's mental mental yeah how so when you stretch you pay you have pain yeah you scare yourself are going to break in my body you're not absolutely not everyone has their visibilities you have to keep it you actually maintain it to discipline yourself to train harder every day that's what's about getting comfortable with the pain it's about feeling okay with the pain it's a part of life you still experience what some might call pain but you see the signal you listen to the signal and you acknowledge that you don't necessarily need to pay attention to it you don't need to focus all of your energy toward this is something that I need to escape I need to run away and stop this yes is it worth it to stop your plan just because of this pain right now or is the achievement of your goal whatever it is that you have put upon yourself still worth to go over that pain like a simple exercise people know from the movies you just stand in the so-called horse stance like this yes like squatting with the feet a little bit more white okay okay like parallel okay like this is always good and now try stay like this but take your butt in take the yes more and more more yes so arms like so okay and now this position you like stay for five minutes five minutes I got maybe 30 seconds maybe in me okay but just a moment stay like this yeah okay you feel it's gonna get exhausting yeah quick every moment right now you are torn between sit down and relax or use it and push myself I have a choice you have a choice but the good thing is you don't give yourself choice and you just say for the next 20 seconds so one two three four five six seven eight nine ten ten nine eight seven six five four three two there we go so that felt like a lifetime and this is the thing why you need someone guides you who pushes you through who helps you who motivates you and makes it because he wants you to discover something how strong you really are if you were counting there I would have given up 20 seconds earlier if I would have given you the choice you have you would you wouldn't even make the 20 seconds sometimes in different other traditions we say if you are losing the fire inside of you life is over so what do you need in order to live like life we need fire and this fire only comes also when we are using willpower in order to stay the 20 seconds you need willpower and the more you have this the more internally you start to in it starts to generate this heat this fire this vitality it is that Vitality that makes you then push through things even if it will become hard one day it's this energy and I can see practicing that over and over again can really sit with you throughout your daily life and remind you that you have a choice to continue you are capable of more than you ever thought you could be and that is a physical representation of a physical limitation that I thought I had but that translates to the mind to your thoughts yes now you start to understand for yourself the power that lies inside of you and this is why no matter what impulses or yeah are coming from the outside you realize them but not like before it's shaking you everything can come but you can still always decide what are you going to do with it you want to follow that emotion you want to follow that impulse or do you say oh no actually it's not important Let It Go you're able to see your limits and know a little bit closer where they are and how much more you're capable of so in life throws all the it's going to throw at you you are you're able to take a step back and and look at that with you know bringing in all the information without allowing yourself to go down the path of worry stress anxiety anxiety often nowadays like the related in a way to the fear of the future and I love the fact that I don't know what's coming tomorrow just imagine you would already know what tomorrow the week after your complete life what is going to happen you already know everything that you see in the mind how big can that Vision be it can only be as big as your ability of imagination and of vision so that means if your mind is small then small things can happen in your life and if you think that all of this this whole universe is just here in order to fulfill our personal expectations about life I think this is not the proper perspective I think that one alternative way to see yourself is we have been placed in somewhere and now it's for you until the end of Lifetime to discover what exists here to be discovered for example I think you also know this symbol of this yin and yang you know I mean it's a common symbol balance balance balance is key so what we try to achieve of course is balance but it also is uh like standing or symbolizing another aspect which I before mentioned we want to get to the mind but you don't approach the Mind directly we approach the Mind by using the body you want to know what is success you don't directly approach success sometimes in order to start to know what is success you will have to see and get to know the failure because only if you have this one and that one then together they are harmonious if you only are used to success it's one-sided where's the counterpart will it always swing back and that is exactly what in different ways how it can occur in different ways how it's going to let's say pay back you cannot trick this universe you've done this demonstration and it's interesting when you when you do this demonstration because it's just using physics to to get this point across yes can you uh represent what you uh no the demonstration here it should just give you an idea an idea of understanding how can I know for myself for example before I take a decision what type of decision should I take so very often when we walk through this lifetime there is either something that you like or something that you dislike the consequence of liking for many of us is you see something and you start to have this positive feeling yeah we like positive feelings that's why positive feeling is something we would actually like to bring closer to us you like your girlfriend you like your boyfriend so that means you want to keep her him close the person is here already the situation is here already what you are doing right now is you try to bring it closer than it is you are forcing it to be closer the problem is that the more you force it we say in the Buddhist teachings nothing stays as it is so after you have a long way of forcing and pulling if then the time comes then you see that the amount of what you started to force and pull it's just gonna like move in the opposite direction you force something into a situation into a person which is not how it is how is it that's how it is balanced so it's there already why do you want to bring it closer enjoy right now what you have here what about when you push things away same the more energy when you invest in pushing and there it's just like at the same time one day if nothing stays the same just swings back in that same amount towards yourself so this is why we say walking through this lifetime and learning mentally leave the things as they are the pulling part this is nowadays easy our world at the moment is very much propagated into this direction that it is always about attaining nothing is about downgrading Buddhism is about downgrading and what are you downgrading it's this nice image I think look from often we use this picture that a small child coming to this world and it's like a clear clear glass of water but once that happens the parents come and put their drop of Education already into the child then you go into the school system the teachers put their knowledge into the child the advertising the newspaper all of these things having effect and starting to fill up the child with ideas with Idols with concepts with judgments and so what we say is hopefully you are either having an environment that really takes care what they are putting into you but very often we don't know what is entering us so one day we just wake up and realize that we're looking into the world completely with strange ideas that are not helpful for us and what is now what we regard as Buddhism yeah and it is not a religion it is about method to realize that I have looked into the mirror and I can see that I am full of dirt and I would really wish to have a life where I can see more clear where I am feeling more clear and where I am more clean and now I need somebody who helps me in order to get this clean this is not about what your parents expect from you what the society expects so this is about you finally watch inside yourself and figure out is it really like this that the life quality is about the way how you feel and if it is like this then now comes the good part it's because you feel it it's in your hands and this is where the journey starts it's always the same person it's always the same character who is walking through this lifetime a character sometimes having different virtues that he's living by they're wearing different guiding principles and also different let's say internal abilities let's just say one discipline so what does discipline mean because I feel like a lot of people hear that and you know they're like okay it means patience it means doing things that I don't want to do display means for example there's no excuses to make today is so hard today is so cold I don't want to do these things I'm tired I don't want to get out of the bed different kind of you know uncomfortable not comfortable situation you have to understand yourself why I'm here asking yourself give yourself some questions stay in front of the mirror lock yourself I'm here purpose I must do something meaningful to myself a lot of people are stuck with a feeling of maybe uncertainty about their purpose in life about what the reason for their existence is what their purpose is to you what is the meaning of life to you what is your purpose once a really heard a sentence that very very much resonated with me and that one was to not wait until somewhere the sense of life is going to like float around and you're gonna be ready to grab it because what happens if this situation never comes or what happens if you see it but you miss it does it mean that your life has no sense anymore the most proper thing is to give a sense to whatever you are doing for yourself don't wait for anybody else to tell and to tell you what your sense is supposed to be you have to find a sense and give a sense to the things that you are doing you give purpose why you wake up for me I've seen that the best way for me to achieve any of these big goals that I have is to a realize that I just want it I don't need it that allows me to see it with a very clear mind and also that I don't need to make the biggest change in the world immediately to attain it I can keep it in my mind and slowly make choices small choices that are yes or no here yes or no here but I see that I'm making them to eventually lead to a bigger goal and I used to approach life as having a big goal you need to completely change everything and be the person that I thought that I needed to be to make the goal happen when now that I've eased up and allowed myself to just guide myself down the flow of Life toward something that I think that's where I want to be I think that's where I want life to take me rather than getting in that steam engine boat and going upstream and going against the way that the natural flow of life that's when I've started to see my life unfold in a way that's very pleasant for me is that kind of what you're getting at just before I I came here I just took a shower to look good you know but they are there exactly came again just imagine for example tomorrow you wake up all of this is gone your YouTube channels are gone everything is gone the thing is I strongly believe it would matter to you because you just continue you just start build up something new again hmm why because it's embedded in you already because the character is there already you know it doesn't matter you know if people take all this what you what has been built up now take it away yeah but there is something inside of you me many other people that cannot be taken away anymore you also had a demonstration that you were thinking about doing about alignment and Harmony especially in this field of nowadays yoga meditation or what we call Qigong what people practice it is super important to learn and use your breath in the proper way so which means for example as an as an exercise you can just try and test for yourself how how much are you able to regulate the breasts and now I'm just breathing loud that you can hear it and that also like maybe your audience can hear it but let's just see for example how much the inhalation goes oh and the longer you practice the longer these things become yeah regulating the breath really means you need to take time you need to concentrate you really need to readjust at all moments to release like tension inside of the chest inside of the abdomen area in order to allow your body to take that much of oxygen of air inside so why is it important because you want more energy you need more oxygen what is it in general that brings you the most Joy per share with people I can see people change physically mentally life that's the most richest gift to my life can you teach me how to properly show my respects and a thank you traditionally we had for example the fist and this this was like traditionally the martial art greeting it's like this in Buddhism we sometimes have both Palms we place in front of the heart sometimes I used to think with this gesture it's not the left brain it's not the right brain it's not about sinking it's about feeling that's why it's in front of the heart but that is the second way and the Third Way is this one [Laughter] hello Eve hey Anthony lead meditation expert at headspace how far back does your meditation practice go over 12 years now I got really curious about the history um you know how long have these practices been around where did they come from our founder Andy buddhicom he made the pretty extreme decision to go and become a Buddhist monk he went to Asia and so he studied in the Burmese tradition for around the first four or five years and then ordained as a Tibetan monk these practices have their roots in mindfulness and I think it can be helpful to explain like what is meditation what is mindfulness yeah because I too was like is there a difference and I always thought that mindfulness just meant being aware but like to what extent can you give the best definition of meditation meditation helps to focus the mind to be more present accepting less judgmental and less critical of oneself and others many folks I've taught or speak with think that they can't meditate because they can't clear the mind they can't stop thoughts and two things happen one you think you're failing yes which which is a judgment in and of itself and then secondly it becomes stressful because you're like why can't I meditate why can't I stop my thoughts yeah when you take time to train the mind in meditation you're actually putting some distance between yourself and your thoughts and your emotions at its core the quality of mindfulness is you're really training the mind or this quality of being in the present moment in the Here and Now with a soft and open mind so if you're here right now you're here you're not thinking about something you've got to do next or rehashing something that has already happened which let's face it that's what we spend a lot of time doing as humans we're always thinking forward or wishing we could change something that's happened and that's where a lot of our suffering and Stress and Anxiety can come from like anxiety is projecting forward worrying about things that could happen that haven't happened yes so mindfulness is is really this quality of present moment awareness or more simply put focusing the minds I mean you know the saying mind over matter you know there's there's a lot of Truth in that and when I was training for the London Marathon quite a few years ago and then ran it and the last 10 miles well hell like my body was screaming stop stop stop and all I could do was just say to myself put one foot in front of the other one foot in front of the other and it was all in my mind constantly One Step more one step more that's one step more just one step more and that is the only way I got over the Finish Line because if I you know if I've been telling myself you can't do this you've got to stop and it's amazing we can surprise ourselves with how much we can actually do but sometimes we do need a bit of extra help along the way we have a course in headspace app called the basics course and you can choose from three five or ten minutes and I'll say to someone if they've never done any meditation before start with three minutes I was really surprised when I started using headspace and there were two minutes three minutes five minutes sessions yeah because I always had it in my mind that you needed to take a half hour an hour or two hours to actually see any kind of benefit but even incorporating just a few minutes of meditation mindfulness yeah each day has had a huge benefits yeah in my daily life and there's actually a ton of science to back up what headspace is doing what meditation does yeah do you know any of the the stats or anything off top of your head one of the studies we ran showed that just 10 days of headspace um can reduce stress by around 14 that's just 10 days of course everyone is going to be different um but I think it speaks to just 10 minutes consistently over time can see a fairly immediate change in how you relate to stress and one of the things that I'm most excited about is that headspace is giving a 60-day free trial for viewers of this video specifically usually it's much shorter than that but you could sign up for free and you can start seeing the benefits of what headspace has to offer you can use the code anthony60 and get two months I feel like you can start to see huge changes in just two weeks am I using it for just a short amount of time I've seen such huge benefits in my life all these ways of thinking that seemed just to me at least they seemed so foreign and unattainable yeah can actually be something that everyone can experience just with a little little bit of time I'm a friend of balance even so I don't look like it let's look for them yeah it's funny some people already mentioned before sometimes I talk about balance yeah but then people take my picture and if you look at my face my left side is like quite different than the right one okay yeah yeah so what they say is you talk about balance your face doesn't look balanced how can you be balanced foreign

Channel: AnthonyPadilla

Views: 2,571,878

Keywords: anthony padilla, padilla, anthony, i spent a day with, interview, monks, buddhism, shaolin, shaolin monks

Id: 9RocYTvsixg

Length: 33min 19sec (1999 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 28 2023