Shaolin Monk's Routine For Self-Mastery: Stop Laziness, End Stress & Find Purpose | Shi Heng Yi

Master Shi what do you mean when you say the words self-mastery but also why is it so important okay so just taking apart first of all this word Master what does it mean for me it always refers to a person who in a very particular field whatever that field is simply has um a quite High skill set either skill set or also like a lot of experience in that field so it means if there is something that you want to receive it must come from somebody who already has spent some lifetime or has some type of access to knowledge that you until now don't have it doesn't mean like a master or a teacher is more worth in when it comes to being a human being than the student so now self Mastery at the same time means it is something related to each individual it it's a personal matter self-mastery meaning you have taken the decision that you want to commit part of your lifetime in developing something that makes you as a human being become more unique become more powerful become more experienced and this is what I refer to as self-mastery it is everyone needs to look into their own life and start perfecting their own life it's not about perfecting something that is related to another person which is not in our hands self Mastery meaning you ENT that your lifetime on this Earth is limited and therefore you want to spend it as um as useful as possible in order to develop your character to develop your own health to develop your own emotional state to such extent that you feel happy about this lifetime that's what self-mastery means mastering your pH life that's what it means thank you when I reflect on what you have just said about self-mastery I wonder if for some people there's a slight contradiction there and I guess why this question comes up for me is because I see today many people are getting confused because I believe they have an overreliance on Experts so there's nothing wrong with experts but I'll give you a very practical example where I could talk to somebody on this podcast today who is expressing that in their view this diet is the best diet for human health and the week after I could be talking to another expert with the same qualifications but who has a different perspective and what often happens these days I feel is that people have outsourced their own inner expertise onto other people and I feel we all need more self-mastery many of my patients to I of course I'm always trying to cultivate my self Mastery but I wonder if you can help us unpick that potential dilemma please okay so let's just assume you are interested in the field of martial arts and your own your your only intention right now is I want to learn how to throw a hard and efficient punch that's it so I can go to a Kung Fu Master and he's going to show me his way of moving he's going to tell me uh what other aspects or areas of the body you supposed to move he's going to show you and maybe teach you his mythology his experience in how to develop throwing a heart punch then you go to a karate master and you ask the same then you go to a taond master and ask the same and then you go to a Muay Tha fighter and ask him the same and afterwards you go to an mm MMA fighter and ask him the same so chances are very high on the one side you get five different approaches and now what my suggestion is five different approaches means it worked probably for them it worked for their life in what they have been doing but for me I'm trying to understand what is the similarities that I find in all five of them so it's really like the mathematics you are looking for the common how we call it the common denominator yeah so what is the same about the five perspective I take into my life and now I'm adding it up by my own training by trying it out and get my insights of what is working for me and at the same time you also maybe start to get an understanding why in the first place five different people have these similarities and why some of these areas are also different so it never means that is also a way of thinking just because there are five perspective uh perspectives doesn't mean four of them are wrong it just means it works for specific area but your life right now the country you're living in the food that is available in your supermarket in your in your city the amount of daylight and night and and all of this is all different for you in your surrounding and that's why that is this in uh this individual area that needs to be adapted so taking in experience advice and perspective from other people is the first way to go because elsewise you would have to uh ReDiscover everything from scratch that doesn't make sense yeah this is the reason why we have seniors we have Elders we have Generations ancestors before us they already did a lot of This research so it doesn't make sense to reinvent the the wheel over and over again but to make it really practical and 100% functional for your life I think this is the part where now it goes into the ability of observing yourself observing your own life and actually with the mind going into yourself and asking what is there that I can maybe still improvise in what I have heard already what are some of your favorite practices that enable your students or The Wider public to do that self-investigation and go inwards to learn okay something that is really useful for the beginning it can be the simple realization when I wake up in the morning and then I in the moment I like start to open my eyes in a moment all the five senses start to become active I wake up and and automatically my awareness is being driven outwards I'm looking for something outside of me to look at I'm noticing all the sounds that are around me I'm noticing all the Mel that is around me outside of me yeah I'm I'm taking care of what I feel let's say on my skin to all the sensations of my body in the moment you are awake your awareness is being drawn outwards it's a natural process it's naturally happening the first realization is that there's also another area of watching but not watching something outside of you it's watching what goes on inside of the body so literally meaning sometimes trying to figure out if you can watch inside yourself and let's say then feel what other areas of the body are you made out of meaning the skeleton the bones the muscles the tendons the organs so sensing what goes on inside of yourself the same effect listening not listening to what what is like around you in terms of of sound but listening inside of you what signals is your body yourself what can you what what can you identify listening inside of yourself so the point is there are two ways where your awareness can can spread to either you're losing your awareness with outside circumstances or you can sometimes just catch back your awareness and bring it back to you which is literally then sometimes called well that is mindful you are mindful about what's going on about yourself and this is the very very first step of being able to differentiate there is something that lies outside of you obviously but there's also another area another perspective how you can walk through the day but still have your awareness with yourself it doesn't mean one or the other is better we need both we live in both worlds but it's the first realization that to have proper adjustment to really really know which buttons do I have to turn or do I have to push in order to to let's say improve my my my well-being to improve my life I think you need to know and have a picture of all areas that make our life that make our existence the way as it is and this means it's a big part of who are you who are you what are you for people who have never ever had a regular practice of self-awareness so for people who are very much used to getting up and consuming from the outside everything is external the news the social media the online World their emails their work whatever it might be and they're saying okay I understand I need to now start cultivating a bit of self-awareness by putting my attention inwards would you say that first thing in the morning is one of the best times in the day to do it or can it be done at any time of the day it can be done any time of the day but my suggestion still is early in the morning just out of this fact so the earlier the morning the less people in your city are awake the earlier in the morning the less emails the less phone calls the less messages you you you're receiving and so it's also very it makes it much easier let's say if you wake up a little bit earlier knowing there is nobody who's going to call you there's nobody who's going to ask you for something because nobody's awake and so it already makes it what way easier for yourself to just focus right now okay these 20 minutes or these 15 minutes in the morning everybody is still sleeping this is the time that now I'm dedicating purely on myself so therefore I would say regardless of what type of exercises what type of um of awareness enhancing exercise it is it can be brething exercise it can be sitting meditation it can be the combination of meditative practices combined with movement and breathing which is like what nowadays people know as Cho yeah so any type of these methods is perfectly fine but the main point is that in the moment you are starting this practices your mindset also must fit and that means you must really tell to yourself This is my time now there is turn off the phone don't look on the phone anything like this have this feeling this is my dedicated 15 minutes many people of course these days struggle with motivation and discipline and what you have just recommended standard on the surface at least is actually quite simple for the first 15 minutes of the day dedicate yourself to yourself don't open the phone don't look online do some form of internal practice whatever that might be for you yet they still struggle why is it that you think people are unable to sit with themselves for the first 15 to 20 minutes each day one of these one of the reasons is because of conditioning now so here in Germany we have a saying that if you would like translate it it means we are habitual beings the human is a habitual being which means all of the habits it's because you are from birth on there are habits that each human being have having habit by itself is not a bad thing which means let's just take brushing the teeth yeah we don't have to be super Mindful and conscious about brushing the teeth it has become a habit so where does a habit help us it helps us to take away the to to take away our thinking capacity to do like basic things so I I don't need to think about okay tee uh the the the brush up down up down no it has become a habit so in this term or in this example habits can be something useful the question is on what are these habits that we have uh based upon and what are the consequences of that habitual Behavior so which means if laziness has become one of your habits it's not useful okay so at the end of day we are all conditioned by something conditioned by what our parents taught us conditions conditioned by what our friends told us conditioned by the advertising conditioned by many many external sources now the question is when you see and you look into your own life look at your own character look at who you are figure out first of all if you can identify the patterns that your life is based upon what type of pattern what type of uh Behavior what type of habits do you have and which of them are serving you in the good way and which of them are standing along your path of further developing MH but that means this is one big reason why it's difficult I think for many people nowadays to suddenly put something into into action which they by thinking about it they know it would be better for me but they cannot do it at the moment because there are other habits that have already entered into their lifetime so strongly that first of all we need to get rid of the old habit yeah and there is that saying in order for something new to come something old must go okay so the laziness must go and the practice comes in and this is then where life your body your mind starts to just simply start to adapt itself and build new habits but more healthy habits for many people it's the start of the day and the end of the day where they have an element of control over their time many people in the middle of the day they feel they have lots of obligations things to do work errands to run whatever that might be so I'm I'm hearing you're saying in the you know first thing in the morning some dedicated time for meditation breath work introspection whatever it might be can be incredibly helpful how do you feel about behaviors that people should be doing lasting at night for example do you have certain routines that you would recommend people think about adopting lasting in the evening before they retire to bed something that you can do in the evening is just be grateful for what happened during the day regardless of how hard the day was regardless of which challenges you had to face during the day it is just a very helpful practice to never forget and be grateful about your possibility first of all to just experience all of this I know it's for some people very very hard maybe to understand that if the day was like really challenging how can you still be grateful in the evening before you go to bed well but that's exactly the point because if you don't do it you're going to go to bed with a quite different state of the mind which is not going to help you for the next day and which is also not going to help you for the future time to come so because the day is about to end it's good to still have some type of practice that's what what I call it it's a practice of gratitude be thankful be grateful for what happened on that day regardless if it was a hard day or not because this is now where it comes to like I said habits conditioning yourself and the way how to sometimes make your life a little bit lighter why is it that you feel Gra attitude is so important because you are elsewise missing a big part of of the purpose of why you're here a big part of your sense of life let's say like this we can complain about all type of things the whole day long but what helps me to realize sometimes is we can complain we can complain and we can experience in the first place because we are somehow alive because we have come into existence already there are other well I don't know how to say it now it sounds strange but there are other beings maybe they don't even have a body the they have never come alive they have never been born they cannot even complain so you have been given this gift of being able to walk on this earth right now so having the existence right now being able to live this life right now already that is quite a big big gift don't take it for granted M it's it's not good to take your lifetime for rented even if you have difficult time of course at the Shaolin Temple Europe many people are coming from all over the world for these 12-month programs where they can live and train with you I'm really interested as to what kinds of people are turning up there are they generally people who are coming from let's say the Western World who have become lost maybe they've suffered with depression maybe they're looking for a way out of a previous chaotic existence or did they come for a whole variety of different reasons there is no category of any uh of any type of people that does not come so which means all type of people are meanwhile really uh coming so it's very difficult to say who specifically meaning are they looking for healing are they looking for treatment are they coming because they want to test themselves the only thing that right now comes to my mind what they all have in Comon is they have the searching but I don't know for what people are searching for different for different things in their lifetime people can come out of physical reasons to change something or to improve something about their their physical body and other people also come because they have mental um challenges or they have maybe also emotional challenges and I think this is the great this is that great variety why I also think that nowadays um these type of holistic approaches have become let's say so so famous because you cannot fix your life based on one method only so when we talk about I want to spend my lifetime that has been given to me on this Earth in the best way possible then this means your body must be healthy your mind must be healthy your emotional state must be healthy and this is where I think that all these holistic approaches uh make so much sense and where people are also starting to realize yes it's like it couldn't be another way if I reflect on why or one of the reasons why I think many people are struggling these days I I often think that we have too much choice these days we think that choice is freedom but by having Limitless choice I can do all of these different workouts all of these movements all of these different practices I could follow all of these different experts I often feel that that leads to a a kind of stagnation and people procrastinate because they can't choose which one to do I know I've fallen into that trap in the past and really the truth as I see it is that many of these different practices can work you just need to choose and commit now I would imagine and perhaps you could elaborate on this for me when people come to the Shaolin Temple Europe there must be certain practices and rituals and restrictions that are put on to people whilst they are living there do you feel that those restrictions are difficult for people or do you feel that those restrictions actually help cultivate that inner Freedom okay so in the moment you are arriving here in our Monastery first of all you will realize there is no mobile connection second thing you will realize is there is not much talking allowed actually the third thing you realize is we have a very strict daily structure which means we have specific eating time so that means 7:00 is breakfast uh 1 p.m. we have lunch and 600 p.m. we have dinner in between we have also training sessions which are also scheduled every day Monday till Friday so what I mean is when you are coming here you are directly being confronted with a lot of restrictions meaning I mean we live in the 21st century so the possibilities have never been so so huge like right now you know you can communicate easily with any any part of the world if you have some Financial possibilities you can travel with the airplane anywhere in the world almost at any time of the day so that means there is a type of freedom of you can do what you want more or less okay but now there are people coming to this Monastery knowing that when they are staying there they are being confronted with a lot of restrictions you cannot eat when you are hungry there are three times a day we have eating time if you are hungry in between you have to wait you just have to get over it and wait until the next eating time comes even if you stay awake until early in the morning next day 6:00 is the wake up time regardless of what you did the day before so that means this confrontation with a lot of restrictions meaning it's not about what you want it's about what the structure that external structure of the monastery let's say is asking from you and now why are we doing this so it feels almost similar like you're in jail yeah you're putting yourself into jail with a lot of restrictions because the more time you spent in inside this type of structure the more easy it is to actually sooner or later also actually give up what is restricting you because it is not the external circumstances that make your heart that makes your life so difficult it is something inside of you that is building up that that is building up the challenges and the difficulty of what you are mirroring into all of these external circumstances so what we want why we have this hard structure is because it is one method in order to pickle out the real freedom of yourself the freedom that regardless of how the external circumstances are inside of you this is where the freedom must come just taking a quick break to give a shout out to Vivo barefoot shoes now I've been a huge fan of Vivo Barefoot for over 10 years now well before they started supporting my podcast they are the only shoes that I wear and they really have had a huge impact on my own life and the lives of many of my patients you see when people start wearing Minimalist Shoes like Vios you can see improvements in things like back pain hip pain knee pain foot pain even things like plop fasciitis can often get better and scientific research shows us that just wearing Vios for about four months or so improves the strength in your feet by over 60% which is absolutely incredible one thing people don't realize about these shoes is just how flexible they are which allows your feet to do what your feet naturally want to do rather than the shoe dictating your foot's movement Vivo Barefoot are giving my audience a 15% off onetime code when you make your first order and they make it really easy for you to give them a try they give a 100 day trial for new customers so if you don't like them you just send them back for a full refund I'm a huge fan I really hope you take advantage of this this offer to get your 15% off codes all you need to do is go to Vivo barfoot.co.nz if my happiness and if my freedom has conditions it is not free so I am happy because I have a job I'm happy because I have a relationship I'm happy because uh I have a lot of money on my bank account I'm happy because the sun is shining but all of these things ultimately they are not in your hands because if your employer fires you you don't have the the finance anymore and you don't have the job and if your girlfriend leave you or your partner leav you you also don't have like um a relationship anymore and if the weather starts to change you also don't have Sunshine anymore so what happens in that moment when these things fall away then automatically apparently your happiness that was related to it would also Fall Away and this is a type of of of basing your life quality on something which by Nature already does not make sense because it never stays stunny it's not happening it doesn't make sense to place your well-being on something that is eternally cained in so and and what does it mean it means that at least in our tradition I can only talk about what our emphasis is okay whether it's left or it's right in a way you are fine with the left way and you are fine with the right way what we would like to develop is if you go left anywhere since you decided already you put all your commitment you put all your energy into the left way without crying about the middle way and the right way if you go the if you take the the right way you should also be able to 100% commit to the right way but it doesn't make sense to still carry the the the suffering and the regret of what everything you you did not do in your lifetime M that doesn't make sense because you can't change it anymore and this is the point where sometimes to give yourself no choice yeah no choice because if you have no choice this is like what one of my masters also used to teach us and used to tell us and it makes perfectly sense if you have no choice there is no other way than putting everything that you can do all your energy into this path it makes me think of where we started this conversation talking about self-mastery the only thing we can ever Master is ourselves and if we're dependent on those externalities those externalities are always going to change and so many of us are reliant on our job on the car that we drive on our status on the weather whatever it might be in order to feel good when everything is going just the way we want it to go we feel good and when something changes as it always does we then feel low and depressed and we struggle I love the way you talk about that I love the fact that you talk about this idea of restriction is a way of helping people get rid of those externalities I mean for someone who's who's listening master and is thinking look I am someone who's dependent on these things for my well-being how can I start developing that inner self-awareness and that inner reliance as opposed to the external Reliance without coming to your temple for 12 months you know what are some of the ways that they can start to do that now uh prior to answering this question one very very important thing I am not saying people should get rid of all of the things that brings them joy and happiness this is not what I said if you like to be in a relationship what I'm saying is enjoy it even more as long as it is there if you like to dress nicely if you like to have nice watches if you like to collect cars build cars drive cars do it as long as you can even with more joy so don't take it as granted but at the same time I'm I'm saying don't attach to these things okay so this is the this is the first message with which I sometimes really need to uh recorrect I'm not saying that you need to sell everything get rid of everything no it's just don't get attached to it but while you are having these things in your life it means I mean you have worked for it nobody nobody has a let's say has an expensive car if if not somehow he didn't work for it so that means of course he deserve to have this ability to drive that car but don't limit yourself to that car don't attach yourself to that car right now you have this great chance in experiencing all of this though experience to the fullest but in the moment it's gone and which is going to happen sooner or later it's going to happen learn at the same time to not get attached to it this is the whole process yeah we humans are finding ourselves in this lifetime it's a constant up and down of having and losing of ring ring and falling this is what makes like human life human life we just look outside that that is the structure of our world the sun rises the sun sets the day comes the night arises okay we are inhaling we are exhaling the heart is sucking the heart is pumping this is this is human life okay and so it means there are areas where we are having something but we also going to lose it and this this type of pattern I think it makes sense to embed this a little bit into your reality so and maybe along this way sooner or later you will start to realize that this type of pattern of up and down in and out left and right having and losing success and failure maybe you will realize that this type of pattern is found from birth to death yeah and if then the question arises is that all is this now life the constant change of left and right up and down well if this question starts to come then there are other perspectives then there are other possibilities that maybe for you can start to open up see and this is the point where now in the ancient Traditions sometimes in the Buddhist teachings it is set don't live in the extremes don't live in the extreme High don't live in the extreme low so not here and not here Buddhism in a way is called the middle way M the da is teachings known for the yin and yang symbol so what's the emphasis on yin and yang of understanding that there is a pattern also and also that yin and yang they both are dependent on each other and what's the point of understanding this because it gives gives you a better understanding that there is something else which we call Harmony which we call Peace which we call balance so there is nothing which is fluctuating so much anymore because this fluctuation of life has become I don't know I have seen it too often and it's disturbing after some time it's exciting in the beginning but after some time it's just like the same pattern comes over and over again and then it just doesn't make sense anymore so I started to look for an alternative way how to cope with this way of life and I always return back to balance Harmony peace stability something that cannot be shaken and this can only be found in something I I I make it super simple now it is something mind related it cannot be physically related it cannot be matter related it is mind related discovering yourself this is where it's related to yeah thank you over the past few years as I think about the variety of human behaviors I've come to the realization that it's very rarely the behavior it's the energy behind the behavior that's actually most important so for example you mentioned the person who might have worked hard and bought themselves a fancy expensive car as you have pointed out it's not about not having that if you're in a position where you have access to that it's not attaching to that so if you like driving that car and you think that car says something about who you are and if that car was taken away from you you would be depressed well then you may have an overreliance a dependency that's going to cause problems but if you can enjoy driving that car but you're not attached to it you can take it or leave it then it's the same behavior with a different energy I think that's what you're getting at and it also makes me think of um I think I read about the Roman Empress senica who was born to wealth had money he had power but my understanding is that from time to time he would wear simple clothes he would go out into the villages and eat very simply bread water he would sleep on the streets I believe to teach himself that yeah I am fine without the riches without the prestige without the status without the money how can you make this really practical for someone if someone's listening and goes I understand what you're saying Master but I am attached to those things I think if I lost my job or my car I would really really struggle how do you help them start thinking about changing their relationship with these externalities okay so let's put it like this if somebody is caught into this type of bubble of what is surrounding him sometimes it's necessary to maybe do the travel to another area of the world spend some time over there and free yourself from the surroundings that you have known for such a long time because this type of encountering different civilization different culture different ways of living different ways of behavior well it can also be something that actually opens your eyes and and literally you are facing it right away that um everything that you have lived so far it's not necessary there are many different ways of living on this Earth yeah okay and and this is what I mean yeah so we all everyone including me in a way we all live in a bubble yeah my bubble is the martial art bubble The Shaolin bubble okay the wisdom bubble may be like this other people they live in the career bubble okay other people they live in the music business bubble other people live in the Celebrity Status bubble these are all bubbles meaning somehow we all have created it uh with our own energy partially with also what we wanted from our life to be so we started creating a bubble and a life actually around which is not a bad thing but ask yourself what would happen if the bubble bursts and then you realize that you're still part of everything when the bubble bursts you still part of everything it's just that for right now you have become too hard lined about your own bubble but whatever you have created there it's not of substance so therefore jumping from one bubble to another traveling meeting different people meeting different culture this is like what you actively can do to sometimes start realizing that if 8 billion people are living on this Earth that there are at least 8 Billion Bubbles yeah okay but none of these bubbles is the truth they all can only exist because there's something bigger and this you realize when the bubble bursts I spoke to a monk from a different tradition on this podcast a few months ago jalong tubon he became a monk after he had a period of burnout so he he became an actor he went to New York he was partying hard he was enjoying the life in New York and he had extreme burnout he had to stop doing everything that led to him seeking a new way and he joined a monastery and has become a monk for I think over 30 years now so I guess my first question to you relating to that is did you have some form of life experience where things were not going so well that led you to believe that becoming a Shaolin monk was the way forward and I guess a wider point which I guess you've touched on already but it's it's more I'm interest Ed you know the people who come to study with you although we can't say all of them have many of them had these real pain points in their life which has led them to go look maybe there's another way maybe there's something else I need to learn in order to grow and move forward okay so with the age of four I started what nowadays is known as as Kung Fu okay as Shing Kung Fu in one of the very specific styles of Shing green CR I make it short starting with the age of four until now I'm 40 36 years long I have always stayed along this path of martial art in the martial art field when you want to learn something very often what we learning are so-called forms they are like choreographies of fighting so it's possible to actually learn form after form after form after form so now the problem for me was one day that actually there are so many forms existing in this world that it is impossible that you would ever be able to learn all the forms and now let me make the jump back to like how you can also understand it yeah we have quite a few big oceans here on the earth and quite a lot of uh a lot of lakes also on this Earth it's it doesn't make sense for me to travel from one ocean to the other standing at the coast looking at the ocean and just say oh These are nice waves and then you continue go to the next ocean look on its surface and say oh these are also nice ways so what I'm saying is you don't have to travel all the oceans of the world in order to get some real answers and some real death and this is what it is if you just pick out one single ocean you start with the surface and then you are spending your life diving deeper into that ocean I think you will discover so many different answer and Mysteries and things inside that one single ocean that one lifetime is also not enough to discover all of this yeah so that means there is a difference between looking for quantity or staying with something and looking for death so going deeper into one thing so many patients tell me that life just feels like a blur because of the pressures so many of us face the busyness the overwhelm the endless to-do list I've heard it time and time again why haven't things changed why can't I bring these healthy habits into my life and make them stick I've been a medical doctor for over two decades and I have to say one of the most transformative practices I have ever seen is the practice of journaling because it breaks the loop we have these unconscious patterns these subconscious patterns running our lives we don't realize how many anxieties and worries and concerns we have worrying around and journaling is a very simple way to get the stuff out of your brain you get it down onto paper and you you see it and that does something really really powerful when there's a new diet that you were following Fall by the wayside when does the new healthy habits that you were sticking to start to fall off track that's the self-awareness that journaling is going to give you when people ask the right questions they get the right answers and those right answers allow them to change their life take up journaling today and watch your life start to change okay now all of this also came came now in along this way of martial art the way of how I trained myself into my life so I said okay I have St I finished my studies now I have practiced several styles of martial arts right now so I could see already the possibilities in this world are huge but I then just said okay but no matter what I what what this body no matter where this body is going in this world it's always going to be the same mind that travels there it's always me who goes there so my interest begin I want to actually know what the what is it that makes me me so and that was the part where then together with the practice of the kungu also I got interested in what nowadays is known as Buddhism Zen Buddhism or the Buddhist teachings uh as such because this is what the Buddhist teachings is uh is is aiming it in giving you a way how to start what what you may be nowadays call as discovering yourself discovering the essence of yourself in order to make the best of your lifetime that's that's the final Point anyway so what is it that since 10 years now I'm starting to spread out in the world don't waste your lifetime and adjust everything that's possible inside of your life that you make the best out of it that's it finished yeah it's not about ping it's not about kicking it's not about anything super um super complicated it is about that our lifetime is limited and I think for right now it's the best thing to appreciate what we have and adjust everything that is in our head to make this lifetime Pleasant for yourself and also for people around you that is the that is the mission and then just one more point but I because I have to say it because you just mentioned that um I decided to be a Shen monk um I usually don't like to call myself like this because depending on Traditions you might have another um another idea of what a monk is when it comes now to Shaolin you have so-called Warrior monks you have so-called spiritual monks but I normally do not like to call myself monk I live a very spiritual and mind-based life from time to time but at the same time I'm very much engaged also in all other aspect of the world so I just don't want to confuse the people thank you yeah you've been spreading this wisdom throughout the world for a number of years [Music] now what are some of the key messages that are resonating with people and what are some of the key messages would you say that people are pushing back on a little bit and going no that's not quite right um I honestly don't know yeah because also these are not my teachings I speak about them it's it's like the scientists when they look with the with the space web telescope into into our universe yeah it's getting bigger and bigger with no end including the black holes including the fact that Infinity is somehow out there meaning everything must be out there already there there is nothing I can create which which not would be already existing elsewise it would not infinite so that means from time to time on this Earth I think there are just people coming who speak out what is there all the time it's not their teaching they just receive it out of whatever reason and then are able to spread it out yeah and and in a way this is what I think um why I I why I say this is not my teaching because I am really it's it's hard to imagine but I am just coming from the field of martial art yeah I make my push-ups I make my punches I make my strikes I make my forms I make my breathing exercise and from time to time then if somebody ask me a question then sometimes something wise comes out it's this is a really interesting point for me because I do feel if we think about attachment I think many people these days are attached to ideas and are overly attached with the idea that this is my idea well it's kind of like well no none of us came out of our mother's womb full of all these ideas we have absorbed ideas and books and teachings from everything we've consumed and all we can ever do is just put things across in the way that we see them early one in this conversation you said that when people come to the temple there is a certain structure and you mention eating times that there are three eating times a day if you are hungry at other times you said they just have to get over it and I guess make peace with that the way you said it was really interesting to me because to some people that may be interpreted as uncompassionate I I'm certainly not saying that myself I'm just trying to play devil's advocate here many people are struggling with addictions these days even lowgrade addictions like sugar social media online shopping they're addicted to distraction and they'll often say yeah but I had the urge to do that thing so I had to do it but you're showing through the rules at the temple that yeah you've got the urge to eat well now it's not eating time so you just got to suck it up and wait and I almost feel that that kind of message is very much needed in a in a very compassionate way but I think often we're seeing these days particularly in a country like the UK or America it's deemed as being overly harsh could you explain it in a little bit more depth from your perspective because I don't feel any part of it was harsh or uncompassionate but I think this this realization that we can feel things we can have a craving but we don't have to act on it I think for many people these days that's a a revolutionary idea for example uh maybe you know that movie Kung Fu Panda yeah so they already they use the title of or the name of Shifu this how for example when people come also to our to our Monastery how they relate to either me or the other teachers or the other Masters in the temple literally translated Shu means teacher or father so and this is now the important part this hierarchy is that we have the highest father of the temple which sometimes called the grandfather then we have the father under it and after the father come the Son and the daughters so and now I jump jump back into my real family life meaning when I grew up of course I had a father and I had a mother both of them but quite different in the way of how my relation to them was because if I made something wrong it was I was afraid of the father normally not the mother too much yeah so if there was something about I want to make it right then it was also like in order to show my father that I can do it right so my father is the one who gave me uncomfortable times who some times gave me challenges to just uh let me figure out the way how to do it if I needed some some type of Love or some type of of um of cuddling yeah okay then you go to the mother cuz she has probably that loving energy to calm you down a little bit more so and in the same way now it is here with us when it comes to learning something if people come to me even if sometime I speak very wise and I speak very calm or I speak very gentle I don't know whatever but when it comes to teaching I am not there to make people feel comfortable I'm not there to give you a comfortable time when you are coming to the temple in my vision it is I give you what you need in order to grow in order to expand beyond what you know about yourself I want to display the limits in your current life right now so which means if you have problems sticking to three times eating per day well then it could even happen we're going to limit it to two times eating per day you are faced so much with that own limitation of yours that you start to break free from it so this is where the harshness sometimes is misunderstood why am I hard why are we hard why is the teaching hard because elsewise um it's difficult sometimes to get through the [Music] learning the restriction gives the freedom right it's very nice that you say this because one very very famous saying inside the shaid teachings is without restriction there is no growth that's what we say and that's the issue right that's if we really think about that many of us are living in a world where there is no restriction we can do whatever we want when ever we want as the world as many countries are becoming more secular these kind of practices that I guess for many years were there within religions again I'm not saying pro- religion or anti-religion there's pros and cons of everything in the world but I think a lot of these major religions had a framework for living they had a structure they had guidelines which people followed and I feel feel strongly that as we've lost that as we can do anything s days a week whenever we want you know as a kid the shops were closed on Sundays just one small example but you knew you had to get your shopping done on the Saturday so you had food for the Sunday it's a very small thing but I feel there's a generation Growing Up Now who don't know about any form of restriction and then master and I'd really be interest in your perspective on this you say that if someone is struggling to only eat three times a day you might prescribe them only eating two times a day to really help them maybe reset their relationship between their hunger and their food and and their actions fasting is a practice that many religions many spiritual um teachers have spoken about for many years and one thing I've noticed in my public facing life largely on this podcast I've noticed that whenever I bring up fasting it seems to result in a very divisive response some people love it as an idea some people really push back and go fasting is dangerous very polarizing extreme views I always try and do it with compassion and say look not everything is for everyone but clearly for some people fasting is a life-changing practice for other people let's say with eating disorders for example it may not be the best practice at that particular point in their life but I guess this really speaks to what you're talking about this restriction why do you think a practice like fasting which has been there for thousands of years in all kinds of different cultures and religions why do you think that it's become so divisive in the 21st century I don't know why it has become so divisive but I'm happy to share just some of my perspective when it comes to fasting I mean let let's put it like this when we came to this world from our mother's womb yeah me we we had that type of size yeah maybe 3 kilog 4 kilogram something like this meanwhile after many years I mean you are 60 70 80 90 kilog of additional mass of additional mess of your bones mess of your muscles mess of your meat the number one question is where does all this additional mess in the last years and decades come from well I think it comes from all the type of nutrition and food that you have uh digested that you have taken into your body so number one is there is of course this connection between what you eat and how the health also of your body displays so this is one connection which I absolutely think it is there so first of all paying attention to what is it exactly that you are putting inside of yourself that is like number one step which then automatically means it makes sense to take care of your diet so taking care of the diet or understanding that diet matters is the first step so now the second one why does fasting is something that I also regard as being something practical because it solves two problems one of them is you have some time or your body has time to actually cleanse itself this is number one so physically meaning you're cleaning yourself because there's no intake there's no unnecessary intake which is like um disturbing your organism and you're giving your body also at the same time the ability right now to to get a cleanup this number one and number two is you also practice your mindset and see for yourself how much attached are you actually to all the type of food yeah that you are used to so it very very clearly displays how much your attachment is even to the food so which means we don't even need to talk about being attached to the car being attached to the relationship well even being attached to the food being attached to the music you're listening to or whatsoever doesn't matter what it is but it's the same attachment it's the same attachment so therefore this is the second reason why like practicing I mean this fasting it might not be directly for one week but like just even one day uh is a starting point from one day to two days to three days to a week the main point is to actually figure out for yourself how much and to what are you attached in your lifetime and everything you're attached to is what makes you happy everything you're attached to is what makes you heavy he makes you heavy meaning uh makes you become unmovable you can't move you cannot proceed you are stuck somehow if you are if you are stuck you can't move the problem is the whole universe and this life is about moving on and the best way how to continuously move on is to not have too many attachments in your lifetime everybody has different attachments it's always the same structure the more you are attached the more difficult it is to move on that is the general pattern many spiritual leaders talk very much about the importance of the Mind a clear mind being able to stay in the present you also share teachings related to that subject matter but one thing that I've noticed with you is that as well as paying attention to the mind you pay a lot of attention to your body as well I've seen some of your videos online you are very strong you have a lean physique your posture is something that really stands out to me it's very grounded it's very straight it's very commanding it fascinates me that because not all spiritual leaders pay as much attention to their body as they do to their mind whereas you appear to be someone who does and I wonder if you could explain why you feel that the body is also important or we can all agree that the Mind clearly is okay well first of all thank you very much for for this particular question because it's an important one so to to say it very very clear the main Essence the main essence of our lifetime what will give us the freedom it's mind related so power of the mind is in my opinion is the essence it is the mind that is in the focus of all development now comes the butt this type of realization cannot come in the beginning it cannot come in the beginning in the world that is all the time based on looks attraction of the eye physicality which means our world the Earth itself everything beautiful in this world what is beautiful about it it is beautiful because it looks beautiful so we are as humans we are focused on look this is what is attractive to us what we can see this is what matter okay so that's why I say okay the world of forms is important what I do with my body what I do with my shape how I take care of the matter that I have in my lifetime to take care of this matters 100% but it is only as the bridge to the might very important because I make it simple this body no matter how how fit no matter how well trained one day is going to go back to the Earth no matter how much you have been taken care of this body it's going to leave you therefore I think the main emphasis is in figuring out what is there about yourself even beyond the body so why is it then that you do take care of your body because it's uh let's put it simple like this no so that means on the one side you do something which maybe even if fun was some people you practice like the C yeah you're making the choreography on the one side it's fun at the same time you feel it's good for the body it's good for your health you make the breathing exercises where you feel oh it all has an effect actually on the way of how my how the energy level is that I have access to so there are many many different advantages of having a healthy body but with this healthy body now it is way more important to then one they find the find that switch in also figuring out what is there even beyond that body because this is the essence of what the Zen teachings of what the Chan teachings are about this is what the meditation is about the the teachings of the Buddha what it is about discovering who you really are this is the way how to how to end all the suffering and I guess for some people they find that physicality let's say a runner going for long runs it helps them tune into the mind it helps them realize I guess how frail they are it helps them realize what happens in their mind when they're facing discomfort and struggle so I guess for many people the way to the mind is often through the body yes this is exactly that approach we are living in the world right now which is so much the younger Generations they are so much already focused on they look outwards they look at forms they look at shapes so how to bring some spirituality how to bring some some deeper thoughts into these type of Minds well you have to go into their worlds we have to go into their areas where they are anyway finding themselves looking good being in a good physique taking care of shape taking care of form M but just as a bridge and then it's up to them to decide if you want to continue further or not but the world of forms is always limited to make sure you're taking action after watching this video I have created a free breathing guide that's going to help you reduce stress calm your mind and boost your energy in this guide I share with you six really simple breathing practices that work immediately even just one minute a day will start to make a big difference to receive your free guide guides all you have to do is click on the link in the description box below one of the most powerful things to me at least that I heard you say recently is that we should not harm others with our words but also we should not harm others with our thoughts that's something I've been thinking about a lot over the past few days I think many people hearing that will immediately go yeah I get it with words you know be kind be compassionate with how you talk to other people but the fact that you go One Step Beyond that to say don't harm people with your thoughts to me that's really really interesting perhaps you could elaborate on why you think that is so important let's just take it as a conceptual idea okay I'm not saying it's the truth but it is something to think about there is the saying that watch your thought because your thoughts are forming your words be careful about your words because your words are shaping your actions be care of what type of actions you're doing because they are shaping your habits be careful about what type of habits you have because they are shaping your character be careful what type of character you are cultivating because it shapes your destiny okay so what I'm saying is that there is a chain a chain of cause and effect your thoughts affecting the words the words affecting your actions the actions affecting all the way down until your character until what you are going to encounter in the future described before as Destiny so and this is the reason why everything that in this world has taken form everything let's put it simple there there was a time on this Earth where we didn't have any Rockets flying there was no rocket okay but meanwhile you can see technology has went on we have Rockets flying and Landing so the question is how can something like a rocket come to the Earth how did it happen so there must be a person who somehow saw something in his mind but he saw something how can he see something that he never saw before because it was not there and this is the powerful part about about the Mind our mind can see things that are not even existing yet on this Earth this is the power of the mind and and the first thing who let's say bringing from the world of thoughts something into this world this is done by the word then by maybe writing them down then by visualizing it and afterwards by constructing it and then it starts to take form but the beginning of every form comes from an area which is formless the mind it's already when you look at the person what is your mind connection to the person what inside of you without speaking what is your energy inside towards a person so and this is the important part if someone is listening to you and thinking okay I understand the theory there but in real life for me I struggle with this I have colleagues at work who really irritate me and I think they're lazy and they don't do their job properly and so I am left having to do more because they're not pulling their weight I understand Master what you're saying I should not harm those people with my words or my thoughts I can just about hold it in and not say it with my words but I'm being consumed by negative thoughts about that other person where might you suggest that they start okay this type of question this type of of setup right now at the end is going to boil down to how important is your life to you which means if you are willing to wake up already in the morning and have these negative thoughts affecting your day then going into work dealing again with all the Mind conflicts that you have go home in the evening still thinking about what happened during during the day and continue like this for weeks and months and years and there will always be some some non-satisfaction about the way of how you are living this is one type of choice so you stay in the situation where you are right now because trying to change other people at least for me is is no way it's not working so I wouldn't even let's say invest time in trying to change other people so the first idea would be are you able to stay in that situation imagining that all of the colleagues out there they would never change are you still able to figure out a way for yourself to stay still remaining in a state of the mind that is not destroying your health if you say it's impossible I am too much attached to the surrounding to what the other people do or don't do then there's only one way either you're going to stay in that situation and take all the health issues that were going to come on the long term or you are setting your priority and say no this is my life this is not the way how I like imagine my life to be waking up and going to bed with like negative thoughts or unhealthy thoughts and then you must change your surrounding that's it there is no there is no alternative to these two things taking into consideration that we cannot change other people and cannot change the outside circumstances so either you change yourself or you change the surrounding and the environment that you are placed upon but but now comes the problem if you think you just say okay then I'm leaving this company and I'm moving to the next one you're going to you're going to meet the same problem yeah why because it's not the problem of the people it's the problem because something inside of you is not able yet to solve this challenge and this is where again it's about self-mastery yeah meaning everything that you feel is a challenge to you ask yourself what is it inside of yourself that is causing this conflict that is causing this challenge for you and solve it inside of you this is where to look at and in the moment this happens well something something very valuable has been developed there it's not an easy way it's not a most common way that people do but it is the way that from many many centuries and and Millennial different Traditions have embedded in their way of being and yeah yeah I love that and if I could just share in my own life I would say what you just said there at the end that's been the biggest change for me over the past 5 to 10 years it's this understanding this deep understanding that it's all internal the world is going to do what the world is going to do it's my reaction my interpretation to the world that determines its outcome on me and once you get that and you live like that you access a kind of Freedom that you didn't know existed because until you get that you are living in a world where you think that the way you feel is down to externalities it's other people their behavior their actions once they change I'll be fine and then you realize wow I could be waiting a very long time for that it's the only thing I have aeny over is myself my inner being my inner thoughts so I I just want to Echo what you said there I I love it it's something that I have cultivated as a practice in my own life with Incredible benefits and I'm delighted that you are sharing that message with the world to finish off a quite wonderful conversation certainly for me I just love to ask you for that person who is really struggling in their life and there's something that they heard from you they thought yeah I can make a change I can transform myself I don't want to live life the way I'm leading it today but they don't know where to start I wonder if you could provide some final words of inspiration for them please it's nothing going to be words of wisdom it's going to be action sometimes we are just thinking too much we are thinking too much okay but remaining where you are and just thinking thinking thinking all the time is not going to make it better so my very first suggestion would be put in a new structure of the day this can mean already you wake up 10 minutes 15 minutes earlier than you usually do and in these 10 or 15 minutes you put in any type of practice it doesn't matter if you go on YouTube and Just For example look for look for my name you find so many free practices to just join in so this is again something where I say it's very very helpful to just put in direct some practice some action some doing except for just dwelling thoughts in the mind looking for the proper way of how to now start the transformation the transformation already happens in the moment your daily structure starts to look different and now the question is with what do you fill up this additional space that you have created well and this is now the point of put the physical exercises in because it is going to be the bridge to everything that will follow afterwards that would be my advice Master shongi thank you for coming on my podcast I've really really enjoyed our conversation once again thank you also very much and maybe one day we will talk to each other again I hope so if you enjoyed that conversation then I think you are really going to enjoy this one that I've picked out especially I want to share with you five strategies that I have seen transform the lives of my patients it's going to help you with your health your happiness and the quality of your relationships

Channel: Dr Rangan Chatterjee

Views: 184,820

Keywords: the4pillarplan, thestresssolution, feelbetterin5, wellness, drchatterjee, feelbetterlivemore, ranganchatterjee, 4pillars, drchatterjee podcast, health tips, nutrition tips, health hacks, live longer, age in reverse, self help, self improvement, self development, personal development, motivation, inspiration, health interview

Id: 2RIMSqk-ajY

Length: 94min 38sec (5678 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 14 2024