The Ultimate Practice
Beginner Meditation for Everyone – Rewiring for a Healthy Brain
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
Encounter with the Tallest Monk Back in 2018 in Rishikesh, I stayed in an ashram for my yoga teacher training. There I met a monk named Swami Shiva Brahmananda, who happened to be a disciple of the late Swami Dayananda who was also the guru of Narendra Modi, the current Indian Prime Minister. Swami Shiva is a Hindu monk. With a statue of 6’4”, he is considered the tallest yogi monk among his students. Swami is a popular yoga philosophy teacher and taught at Arogya Yoga School where I was certified as a yoga teacher. As I got to know my monk teacher better, I asked him one day a direct question after the class. I did not want to pass the opportunity to know how a monk would act when facing a crisis. I posed a hypothetical question. “What do you do when suddenly an earthquake comes your way?” He smiled and gave me a 3-word answer. “Let it come.” “Let it come!? Do you feel at least a little scared?” I beg for an explanation. “I run, but I also chat “let it come”. He explained with a smile. “What is that smile?” I cannot help asking. “It means let it come, let it be and let it go” From the unsettling look on my face, my wise teacher continued. “When you remain calm, you are at your utmost best. That is the best mental condition one can be in when facing a dangerous situation. Place your focus on keeping your emotions down, you are able to free up your energy to deal with the task in hand at a given situation. Let Nature take care of the rest, it is a force larger than us and outside us. A calm mind is the best decision maker”. Explained Swamiji. “I know” I said with a nod. “…but few of us can actually do it, to be able to remain cool and collected in the face of imminent danger. Many people may be able to recite a chapter on how to act in the face of a crisis, but the majority would fail when we face a real situation. We lose our emotional balance. We know things tend to resolve themselves better when we are calm and peaceful, but the tough part is how one can actually do it. “It is certainly the case”, said swami. “For an untrained mind, all your knowing and knowledge will be thrown out of a window in a flash, when a crisis stares squarely at you.” We all face challenging situations every day, big or small. It does not have to be a life-death crisis like an earthquake. The crisis in your life can be personal in nature, with your partner, children, or parents; business in nature, in a company or at work with your boss or co-workers; or can be social in nature, with your neighbours, siblings or people in general. One of the biggest problems is that you cannot get along with yourself, and you cannot control your own emotions. When you lose your emotions, you lose yourself. When you lose yourself, you lose everything. How I wished to have a mind like my yogi teacher, having an unshakable mind. Swami commands such calmness without actually commanding it, in the face of a crisis. That is the result from his years’ mental training and meditation practice. The mind is the most complicated and sophisticated machine on the earth. Yet, “learning how to operate such a beautiful machine”, as Swamiji put it, “you need only one thing: your own awareness”. “Mind you”, as he added, “awareness does not come automatically; it comes and gets increased with each practice”. The practice is none other than the ancient art and science of yoga, in becoming a master of your emotions. If you do, you would have mastered your life. I did not wait long before I signed up for swami’s meditation classes… “If your cart does not move, which one do you whip, the horse or the cart?” Asked Shunryu Suzuki, the famous Zen master and author of “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind”. If you know which one to whip, you have found the right approach. A situation or a person may be a trigger, you still have two choices…
Select Format
Book Details
About the Book
Stress has become the number one killer of the twenty-first century, linked to six leading causes of death: heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidents, cirrhosis of the liver, and suicide. Stress is rooted in our default negativity bias. We humans, on average, have 60,000–80,000 thoughts per day, 80% of which are negative. If you find yourself stressed and constantly behind, you are a strong candidate for frequent doctors visits, hospital stays, and mortality statistics. Like smoking, it can take decades for stress to take its toll. What is the way out? Well, the way out is in. Meditation is found to be the “cure” for stress, anxiety, and depression. It literally changes the brain's structure with measurable effects on the prefrontal cortex, associated with our perception and decision-making. The Ultimate Practice: Beginner Meditation for Everyone – Rewiring for a Healthy Brain is written by a yogini who traced footsteps of the ancient yogis all the way to the foot of the Himalayas. In this book, LoLo Shaw has collected important lessons she learned along the way from monks, yogis, and Zen masters. These lessons are like seeds, and a seed is a promise of a forest. With regular meditation practice, you are on your way to self-mastery. Master your emotions and you master your health.
About the Author
LoLo Shaw is a certified yoga teacher from the Aroya Yoga School of India. A recipient of the Ontario Best Ethnic Media Award of Canada, LoLo was a former bilingual television host of “Prescription for Health,” sponsored by Ontario Mental Health Association of Canada. She holds a master’s degree in health science from the University of Toronto and offers personal training and group retreats with monks in Asia and North America.