Host: very beautiful. If you are a beginner, and is just about to enter the path of meditation, maybe you read about it in a magazine, you heard it from a friend and maybe you even nowadays, you met a psychologist, CBT psychologist, that mindfulness might be good for you, for your anxiety and your stress. What do you suggest? How to get started in the best ways? What technique? What amount of time to invest? Where shall you do it?
Kalu Rinpoche: the whole problem is that in our modern world, of course, comparison with how long they live, as human beings, in terms of the medicine that we have access, in terms of information that we have in our hand, it’s much greater than fifteenth century, obviously. There’s no denial in that. But the price we pay being in this current world, is that the pace, the speed, that we are living in, it’s beyond imagination, let’s put it this way. There’s almost no gap.
So the first thing is that, if you really want to have some sense of self reflection, and then try to do some breathing exercise. Try to do some breathing exercise, such as, you don’t have to count 21 times and 17 times and all those things.
We just try to, when you breathe out through your nose, and then simply, your mind goes along with it. When you are breathing out, you breathe out. And then when you are breathing in, naturally, and then your mind following that, along with it. And when you breathe out, just like that. Don’t count the numbers. The first thing you want to avoid, whether you are religious, or spiritual practitioner, is numbers. So don’t focus on the numbers, but just try to get the rhythm in your hand. That’s very important.
Many people they have no rhythm, no foundation, and they just want to have a full blast, you know? And it doesn’t work. I tried, it failed. Because it doesn’t function like that.
Host: but do you think that that’s a problem, I completely understand that, because I started by saying it was also a matter of how many minutes, how much should I do? Almost a reminder on my phone, and I felt this is almost opposite, this is not the right function. And now I don’t do that anymore. Now I sit and I sit some time, and then I get up and then maybe I just look at my kids and I try to breathe deeply, and that’s also meditation for me at least. But is that a problem, that you find in the world today? Like that we’re going too fast.
Kalu Rinpoche: we are already in that pace. So only way to slow it down little bit is by yourself. So, by yourself means like I have just shown you, you breathe out, breathe in. and at least that’s how you start. So then the greater changes can come eventually, over time.
If you try to have a full blast from the beginning, the problem is that you want to show your achievement to other people and that’s where it goes wrong. Whether you are spiritual seeker or Buddhist seeker, it doesn’t matter whichever the path may be. The moment you go into the idea of self liberation, getting a medal on your shoulder, kind of concept, where you get into the idea that “oh, the more I do, the more I get”, basically the same habit of the consumers in the world. And then, just putting a new name and then saying “oh yeah, I’m going in a path of spiritual path” and that is not right.
Changing the direction and yet keeping the same habit is not a liberation. So therefore it is very important for people to start with a breathing exercise. And then slowly, slowly, with a sense of more deeper self reflection, things will change by itself. Not with a full.
To be continued…
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