Keep Calm and Live On

Take a deep breathe. Relax your mind and let your body go limp. Focus on breathing in and out, slowly, and nothing else. Stop moving through the world, focus on what is within you and break your habit energy.
 

            In The Heart of Buddha’s Teaching, Thich Nhat Hanh shows his readers why meditation is an important part of healing and living. Through the use of shamatha and vipashyana, two techniques described by Hanh, one can achieve the ability to stop, calm, rest, and heal. These two techniques are meant to help better our mind and body while helping us become more in-touch with ourselves; an ability that is very hard to do for many people.

            Hanh emphasizes the importance of being able to stop what you are doing and focus. Known as, “shamatha” in the Buddhist language, stopping and “practicing mindful breathing, mindful walking, mindful smiling, and deep looking”¹ will allow one to break their habit energy of constantly being on the move. In American civilization, we are constantly on the move. Whether we are working, taking care of children, or just living our everyday lives, we are not ever really taking the necessary time to slow down and focus. It is our habit to constantly be going and thinking about what we need to do today, tomorrow, next week, or next month. This, as Hanh states, is what causes us to be at “a war with ourselves” on a day to day basis. The inability to just simply “stop” will lead to our own internal destruction overtime. Therefore, in the Buddhist customs, it is necessary to break our habit energy when we see it taking over and relax so that we can truly live our lives for what it is worth.



Be The Oak Tree

            Shamatha cannot go without its other half, vipashyana. This technique is the ability to look deeply into what we are doing once we have “stopped”. In terms of meditation, this is when we stop our activities, calm our emotions, and breathe in and out. By looking deeply, one is able to become solid, stable, and collected. Hanh references this to being like an oak tree in the sense that you need to grow and learn the ability to be strong and stable as well as prevent oneself from being blown away from the storm, or in other words, our habit energy. To calm our mind and body and truly focus on them, The Buddha has taught many techniques to achieve this ability. He believes that through recognition, acceptance, embracing, looking deeply, and insight one will be able to find the source of their problems that could be created either by their habit energy or something else. With these five stages, one will then be able to move on to resting.

            Under the category of shamatha, resting is the true ability to relax without any effort. This allows the body and mind to be at peace and heal, something that Hanh says is ultimately important for our survival. Everyone needs to heal according to Hanh, both the world and all of the earth’s creations.

            In my own life, I use these techniques quite often to avoid myself from going completely insane. Quite frankly, as a college student trying to balance out a huge course load, three jobs, a social life, my boyfriend, and my own sanity, how could I not go a bit nutty? Not to mention the fact that this is a limited down version of my life. I find it slightly humorous when people ask what I do and they find it surprising that I still manage to keep myself together. To me, this is clearly my habit energy taking over my life but at the same time, I do not let me habit energy consume me or take me over. I enjoy what I do on a day to day basis and when I find myself getting a little stressed I have my ways to over them.

Honored to be their coach!

            Prime example when life is getting a little hectic would be my job as a cheerleading coach. Coaching the high school age has its challenges with the fact I am young myself. I am still learning and growing as a person just as much as they are but at the same time I have already survived the years of high school and quite successfully I might add. When I find myself getting stressed out from coaching, whether it be the drama they can dish out, choreographing routines (which is pretty hard!), organizing practices, teaching them new stunts/cheers, or anything else in-between, I will literally stop what I am doing and count to ten. Yes, this does seem a bit silly, but it actually works and prevents me from getting angry at them or myself. Over the years and experiences as a coach, I have learned that not everything will go the way I want it to and I need to accept it. With time and practice these girls will become the team I want them to be. But in the meantime, I will continue to count to ten, take several deep breathes, gather myself up, and find a way that will get me to my end goal.


Best running part is my mom! (She is faster than me...sad)

            Another example I incorporate these techniques would be when I exercise. Not only do I get to stay physically fit/active, but it also helps to stop what I am doing and relax. This is my form of healing and it keeps me calm and relaxed. Although I am not much of a big fan of running, and you will definitely never see me run a marathon any time, it does help me focus on something that may be bothering me. Even if I have music playing, which mainly just gives me some background noise, it is just the act of running lets me take a step back and think. Whether I am walking, running, or backing, the repetitive motion keeps me focused on my problems and look deeply at the source of the problems. It may take me a few exercise sessions to work through a problem, but I ultimately feel better and calmer in the end.

 

References

Hanh, Thich Nhat. "Stopping, Calming, Resting, Healing." The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching. New York: Broadway Books, 1999. 24-27. Print.