Meditation + Mental Strength
Meditation + Mental Strength
An emotion is our evolved biology predicting the future impact of a current event. In modern settings, it’s usually exaggerated or wrong.
Why is meditation so powerful?
Your breath is one of the few places where your autonomic nervous system meets your voluntary nervous system. It’s involuntary, but you can also control it.
I think a lot of meditation practices put an emphasis on the breath because it is a gateway into your autonomic nervous system. There are many, many cases in the medical and spiritual literature of people controlling their bodies at levels that should be autonomous.
Your mind is such a powerful thing. What’s so unusual about your forebrain sending signals to your hindbrain and your hindbrain routing resources to your entire body?
You can do it just by breathing. Relaxed breathing tells your body you’re safe. Then, your forebrain doesn’t need as many resources as it normally does. Now, the extra energy can be sent to your hindbrain, and it can reroute those resources to the rest of your body.
I’m not saying you can beat whatever illness you have just because you activated your hindbrain. But you’re devoting most of the energy normally required to care about the external environment to the immune system.
I highly recommend listening to the Tim Ferriss’s podcast with Wim Hof. He is a walking miracle. Wim’s nickname is the Ice Man. He holds the world record for the longest time spent in an ice bath and swimming in freezing cold water. I was very inspired by him, not only because he’s capable of super-human physical feats, but because he does it while being incredibly kind and happy—which is not easy to accomplish.
He advocates cold exposure, because he believes people are too separate from their natural environment. We’re constantly clothed, fed, and warm. Our bodies have lost touch with the cold. The cold is important because it can activate the immune system.
So, he advocates taking long ice baths. Being from the Indian subcontinent, I’m strongly against the idea of ice baths. But Wim inspired me to give cold showers a try. And I did so by using the Wim Hof breathing method. It involves hyperventilating to get more oxygen into your blood, which raises your core temperature. Then, you can go into the shower.
The first few cold showers were hilarious because I’d slowly ease myself in, wincing the entire way. I started about four or five months ago. Now, I turn the shower on full-blast, and then I walk right in. I don’t give myself any time to hesitate. As soon as I hear the voice in my head telling me how cold it’s going to be, I know I have to walk in.
I learned a very important lesson from this: most of our suffering comes from avoidance. Most of the suffering from a cold shower is the tip-toeing your way in. Once you’re in, you’re in. It’s not suffering. It’s just cold. Your body saying it’s cold is different than your mind saying it’s cold. Acknowledge your body saying it’s cold. Look at it. Deal with it. Accept it, but don’t mentally suffer over it. Taking a cold shower for two minutes isn’t going to kill you. Having a cold shower helps you re-learn that lesson every morning. Now hot showers are just one less thing I need out of life. [2]
Meditation is intermittent fasting for the mind.
Too much sugar leads to a heavy body, and too many distractions lead to a heavy mind.
Time spent undistracted and alone, in self-examination, journaling, meditation, resolves the unresolved and takes us from mentally fat to fit.
Do you have a current meditation practice?
I think meditation is like dieting, where everyone is supposedly following a regimen. Everyone says they do it, but nobody actually does it. The real set of people who meditate on a regular basis, I’ve found, are pretty rare. I’ve identified and tried at least four different forms of meditation.
The one I found works best for me is called Choiceless Awareness, or Nonjudgmental Awareness. As you’re going about your daily business (hopefully, there’s some nature) and you’re not talking to anybody else, you practice learning to accept the moment you’re in without making judgments. You don’t think, “Oh, there’s a homeless guy over there, better cross the street” or look at someone running by and say, “He’s out of shape, and I’m in better shape than him.”
If I saw a guy with a bad hair day, I would at first think “Haha, he has a bad hair day.” Well, why am I laughing at him to make me feel better about myself? And why am I trying to make me feel better about my own hair? Because I’m losing my hair, and I’m afraid it’s going to go away. What I find is 90 percent of thoughts I have are fear-based. The other 10 percent may be desire-based.
You don’t make any decisions. You don’t judge anything. You just accept everything. If I do that for ten or fifteen minutes while walking around, I end up in a very peaceful, grateful state. Choiceless Awareness works well for me. [6]
You could also do transcendental meditation, which is where you’re using repetitive chanting to create a white noise in your head to bury your thoughts. Or, you can just very keenly and very alertly be aware of your thoughts as they happen. As you watch your thoughts, you realize how many of them are fearbased. The moment you recognize a fear, without even trying it goes away. After a while, your mind quiets.
When your mind quiets, you stop taking everything around you for granted. You start to notice the details. You think, “Wow, I live in such a beautiful place. It’s so great that I have clothes, and I can go to Starbucks and get a coffee anytime. Look at these people—each one has a perfectly valid and complete life going on in their own heads.”
It pops us out of the story we’re constantly telling ourselves. If you stop talking to yourself for even ten minutes, if you stop obsessing over your own story, you’ll realize we are really far up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and life is pretty good. [6]
Life-hack: When in bed, meditate. Either you will have a deep meditation or fall asleep. Victory either way.
Another method I’ve learned is to just sit there and you close your eyes for at least one hour a day. You surrender to whatever happens—don’t make any effort whatsoever. You make no effort for something, and you make no effort against anything. If there are thoughts running through your mind, you let the thoughts run.
For your entire life, things have been happening to you. Some good, some bad, most of which you have processed and dissolved, but a few stuck with you. Over time, more and more stuck with you, and they almost became like these barnacles stuck to you.
You lost your childhood sense of wonder and of being present and happy. You lost your inner happiness because you built up this personality of unresolved pain, errors, fears, and desires that glommed onto you like a bunch of barnacles.
How do you get those barnacles off you? What happens in meditation is you’re sitting there and not resisting your mind. These things will start bubbling up. It’s like a giant inbox of unanswered emails, going back to your childhood. They will come out one by one, and you will be forced to deal with them.
You will be forced to resolve them. Resolving them doesn’t take any work—you just observe them. Now you’re an adult with some distance, time, and space from previous events, and you can just resolve them. You can be much more objective about how you view them.
Over time, you will resolve a lot of these deep-seated unresolved things you have in your mind. Once they’re resolved, there will come a day when you sit down to meditate, and you’ll hit a mental “inbox zero.” When you open your mental “email” and there are none, that is a pretty amazing feeling.
It’s a state of joy and bliss and peace. Once you have it, you don’t want to give it up. If you can get a free hour of bliss every morning just by sitting and closing your eyes, that is worth its weight in gold. It will change your life.
I recommend meditating one hour each morning because anything less is not enough time to really get deep into it. I would recommend if you really want to try meditation, try sixty days of one hour a day, first thing in the morning. After about sixty days, you will be tired of listening to your own mind. You will have resolved a lot of issues, or you have heard them enough to see through those fears and issues.
Meditation isn’t hard. All you have to do is sit there and do nothing. Just sit down. Close your eyes and say, “I’m just going to give myself a break for an hour. This is my hour off from life. This is the hour I’m not going to do anything.”
If thoughts come, thoughts come. I’m not going to fight them. I’m not going to embrace them. I’m not going to think harder about them. I’m not going to reject them. I’m just going to sit here for an hour with my eyes closed, and I’m going to do nothing.” How hard is that? Why can you not do anything for an hour? What’s so hard about giving yourself an hour-long break? [74]
Was there a moment you realized you could control how you interpreted things? I think one problem people have is not recognizing they can control how they interpret and respond to a situation.
I think everyone knows it’s possible. There’s a great Osho lecture, titled “The Attraction for Drugs Is Spiritual.” He talks about why do people do drugs (everything from alcohol to psychedelics to cannabis). They’re doing it to control their mental state. They’re doing it to control how they react. Some people drink because it helps them not care as much, or they’re potheads because they can zone out, or they do psychedelics to feel very present or connected to nature. The attraction of drugs is spiritual.
All of society does this to some extent. People chasing thrills in action sports or flow states or orgasms—any of these states people strive for are people trying to get out of their own heads. They’re trying to get away from the voice in their heads—the overdeveloped sense of self.
At the very least, I do not want my sense of self to continue to develop and strengthen as I get older. I want it to be weaker and more muted so I can be more in present everyday reality, accept nature and the world for what it is, and appreciate it very much as a child would. [4]
The first thing to realize is you can observe your mental state. Meditation doesn’t mean you’re suddenly going to gain the superpower to control your internal state. The advantage of meditation is recognizing just how out of control your mind is. It is like a monkey flinging feces, running around the room, making trouble, shouting, and breaking things. It’s completely uncontrollable. It’s an out-of-control mad person.
You have to see this mad creature in operation before you feel a certain distaste toward it and start separating yourself from it. In that separation is liberation. You realize, “Oh, I don’t want to be that person. Why am I so out of control?” Awareness alone calms you down. [4]
Insight meditation lets you run your brain in debug mode until you realize you’re just a subroutine in a larger program.
I try to keep an eye on my internal monologue. It doesn’t always work. In the computer programming sense, I try to run my brain in “debugging mode” as much as possible. When I’m talking to someone, or when I’m engaged in a group activity, it’s almost impossible because your brain has too many things to handle. If I’m by myself, like just this morning, I’m brushing my teeth and I start thinking forward to a podcast. I started going through this little fantasy where I imagined Shane asking me a bunch of questions and I was fantasy- answering them. Then, I caught myself. I put my brain in debug mode and just watched every little instruction go by.
I said, “Why am I fantasy-future planning? Why can’t I just stand here and brush my teeth?” It’s the awareness my brain was running off in the future and planning some fantasy scenario out of ego. I was like, “Well, do I really care if I embarrass myself? Who cares? I’m going to die anyway. This is all going to go to zero, and I won’t remember anything, so this is pointless.”
Then, I shut down, and I went back to brushing my teeth. I was noticing how good the toothbrush was and how good it felt. Then the next moment, I’m off to thinking something else. I have to look at my brain again and say, “Do I really need to solve this problem right now?”
Ninety-five percent of what my brain runs off and tries to do, I don’t need to tackle in that exact moment. If the brain is like a muscle, I’ll be better off resting it, being at peace. When a particular problem arises, I’ll immerse myself in it.
Right now as we’re talking, I’d rather dedicate myself to being completely lost in the conversation and to being 100 percent focused on this as opposed to thinking about “Oh, when I brushed my teeth, did I do it the right way?”
The ability to singularly focus is related to the ability to lose yourself and be present, happy, and (ironically) more effective. [4]
It’s almost like you’re taking yourself out of a certain frame and you’re watching things from a different perspective even though you’re in your own mind.
Buddhists talk about awareness versus the ego. They’re really talking about how you can think of your brain, your consciousness, as a multilayered mechanism. There’s a core-base, kernel-level OS running. Then, there are applications running on top. (I like to think of it as computer and geek speak.)
I’m actually going back to my awareness level of OS, which is always calm, always peaceful, and generally happy and content. I’m trying to stay in awareness mode and not activate the monkey mind, which is always worried, frightened, and anxious. It serves incredible purpose, but I try not to activate the monkey mind until I need it. When I need it, I want to just focus on that. If I run it 24/7, I waste energy and the monkey mind becomes me. I am more than my monkey mind.
Another thing: spirituality, religion, Buddhism, or anything you follow will teach you over time you are more than just your mind. You are more than just your habits. You are more than just your preferences. You’re a level of awareness. You’re a body. Modern humans, we don’t live enough in our bodies. We don’t live enough in our awareness. We live too much in this internal monologue in our heads. All of which is just programmed into you by society and by the environment when you were younger.
You are basically a bunch of DNA that reacted to environmental effects when you were younger. You recorded the good and bad experiences, and you use them to prejudge everything thrown against you. Then you’re using those experiences, constantly trying and predict and change the future.
As you get older, the sum of preferences you’ve accumulated is very, very large. These habitual reactions end up as runaway freight trains controlling your mood. We should control our own moods. Why don’t we study how to control our moods? What a masterful thing it would be if you could say, “Right now I would like to be in the curious state,” and then you can genuinely get yourself into the curious state. Or say, “I want to be in a mourning state. I’m mourning a loved one, and I want to grieve for them. I really want to feel that. I don’t want to be distracted by a computer programming problem due tomorrow.”
The mind itself is a muscle—it can be trained and conditioned. It has been haphazardly conditioned by society to be out of our control. If you look at your mind with awareness and intent (a 24/7 job you’re working at every moment) I think you can unpack your own mind, your emotions, thoughts, and reactions. Then you can start reconfiguring. You can start rewriting this program to what you want. [4]
Meditation is turning off society and listening to yourself.
It only “works” when done for its own sake.
Hiking is walking meditation.
Journaling is writing meditation.
Praying is gratitude meditation.
Showering is accidental meditation.
Sitting quietly is direct meditation.
冥想 + 精神力量
情绪是我们进化的生物机制对当前事件的未来影响所做的预测。在现代环境中，情绪往往是被夸大或错误的。
为什么冥想如此强大？
你的呼吸是少数几个自主神经系统与意志神经系统相交的地方之一。它是非自主的，但你也可以控制它。
我认为很多冥想练习强调呼吸，因为它是进入自主神经系统的一个入口。在医学和精神文献中，有很多关于人们控制本应是自主功能的身体层面的案例。
你的大脑非常强大。前脑给后脑发信号、后脑再把资源调配到全身，这有什么特别的呢？
你只需要通过呼吸来做到这一点。放松的呼吸告诉你的身体你是安全的。于是，你的前脑就不再需要通常那么多的资源了。这些多余的能量现在可以传递到后脑，而后脑可以把这些资源重新分配到身体的其他部位。
我不是说你可以因为激活了后脑就能战胜任何疾病，但你可以将通常用于关注外部环境的大部分能量转移到免疫系统。
我非常推荐你听听蒂姆·费里斯（Tim Ferriss）和维姆·霍夫（Wim Hof）的播客。他是个行走的奇迹。维姆的绰号是"冰人"，他保持着冰浴时间最长和在冰冷水中游泳的世界纪录。他深深地激励了我，不仅因为他能够完成超越常人的体力挑战，更因为他在做到这些时依然充满了仁慈和快乐——这并不容易。
他倡导冷暴露，因为他认为人们与自然环境隔绝得太远了。我们总是穿着衣服、吃饱喝足、感到温暖。我们的身体失去了与寒冷的联系。而寒冷很重要，因为它可以激活免疫系统。
所以，他提倡进行长时间的冰浴。作为来自印度次大陆的人，我对冰浴的想法持强烈反对态度。但维姆激励我尝试冷水浴。我采用了维姆·霍夫的呼吸法来适应冷水浴，这涉及快速呼吸来获取更多氧气进入血液，从而提高核心温度。然后你就可以走进冷水淋浴。
最开始的几次冷水浴真是好笑，因为我会慢慢地、小心翼翼地走进淋浴，整个过程都在龇牙咧嘴。我是四五个月前开始的。现在，我会把淋浴开到最冷，然后直接走进去，不再给自己犹豫的时间。当我听到脑海里的声音告诉我水有多冷时，我就知道我必须走进去了。
我从中学到了一个非常重要的教训：我们的痛苦大多来自逃避。冷水浴的大部分痛苦来自于慢慢地小心地进入。一旦你进入了，就不再是痛苦了，那只是寒冷。你的身体在说冷，和你的头脑在说冷是不同的。承认你的身体在说冷，看着它，处理它，接受它，但不要在精神上为此受苦。两分钟的冷水浴不会要了你的命。冷水浴每天早上都会帮你重新学习这个道理。现在，热水浴对我来说只是生活中少了的一个需求。[2]
冥想是心灵的间歇性禁食。
太多糖会让身体沉重，太多分心会让心灵沉重。
不受干扰的独处时间，进行自我审视、写日记、冥想，可以解决未解的问题，让我们从心灵的肥胖走向心灵的健康。
你现在有冥想的习惯吗？
我认为冥想就像节食一样，每个人都号称在坚持一种方式。每个人都说自己在做，但实际上几乎没人真的在做。我发现那些真正定期冥想的人非常少。我识别并尝试过至少四种不同形式的冥想。
对我来说，最有效的是叫做"无选择的觉察"或者"非评判的觉察"的方法。当你日常活动（希望能有点自然环境）并且没有与任何人交谈时，你练习接受当下的每一刻，而不做出任何评判。你不会想：“哦，那边有个无家可归的人，最好绕道走”或看着某个人在跑步时想：“他不太健康，而我比他更健康”。
如果我看到一个头发凌乱的人，我可能会首先想“哈哈，他今天发型很糟糕”。那为什么我在嘲笑他来让我自己感觉好些呢？我为什么要因为我的头发而让自己感觉更好呢？因为我在掉头发，我害怕它会消失。我发现我90%的想法都是基于恐惧的，另外10%可能是基于欲望的。
你不要做任何决定。不要对任何事情做出判断。你只是接受一切。如果我这样做十到十五分钟，我会感到非常平和和感恩。无选择的觉察对我来说效果很好。[6]
你还可以进行超验冥想，这是通过重复咒语在脑海中制造一种白噪声来掩盖思想。或者，你可以非常敏锐和警觉地关注你的思想。当你观察你的思想时，你会意识到它们中有多少是基于恐惧的。只要你认识到某种恐惧，它就会自然消失。久而久之，你的思绪会安静下来。
当你的思绪安静下来，你就不再把身边的一切视作理所当然。你会开始注意到细节。你会想：“哇，我住在这么美丽的地方。我有衣服穿，我随时可以去星巴克买杯咖啡，真是太好了。看这些人——每一个人都在他们自己的脑海中过着完全独立而完整的生活。”
这让我们跳出自己一直讲述的故事。如果你停止自言自语哪怕十分钟，停止对自己故事的执着，你会意识到我们真的处于马斯洛需求层次的高处，生活是相当不错的。[6]
生活小窍门：在床上时冥想。你要么会进入深度冥想，要么会睡着。无论哪种结果都是胜利。
另一种我学到的方法是每天至少坐在那里闭上眼睛一小时。你顺其自然——不做任何努力。不做任何尝试去追求什么，也不做任何努力去抵抗什么。如果你的脑海中充满了思绪，你就让它们自由流动。
在你的一生中，许多事情发生在你身上。有些是好的，有些是坏的，大多数你都已经处理并化解了，但有一些留了下来。随着时间的推移，越来越多的事情留了下来，最终它们几乎像是这些附着在你身上的藤壶一样。
你失去了儿时的惊奇感和那种简单的快乐。你失去了内心的幸福，因为你建立了一个个由未解的痛苦、错误、恐惧和欲望组成的个性，就像一堆藤壶一样依附在你身上。
那么如何摆脱这些藤壶呢？冥想时，你坐在那里，不抵抗你的思绪。这些事物会开始浮现。它们就像未回复的邮件收件箱，从你的童年一直未处理的邮件一一冒出来，而你不得不面对它们。
你不得不解决它们。解决它们其实不需要花费任何努力——你只是观察它们。现在，你是一个成年的、有距离感的、有时间和空间与过往事件拉开距离的人，你可以更客观地看待它们。
随着时间的推移，你将解决你脑海中许多深藏的未解之事。当它们解决后，总有一天你坐下来冥想时，你会达到一个心理的“收件箱归零”状态。当你打开你心灵的“邮件”而里面一封都没有时，那是一种非常奇妙的感觉。
那是一种喜悦、幸福和平静的状态。一旦你体验过这种状态，你就不想再失去它了。如果你每个早晨只需坐着闭上眼睛，就能免费获得一个小时的喜悦，那简直是金子般珍贵。这会改变你的生活。
我推荐每早冥想一小时，因为更少的时间不足以真正进入深层状态。如果你真的想尝试冥想，我建议你坚持六十天，每天早上第一件事就是花一小时冥想。大约六十天后，你会厌倦听到自己内心的声音。你将解决很多问题，或者至少你已经听够了它们，可以看透那些恐惧和问题。
冥想并不难。你所要做的就是坐在那里什么也不做。只需坐下，闭上眼睛，对自己说：“我只是想给自己一个小时的休息。这是我从生活中休息的一个小时。这是我不做任何事情的一个小时。”
如果有思绪，就让思绪来吧。我不会与它们作斗争，也不会拥抱它们。我不会更深入地思考它们，也不会拒绝它们。我只是坐在这里，闭着眼睛，什么也不做。一小时什么都不做有多难呢？为什么你不能给自己一个小时的休息？[74]
有没有什么瞬间你意识到你可以控制自己对事物的解读？我觉得一个常见问题是人们没意识到他们可以控制如何解读和回应某种情况。
我认为每个人都知道这是可能的。有一个伟大的奥修（Osho）演讲，标题是《吸毒的吸引力是精神上的》。他讨论了人们为什么要吸毒（从酒精到致幻剂到大麻）。他们这样做是为了控制自己的精神状态，是为了控制他们的反应。有些人喝酒是因为这让他们不再那么在乎，有些人吸大麻是因为他们可以放空自己，或者他们服用致幻剂是为了感受到非常存在的或与自然连接的状态。吸毒的吸引力是精神上的。
整个社会在某种程度上都在这样做。人们追求极限运动的刺激，追求"心流"状态，追求高潮——所有这些状态都是为了试图逃离自己的头脑。他们想逃离自己脑中的声音——那个过度发达的自我意识。
至少，我不希望随着年龄的增长，我的自我意识不断发展壮大。我希望它变得更弱、更安静，这样我可以更存在于每天的现实中，像孩子一样接受自然和世界，并非常珍惜它。[4]
首先要意识到你可以观察自己的精神状态。冥想并不意味着你会突然获得控制自己内部状态的超能力。冥想的好处在于你认识到你的思绪到底有多失控。它就像一只猴子，四处扔粪便，四处乱跑，制造麻烦，叫嚷，搞破坏，完全无法控制。这是一个失控的疯子。
你必须看到这个疯狂的生物在运作，然后你会对它产生某种厌恶，开始与它分离。在这种分离中就是解脱。你意识到：“哦，我不想成为那样的人。为什么我这么失控？”仅仅是意识就会让你平静下来。[4]
内观冥想让你的大脑进入调试模式，直到你意识到你只是一个更大程序中的子程序。
我试图留意我的内心独白。这并不总是奏效。从计算机编程的角度来说，我试图尽可能多地让大脑进入“调试模式”。当我和别人说话，或者参与群体活动时，这几乎是不可能的，因为大脑有太多事情要处理。如果我独自一人，就像今天早上，我在刷牙时，开始想着接下来的一期播客。我开始进行这种小小的幻想，想象谢恩会问我一连串问题，而我在幻想中回答这些问题。然后我意识到自己在做什么，把大脑置于调试模式，只是观察每一个小指令的发生。
我对自己说：“为什么我要幻想未来？为什么我不能就站在这里刷牙呢？”我意识到大脑跑到未来去计划一些基于自我的幻想场景。我对自己说：“我真的在乎是否出丑吗？谁在乎呢？反正我终将死去，一切都会归于零，我也不会记得任何东西，所以这一切都毫无意义。”
然后，我停了下来，回到了刷牙这件事上。我注意到牙刷有多好，感觉有多好。下一刻，我又开始想着别的事情了。我必须再次审视自己的大脑，问自己：“我现在真的需要解决这个问题吗？”
大脑运转的大部分内容——95%都是不需要在那一刻处理的。如果大脑像肌肉一样，那么让它得到休息，保持平静，当某个特定问题出现时，我再全身心地投入解决它。
就像现在我们在交谈，我宁愿完全沉浸其中，100%地专注于这个谈话，而不是想着“哦，我刚才刷牙的时候，是不是刷对了？”
专注的能力和失去自我、保持存在、快乐、（讽刺的是）更加有效的能力是紧密相关的。[4]
这就像你把自己从某种框架中抽离出来，即便是在自己脑海里，你也能从另一个角度观看事物。
佛教徒讲究觉察和自我。他们实际上是在说你可以把大脑、意识想象成一个多层次的机制。内核是一个核心的、低层次的操作系统。然后，上面有各种运行的应用程序。（我喜欢用计算机和极客术语来思考它。）
实际上，我是回到那种总是平静的、总是快乐满足的操作系统的觉察层次。我试图保持在觉察模式，而不激活那个猴子心态，那个总是担心、害怕和焦虑的状态。它有它不可替代的作用，但我尽量不激活它，除非需要它。需要它时，我会全力以赴地专注于它。但如果24小时无休地运行它，我会浪费能量，猴子心态就会成为我。而我不仅仅是我的猴子心态。
还有一点，灵修、宗教、佛教或者任何你追随的东西都会教你，随着时间的推移，你不仅仅是你的头脑。你不仅仅是你的习惯，你不仅仅是你的偏好。你是一个觉察，你是一个身体。现代人，我们对自己的身体关注不够，对觉察的体验也不够，我们过多地生活在头脑中的内心独白里。而这些内心独白完全是由社会和你年幼时的环境编写进来的。
你基本上是一团DNA，在年幼时对环境的反应中记录了好的和坏的经历，并用它们去预先判断所有面临的事物。然后你就用这些经历，不断地试图预测和改变未来。
随着年龄的增长，你累积的偏好非常非常多。这些习惯性的反应最终变成了失控的火车，掌控着你的情绪。我们应该控制自己的情绪。为什么我们不研究如何控制自己的情绪呢？如果你可以说，“现在我想进入一种好奇的状态”，然后你真的能把自己带入这种好奇的状态，或者说，“我想进入一种哀悼的状态。我正在哀悼一位亲人，我想为他们哀悼。我真的想感受这种情绪，我不想被明天的计算机编程问题所打扰。”
心灵本身是一块肌肉——它可以被训练和调节。而它被社会以一种随意的方式调节，导致我们对它失去了控制。如果你带着觉察和意图看待自己的心灵（这是一份24小时的工作），我认为你可以解构自己的心灵、情绪、思想和反应。然后你可以开始重新配置，重新书写这个程序，让它成为你想要的样子。[4]
冥想是关闭社会的喧嚣，倾听自我。
它只有在为了本身的目的去做时，才"有效"。
徒步是行走的冥想。
写日记是书写的冥想。
祈祷是感恩的冥想。
沐浴是无意的冥想。
静坐是直接的冥想。