The Importance Of Staying Centered

Hi,

My name is Marcelo and this is a little talk about the importance of staying centered during difficult times and actually staying centered all the time.

Right now it's the first of April 2020.

There's a worldwide pandemic going on.

In case you're listening to this far in the future,

All you have to do is go back to this date and look at the world headlines on the news.

And it's quite a thing.

It's quite an amazing thing that's happening almost almost a whole planet is on lockdown.

I'm just mentioning this because we tend to be short sighted and tend to forget these things.

So,

But anyways,

One of the important things that was said by the president of the US during the Second World War,

His name was Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

He said,

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

And having been meditating for a long time,

And one of the important things I learned in the meditation retreats that I went to the Vipassana retreats,

Which I just highly recommend for anyone,

They're just fantastic,

Is that you learn that everything comes and goes,

Everything comes and goes.

The Buddha talked about this taught this it's called a Nietzsche,

A Nietzsche,

Everything comes and goes.

So humanity will survive this.

There've been other major trials in the past.

So and we've survived that.

So it's quite an important thing to realize because it helps us to stay calm.

It shows us that everything comes and goes and all you need to do is just stay centered,

Stay balanced and just watch things come and go and don't get caught up in them and just you'll be okay,

You'll survive it.

I remember that I was going trekking in Nepal.

This was 2007.

And I was going to go to the Everest region.

And I was alone and I met this guy,

He was Korean.

And he had just come out of the Korean,

South Korean military.

He was a sharpshooter.

He was like one of the best sharpshooters.

And so you know,

We became friends and he wanted to go with me.

So I'm like,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Let's go.

But at that time,

There was this major conflict going on between the government,

The military,

And the Maoist guerrillas who wanted a better system.

They didn't like that there was a kingdom,

That there was these kings and queens and so many of them and all the problems with that.

So there was major conflicts.

And so there are these firefights occurring with machine guns being shot up on both sides towards each other up in the mountains.

And the area that this Korean guy and I were going to go walking through was through an area that was there was some battles going on.

And other tourists were just flying into this area called Lukla.

But I just I'd done this trek many times before and just loved it.

And I thought the first part of the trek was so beautiful.

Not many people trekking in it normally because it's quite hard as 1000 meters up one day,

The next day is 1000 meters down and up and down,

Up and down,

Quite wearing,

Right when you're starting on your trek,

Carrying 15 kilos or more on your back.

So I remember as we're approaching the city,

The town,

Actually up in the mountains,

I think it was called Jeeti,

That my Korean friend was getting all nervous.

And he was acting strangely.

And then the next morning,

When we were going to go,

He panicked.

And he didn't go,

He decided not to go trekking.

He had booked as a backup,

He had booked himself a trip to Thailand,

To some swanky beach in Thailand.

I couldn't couldn't blame him,

Of course.

And but I went ahead with the trek,

I would just went alone.

And I had a story since I come from the yoga and meditation background,

And I got to live in India,

I had such good fortune to live in India for like six,

Seven years total.

There was a story that from ancient India that really affected me in a positive way.

I kept it,

Let's say,

Metaphorically,

My back pocket.

And the story was the following.

There was this guy.

Imagine this 1000 years ago,

2000 years ago.

There was this guy,

He was walking in a small town,

He turns the corner somewhere,

And he bumps into Yama.

Yama,

The god of death.

And Yama was,

Everyone could recognize him.

He's quite a tall figure or black hood,

You know,

That type of thing.

And so this guy bumps into Yama,

And they both look at each other.

And the guy just turns around and hightails it out of there.

He gets on a horse.

He starts riding a horse to get away from Yama as much as he can.

He gets on his horse and he's riding away,

And he switches horses at another town.

And then again,

Later on switches horses again.

There's only so far you can drive a horse in a day.

So by the end of the day,

He's some hundred kilometers away in another small town.

He's grateful.

He ate a good meal.

He slept really well.

He was so grateful that he got away from there.

When he woke up in the morning,

He was so stunned.

There next to his bed in his room was Yama looking at him.

And Yama smiled and said,

You know,

Yesterday,

I was so surprised to see you in that other town because I was supposed to pick you up here today.

So it's like when it's your time to go,

It's your time to go,

Right?

So that's the story that I had in my back pocket.

And I went trekking in Nepal in the Everest region,

Like I mentioned before.

And it was an incredible journey.

Wow.

I felt protected actually the whole way there.

Such good things happen.

And people were so well-natured.

And yes,

I came across some Maoist gorillas.

Actually that's another story,

But I was in this little hotel where I could see Mount Everest from.

It's completely isolated,

Desolate.

I was the only Westerner there.

And then suddenly like 40,

50 Maoist gorillas who have been marching through the hills,

You know,

And there with machine guns and everything showed up at the hotel where I was at.

And I was like,

Oh no,

And I'm an American.

But I stayed calm.

I just walked past through where they were staying in the dining room of the guest house.

And I just said hello to them.

I walked up to this top of the stairs where my room was.

So I was just going to stay in my room the whole time.

And suddenly I hear them say,

Hey,

Hello,

Hello,

Come down.

Hey.

I was like,

Oh no.

So I had,

So I went down there and long story short,

We had a conversation.

We got along really well.

They even were inviting me to go along on their marches with them,

Which was like,

Wow,

There was a part of me that I'm not political at all.

I don't follow politics at all.

I don't care about politics or religious or political ideology.

So so,

But just the adventure of it,

It was pretty interesting.

I almost went,

But I said thank you to them for that.

But I,

But when I went ahead,

Checked out Everest,

Went around,

You know,

To those high areas as high as I could go to a place called Gokyo.

I think it was like almost 6,

000 meters high and it was quite an adventure.

And I walked back the whole way as well,

All the way back to the start to the town where I started.

I was just waiting.

But the,

But I stayed calm.

I stayed calm because you,

Because I knew from that story,

Yama,

That you can't outrun death when it's your time.

It's just your time.

And there you go.

Don't try to run death.

It's a natural part of our lives.

So what's going on now is quite interesting because there's this huge amount of fear that's following this,

This worldwide pandemic.

And it's completely understandable,

But it's important to understand a few things.

For example,

We've grown up in the modern world and we've become comfortable,

Very comfortable in the comfort zone.

And in this comfort zone and growing up in this modern lifestyle,

We've become conditioned to think that we need so many things to be just the way they are to be happy.

And this conditioning has actually made us weaker.

Our homes are too hot in the winter.

Our homes are too cool in the summer.

It's what one of my heroes Wim Hof,

The ice man,

The Dutch ice man from whom I've learned so much,

Not in person,

But taking his courses,

Which I highly recommend where you expose yourself to the cold and you do these breathing techniques and it really fortifies you,

Makes you stronger and boosts your immune system.

So anyways,

He was talking about the comfort zone that we've just become so weak by being stuck in our comfort zone.

So this whole worldwide experiment that's going on,

This pandemic,

This crisis,

This hysteria that we're going to survive.

And you who are listening to this in the future know that that's completely true.

So we need to,

We need to grow out of this.

And the way to do this is by meditating,

By getting a meditation practice and just staying with it.

Practice.

There'll be times when you're totally bored with it.

There'll be times when your mind is totally going crazy with it and you're saying,

What am I doing?

That was a terrible meditation I just had.

What's the,

What's the point?

That's how the mind reacts.

So let me tell you another story.

This is a old story also from India.

I'm not sure if the Buddha told the story or it's from before him as well,

But there's a story about this,

This lion that was this mother lion that was hunting and she comes across a pack of sheep,

All these sheep and her little cub was following her.

And right when she's about to jump onto the herd of sheep and grab one of them and eat them,

She got a heart attack.

Yeah.

Even lions get heart disease apparently.

So the lion,

She dies and this little baby cub,

He's all alone and he ends up coming closer to the sheep and joining the sheep and he's welcomed by the sheep.

He's just a little baby cub,

All cute.

And he ends up growing with the sheep to the point where he gets older and older and he's eating grass with them.

He's a total sheep.

And then one day there was a big lion that was hungry and was stalking this herd of sheep.

And as it got closer,

He could smell the sheep.

It just got closer,

Moved up so it was downwind from them so they couldn't smell him.

And he got closer and closer and then he started looking at them and he couldn't believe what he saw.

Here was a herd of sheep and here's this lion hanging out in the middle of the sheep eating grass with them and baa baa baa baa baaing with them.

And he's like,

What?

He was so stupefied with what he saw that he completely forgot that he was hungry,

That he was on the prow,

That he was going to get lunch for himself.

So he jumped into the pack of sheep and just grabbed that young male lion.

And the young male lion is on his back and he's like,

Baa baa,

Please don't know.

And the big lion is on top of him and just looking at him and growling.

And the younger lion is on his back just,

Baa,

Please don't kill me,

Don't kill me,

Please don't kill me.

And the lion,

The big male lion just can't believe what he's seeing and he just grabs him and says,

What?

He's what?

Hey,

You're a lion.

What do you know?

No,

I'm a peep.

I'm a sheep.

Hey,

Come on.

You're a lion.

And the,

No matter what the big lion tried to say to him,

He realized the young lion wasn't going to have any of it.

So the big lion drags the young lion over to a pond and he holds him from the back of the head and the young lion is just squirming.

He's crying.

He's just bleeding like a sheep,

Baa,

Baa,

Baa,

Baa,

Baa,

Like that.

And finally the young lion sees his reflection in the water and it's the same as the big lion's face.

He's like,

And suddenly he remembered who he really is.

And he starts roaring.

He like woke up from a hypnotic trance.

So yeah,

That's quite a story there to learn something from.

And we've been conditioned to think that we need so many things.

We've been conditioned to think that our objects are who we are.

We've been conditioned in so many negative ways really that just disempower us.

When you think about it,

It creates a group think mentality where everyone's believing everything that they see in the news and overreacting.

And so,

So the key thing is to stay centered.

The key thing is just to stay centered.

And this reminds me of another story than something that happened to me.

I remember that I was,

I think it was about 1994.

I had just left America.

I was on my own journey.

My parents had died.

I didn't have any brothers or sisters.

There was nothing holding me back in the US.

So I just left.

I left.

I felt like I needed to go see the world.

And I had some,

I had some,

I was living in Sri Lanka and I was swimming.

I would go swimming.

I was living in this little tiny village in the south and I'll go swimming with fins and a mask and swim past the waves.

And I would go out there and go down and grab some rocks and hold on,

Hold my breath because if I didn't move these beautiful,

Beautifully painted,

Gigantic fish would come and check me out and I could observe them and their beauty,

All their magnificent beauty.

So I would,

Without realizing it,

I was doing yogic breathing like seven years before I got into yoga,

The pranayama techniques,

Which are so important.

And I would stay down holding my breath for like two minutes,

Two and a half minutes,

Come back up,

Take like six deep breaths and then go back down.

And I would stay up there for like an hour and a half.

And then I would swim back.

And when I came back on shore,

I felt like the Buddha in swimming trunks walking on the beach.

It was fantastic.

But there were times when the tide was going the other way and I was trying to get back and swim and I was swimming and swimming and swimming.

And I was pretty damn lucky because I almost got taken out into the Indian Ocean and you know,

It could have been eaten by sharks or drowned or whatever,

You know.

But and that almost happened like three or four times.

And I remember when I came back on land,

Crawling on my hands and knees,

Kissing the sand and just collapsing on the sand with total gratitude that I made it back because it was a really,

Really hard,

Hard swim back because the tide was going in the opposite direction.

So but what helped me tremendously,

And this was before I started meditating,

Was my training in martial arts.

I trained really hard in Taekwondo.

The teacher,

This Korean eighth degree black belt master,

He was such a genius.

He combined it with boxing.

So it's like full contact.

And you know,

In the training,

It was like all those seven years that I trained hard,

It was like a thousand fights and you learn so much to stay calm in difficult situations.

So later on,

I went to Cambodia.

And this was 1994 and I was in Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge were still around.

If you don't know about the Khmer Rouge,

It has to do with the Cambodian genocide of I think 1976 to 1979 when the Khmer Rouge,

These Maoist guerrillas who were like really crazy eating from eating just bugs in the forest,

In the jungle for so many years.

And they were a consequence of the secret bombing campaigns by the US government that were instigated by Henry Kissinger,

You know,

Basically war crimes,

But let's not get into that.

But anyways,

It was on,

It's destabilized the whole region.

So these Maoist guerrillas came into power and it was,

They were still around the Khmer Rouge.

This was 1994.

They were still around in the jungles of Cambodia.

And the Cambodian genocide was quite horrific from 1976 to 79,

It only stopped when the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia because the Khmer Rouge kept attacking them at the borders.

And when the Vietnamese came into Cambodia,

They were horrified with the remnants of the genocide and horrific.

So the Khmer Rouge were still in the jungle and there were not many tourists.

And I was there with a girlfriend at that time.

And I became friends with this Dutch guy who was a Buddhist monk.

I can't remember his name,

But he was such an interesting guy.

And he was friends with the chief of police in this little city where the great temples over a thousand,

1200 year old temples and korwat they're known as,

Which are swarming with tourists now.

They were empty back then,

Totally empty.

So this,

This Dutch monk,

And since he was friends with the police chief,

He got permission from that police chief for us to spend the night sleep over on the top gallery of that incredible Angkor Wat main temple complex.

And there we were sleeping up there.

Well,

We weren't sleeping.

It was weird.

We were hanging out.

We're observing.

It was just so incredible.

And I remember that the monk fell asleep and the girlfriend I had,

She fell asleep,

But I said,

No,

I refuse to sleep.

I refuse to sleep.

I can sleep at any time,

But I will try to stay up as long as I can during this incredible special thing that,

You know,

How many people get such permission to do such a thing.

So here I was in this incredible,

Ancient,

Gigantic temple complex.

If you've never been to Angkor Wat,

Think about going.

It's unbelievable.

It's like 35 major constructions and it's,

It's quite a special place,

But I remember there we were,

And it was kind of a haunting place.

And I remember shining my flashlight down one of the halls and it was so dark that the flashlight was like sucked by the darkness.

It did nothing.

And anyways,

I remember suddenly I was listening or heard the machine gun fighting between the military and the Khmer Rouge down in the jungle.

Like that.

And mortars exploding.

Really incredible.

And then,

Then that stopped precisely at eight o'clock.

It seemed like they had a gentleman's agreement to stop fighting at eight o'clock.

And then the,

Then a storm came.

That's right.

I was watching the storm and a lightning strike struck a Palm tree that was maybe 150 meters from where I was sitting way up there on the gallery.

So the jungle was a little bit below us and the lightning strike,

And I was blinded for like five seconds.

It was just incredible.

Well,

Anyways,

I stayed up the old girlfriend and the monk fell asleep after that.

And I was just watching the stars once the weather cleared up.

And then to my horror,

You might be asking,

Why am I telling this long story?

Because to my horror,

I saw a flashlight starting to come up to where we were.

And the Khmer Rouge were still around and they were still killing people and their favorite form of killing people or one of the forms of how they killed people is like chopping off their heads or,

Oh,

You can just imagine.

So there I was looking at this light approaching and it's like,

Oh my God.

And like a sense of panic started happening.

And then I just took a few deep breaths from the martial arts training.

And this is before I started meditating.

I started meditating December,

1999.

So this was 1994.

And I just was able to stay calm and just wait.

And I was preparing myself like I like getting some,

Making a weapon out of a stick I had and just being ready to protect my ex-girlfriend and the monk and myself.

However I could try,

You know,

I've been trained for that,

You know,

As far as I could.

So and then fortunately just staying calm and then finally I realized because it was so dark that it was a light that was on the forest.

It was of a guard on a Jeep that was going with a big search light,

Looking up into the trees and looking into the jungle to protect the area.

But that was a mind acting up of course,

But of course it could have still been the Khmer Rouge.

They were still there.

As I told you,

They were fighting in the military,

Fighting the military.

So it's about the importance of staying calm.

It's so important to stay calm.

There have been other cases,

And I'm not going to tell you about those,

But other cases were just like almost dying,

Getting swept up almost in a flood,

Flash flood that appeared.

But unlike the book by Oscar Wilde called The Importance of Being Earnest,

Which was that's not a word that's really used much by Americans or native,

Non-native English speakers,

The word earnest means to being honest.

And the book by Oscar Wilde,

The Importance of Being Earnest,

Wasn't about the importance of being honest and sincere.

It was about this guy who was lucky enough to be named earnest,

Even though he was like a total dirty line scoundrel,

But people believed him because his name was earnest.

Well,

The importance of staying centered is about being honest with ourselves and looking in the mirror,

Just like that Michael Jackson song,

And just really reevaluating or being really honest with ourselves and saying,

Whoa,

How much have I lost my balance with this or that difficult situation here or now in the past or this pandemic going on right now?

How much have I lost my balance?

How afraid am I of getting this contagion or getting in another difficult situation or whatever it is?

So it's about looking in the mirror,

Being very honest and say,

Okay,

Now I need to do something about it.

And since you're here at Insight Timer,

This is a worldwide meditation app that's anyone around the world can become a member of for free.

What a wonderful thing.

I really love it.

And so it's important to find a good meditation that you like,

Meditation teacher,

Meditation system,

Whatever it is,

Find the one that resonates with you.

But the important thing is stick with it.

Be consistent with it.

Be consistent with it.

That's why these meditations on Insight Timer are just so good because you could check yourself and see how often you're doing it.

So I wish you luck.

Remember the importance of staying centered and keep up the meditation practice,

Which is all about that,

Which helps you to stay calm and non-reactive.

I hope you enjoyed this talk.

Have a wonderful day or a wonderful night and stay on your path,

Your beautiful,

Special,

Unique path,

And be very patient and kind to yourself.

Goodbye.