Benefits of Yoga and Meditation From an Ex buddhist monk…

Many years ago, myself like many others, had a severe battle with mental illness. My parents divorced when I was little and after a series of other serious traumatic events I was left alone and helpless. With no real shot at a bright future, a miracle happened that helped me to correct the trajectory I was on and set my course for real success.

That miracle?

The moment Meditation and Yoga insights entered into my life.

For the first time ever since I was a conscious and aware being these insights gave me a profound sense of hope and for once I was excited about the future.

I cannot say for sure the exact moment these insights happened but after some time they were just there. Almost as if when you start working out you will no notice muscle growth until one day you look and you have changed.

This miraculous transformation seemingly happened in a very short amount of time but the cause of it relates back to a perspective shift.

Up until this point I was under the impression that everything that was going on in my mind was me and I was not separate from it. My mind would tell me I was sad and upset and I would believe it. My feelings would signal I was dreadfully and utterly alone and I would be convinced I was. I would think to myself I am better than others and because of this I would act that way and hurt people.

But then, a moment of awareness occurred. A sliver of separation was present between my mind/thoughts and the awareness of those occurrences and it dawned on me. Who is watching the thoughts. If I am the thoughts & feelings than what happens to me when the thoughts are no longer there? Well, when those thoughts silenced ever so slightly and a deep sense of presence was still there I shifted to no longer identifying completely with those mental occurrences. I realized I was not the thoughts or the feelings, I was beyond them and therefore I did not have to believe them anymore.

“Wait, wait, wait,

so you are telling me all the suffering we experience because of the difficult things we human beings go through doesn’t have to be identified with and therefore it doesn’t have to hurt so much?”

That is exactly right.

The mind is occurring with all the trials and turbulations it has but just a little bit beyond that is pure awareness. If you can learn to develop some slight separation even for a moment from those thoughts patterns you can experience that presence and all of the bliss(“or lack of suffering” in the buddhas words) that goes with it.

That is where Meditation and Yoga comes in. You see I had been practicing meditation and yoga for some time before this and although in the moment it did not feel like i was getting any results. Those results like working out at the gym would magically show themselves within due time.

Meditation and Yoga techniques on the surface appear to be for a variety of reasons such as calmness, physical health or better concentration but in reality what these practices do on a deeper level is restructure your psychological framework to create room for these types of awakening experiences to occur. By training awareness of the breath or body we are creating an awareness mechanism which can then be used to cultivate awareness in other aspects of our lives and eventually be used to provoke perspective shifts like I have described above to alleviate the suffering we experience and amplify the happiness and contentment we all desire to feel.

When you begin to see that happiness itself is a state of experience you can be in rather than a goal that can be achieved all of the costly things you do to try and become happy become no longer relevant in the same way they once did.

For example how much time do we spend focusing of our physical appearance because we THINK if only I was attractive then i would meet the right person and when i am dating them then i will be happy. Or how much time we spend THINKING of making more money because we think if only i had that car then i would be happy.

The problem is we don’t realize that only one state can be occurring at any given time within a human experience. Therefore instead of being happy in this moment (which is the only moment we ever have by the way) we put ourselves in a state/experience of scarcity in hopes that at some point in the future we will be happy then. We prioritize happiness in the future at the cost of happiness now even though the future will never arrive and if we are not happy in this moment we will never be.

And because our brains are basically pattern making machines we train ourselves to be in a state of lack constantly pursuing other things. Then even when we have the thing we want we don’t know how to be happy with it and immediately move on to thinking about the next thing.

This cycle is what is standing in the way or true fulfillment. The endless pursuit of being fulfilled prevents any actual fulfillment.

So when you are able to take a step back and see that all of these mental fluctuations are not something you need to identify, believe or engage with then you can simply let them go and return to the bliss of the moment and see just how easy bliss can be attained after all. The best part about this type of contentment is that its everlasting, it doesn’t cost anything and it actually nourished and energies your body when you are in it.

In conclusion, the benefits of meditation and yoga from the perspective of someone who has had their feet on the ground in a Buddhist monastery would be stated as such; doing these things can be incredible beneficial for you in more ways then one and on a deeper level than you might realize. Also real results will occur in due time if you put in the proper effort, energy and attention and wait long enough. So treat your mind like fertile soil and realize that the actions you take are constantly planting seeds. If you choose to plant the seeds that meditation and yoga offer a plant that yields a strong sense of contentment in your life will have a strong chance to grow.

Thank you for reading :)