[빌게이츠 추천책] The Headspace Guide to Meditation and Mindfulness

"The Headspace Guide to Meditation and Mindfulness” by Andy Puddicombe

 

 

사람은 무의식에의해 지배된다.
내가 의식적으로 뭔가를하고, 결정한다고
생각하지만 결국은 모든것은 무의식의 틀안에서 정해질 뿐이다.

나를 지배하는 무의식은 무엇이고,
무엇에 의해 결정되었는가.
불교에서 말하면,
내안에 입력되어있는 업이고, 인연이겠다.

이로인해, 사람은 자기의 틀에 의해
생각하고, 행동 할수밖에 없다.

그것이 보이지않는 감옥.
수행자는,
이 틀에서, 내 몸에서, 내 생각, 내 집착에서
벗어나기 위해 수행을 한다.
그 방법중 하나가 명상, 참선이다.

나로부터 끊임없이 올라오는 생각들을 바라보고,
내가 어디에 집착되어있는지, 어디에 걸려있는지,
지켜보고, 그것들을
다시 나의 근본자리에 되돌리는 작업을 하지않으면, 나는 바뀌지않는다.
자유로워지지않는다.
공해지지않는다.

이런작업이 없다면,
태어난대로, 나의 무의식대로, 업대로,
끄달리다가 죽는다.
죽을때까지 끄달린다.
올라오는 생각에 끄달리고 벗어나지 못한다.

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이 책은 명상에 대한 입문서이다.

저자도 올라오는 생각들에 끄달리며,
우울한 삶을 살다, 히말라야 수도원으로 가서
명상을 배운다.
하루10분의 명상으로 삶을 변화시킬수있다한다.

명상을 어떻게 시작하면되는지,
하나하나 세심히 설명해준다.

흔히, 시작하자마자 마음이 편해질거라는 일반적인 생각과 달리 명상을 시작하면 끊임없이 올라오는 생각에 더 혼란스러웠던 본인의 경험을 설명하면서, 그 또한 하나의 과정이라는것을 얘기해준다.

본인이 시작하면서 저질렀던,
잘못된 생각들을 공유하면서,
어떻게, 어떤 마음으로 시작하면되는지
세심히 설명해고,
시작부터 차근차근 어떻게 해야하는지
마치 time ans action plan처럼 상세히
안내해준닺
책을 읽으면서 그의 안내에 따라 시작해보는것도
좋을것 같다.

Headspace 앱도 지원해서,
명상수련하는데 도움을 주고 있다.

 

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"내가 읽은 최고의 책 중 하나"

라고 극찬한 빌게이츠.
그또한 이 책을 시작으로 명상을 시작하였고,
앤디 퍼디컴을 초대해 가족도 함께 수련하였다고 한다.
Covid-19 집에 있으면서 읽을 책으로도
다시 한번 추천하였다.

 

GatesNotes
Why I’m into meditation by Bill Gates (2018.12.03)

I stopped listening to music and watching TV in my 20s. It sounds extreme, but I did it because I thought they would just distract me from thinking about software. That blackout period lasted only about five years, and these days I’m a huge fan of TV shows like Narcos and listen to a lot of U2, Willie Nelson, and the Beatles.
Back when I was avoiding music and TV in the hope of maintaining my focus, I knew that lots of other people were using meditation to achieve similar ends. But I wasn’t interested. I thought of meditation as a woo-woo thing tied somehow to reincarnation, and I didn’t buy into it.
Lately, though, I’ve gained a much better understanding of meditation. I’m certainly not an expert, but I now meditate two or three times a week, for about 10 minutes each time. Melinda meditates too. Sometimes we sit to meditate together. (We use comfortable chairs; there’s no way I could do the lotus position.)
I now see that meditation is simply exercise for the mind, similar to the way we exercise our muscles when we play sports. For me, it has nothing to do with faith or mysticism. It’s about taking a few minutes out of my day, learning how to pay attention to the thoughts in my head, and gaining a little bit of distance from them.

“Andy has taken some heat for his low-barrier approach, but he got me to take up meditation.”

Andy Puddicombe, the 46-year-old cofounder and voice of the popular Headspace app, was the person who turned me from skeptic to believer. Prior to finding Headspace, I had read several books about meditation, all of which intimidated me. They made me think that the investment in terms of time and energy was just too high. Headspace made the barrier to entry low enough for me. It’s just 10 minutes a day of listening to Andy’s soothing British accent and trying to stay with him. Andy has taken some heat from hard-core meditators for his low-barrier approach, but he got me to take up meditation and stick with it. I’m glad he did.
If you want to try meditation for yourself, one good way to ease into it—especially if you’re as skeptical as I was—is to pick up a copy of Andy’s book, The Headspace Guide to Meditation and Mindfulness. Andy’s a witty storyteller and offers lots of helpful metaphors to explain potentially tricky concepts, which makes the book an easy, enjoyable read. Andy presents the evidence base behind these practices in sections called “What the research shows” so you know the benefits are legitimate. And the book also helps you see that Andy himself is legitimate. He’s an ordained Buddhist monk who trained for many years in monasteries in India, Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand, Australia, Russia, and Scotland.
The book begins with Andy describing one of them: “Locked in, day and night, surrounded by high stone walls and with no way of contacting anyone on the outside, at times it had felt more like a prison.”
At another monastery, the monks served trainees curry and rice every day, and they made the trainees eat it very slowly over the course of exactly an hour. One super hot day, the monks placed in front of each trainee a wonderful surprise: ice cream. “It was like being a child at a birthday party when the cake comes out.” Unfortunately, the trainees soon discovered they were not allowed to touch the ice cream until they had eaten their curry and rice in the painfully slow way they’d been taught. As the ice cream melted in front of him, he felt angry, then sad and guilty for feeling angry—just as the monks knew would happen.
It turns out that monastic life wasn’t right for Andy. As we learn in the book, after ten years he left and—I kid you not—became a circus clown in London. He wanted to be fully engaged in the world rather than cloistering himself away in artificially quiet retreats.
While he was a clown, he started teaching meditation to those with severe anxiety and other conditions. A few years later, he started Headspace to bring meditation to the masses. He felt that meditation was a skill everyone could learn without sitting behind high stone walls or being subjected to mind games.
Melinda and I enjoyed Andy’s work so much that we reached out to him to see whether he might be willing to spend some time teaching our family. He was glad to do it, which was a real treat for us. For a day and a half, Andy helped us and two of our kids through exercises that are similar to the ones you’ll find in the book. Andy was just as warm, humble, and real as we’d imagined from reading his book and listening to him on the app.
I’m not sure how much meditation would have helped me concentrate in my early Microsoft days, because I was monomaniacally focused without it. But now that I’m married, have three children, and have a broader set of professional and personal interests, it’s a great tool for improving my focus. It’s also helped me step back and get some ease with whatever thoughts or emotions are present. I like what I’m getting from my 10 minutes every few days. I’m grateful to Andy for helping me on this journey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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