FREE YOUR MIND - Shi Heng Yi | Shaolin Master 2024

- The Shaolin warrior monks gave a commitment that no matter what, there is something bigger than the small issues that sometimes pop up in the partnership. The problem nowadays is that those commitments sometimes just don't mean anything.

Speaker A: Even so, that we're in the 21st century and the possibilities of doing and exploring this world are so huge. It doesn't mean that you should freely do what you want at all times.

Speaker B: That's why you give a commitment that no matter what, there is something bigger than the small issues that sometimes pop up in the partnership. This is so important to me. It has such a priority for me that I know there will be hard times, I know what is involved with it, and now I give the commitment, then there is no way out anymore. The difference, the problem nowadays is those commitments that are being given sometimes just don't mean anything.

Speaker A: We know the stories, how it is in the past.

Speaker B: If you make contracts, if you give a commitment even just by word, and afterwards you break it, you break your promise, somebody breaks you finished. Why? Because a man that you can't trust his words, something's wrong.

Speaker A: This is not the type of freedom that is helpful for yourself. And it's also not helpful for the people that are afterwards dealing with you. Because this type of freedom, you think it's the freedom of the mind. You think that everything the mind tells you I need to follow. That means freedom. No, for us it's the other way around. To learn and not follow what the mind tells you. This is the first step towards freedom. Because during the 24 hour day, your mind tells you so many different things. Your mind tells you, you should do this right now. You just had an argument with another person. The mind tell you, hey, don't take the words just like this. He just insulted me, I need to insult him back. I need to show him who the boss is or anything like this. The mind gives you during the day so many different instructions. But not all these instructions are helpful. Because these are instructions which came from conditioning of the past. They come from how you were conditioned by your parents, conditioned by the teachers, conditioned by the government, conditioned by the politics, conditioned by the advertisement, conditioned by everything that nowadays has an impact on the way, how we see the world. And to sometimes take a step back. And this is why it's called take a retreat, retreat from yourself, go back into observation mode. Yeah, Stay calm and just observe. So this time we really want to be passive and be in the observation mode. Because this observation mode now really gives you the insight of where are you standing at this point of time in this life, when you are involved in doing, involved in activity, involved in creation, it's very hard to see where you're standing. And once again, and this is the way where we say both of these aspects, we need to learn and really be able to observe yourself. But at the same time, when you have set yourself a goal, when you set yourself a mission, to have the vitality, to have the power, to have the mindset, to have the determination, to have the willpower just as we know them from the Shaolin warrior monks today. And it's not just in our tradition. Where I am coming from right now, these were the idols that I grew up with. You are in a relationship, but then you go with your friends into the city and it's very nice weather and there are many other beautiful people running around in the city. And because you think, oh, boom, I'm in a free world, we're in the 21st century, I can do what I want well, and this is why you're cheating on your partner. And maybe you can feel already in which direction this is going. We don't think the human is going to develop in a proper direction when he is just following what he thinks he wants to do. This is not the way of how in the monastery, in the Shaolin temple, we are regarding it as a healthy way of growing. And that means here, when you are in the temple, we simply have a schedule. The schedule is 6:00 is the working time. 6:00am starts the day. First of all, we take care of our animals. Afterwards at 7 o'clock, we are preparing food for ourselves. At 8 o'clock, we are having the morning meditation. At 9 o'clock until 11 o'clock, we have the first training session. 11 o'clock until 1 o'clock is the working time for the monastery. Then 1 o'clock is lunch. Afterwards, it's a short break time until 3:00. From 3 until 5:00, it's another training session. Then follows 5 until 6. One hour of working time. Again, 6:00, dinner, 7 until 9, evening training. 9:00 is the evening ceremony. And this is how the day ends. Six days a week. That means inside this, inside this daily structure, number one, there is no place for your own wishes, what you would like to do. So that means on the one side, yeah, but how come you are living, I mean, we are living right now in the 21st century. And the way, how you are describing right now, this way of life, it really sounds like a prison to me because you have no freedom of expressing what you want. Yes, it's correct like this. Because just imagine for a moment you would live a life based on what you want. Then it would look like this yesterday evening, because we went out with our friends and stayed awake until 2:00 in the morning. Even if today at 7:00 I have to be at work. But I don't feel like being at work because I drank too much. So, okay, so I'm just gonna rest at home. And who cares about my obligations at work. He needs to find a way he can search for another person. So then you wake up and because you're hungry, you directly run to the fridge at 9 o'clock, open the fridge, okay? Nothing is in there. So first of all order a pizza at 10 o'clock in the morning again. Then because the pizza you didn't finish everything. At one o'clock you're hungry again. So you run to the fridge and just grab something out of there. In the monastery there are structures, strict eating times. If you're hungry in between, you wait. You don't run every time to the fridge. When you feel like running to the fridge.