Cold shower, spirituality and meditation

How to control his restless mind is a key issue in a spiritual seeker's training objective. Oftentimes it is "easier said then done". It's like having a good night sleep for the common folk, controlling his erotic impulse for the sexually frustrated middle-aged, or a monk finding his route of enlightenment in the days of the Buddha - the whole issue of Big Vehicle Buddhism as taught in the Diamond Sutra.

A simple way will be like "counting sheep" in bed or chanting mantras in seated meditation (essentially simple vowel with bilabial consonant). The more athletics will likely to have an hour of ball-game or whatever. Some do tai-chi. Alcohol, as a bad substitute, works for some. Well, all of the above might give us a good night sleep or save our marriage.

One method I would recommend is to do cold shower meditation (I discussed some technique issues in previous posts, interested readers can search for "shower" in this blog, more to follow). One major benefit of doing cold shower meditation is that not only it works, it can also jump-start a practitioner's chi-practice (like deep meditation, tai-chi etc), assuming one so desired it in the first place.

In terms of ease of practice, one can adjust the temperature of one's cold shower in a normal bathroom with heated water. And one can start with one's legs first before proceeding to the whole body.

With one's body covered with cold water, one can do meditation. The coldness focuses our mind, with good practice, one can one day do it under running cold showers (or waterfall as is favored by Japanese monks).

I shall discuss more on technique and its ramification on spirituality in some future posts.

Start with your legs