1528-mark-meditation

[00:00.70] Mark: Hey, Haruka.

[00:01.51] I have a question for you.

[00:02.58] Do you ever meditate?

[00:06.07] Haruka: Only occasionally.

[00:07.67] I know it's very good for your mental health, but I forget all the time. Do you?

[00:15.39] Mark: I do, but not in the most traditional or usual way.

[00:21.55] I don't sit in silence very often.

[00:26.08] I do that too sometimes, but I'll meditate either by going through a guided meditation, like a voice, someone telling me to relax your shoulders and focus on your breathing, et cetera.

[00:44.27] Or I meditate at other times like when I'm doing the dishes.

[00:47.99] I just focus on just the act of the water going over my hands or cleaning the dishes.

[00:55.75] And that's a form of meditation to me.

[01:00.03] Haruka: Do you feel much better after that?

[01:02.70] Mark: I feel calmer. I certainly feel more relaxed.

[01:06.71] Yeah. I feel like when I do that, my mind usually is going very fast and it's a good way to slow it down and bring it back to a more tolerable way of thinking.

[01:26.21] Haruka: Is meditation similar to zoning out?

[01:30.47] Mark: I guess, but to me, zoning out is letting your mind wander. Whereas meditation, you're bringing it to a single focal point.

[01:44.38] Haruka: I see. Actually, I remember that I have used this app called Undo.

[01:52.68] It's a very simple three minutes or whatever minutes you choose.

[01:57.22] And it start with a bamboo sound.

[02:00.43] And I like it and I feel, yeah, much calmer after that meditation.

[02:09.49] Mark: Yeah. I have the same app. That is the one time I will do a silent meditation.

[02:17.23] I'll use that app because, like you said, there's this bamboo sound at the beginning and a gong at the end, but it's just silent in between.

[02:27.13] Other than meditation, what else do you do when you get stressed out?

[02:33.01] Haruka: Recently, I do try to do deeper breathing, inhale and exhale. And also looking at the window, mountains, skies, feeling the breeze. They are all very calming to me.

[02:51.67] How about you?

[02:53.27] Mark: If I get stressed out or if I'm unhappy, I try to think about other people.

[03:03.16] What could I do for someone else to make them happy?

[03:08.23] How could I surprise someone, something like that.

[03:10.92] Haruka: That's very nice of you.

[03:13.58] Mark: Yeah, I guess. It just, it helps me.

[03:17.07] Because if I don't do tat, I will probably focus too much on whatever's making me unhappy or stressed out.

[03:26.70] But if I put my attention on someone else, that makes me happy.

[03:34.16] Haruka: I love that way of thinking.

[03:36.02] I will try that.