[Intermediate] What Is Meditation

★ misconception 사람들이 잘못 알고 있는 오해

An idea that is not correct

Ex) There are many fears and misconceptions about cancer.

 

★ cross-legged 책상다리를 하고

If someone is sitting cross-legged, they are sitting on the floor with their legs bent so that their knees point outwards.

Ex) He sat cross-legged on the floor.

 

★ go far 극단적으로 하다, 지나치게 하다

To do something too extreme

Ex) Some people thought he had gone too far in his criticism of the police.

 

★ pop into your mind (생각이) 떠오르다

to suddenly think of something

Ex) All at once an idea popped into her head.

 

★ to some extent 어느 정도, 다소

Somewhat; partly; in a limited way

Ex) I do agree with him to some extent.

 

★ whopping 엄청 큰

extremely large

Ex) She had a whopping great bruise on her arm.

 

★ all of a sudden 갑자기

Unexpectedly and abruptly

Ex) I was startled when the fire alarm went off all of a sudden.

 

★ crappy 형편없는, 쓰레기 같은

Unpleasant or of very bad quality

Ex) I felt crappy all day yesterday.

 

 

Quizzes

1.Most people like to ____________ meditation _____ a monk sitting on top of a mountain, cross-legged, staring into the horizon.

2.We are always thinking. Bestselling author Eckhart Tolle even goes as far to say that humans are ___________ to thinking.

3.We hope our work will help to change common ___________ about disabled people.

4.He jotted down story ideas that ________ ______ his head.

 

Questions
1. Why is it good to meditate according to this video?

2.Why is too much thinking bad according to this video?

3.What is your thought on meditation?

4.Have you tried meditation? How was it?

 

Script

Meditation is a practice that’s been around for thousands and thousands of years. Yet, there’s still a huge misconception about what it really is. Most people like to associate meditation with a monk sitting on top of a mountain, cross-legged, staring into the horizon. But in reality, it’s actually something that everyone can do and everyone can benefit from. There’s even been hundreds of studies that proved this. Here’s some of the sources and studies in the description box below.

 

To understand what meditation really is we have to look at our own lives first. There’s something that we’re doing every single day for the majority of the day. We’re thinking. We are always thinking. Bestselling author Eckhart Tolle even goes as far to say that humans are addicted to thinking. Try to stop thinking right now for just ten seconds.

 

Chances are unless you’ve been practicing meditation for a while you had at least a couple of thoughts pop into your mind during this brief period of time. You might think, well, thinking isn’t bad. It’s good. We need to think in order to survive, don’t we? Well, that’s true but only to some extent. If you really sit down and take a look at it, the large majority of your thinking isn’t as useful as you think it is. A lot of it is actually quite negative.

 

Just to prove a point, I took the privilege and sat down with a pen and paper for five minutes and recorded as many of my thoughts that I could. I had a total of a whopping two thoughts that I would consider to be either positive or constructive. Well, on the other hand, I had a total of 11 thoughts that I would consider to be negative and not constructive at all. They also have a direct correlation with how you feel.

 

For example, let’s say that you are at a party and the following dot pops into your mind. What am I doing with my hands? I should be talking to people. Am I being awkward? All of a sudden you are feeling anxious. Another example, let’s say you are on the train and somebody steps on your shoe by accident. You start thinking he didn’t even say sorry. How dare he. What an asshole! And all of a sudden you’re feeling angry so we know that we think a lot.

 

And we also know that most of our thoughts are either negative or not constructive and finally we know that our dots can affect how we feel. So you can see how we came to the conclusion that thinking too much might just make you feel crappy sometimes.

 

Now what does thinking have to do with meditation? Well, there’s hundreds of different ways that you can meditate. There’s breathing meditation. There’s mantra meditation. There’s guided meditation just to name a few. But all of them do one thing in common. They teach us how to slow down the amount of thoughts entering our mind as well as the speed of which thoughts enter our mind and with practice you can even reach points where you have no thoughts for short periods of time.

 

And this is why meditation has so many benefits. When you think less, you become more in control of your emotions. When you practice meditation, you’re basically teaching you how to turn off your thoughts like a switch. So the next time somebody steps on your shoe you start thinking how rude? You can just turn it off. You can control whether or not you want to get mad on top of that. When you think less, you start spending less time in your head and more time outside. And you start noticing things. Trees are brighter. The birds are beautiful. You’ll notice flowers on the floor. You’ll become less involved with your thoughts and more involved with the real world. And that is the beauty of meditation.

 

Answers

associate with

addicted

misconception

popped into