Watching the Seahawks Play and Thinking About Meditation

The Seahawks game just started in Minnesota as the third coldest game to be played in history. With ten seconds into the game, watching the signs of cold evidenced through exhalation  clouds, I am grateful. Grateful for meditation.

The Seahawks meditate. There are many fabulous articles written about how Pete Carroll, the coach, has created a different culture with the team by introducing meditation, yoga, mental health services, and holistic practices.

As I sit in my warm living room grateful for meditation, I think of the monks who through meditation are able to raise their body temperature. From the Harvard Gazette in 2002,

“In a monastery in northern India, thinly clad Tibetan monks sat quietly in a room where the temperature was a chilly 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Using a yoga technique known as g Tum-mo, they entered a state of deep meditation. Other monks soaked 3-by-6-foot sheets in cold water (49 degrees) and placed them over the meditators’ shoulders. For untrained people, such frigid wrappings would produce uncontrolled shivering. If body temperatures continue to drop under these conditions, death can result. But it was not long before steam began rising from the sheets. As a result of body heat produced by the monks during meditation, the sheets dried in about an hour.”

Meditation is powerful. It is the most powerful tool I know. For the spiritual, it is the process of connecting with the Original Silence and recognizing Oneness. For the professional, it is a tool of single focus and awareness of choice among others. The benefits of meditation are numerous.

Will the Seahawks access their inner heater and play the game as if they are in the moderate of Seattle? I don’t know. But the potential is there, and that is exciting to me.

Go Mediation. Go Hawks.