Peter Fletcher

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Zen and the art of the cold shower

January 16, 2014 by Peter Fletcher

Rock Garden, Ryoanji Temple, Kyoto, Japan.

Rock Garden, Ryoanji Temple, Kyoto, Japan. Image: Jim G on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimg944/

Some conversations change our lives in ways that can’t be imagined or predicted at the time.

For me, one of those conversations took place at the end of a Zen meditation retreat.

Zen retreats are the Olympic marathon of meditation. They’re long and intense and are definitely no place to float away in some cloud of spiritual bliss.

For me they were just plain hard work.

The retreat would start at 5am with the sound of 3 bells. For the rest of the day we sat in total silence working on our koans.

My knees screamed in pain but there were no words. Just silence.

We sat like that for hours. The final bell of the evening sounded at 9pm.

Through it all the silence descended like a big dark doona, exposing thoughts to the glare of awareness and revealing the never-ending chatter of the monkey mind. 

At the end of the retreat the students share a simple lunch together and chat, slowly coming back to the speed of secular life.

On this occasion I got talking to a fellow student about cold showers.

“I could never have cold showers,” I said.

“Yes, you could,” came the response. “You just choose not to.”

“You’re right,” I said. “But not during the winter.”

“You could,” he said. “You just don’t want to.”

He was right. A seed had been planted.

On May 11, 2008 something happened where I was forced to have a cold shower. Maybe it was a broken hot water system. Maybe it was the Veranus Island gas explosion. I can’t remember but I had to have a cold shower or not have one at all. 

I fought it and thought about every possible way to avoid the sting of that cold water.

And then the conversation with my zen friend came back to me. My fear of cold water was all in my mind.

So I climbed into the shower and turned on the water.

It was cold. Very cold.

But as I towelled myself dry I realised I wasn’t dead. In fact I wasn’t even cold. Far from it.

I felt alive, invigorated, pumped, as though I’d just overcome a demon and conquered something big.

But it was one cold shower.

That proves nothing, I thought.

During the course of the day I made a decision to do it again. After my next cold shower I decided to go a week without cold showers. The week turned into the end of winter, which turned into the end of the year, which turned into a year.

One year turned into two, two to three. The rest is history.

So what’s the secret to having cold showers.

The technique I now use I pinched off Bear Grylls. He says that if ever you have to swim in really cold water breathe out until you’ve expelled all of your breath. That stops you from having that take-your-breath-away feeling.

So now I get into the shower, turn the cold tap on, then start breathing out as I step under the water. I keep breathing out until every last drop of my breath is gone.

Guess what? By the time all my breath is gone I can’t tell the difference between cold and hot water, even in the middle of winter.

And now, with nearly 6 years of cold showers under my belt I’m disinclined to start having hot showers. Every time I step under that cold water, especially during the winter, I’m reminded that I have the power to choose the way I respond to my circumstances.  

Filed Under: Daily blog, Life strategies Tagged With: choice, cold showers, meditation, power of the mind, zen

How a game the Eagles lost taught me to use my iPhone less

January 14, 2014 by Peter Fletcher

Workers playing on their smartphones

Smartphones are useful but not if they get in the road of true connection. Image: Micah Maziar http://www.flickr.com/photos/mzwp/

In June of 2013 I watched the Eagles play the Bombers at Patterson Stadium. At the time the Bombers were embroiled in a drugs scandal.

The game was a cracker.

At half-time the Eagles led by just 3 points. By three quarter-time they’d manage to push that margin out to 17.

With Job Watson being jeered every time he went near the ball the Bombers had a lot to do. But it was clear they were far from beaten.

It was edge-of-the-seat stuff.

As you probably know, I like to observe. And through the course of this pulsating game I’d spotted a young kid sitting not far from me.

He was playing on his iPhone.

While the rest of the crowd booed and cheered and tried to will their team over the line he was hunched over his phone seemingly oblivious to the theatre that surrounded him.

Now I’m no stranger to technology but I felt a sense of sadness mixed with outrage.

I was sad that this young bloke was missing the spectacle of a titanic struggle and I was outraged that someone had paid good money for a ticket only to have the kid ignore the whole match.

Over the months since I’ve become more acutely aware of our apparent addiction to small screens.

And it’s not just young people.

It’s people of my age and older who are addicted to iPhone notifications but won’t do anything to stop them. It’s tourists who visit the Grand Canyon and see the whole thing through the screen of their smartphone camera. And it’s people who go out to dinner with their phones next to their plate, the whole time taking sneaky peaks to see if they’ve received a text or Facebook notification.

I see this addiction as robbing from our families and communities a sense of deep connectedness.

But there is a better way.

That better way is to make using technology a choice, not a reaction.

Along with a few other goals, I’ve made a decision to spend less time with my phone this year. Sure, I’ll still use it – probably more than most – but it will be on my terms.

I’ve already setup Do Not Disturb so that the phone isn’t buzzing and blinking during the night.

And I’ve stopped taking it to the toilet with me. Seriously, I never did that. It’s weird.

So what’s your take; do we use our smartphones and tablets too much?

Footnote: If you’ve read this far you deserve to know that the Eagles lost 13.13.91 to 15.8.98. It really was a sad night.

Filed Under: Daily blog, Life strategies Tagged With: choice, iPhone, phones, smartphone

About Peter

Speaker, trainer and coach. I write about living, loving and working better. Love a challenge. More...

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