How Meditation Helps The Thai Boys Survive in the Cave?
You might have heard about an incident that people around the world have been following. It’s the news about 12 boys and their coach trapped in a flooded cave in the northern part of Thailand. When a rescue team found the boys, people of the world were so surprised how the boys stayed so calm and survived the extreme condition in the cave that could break humans apart physically and mentally. One of the secrets to their survival is meditation, which the coach who was once a Buddhist monk asked them to do in the cave. Here are five reasons how this was possible?
1. Meditation reduces the need for food
When we meditate, we reduce the need to use energy. When the body is still, the amount of energy the body needs to consume is less. Once we observe our breath during meditation, we make our breath softer, smoother and longer. That is how the body naturally needs less energy resulting in less metabolism and lower oxygen consumption. As a result, meditators can stay alive many days with less food or in some cases, with no food at all.
2. Meditation reduces fear
If we got trapped in a room with no light for days without knowing when we would be freed, would we able to let go of worry from the mind? When the amount of worry is more than the amount of hope, we humans develop fear in the mind. Meditation reduces the number of thoughts and meditators can choose positive thoughts over negative ones. Those who meditate regularly will fear nothing regardless of the situation they are in.
3. Meditation reduces conflicts
Getting trapped in a place with so many people, how did the boys stay so calm. It looks as if they did not have any conflict with each other at all. Well, when we meditate, we develop empathy and that’s how we can see and understand from other people’s perspectives. Those who meditate regularly will not only think about themselves but will develop compassion towards others. That might be the secret how all the boys survived and no one was left behind before the rescue team arrived.
4. Meditation increases patience
Waiting requires patience, which is always hard to find and easy to lose. People get tired of waiting especially when you have to wait indefinitely. The mind that can let go helps us wait longer. Additionally, the amount of expectation that keeps growing every minute we wait is going to blow our patience away. When we meditate, we learn to let go, lower our expectation and stay with the present. And that’s how patience is developed.
5. Meditation increases positive energy
The Buddha taught us that “the mind is everything, what you think you become”. When we meditate, our mind cultivates positive energy, which by the law of attraction, will attract positive things to our life. When all boys meditate together the amount of their combined positive energy could potentially attract the rescue team to finally discover them. And this is the secret power of the mind.