The whole world was watching with bated breath while the adolescent Thai boys were trapped in the dark cave without any food supply with the oxygen in the cave depleting every day. But the photos that were released from time to time were those of jolly cheerful kids who appeared to be least affected by their precarious situation.
It turned out that Ekapol Chanthawong, the 25-year-old coach of this team is a former Buddhist monk. He had spent around 10 years living the life of a monk and is well used to meditating. According to multiple reports, it is this expertise that enabled the trapped boys to remain calm. it was astonishing that none of them were crying or panicking when they were approached by the divers, but just calmly sitting and waiting.
Leah Weiss, a Stanford expert who was taught by the Dalai Lama told CNBC that meditation helps in increasing focus and compassion and played a significant role in keeping all of them alive. She added that when distressed or angry, cognitive resources could get “hijacked”. Meditation helps in accessing these cognitive resources. It also slows down the heart rate, breathing, and metabolism as it creates a calming effect. It also lowers cortisol and the utilization of oxygen, Weiss added.
This is why Osho insists on making meditation as part of our daily life. Everybody needs this extra shot of inner strength to move through the upheavals of modern life. He also recommends that there should be a mandatory teaching and lessons in meditation for every child in the early years. And children can attain to meditation faster because the door to their sex energy is not open yet; the energy is safely conserved, it can knock on any new door and open it. Just as a supple young plant bends easily in any direction, but as it grows older, it hardens.
The Thai boys evidently got their inspiration from their coach who was meditating every day for an hour. His calm disposition and watchfulness obviously affected the kids positively.
This reminds me of the days when there was a bomb blast near Osho International Meditation Resort. The media came running and for months together they were asking one question: how did your meditators react when the bomb blasted? Are they stricken by fear and have stopped coming here? But this question was irrelevant because meditation teaches you to rise above the attachment of the body and mind. Fear and other emotions dwell in the body/mind unit. A meditator is learning to die to the past every day. They scoffed the idea of fearing death. Is there any place on earth which is free of death, they asked laughing. If you enter deep within yourself you experience pure energy. Fear is dissolved like the dewdrop.
