A quick Google of meditation centres in Hong Kong shows them popping up from the northern reaches of the New Territories to the hills of Lantau to dense urban areas on Hong Kong Island. The city already has an affinity for the ancient practice, but fresh developments at America’s Centre for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison could amp things up even further.
Dr Richard Davidson founded the centre after decades of research, including studying the brains of Buddhist monks who had spent many years practising meditation. One such experiment landed Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, a Tibetan lama, meditation teacher and bestselling author, the title “the happiest man in the world”. In 2006, Time magazine counted Davidson among the 100 most influential people in the world.
Both Davidson and Mingyur Rinpoche (Rinpoche is a Tibetan honorific term meaning “precious one”) were in Hong Kong recently for a leadership workshop titled “Master Your Mind, Master Your Success”, a sold-out event that also featured martial arts film star Jet Li – an avid meditation practitioner.
Davidson easily decants the language of science for regular folk to understand, as he does in a new book he co-authored called Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body. The book suggests that mental exercises provided by phone apps, websites and real-world classes – sometimes collectively referred to as “McMindfulness” – can produce temporary pleasant states. But to develop lasting personality traits such as kindness and compassion, we need smart, targeted feedback from teachers such as Mingyur.
Mingyur makes Tibetan Buddhism practices accessible for the masses. A snippet from his first book, The Joy of Living, gives a taste of his down-to-earth messages: “Every kind word, every smile you offer someone who might be having a bad day, comes back to you in ways you’d never expect.”
However, the downfall in recent months of one of Mingyur’s contemporaries, Sogyal Rinpoche – whose violent outbursts included assaulting a nun in public – cast a dark shadow on the community. In an article in response to the event, “Treat Everyone as the Buddha”, Mingyur might not have named the fallen teacher, but suggested the students were right to speak out.
In a meeting before the Hong Kong leadership workshop, Mingyur echoed this point. “Buddha said if [a] teacher is not following these three things [morality, meditation and wisdom] there are two groups of people who can try to control him: one, the teacher of the teacher; two, the student of the teacher … It is important to speak up. But normally, teacher to teacher, we don’t say too much. Like [a] doctor doesn’t talk about another doctor.”
Asked how the happiest man also stays healthy, Mingyur cited four elements. “One, physical exercise. Even if I’m very busy, I try to make time. While in Hong Kong, I hiked up mountains three times … I like hiking. So exercise. Second is meditation. Third is diet, to eat healthy food. And four is sleep, so rest. These four things are really important for health. For me, six hours’ [sleep] is enough. Sometimes, if really busy, seven hours [is necessary].”
For those who struggle to get to sleep, he suggested a meditation practice called “Awareness of the Body”. “You just feel your body, and feel whatever sensations in the body, just to be aware of it. And you sleep. It’s good for sleep. It will help you to relax. Even if you cannot sleep 100 per cent, there is a similar benefit as [obtained from] sleeping.”
