Liv’s cover model this month is PR maven Tina Chu, who has been meditating regularly since 2014 in the New Kadampa Tradition.
What are the benefits of meditation for you?
Some people approach meditation as a way to just clear your mind, to just sit in that nothingness. But the focus of the type of meditation I do is to not just to clear your mind, but to control it. Meditation is being acquainted with your mind, and knowing how to make it work for you instead of against you.
What subjects do you meditate on?
One of them is “loving kindness” – treating everybody that you see in a loving, more compassionate way. So rather than cursing somebody in front of you in a traffic jam, meditation allows you the time and space in your heart to think – oh, that person wishes to be happy as well. Maybe they’re in a rush themselves. It’s putting yourself in their shoes.
Are there any downsides?
Not at all. I think it’s necessary! We’re so neurotic nowadays that we try to fill in negative feelings with our obsessions. But meditation’s so simple: you can do it with no money and no tools at all. You’ll be able to make better choices when you come from a calm place, not an erratic one.
Kadampa Meditation Centre offers free drop-in meditation classes every Tuesday CHK.
1/F Causeway Tower, 16-22 Causeway Rd., Causeway Bay, 2507-2237, meditation.hk.
