Hi, my name is Steve Kim. I have been working for Tao Fellowship throughout its history. I am glad that I have this chance to talk to our members and the public less formally and more directly through this blog.

This is the first article in this blog. For the time being, I will be the main author of this blog. My intention is to post a new article every other week.

When I thought about what to write, I thought about our members, and other people who I met in the trainings, ceremonies and workshops. I recalled what their interests were, what they expected from Tao Fellowship, and how they wanted to make their lives better. Of course reaching many people is my hope in writing this post, but at the same time I want to do something helpful for those who I met in our programs. I want to make sure that they are still benefitting from what they learned, and I hope this post will refresh their desire to keep moving forward.

One of the most common interests that all participants in the programs of Tao Fellowship have is meditation. There are many different levels of experience of meditation, and many different ways of explaining or teaching meditation. But I will try to make it really simple and practical.

First of all, meditation is about knowing what is really happening. We may need a little distinction here between what is really happening and what you are experiencing. Supposedly these two should be the same, but in reality, they are not. Your experience is not what happened. It is normally your perception of and response to what happened. The gap between what is happening and what you are experiencing will determine the relevance of your decision and the effectiveness of your action. The less the gap is, the more relevant choice you will make.

No matter how advanced your meditation is, meditation in itself doesn’t bring you good luck and make good things happen to you magically. But it can help you make a good choice in any given situation. Making a good choice starts from knowing what is really happening, without distorting your perception by your own desires and emotions. Ideally, you may also want to purge your perception of all your preconceptions. However, I don’t think this is likely to happen at this point. We will discuss this later. For now, if you can free your perception from your desires and emotions, I believe it is a great achievement and will practically help you to make a better choice.

One of the most effective tools that you can use to free your perception from your desires and emotions is your breathing. In Korea there’s proverb that says “three deep breaths can prevent a murder.” Suppose I am really really upset with somebody and say “I am going to kill you. But I will take three deep breaths first.” I turn my face away and I breathe in and out deeply. I turn back to the person and say “Wait a few more seconds, I still have two more breaths to take before I kill you”. And I turn my face away and take another deep breath. I say to the person “Allow me just one more breath.” and turn my face away to take the last deep breath. When I turn to the person, what do you think has happened? Yes, right. The person ran away. Who would wait until you finish your three deep breaths knowing that you will kill him/her after three breaths. However, even if the person were dumb enough to wait until you finish, I believe you have changed your mind. So one way or the other, three deep breaths have prevented a murder.

So, here’s my suggestion. When you are upset, before you say anything or take any action, take a very short moment to take three deep breaths, and ask this question, “what is the best result that I can create from this?” This question is important because we so readily do something or say something just to win an argument, or to make others feel wrong and terrible, which very often makes us feel awfully bad and sorry later. Three deep breaths will quickly recover your awareness and good energy, and the question that I suggested will set your attention to a good direction, which will lead you to find an answer that can benefit both you and the others. There is no guarantee, but I believe you will make a better choice which will leave you feeling good or at least less sorry later.

There are more things that I want to share about the power of deep breath as a way of meditation. But I don’t want this first post to be too lengthy. I will save them for the next post.

Thank you for reading this.

Steve