4👑☸ Cattāri Ariya-saccaṃ 四聖諦
Rule of 48
0 – What is ‘Rule of 48’?
A checklist of useful things to do daily to maintain optimal health (mental + physical).
0.1 – What are the benefits of following this rule?
* I don’t need coffee or caffeine to be alert, energetic, strong, healthy
* without a strong healthy body, you can’t do deep samādhi. Why do you think some monks and yogis have strong samādhi when they’re young and lose it in old age? At least a couple of references to monks losing their meditative ability in the suttas.
* by maintaining an easy to do, sustainable daily exercise regimen, you’ll avoid so many potential serious debilitating painful conditions most people endure in their old age.
0.2 – How do you know you’re doing it right?
* sustainable – it will become a permanent habit, and as normal, easy, and effortless to you as breathing or drinking water. You know you’re getting so much benefit from it you’d never quit. As opposed to someone who’s greedy for quick progress, trains too hard, and gives up the whole practice because it’s mentally straining and physically too challenging.
* mental and physical health continually improve.
1 – Mental
If you do this all time, then you’ll be fulfilling the Buddha’s instruction on sati
7🐘 .
1.1 – When you see ‘4’, think 4 noble truths
see
4👑☸
1.2 – When you see ‘8’, think noble eightfold path
see
👑8☸
2 – Physical
RDA = Recommended Daily Allowance
Rule of 48
You're renting a future corpse, but keep it healthy or you can't do deep samādhi
When you see 4, it should remind you of the four noble truths.
When you see 8, it should remind you of the noble eightfold path.
Check
zen , stay zen, always Zen, while doing all the exercises.
Maximize
jhāna force, and equation every moment.
To stay zen, you adjust pace, breathing, of sets to be easy and sustainable.
If you modulate correctly, you should be generating sukha (physical pleasure from endorphines, jhānic force pushing internal energy through stretched open energy channels from muscles contracting, stretching, relaxing).
2.1 – daily RDA cardio: 48min. ‘Shake and Bake’
Do
🏃👨🍳🥧 for at least 48 minutes. total for the day, minimum.
You can find time for it. Instead of doing 3 hours of walking meditation daily for example, swap up 48 min. of that with
🏃👨🍳🥧 .
2.1.1 – how to allocate those 48 min.
What I typically do:
My early morning routine, when I wake up around 2am,
I do
🏃👨🍳🥧 for 30-45 min., but within that time I frequently interrupt with one to two minutes of dynamic stretching exercises.
So total
🏃👨🍳🥧 time is only about half of that 30-45 min.
Throughout the rest of the day, I’ll do
🏃👨🍳🥧 for 5-10 min. to get the body warm and soft and pliable.
At minimum, I do 3 sessions, one early morning, one session around noon for about 10 min. while my lunch is cooking, and an evening session at least 10min while doing pāḷi chanting.
2.1.2 – or alternative aerobic cardiovascular exercise
If you can’t be bothered to learn
🏃👨🍳🥧 , here are some alternatives:
Slow jogging, or swimming with complete jhānic relaxed movement, jump rope, etc.
The key is do those exercises relaxed, with partial jhāna.
🏃👨🍳🥧 is optimized to maximize jhāna and relaxation.
Doing jump rope for example, unless you’re elite level super coordinated, you can’t completely relax your body or your mind because your flow keeps getting disturbed by either missing a skip or straining too hard to make sure you don’t miss a skip (by tripping on the rope).
Instead of jumping rope with a rope, do jump rope full body motion, but without using a rope. Then you can fully relax body and mind.
2.2 – RDA 48 full squats minimum
I usually will do 4 sets of 12 repetitions, staggered out throughout the day, usually thrown in with the
🏃👨🍳🥧 cardio session.
example: a set of 12 in the morning, 12 at noon, 12 in afternoon, 12 in evening.
Modulate: If I’m colder and stiffer or more tired, I might just do half squat
Here is a menu of squats I choose from, from easier to more difficult.
* squat down just partially
* squat down to thigh parallel to ground
* squat all the way to sitting on ground, preferably heels on ground.
* one leg squat going half way down
* one leg squat going all the way down (pistol squat)
2.2.1 – poor man’s rowing machine
Doing squats with latex or rubber resistance bands.
This is great because you work your upper body and lower body at the same time, so you can check off RDA quota from the pull up menu and the squat menu simultaneously.
This is the type of exercise you want as a first option if you’re on a meditation retreat following a schedule with very few minutes to exercise.
2.3 – RDA 48 pushups minimum
I usually will do 4 sets of 12 repetitions, staggered out throughout the day, usually thrown in with the
🏃👨🍳🥧 cardio session.
example: a set of 12 in the morning, 12 at noon, 12 in afternoon, 12 in evening.
Menu of options, from easier to more difficult
* pushups from the knees or waist to reduce body weight by half or so
* light dumbbell presses from various angles, horizontal bench, or standing up shoulder presses and flys
* incline pushups, usually on gymnastic rings 4 ft. high off ground, body about 45 degree angle.
* regular pushups
* pike pushups, from downward dog position
* dips on gymnastic rings
* handstand against the wall pushups
2.4 – RDA 48 pullups minimum
I usually will do 4 sets of 12 repetitions, staggered out throughout the day, usually thrown in with the
🏃👨🍳🥧 cardio session.
example: a set of 12 in the morning, 12 at noon, 12 in afternoon, 12 in evening.
Menu of options, from easier to more difficult
* light dumbbell rowing motions from different angles: standing forward bend
* incline body 45 degree plank on gymnastic rings
* backbend bowed posture pulling up on gymnastic rings
* lat raises with less than half body weight
* full pullups with different hand orientation and distance from each other
* one arm hang to strengthen forearms and grip strength
2.5 – RDA 48 core: abdominals and lower back
I usually will do 4 sets of 12 repetitions, staggered out throughout the day, usually thrown in with the
🏃👨🍳🥧 cardio session.
example: a set of 12 in the morning, 12 at noon, 12 in afternoon, 12 in evening.
Menu of options, from easier to more difficult
* sleeping bag yoga situps and superman, limit range of motion to not injure back
* taiji cloud hands and cloud feet, other arm and leg permutations making large circles
* hanging on pullup bar, knee lifts and circles, cloud feet
* balancing on gymnastic rings, knee lifts and circles, cloud feet
* inverted balancing on gymnastic rings, skin the cat
2.6 – misc. things I like to do daily
* At least 48 seconds per day hanging on pullup bar doing spinal twists and other movements for spinal traction
* at least 48 seconds per day using an inversion table
* at least 48 seconds per day doing handstand against wall
* at least 48 reps on each ankle/lower leg doing twist massage (to work forearm muscles)
999 – Bookmarks of interest