WEBVTT - Martyrdom: Transcendence on the Rack 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:13.840 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:16.880 My name is Robert Lamp and I'm Julie Tuglass. Julie, 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:19.360 what would it take to be a martyr? Like, like, 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:24.800 what what are the qualities that one needs? Um? You see, Uh, well, 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:28.200 you wouldn't want to be someone who's too and I 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:30.920 mean a real martyr, not I mean like like just 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:35.519 dripping off the page, um stained glass window kind of 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:38.920 a thing y gory pages of a history book. Okay, 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:40.920 all right, I'm not just talking like, oh, he's a 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:43.520 martyr because he refuses to use the new coffee machine, 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:46.040 right right. You're not gonna get off the cross. Someone 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:49.000 needs the wood. Yeah, it's not one of those martyrs. Okay. 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:52.000 First of all, you probably don't want to be too 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:54.520 concerned with materialism. I'm gonna say, you don't want to 0:00:54.560 --> 0:00:56.800 be a big shopper, right right, yeah, yeah, I mean 0:00:56.800 --> 0:00:59.120 you'd be willing to wear a potato sack, kind of 0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:01.760 be a little bit smelly, uh, sit in one position 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:04.200 for a long time, sort of meditating on the world 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:07.680 in your purpose. Right, Um, what would make like if 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:09.600 this was a want ad what else will we stick 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:12.840 in there? M m, well, really, you have to be 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:17.120 extremely committed to an idea or belief something let's have 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:20.280 high ideals, yes, yes, so something that again is stronger 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:22.360 than oh, I have to play this new video game 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:25.520 when it comes out next month, and stronger even than 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:33.280 one's own natural affinity for life itself, okay. UM must 0:01:33.319 --> 0:01:38.320 be able to withstand extreme pain in various forms impossible death. Yes, 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:40.240 And I think this is this is the the aspect 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:44.080 of it that interests me the most at this moment anyway, 0:01:44.319 --> 0:01:46.280 and it is certainly what we're going to spend the 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:49.480 most time within this podcast because growing up I was 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:53.880 I've always been fascinated by these these images of martyrs um, 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:57.720 especially in the Catholic tradition. With someone in the Western world, 0:01:57.720 --> 0:02:00.120 you just kind of grow up seeing these things, you know, 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:03.840 be it in actual like church literature or studying like 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:07.280 just the history of Western civilization. Used to see all 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:11.680 these discry images. It probably pays to to just quickly 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:14.280 also just to define where we get the word martyr. 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:18.520 It comes from the Late Greek term mar tour, which 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:22.639 comes from martas witness. And uh, the ideas that you're 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:27.440 you're witnessing something, you're bearing testimony to some fact or 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:31.680 faith with your blood, with your blood. I think that's 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:33.720 the crux of it right there, because at the end 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:36.200 game of being a martyr is not necessarily to die, right. 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:38.080 But I think one of the things that is so 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:41.680 anybody can die. Everybody dies, well exactly, but to to 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:45.040 to actually try to do it so that you're you know, 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:47.720 immortalized and celebrated. I mean, it's just it's just sort 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:50.200 of a byproduct like oops, I might die, and so 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:51.960 I think. But this is one of the most intriguing 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:54.800 things about a martyr at least captures our attention, and 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:56.800 why it's so dramatic is that these are people who 0:02:56.840 --> 0:02:59.040 are so committed to something that they are willing to 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:04.840 withstand such pain. It also turns the typical social and 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:08.720 just even evolutionary contract on its head, you know, because 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:12.400 it's it's suddenly like, here's the person that that when 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:15.520 the authority said, hey, you need to do this or 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:18.560 we'll kill you, he said, go ahead. I believe more 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:21.639 in the idea that that that I should have this freedom, 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:23.920 or that I should be able to say this that 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:25.919 or the other, or live this that or the other. 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:28.639 I believe in this more than I believe in, uh, 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:30.960 the importance of my own skin, oh yeah. Or that 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:33.120 Joan of Arcs, for instance, she had such a strong 0:03:33.240 --> 0:03:35.640 vision from God that King Charles the seventh should be, 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:38.280 you know, put on the throne, that she was willing 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:41.520 to um to to suffer death, and you know, of 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:44.000 course was burned at the stakes. So this is this 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:46.880 is pretty heavy stuff in that respect, um. And it 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:50.560 really is very interesting from a psychological perspective of pain, 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:53.760 because we know that psychological factors play a huge role 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:56.840 in the perception of pain. Right now, but before we 0:03:56.920 --> 0:04:00.160 break down some of the the psycho the psychology in 0:04:00.160 --> 0:04:03.440 the science of this, UM, let's run through a few examples. 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:06.520 And and it's important to note that that's so much 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:09.800 in martyrdom and in the history of martyrs, in in 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:14.160 any culture, in any religious tradition or secular tradition. We're 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:16.840 talking about something that has to do with the politics 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:20.120 of memory. I mean, these are these are ultimately they 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:22.560 may have been people at one point or another, but 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:26.920 they become stories, and stories are told by individuals with 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:30.480 a bias of some sorts. So a person may die 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:34.000 truly believing in something. They may die a martyr, and 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:35.520 but if no one's going to tell the story, then 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:37.240 they're not really a markin right. So in other words, 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:39.000 we're going to talk about a couple of martyr stists 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:41.800 as examples, but that doesn't mean that these people necessarily 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:48.120 actually perform certain tasks or maybe we're even um that suffered. 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:50.000 I mean, there's I guess what we're trying to say 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:52.440 here is that there there could be some fictionalization of 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:54.719 things that are not that well documented in the past. 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:58.280 And we're not celebrating martyrism. We just think it's or martyrdom. 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:00.960 We just think it's fascinating. Yeah, I mean it is 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:03.640 pretty cool in a very morbid way to me too. 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:06.360 That's my personal opinion. But all right, you have like 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:11.039 Saint anti Pass of Peragammum roasted to death and a 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:14.320 bronze bull in n D. A bronze bowl, yeah, which 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:16.479 is like a big bronze bowl, and when you put 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:19.200 somebody in it, and then apparently as they're shrieking and 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:23.360 dying inside the bull um, it makes this echoed sound, 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:25.760 so that the bronze bull sounds like an actual bowl. 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:28.080 This makes sense because way back in the day. This 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:30.200 is big pageantry, right, Like you wanted you want to 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:32.160 go to acoustics on this well, and this is key 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:35.280 to pageantry. Most of your martyr deaths, especially the big 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:38.080 ones out of medieval tradition, they tend to be pretty 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:40.320 dramatic because there's a lot of drama caught up in 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:43.880 the whole martyrdom idea. Isaiah is pretty interesting. This was 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:46.799 an eighth century DC prophet in the Kingdom of Judea. 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:50.919 This is Old Testament stuff, but he was rebranded in 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:53.359 the Middle Ages as this martyr that was solid in 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:55.640 half right down the middle with this big kind of 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:59.120 tooth saw. And what's really fascinating about this, dude is 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:01.839 if you look at some of these medieval texts the 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:04.039 way that he has depicted, they make a kind of 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:07.320 cruciform image with like the saw going across in his body, 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:09.040 up and down, so it ends up looking like a cross. 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:12.159 So he's he's rebranded as this Christian saint, which is 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:14.280 which is interesting and tells us a lot about the 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:18.960 idea of martyrdom. Again as politics, that marketing existed way 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:22.200 back then, but yeah, apparently right, and then uh oh, 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:25.760 and then another couple of examples from or another example 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:29.800 from the medieval tradition especially would be St. Bartholomew. This 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:32.520 guy is said to have been martyred in Armenia, and 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:35.440 according to accounts very on exactly what was done. In 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:38.600 one he was beheaded, uh, and then others he's crucified 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:41.599 upside down. But the most popular tradition holds that he 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:46.360 was flayed alive, that he was skinned. Yeah. So in 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:50.120 in various works of art, and in in one really 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:54.159 stunning statue that was made in fifty two, you see 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:57.120 him depicted as this skinless man like something out of 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:01.520 out of Hell raizor or that Robbie Williams video that 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:03.200 I said to the other day where he's stripping and 0:07:03.200 --> 0:07:05.839 then he strips off his skin and he's dancing around. Also, 0:07:06.080 --> 0:07:11.400 I'm prepared for that Loneliness Sita submission there. What do 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:13.160 you think was gonna happen? Because he's already down to 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:15.480 his underwears, right, and then I guess it was just 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:18.880 like the beat and then a d J. I just 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:20.600 didn't think it was gonna be like, Okay, he's gonna 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:24.520 self flay himself. Yeah, so, so he he tends to 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:26.600 be depicted like that with a flame knife in one 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:29.720 hand and his own skin thrown over his shoulder. This 0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:33.800 is barth all of me, not Robbie will um and so. 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:35.760 And he tends to have this look on his face, 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:38.200 especially in that statue. It's like a serene look like 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:41.040 it look like, hey, I'm this doesn't hurt. Yeah, So 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:44.800 I skinned myself, big deal, yeah, which which again comes 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:46.680 down to that whole like the idea of the martyr 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:49.440 is turning the typical rules of pain and suffering on 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:53.520 their head. Um. You see accounts among the various Native 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:56.840 American people's where there's a there's a certain amount of 0:07:57.280 --> 0:07:59.360 torture that ends up but playing into some of these 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:02.120 tribal groups, uh, and it becomes part of this culture. 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:04.520 And so you so you have these, uh, the stories 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:09.160 of individuals who were captured, individuals from from rival groups 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:12.640 and when they were tortured, they didn't cry out or 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:16.520 they didn't say anything, and in doing so shamed their tormentors. 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:18.600 And we'll talk a little bit about that too, like 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:21.760 how we actually have some cases of this are are documented. 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:25.920 But let's just talk about a couple of modern martyr 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:29.239 examples of what some people think of as martyrs. Yes. 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:34.960 One in particular especially would be Um Tick Kwan Duke, 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:40.040 the Vietnamese Buddhist monk who burned himself to death at 0:08:40.040 --> 0:08:43.880 a busy on a busy Saigon intersection on June eleventh, nineteen. 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:47.440 Everyone has probably seen an image of this before because 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:50.080 one of the most iconic images of the twentieth century. 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:53.120 Malcolm Brown want to Pulitzer Prize for the photo. And 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:55.560 it's you know, this black and white, stark image of 0:08:55.600 --> 0:09:00.000 this this figure seated in uh like a meditative position 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:03.920 and legs folded and just engulfed in flames, right And 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:07.600 and reports h E witnesses say that he never screamed. 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:09.800 There was some flinching, of course, but that's you know, 0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:13.000 of course it's going to happen with your muscles, uh 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:16.200 in your skin reacting to that. But he practiced a 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:20.079 very severe ascetic lifestyle and he had of course of 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:24.680 extreme meditation. Practice was considered about about his vata because 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:26.920 I know what I'm saying that wrong, um, But at 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:29.320 the time of his death and that essentially that he 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:33.559 was enlightened. So um again here's an example of withstanding 0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:36.599 extreme pain, right, And that one's more interesting than it 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:40.480 is a more contemporary example, because because again and often 0:09:40.480 --> 0:09:43.920 you can imagine like somebody dying horribly for a cause, 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:45.760 and then the people who carry that cause, of course 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:48.120 they're going to say, oh, but he was he was 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:50.599 he or she was bigger than the pain, because the 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:52.760 cause is that important. This is one of the themes 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:55.400 that's explored in Umberto Echoes the name of the Rose, 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:58.960 that I I've always found really interesting. There's a there's 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:02.360 a martyred heretic that is not a character in the book, 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:04.360 but is referred to a lot of this fraud Delcino, 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:08.200 who is into like a thirteenth century poverty heretic, believed 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:11.160 that that everyone should that the church would be poor, 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:14.560 that everyone should be poor and uh and should renounce 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:18.880 all material possessions. And so the young young character in 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:21.440 the book encounters one telling of the tale in which 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:24.679 he rises above the pain and is serene through all 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:27.480 these savage things that are done to him. And then 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:30.600 in another account that is supposedly the true account, we 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:33.160 learned that the individual died just stay really horrible death 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:36.320 and responded in the what typical way one might so. 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:38.920 But we have one, of of course, one one more 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:42.840 modern martyr to to mention, right, yeah, Mohamma Gandhi. Now 0:10:42.880 --> 0:10:44.520 some people might say, well, I don't know that I 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:48.520 consider Mohamma Gandhi a true martyr, while other people say, actually, 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:50.560 this is a really good example of a martyr because 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:54.000 this is someone who campaigned for home rule in India 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:58.520 and helped to defeat colonialism and did that as in 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:00.800 a similar way that you had talked about, which was 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:05.480 kind of shaming the government and doing that through hunger strikes. Um. 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:08.320 He was in prison several times, UM, and he was 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:10.320 whittled down to the bone. I mean we're not talking 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:12.880 like he just denied himself a piece of cheesecake. I 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:15.520 mean this, this is this is another form of pain 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:19.040 to endure UM. And you'll actually see this is really interesting. 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:23.360 They've seen studies before that people who are interrexic actually 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:28.400 have um less susceptibility to pain because you do sort 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:30.800 of get in this this mindset where you're denying your 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:33.760 body um, and you're you're living in this kind of 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:37.400 extreme situation. But you know, it's interesting to look at 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:42.439 Mohamma Gandhi and although he um, he did die uh 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:45.200 and he was actually murdered by a fellow Hindu who 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:49.760 was disappointed that Gandhi could not stop the partitioning between 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:52.960 Pakistan and India. Essentially, we're talking about hear is Hindu's 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:56.240 versus Muslims. Right, he was martyred in a in a 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:59.520 certain way. I guess some people could perceive that because 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:04.280 his commitment to sort of think that in an ecumenical, 0:12:05.520 --> 0:12:10.679 uh way of embracing all cultures and all religions. So 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:13.760 again another example, you know, he wasn't We're not talking 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:17.640 about skin flaying here, but these are you know, extreme 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:22.560 acts done by people. So we're gonna take a quick 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:25.240 break and when we come back, we're gonna really head 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:27.800 into the science of all this and to what some 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:30.880 of the various neuroscientists and psychologists have to say about 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:34.840 the way that we experience pain and how various martyrs 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:41.280 in the past may have overcome this suffering. This podcast 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:44.160 is brought to you by Intel, the sponsors of Tomorrow 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:48.960 and the Discovery Channel. At Intel, we believe curiosity is 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:53.000 the spark which drives innovation. Join us at curiosity dot 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:59.080 com and explore the answers to life's questions. All right, 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:02.120 we're back, and Julie, you have something to share about 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:03.920 the Shalon monks. Yeah, I want to talk kung fu 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:08.120 like we're talking real Shalon monks, not the film Shalong monks. 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:10.320 No now, and we're talking the really the ones that 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:15.040 inspire martial arts movies, really Shalon monks. Uh. It's actually 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:17.719 there are a sect of Mayahana Buddhism monks and they're 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:20.720 concerned with meditation and martial arts and just just a 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:22.880 couple of facts if they're out there to give you 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:25.599 some contexts about this. Kung Fu has been practiced in 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:28.880 China since two BC, and it was always thought of 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:32.400 as a practice of devotion. Okay, so that's really important here. 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:36.400 And the leading Shalon kuang Fu school was actually established 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:40.960 years ago, believe it or not. Um. But these guys 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:45.880 developed extraordinary physical skills through training over many, many years, 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:49.760 and the basis of this is pain control or pain 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:53.640 management UM. And that then they really acclimate themselves to 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:55.480 be able to withstand this kind of pain. And some 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:58.160 of it's through meditation, but a lot of it is 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:00.840 actually through the kung fu. I mean we're talking about 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:03.120 this is going to sound kind of silly, almost like 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:06.280 a Chinese water torture in some respects, but you know, 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:10.640 punching a huge vat of beams for hours and hours 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:13.200 because they know that that, you know, the hands are 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:17.840 so sensitive. The idea is to desensitize the nerves in 0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:20.680 your hands. So it's about you feel enough pain that 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:23.600 it de sensitizes the nerves in the same in a 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:27.680 similar way that, say, of one abuses a substance, you 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:31.320 end up frying the pathways. Yeah, but it's still pretty 0:14:31.400 --> 0:14:34.320 much like you know, mind over matter. Um. There's a 0:14:34.400 --> 0:14:37.880 nineteen thirty four book by Jing Jing Song entitled Training 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:40.000 Methods of the seventy two Arts of the Shallon, and 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:42.120 it documents a range of skills that can be acquired, 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:45.800 such as causing internal damage to an opponent using a 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:51.480 one fingered punching, being able to perform handstands on two fingers, 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:53.600 and being able to break solid objects with the heel 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:56.800 of the palm. But they also like just just for fun, 0:14:56.840 --> 0:14:59.240 they'll just take like, you know, don't stack of like 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:02.160 five on their head, and some will like karate chop 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:04.960 them on their heads for fun. For fun. Is that 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:06.960 I don't know if that sounds very Buddhist that they're 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:09.400 doing it. I say that for fun, because you know, 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:11.280 I was looking at some great video of them, and 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:13.040 essentially these are a bunch of ten year old kids, 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:16.080 and some of them start younger, and you know, at 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:18.480 the age of ten, they're they're getting up at four 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:21.600 o'clock in the morning and they're running up this hill 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:24.960 in twenty minutes, actually a mountain that takes about an 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:27.160 hour and a half for the average adult to scale. 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:30.360 And then they're walking down hands and knees. Okay, this 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:32.320 doesn't sound like fun, but still, I mean this is 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:35.040 you know that age, you have tons of energy, right, yeah, 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:37.320 so walk up some mountains, breaks and breaks and there 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:39.360 there's so much more well behaved when they get back 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:42.720 to the exactly exactly. But it is fascinating to see 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:44.880 this because they also have a yoga tradition and there 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:47.720 so they're doing martial arts. They're doing these yoga moves 0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:49.960 and they are so well disciplined, and I mean they're 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:53.160 doing these for hours and hours and these drills, uh, 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:56.440 these combat moves that they're essentially just imprinting in their 0:15:56.440 --> 0:15:59.000 brains and their bodies so that it becomes second nature. 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:01.600 And one of the personal is two is che gong. 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:03.840 I'm sure you've heard about this too. I believe it's 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:06.080 a type of martial arts, since the idea that fire 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:09.720 energy can actually emanate from your abdomen and you can 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:13.120 just kind of yeah yeah, and that you can actually 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:17.000 direct it to uh susceptible parts of your body or 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:19.760 sensitive parts of your body, like your neck. So you 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:22.320 could direct this energy to your neck and then someone 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:26.240 could punch the the holiness out of your neck and 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:28.400 you'd be completely fine. And they do this like these 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:31.720 are these are the the sort of tasks that they 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:35.320 do on for hours. It's pretty amazing. But I mean, 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:38.680 does it sort of makes sense because that they could 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:40.720 be able to do this because of that practice, the 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:44.400 repetitive nature and meditation. If you think about meditation, your 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:48.680 heart slows, you're pumping less blood, the muscles relax, and 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:50.960 when you relax the muscles, this is really key because 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:54.040 it means less tension, and less tension means less pain. 0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:56.240 And I was just thinking about when we were doing 0:16:56.280 --> 0:16:59.520 some research on lightning strikes, and I remember we came 0:16:59.560 --> 0:17:01.560 across something about a guy who was in the thralls 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:04.960 of a tornado um and he was struck by a lamp. 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:08.520 So he was rendered unconscious, but his body was thrown 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:11.000 across the field and he was perfectly fine, and they 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:14.879 think that's because he wasn't able to tense his body 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:17.480 and react. This is this is kind of like how 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:21.199 you hear accounts of individuals and rex where if they 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:24.280 were intoxicated, individuals end up surviving a wreck because they're 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:27.840 not they're enough to tense up, right, right. So imagine 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:30.359 if you're this monk and you have gone through this 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:35.520 incredible training mind and body, then you could slow your 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:37.880 heart rate and you have like these mad skills where 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:41.520 you know, you could defend yourselves or you defend yourself, 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:43.359 and then if you were to be struck, you could 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:48.560 negate that strike, could negate that pain. Yeah, dude, Well, 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:51.159 speaking of meditation, I ran across some stuff here by 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:55.160 American psychiatrist Robert Lifton, who did a lot of work 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:59.040 looking at like holicaust cost survivors and all Yale and 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:01.760 Harvard guy big medicine in the in the field, he 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:05.960 described the survivors of brainwashing and other psychological deprivation techniques 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:09.480 supplied by the child Andese government against captive missionaries, and 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:13.080 he attributed their mental survival to practicing meditation to recalling 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:16.800 and reciting poetry, uh, scripture, other literature. Essentially they end 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:20.439 up living living in this imaginal process to expand a 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:23.919 very limited, restricted physical environment, which cost to mind. We 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:27.159 we did a previous episode about isolation about how when 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:30.919 you're in an isolated environment, it begins to rather quickly 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:34.560 play tricks on the mind. The mind is starved with 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:37.760 stimuli and ends up having to to grasp onto other 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:39.880 things to get by, right, And that some of these 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:45.240 people had actually a cognitive deficiencies after having been isolated 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:49.119 for years. Yeah, and uh in anyway, um, Lifton found 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:51.840 that people who were able to in these uh, these 0:18:51.880 --> 0:18:54.480 situations of isolation and uh, and this is you know 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:57.600 what isolation is a form of torment. We're able to 0:18:57.680 --> 0:19:00.199 reach out and and just say cling to this bit 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:03.000 of scripture, cling to this prayer, cling to like create 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:06.520 some imagined reality to make up for what's lacking in 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:10.120 the physical environment. Um, which which I found pretty interesting. 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:12.280 Which is a distraction for your mind, right, which we 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:14.720 we always have talked about how the mind needs a 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:16.880 bone to chew on. Right. And then of course there's 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:19.960 self hypnosis as well, which is uh, which is an 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:22.960 area that is less um, I mean hypnosis itself and 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:26.280 exactly how it works is is less understood than than 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:29.320 other aspects of hay management for sure. But there there 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:32.840 have been studies into how IBS patients can use self hypnosis, 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:35.479 and this is of course the irritable balance syndrome. Uh. 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:38.280 They found they can reduce contractions in the bowl, something 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:42.280 that's not normally possible under conscious control, and their their 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:46.600 bow lining also becomes less sensitive to pain. And I actually, 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:49.159 when I was in college, I had a I had 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:52.960 an abnormal psychology professor. I mean he was he was well, 0:19:53.000 --> 0:19:55.359 he was teaching abnormal. Well he was also a little 0:19:55.400 --> 0:19:57.359 abnormal like guess, but but he mentioned that he was 0:19:57.400 --> 0:20:00.040 really into the idea of self hypnosis. And he he 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:03.000 said that he had worked with a former student who 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:05.240 was having to go in and have this technique performed 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:07.520 where they take the little camera and they stick it 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:10.560 up the urethra into the bladder. Yeah, and they were 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:12.359 having to do it on a regular basis, and it 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:15.000 was extremely painful with for this guy, and they couldn't 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:17.800 just put him under each time. A bit much to 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:20.439 go for on such a regular basis to be knocked 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:23.040 out for this procedure. So he would freak out with 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:24.680 the pain and they would have to hold him down 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:26.480 and stuff, and it was just an ugly situation for 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:30.040 everybody concerned. Uh, So they taught him. He began learning 0:20:30.119 --> 0:20:33.160 self hypnosis, and supposedly by the end of the training 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:36.600 he was able to calm himself enough that that he 0:20:36.680 --> 0:20:40.200 only felt the tip of the camera poking through into 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:44.200 his bladder towards the end of the Well, you know, 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:46.800 I was thinking about this too, even with the placebo effect, 0:20:47.240 --> 0:20:50.840 We've talked about this, that this promise sometimes that um, 0:20:51.200 --> 0:20:56.000 the pain will be alleviated will automatically, uh, make the 0:20:56.480 --> 0:20:59.280 endorphins in your body kick in and opiates kick in. 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:02.880 So sometimes it really is mind over matter. Um. This 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:05.919 is from a Scientific American article Daring to Die. They 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:08.639 were talking actually talking about the psychology of suicide, but 0:21:08.680 --> 0:21:11.880 this is certainly related. It says it is not enough 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:14.200