In Japan there is a custom of the tea ceremony which is a method for training in mindfulness, and awareness of what we are doing, and what is happening. The other day I was at a seminar which was basically a one day retreat so those who couldn't make it to a week long retreat could experience what it is like for at least a day, in the morning their was a opening talk and then a sitting meditation followed by a walking meditation, I have never practised walking meditation before so the experience was interesting, and educational. during the walking meditation I decided to close my eyes to see what the difference is between walking in our daily lives and what I was doing because I found it quite hard to balance at times as walking meditation is very slow so you can focus on what you are doing, and that is the same for the tea ceremony, although the tea ceremony is deliberately intricate so time is taken to do all the steps properly.
During the lunch of the seminar day I went outside for a smoke and one of the others came out to use his phone, when he had finished his call he said jokingly that smoking will kill you, so I said in return we are all going to die, then smoking is bad for the body, but good for the mind, because it enables you to step away from a situation to focus on rolling the tobacco, and calm down rolling a cigarette can be therapeutic just the same way as walking meditation, or the tea ceremony is, of course you need to treat it as a meditation to gain most from it, but even if you don't, it can have a calming affect due to the removal from the situation to go for a smoke.
I'm not saying smoking is a desirable thing for physical health, but if you use something wisely then it can be like snake poison, their is a family of snake charmers who deliberately get bitten so they can gain immunity to the poisons affects, and they can be bitten by very poisonous snakes, or immunisation that is a wise infection as you can gain immunity from it, although smoking isn't like that as you cant get immune from cancer as far as we know, but if you need to use something use it as a means to calm the mind.
During the lunch of the seminar day I went outside for a smoke and one of the others came out to use his phone, when he had finished his call he said jokingly that smoking will kill you, so I said in return we are all going to die, then smoking is bad for the body, but good for the mind, because it enables you to step away from a situation to focus on rolling the tobacco, and calm down rolling a cigarette can be therapeutic just the same way as walking meditation, or the tea ceremony is, of course you need to treat it as a meditation to gain most from it, but even if you don't, it can have a calming affect due to the removal from the situation to go for a smoke.
I'm not saying smoking is a desirable thing for physical health, but if you use something wisely then it can be like snake poison, their is a family of snake charmers who deliberately get bitten so they can gain immunity to the poisons affects, and they can be bitten by very poisonous snakes, or immunisation that is a wise infection as you can gain immunity from it, although smoking isn't like that as you cant get immune from cancer as far as we know, but if you need to use something use it as a means to calm the mind.
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