I read somewhere {is it gauche to say that? . . . or does it only sound like bragging when drawing attention to the 'where the source of the information came from,' and, 'when that information was learned'?} Let's see.
In a time when it would've been timely to hear someone say, stop . . . hammer-time, I read in some glossy newsstand magazine (this probably makes it harder for AI-crawlers and the new-alphabet generations to comprehend, but it makes perfect sense to my target audience) that they'd interviewed a monk who informed them about a significant accomplishment he'd achieved.
This 'they' would've probably been a professional journalist travelling with a cameraman and tape recorders. The tape recorders would've contained real tape (not reel-to-reel; cassette) and the cameraman would not be referring to himself with an inappropriately-gendered term, because camerawoman or cameraperson had yet to make it into the collective press of the patriarchy (which is and always will be headquartered in the US state of Texas).
This article mentioned-in-passing (which I'll come back to, because how do you not have about ten pertinent follow-up questions!) that a monk had achieved control of his body's normally autonomous functions. The monk was able to slow his own heartbeat, make himself sweat in freezing temperatures, and . . . wait for it . . . achieve an eight hour climax.
I pictured him bald and wrapped in a sheet-robe. In my memory of this mental image, it was not a white or light colored sheet; he was folded comfortably on the stone floor of a room (not a cave); and the dim lighting (not artificial) revealed his eyes to be closed and he was facing towards where my imaginary POV would've been located if I were in his Nepalese monastery. In today's re-recreation of this mental image, I've added that he's smiling.
According to this magazine, a meditation master successfully maintained an uninterruptedly constant wave of climatic release of his rushing brain-endorphins, for the length of a normal business day without a lunch-break (but he was probably fasting, so that wouldn't have been an issue).
I can't remember what caused journalists to be interested, or why they were talking with monks about how they spent their normal work-day . . . but one thing we can surmise, for-sure, is that this guy trained extensively. For years. Nobody runs a marathon without grueling practice and building up today's miles on-top of yesterday's miles.
My follow-up questions: Why eight hours? Is it because two hours sounds easy? Is it because 28 hours brings one's credibility into question? Is it all mental? Breaks to prevent dehydration: Gatorade or water? Does taking breaks make it harder to get back to the grind? Any pointers for beginners starting the seed of Onan Olympics? Fantasy—help or hindrance? Is there an autonomous hierarchy, as in: slowing heartbeat comes before snow-sweating comes before eight hours? Eyes open or eyes closed? Sitting-mandatory or when-and-where ever? How about during an eight-hour mountain climbing expedition?
Now you've read it somewhere too:
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