10 Daily Reminders For a Better Life | A Monk’s Approach

[Music] good evening everyone i hope you are doing well so so far we have been giving you a lot of information many of you have seen the morning routine video you've seen the evening routine video and in the evening routine video i talked about reflection every day we should go about our day and specifically end the day reflecting on how did we do how do we improve oneself and then how do we keep improving our habits so one of the issues that people can have because out there many of you are wanting to change your lives you're wanting to improve and you're not just wanting to settle with the status quo and again there's this focus on self-development but i find that the problem is well okay i do want to fix myself i do want to improve my life and my habits but the issue is what do i do how do i go about changing it are there steps how do i reflect properly and for me this is the most beautiful part about the monastery because everything is very routine everything is very strategic and for us is this is the way that we use to train ourselves and in these types of videos again for me i'm here in thailand as a buddhist monk not to convince you to become a monk to shave your head to come to thailand to gonna retreat nothing if you would like to sure if you would not like to that's okay too but i just want to pull out the wisdom from the monastery because we've been doing this for the past 2 500 600 years and this information does not need to be hidden but use this approach our focus and why we come into the monastery is because we're serious about our work and what is our work and our work is to train one's mind so in this video we're going to talk about the 10 daily reminders in our world is every morning we go to morning chanting and meditation and also in the evening we do evening chanting and meditation as well and part of this evening meditation there is a section where we reflect on our day and there are 10 things that we do as buddhist monks 10 guidelines and also they have it for the lay people as well but for the purpose of this video for me i'm going to share our 10 daily reminders for buddhist monks and just take it as a shell and apply what would be helpful for you take out a sheet of paper write it down rewatch this video again and use it as a structure and a guideline otherwise we're kind of guessing of what am i striving for what am i trying to fix how do i know what what what is good or what is not good i'm not sure so again this will give you the framework so now let's break down what are the 10 daily reminders that we use here in the monastery to train ourselves and reflect on our day one we because must continually ask ourselves if we are thinking speaking and behaving in ways that generate peace and respect for the triple gem the way ibiku should be these three things in buddhism is so important the way we think the way we speak and also our action why this is important is because these actions creates karma it has a consequence it has an effect so for us is we want to make sure and we take it seriously because if these kind of things have an effect then we need to know what we're doing and we start out with just the thinking so today the last 12 hours the last 20 hours that you've been awake reflect on what has been going through your mind what kind of thoughts are there are you thinking negative thoughts are you thinking of ill will are you thinking of harm or are you again what is crossing through your mind so pay attention to that the second part is how are you speaking the way that you've interacted throughout the day how did you speak to someone what was your tone what were the words that came out of your mouth what was the intention of that what was actually spoken and in what context and was it proper was it not proper and then also then look at your behaviors and this is a very uh big one for us is how did you behave the things that you did were they helpful were they harmful were they supportive were they engaging and again these three things will help you to see how did i live this present day so in another video we talked about the concept of alignment and you can even use this concept similarly where a lot of people have values of wanting to live a peaceful life they're wanting to be a good person that helps out the world they want to have wisdom and um to be able to make a difference in the world but then what you do what you think and how you speak does it align with those things and what i find is that when you do not live in alignment uh you can want it but again when your thoughts speech and action does not match then again it's a bit difficult to have these kind of outcomes so for today use this as a practice and explore these three parts how was your thinking how was your speaking and how was your actions today two wee bikus must continually remind ourselves that we rely on householders for food and other essentials therefore we must not be choosy and use these essentials with care and consideration for those who are not familiar with the buddhist context for us as the monastics we are supported by the lay community it's a symbiotic relationship where the lay community take care of us via material needs i'm in the physical world and for us we focus on the spiritual world we focus on training of the mind and the way we support the lay community is through the spiritual education so because the lay people provide for us regarding the eating the materials that we use we need to not be choosy when we have our breakfast when we have our lunch for me i cannot request and pick you know i want this specific food and i want it hot and i want this type of amount from this store or this restaurant and you need to make it like this but that is not so appropriate but for us in our training is we have to eat for its intended purpose and that is to sustain the body so for us is to make sure that the food that we have we consider it someone worked hard to create the food someone use their resources to offer to us someone donated the supplies for us so for us is we need to be mindful of our eating and also when someone donates supplies and to make sure we use it appropriately it's not proper where for us is we're just wasteful okay so now people are offering to us let's eat what we want to eat get a lot of items or get a lot of amount of food and then not even finish it and throw it away that's not how that works but for us is through the care through the dedication of the lay support we need to be mindful we need to eat what we need to eat to sustain our body not for pleasure not for fun but for its intended purpose so then we can what the what part is so that we can focus on our spiritual development on our mind development so then again when we cultivate that wisdom we can then share with the lay community how does this apply to you and the way it applies to you is you don't have anyone offering this to you but the same thing can apply where you work hard for your materials you work hard for your living but learn how to use the food by eating and your your supplies for its intended purpose don't be wasteful don't be careless and don't be mindless but to take the time to have a sense of gratitude so for today the exercise for you can be to have a sense of gratitude for the food that you have available and also be considerate of the resources that you have and use it wisely and also make sure to care for it as well three wee bikus must continually ask ourselves what else we can do to improve our conduct what bad habits we need to give up and what other good habits that we need to develop this is a critical reflection for anyone trying to improve themselves but every day just look at the bad habits that you have and then try ways to improve it again just reflect on the habits that needs changing this comes with some self-reflection and what would be helpful for you is look at your situation and yourself very neutrally look at your habits very neutrally and you should know of what can i do to improve these behavior my my conduct my habits what areas in myself do i need to further develop and again this is a consistent review of your present day and by doing this in that neutral way that i spoke about you'll continue to learn about yourself you'll increase your mindfulness and awareness and with that consciousness then you can start to make new choices moving forward and keep improving and developing yourself four wee bikus must continually ask ourselves as the buddha's sons how well we observe the 227 precepts as well as where and how we can do better so for those who are not familiar as buddhist monks the main difference from us and the lay people out there is the precepts that we hold for us theravada buddhist monks we hold 227 precepts so these are rules that were established to help insulate us to train us and to keep us on track to cultivating and developing the mind for us this is important because we want to be pure we want to be clean and we want to be able to rise and hold up our standard and also our training each day again with the behavior that we talked about earlier with the different kind of training the rules for us is also one way that we need to keep exploring how well did you do did you break some of those rules were you compromising some of those rules do you understand some of those rules and for us is keep working at it so for those who are out there as lay people of course you don't keep 227 precepts however many of you keep the five precept minimum try to keep the five precepts and again this is no killing no stealing no false speech no sexual misconduct and then no intoxicants so for these five things how did you do and keep tweaking it keep trying to improve it for some who want to take their practice a little bit more serious and train the mind especially when people go on retreats they take on the eight precepts and again keep reviewing these things and keep holding yourself accountable and if you mess up it's okay for today just acknowledge it be aware of it and tomorrow we keep tightening it we keep adjusting and then we keep improving and you do not have to be buddhist to do this but again we find that when people hold precepts then already it insulates you and it protects you from outside noise and also outside distraction it limits let's put it as simple as possible it limits the worry so when you are not drinking or using drugs then it will not lead to things that will bring more chaos into your life when you do not steal from someone when you speak truthfully when you are not killing anything and again when you do these things and you uphold these precepts what we find is that there is not this outside interference as a result of it that comes in so when you hold these precepts you're just more worry free five we goos must continually ask ourselves what would the buddha say about our conduct and observance of precepts many people who are on the spiritual path they will try to find a teacher they will try to find a mentor that guides them and sometimes it's not accessible if you have that that's wonderful by many people they do not have it so in that case for us is use the buddha as an example and the buddha for us is not a god the buddha was a regular man who attained enlightenment and we use the buddha as a model for the perfections that he holds and what he stands for and that's what we use to strive for so then with this we can imagine if the buddha was here looking over us what would he think of our behavior what would he think of how we hold our standards with the precepts and for us when you can get clear on this and then you have an ideal that you can strive for you can compare so this is one way that you can use to reflect on your day as a marker for what is appropriate and also what are you striving for but if you were to use reflection that conscious part of you would know that okay you need to improve in this area of your life and we need to do a little bit better or we need to adjust but again use the buddha you can use anyone from your tradition as a ideal or a marker but for us is then when we use the buddha look at how you uphold the precepts and also how was your conducts from today we bikus must continually remind ourselves that we are bound to be parted from all that is dear and favorable either while we are alive or when we leave this world this is a key training because being involved in so many different activities acquiring things being part of projects we can get attached everything we do we can again cling to it hold on to it want to keep it such as relationships such as projects anything out there but this is a reminder for us is that we're gonna die and is this morbid no it has nothing to do with morbid or not morbid this is just the reality of the world and while we work hard that's wonderful there is no one who is telling you not to work hard but it's just with everything that you do in your daily life come back here the big house that you have the car that you have the job that you have all the nice clothes that you have the big closet wonderful great for now but just know that when the time comes you will all be parted from these things the money the foundation the organization that you have cannot take it so use this to ground yourself use it to come back to reality and understand okay how much more do i need okay when you are doing these kind of things if i can't take it then what might happen and if you take the time to reflect and remind yourself what might happen is you might change your relationship to these things so the money all the money and all the possessions and all the things that you have when you know you can't take it and you really understand this at its core then again it will start to change and structure how you function in your daily life come back to this teaching and ground yourself and remind yourself of these basic truths that we all are going to die and we will part from all of our possessions seven we because must continually remind ourselves that we all live under the law of karma therefore we must choose to do only virtuous things in thoughts speech and action regardless of what tradition what religion you are from there is a law of karma that with every action there is a reaction so for us when we know this it's important to remind ourselves with this universal truth and why this is so important is because then it makes us more mindful it makes us conscious that just because it's not seen the things that you do uh maybe you behave in a way that is not so appropriate and no one saw you but just know that it still has a consequence okay so you lied and no one caught you sure so you thought but just know that there is a consequence so take the time today to remind yourself of this very big universal truth and to actually know it to understand it and then apply it to your daily life so the nice part about knowing this truth is because then you can do the opposite action if you know that doing things that are immoral or bad things may have negative consequences then the opposite is true when you do good things it also has positive fruits as well so then when you give and you're kind and you're polite and you help other people those things bear fruit also and keep this concept at the forefront where when you are in the present moment you make new choices then use this to guide your actions moving forward eight wee bikus must continually remind ourselves that time is passing what good have we done today to purify our mind and to move closer towards enlightenment and ibana one of the things people assume is that we have a lot of time so maybe there are many years left we don't know are you going to live till 100 sure if you're lucky maybe you live to 21 maybe you live till seven we do not know and again this is just the unknown part of life so many people when it comes to improving oneself when it comes to doing good deeds when it comes to practicing meditation improving one's health one's habit one's training of the mind we always think you know what we we have time i have tomorrow i have plenty of um time next year but that's simply not the case and you don't know when the end date is but continue to train yourself and train yourself fast don't wait for anything if you have the ability to improve your conduct to do good to do meritorious acts do it now because time is limited and when we are just looking at our lives again it feels long and at times like quarantine it feels very long but when you actually step back this lifetime is very short so knowing that do the best you can don't be careless don't take it for granted and with the resources if you have a healthy body if you have everything that you have take full advantage of it now and do not wait nine wee bikus must continually remind ourselves to live in peace and quiet physically and mentally and to set aside time for meditation of all the 10 daily reminders that you hear they're all important but for me is this one just resonates the most and i feel like take this at least but our daily life can be so complicated there's always so much going on there's different projects there's new things it can be a lot there can be a lot of noise going on and that's okay but develop this skill or this training where every day you should have a time to have peace and quiet be by yourself and i get it you may have a family you may have small children you may whatever your situation is but cultivate it and carve out that time even if it's for a little bit and start to fall in love start to appreciate this time because we need to clear our minds we need to purify the dirt from the day with every interaction that we're engaged in throughout the day it clouds our mind it adds uh dirt to our minds it adds worry fear anger different emotions and again we need to clean the mind the same way for the physical body we take a shower good day we shower not so good day we shower when we're stressed we shower because that's a habit so for training oneself especially the inner world the spiritual world is be alone carve that time to get still allow the emotions from the day the interaction to just settle down and settle down and settle down because when we are not quiet when we're not still the mind which is the lens for how we look at the world our perception for the world it's tainted it's not clean and it's not pure so why is this a problem well this is a problem because we don't read things accurately we don't see ourselves clearly we don't see other people clearly and we don't see the situation clearly and when we don't see things clearly we tend to get in trouble because we make assumptions and we still hold grudges we still bring these interactions or this not so clean perception to the outside world and again it causes more chaos and conflict so every single day with everything that we have going on for us as monks we make sure throughout the day find time fall in love with this peace with this quiet and be by yourself and there are some people out there who just always need to be with someone they always need to be with something they need the radio on they need to turn the tv on there needs to be a podcast and music okay when does your mind get to rest so turn it all off for just a moment each day the same way you clean your body with a shower make sure you make the effort and train yourself to do it every day and again fall in love with peace and quiet 10. we because must continually ask ourselves how well we meditate as well as where and how we can improve our meditation in order to become true monks from inside out this is a key aspect for our 10 daily reminders because in the monastery our main focus is to train the mind the minds means we want to see reality as it is like i said to see myself to see other people and to see the situation for what it is the reality of things to not add a story to not make assumptions but when we can see things clearly then we'll know how to proceed and the second question is then what do we use to see things clearly and that thing is the mind how do we train this mind well the tool we use is with meditation and when it comes to meditation we need to reflect how was your inner experience how was your sitting today where can you improve but every day we should be keeping track of it analyzing it and again improving it each day one of the things that is helpful to us or to you you can even use a journal and this journal is one tool where you can keep track of your meditation experience to know what worked what didn't what were the tools and the techniques that you use when obstacles arise how were you before meditation during meditation after meditation what was your mindset like so these are the things that we try to explore each time and in this paragraph the last section or the last sentence is so critical because it's saying to become true monks from inside out and when you're looking at me from the outside i'm a buddhist monk i wear the robes i hold the 227 precepts i live in the monastery i subscribe to the rules and the roles and that that's great but what we're trying to train ourselves is to be real monks from the inside and real monks from the inside is that your mind should be bright your mind should be peaceful you should have peace you should be peace and it needs to come from the inside out not because i'm able to string creative sentences together you know give you a nice presentation yeah that is one part of being a monk but true monks are just genuinely at peace true true monks are kind they have compassion and it's the real thing and that is what we're trying to develop so for your situation is the same thing we can talk about being a good person we can talk about a person having peace but how is your mind and is it actually peaceful and bright and positive so this is one way for us to go even deeper understand the essence integrate it into yourself and become that loving kind person genuinely so why am i sharing this and why is it so important and the reason for me is because if we do not take the time to reflect to actually know and see what we're doing and how we're living we're not conscious of these patterns what happens is you're just gonna repeat them that's it over and over and over again and then you wonder why well my life is not improving it's not getting better well the issue is because you're not conscious of it when things happen then you react the same way and again the cycle keeps continuing but by slowing down again what did our masters teach us and what we're taught is that stillness is the key to success and it looks so counter intuitive where if i want to fix myself i need to do more and i need to go and i need to keep pushing but no it's paradoxical where slow down get still come to a stop see it for what it is be mindful be aware of it and then when you are starting this next moment or starting tomorrow now make new decisions that are virtuous that are helpful for you that will help to brighten your mind and when you brighten your mind you'll experience inner peace so i know this was a lot but i thought it was important to give you a structure and hopefully this is helpful try it out and just reflect on it every single night so again all the way from thailand i just want to say thank you and please stay safe good night [Music] you

Channel: Nick Keomahavong

Views: 189,494

Rating: 4.9575405 out of 5

Keywords: a day in the life of a monk, monk, monks, buddhist monk, life of a monk, monk life, the life of a monk, the life of a buddhist monk, 10 daily reminders, a monk's 10 daily reminder, buddhist monk practice, 10 daily reminders for a better life, a monk's approach, Daily reflection for a better life, buddhist monk daily reminder, buddhist monk reflection, buddhist monk daily reflection, the monk life, daily reflection with monk, how to reflect with monk, buddhist monk reflect

Id: RoZA9mWoukA

Length: 34min 30sec (2070 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 22 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/HouseOfBeing]

Thank you for sharing!

Ven. Nick has been very helpful on my journey and his insgihts are truly precious!

May you all be happy and free!

[u/Ling_Ling_2_Set]

I am subscribed to his YouTube channel. He is full of wisdom and his videos are very helpful.

[u/mrurg]

Ven. Nick introduced me to Buddhism. His advice has a lot of overlap with what my therapist and I have been working on as part of my treatment for anxiety. I've now been looking into meditation and Buddhist practices as a way to help get my mind on a healthier path.