A Monk's Guide to Fearless Living

so if we look around the world it's difficult to find a part where there isn't conflict and there isn't instability in fact we're blessed here in the uee we recently had Abu Dhabi named the safest city in the world and Dubai came in at number four but with all that instability how do we as individuals and human beings kind of survive that and yet indeed thrive in all of that well today at the ER list Festival I am delighted to be joined by a bestselling author who can perhaps guide us through that galon tubon author of handbook for Hard Times a monks guide to Fearless living welcome to the mental space podcast thank you it is a tricky time we're living in right now isn't it I mean it feels like your insights and wisdom as a meditation teacher as an author uh perhaps sorely needed in many parts of the world the interesting thing about this book is that I came up with the idea to write it uh in 2019 and started to write it and then Co happened yeah and I got very badly hit by Co myself and I was sick for a couple of years and I remember thinking that oh I should really get on with my book because the world is in turmoil now and this book about hard times would be so you know apps I was too sick to write I did write bits of it but I was too sick to finish it and then I started I was able to finish it after some lockdown ended and my health improved and there wasn't a sense that hard times are now over with it it's all fine now because we move from one struggle to the next it's now a time of conflict war or so economic trouble and all all of the things just go on so I mean as a Buddhist monk um my my my own practice and the practice I try to teach other people is very much about how to handle suffering and difficult times and that's a universal sin it it's Universal we we always I think we often say right now we're really going through hard times yeah and then we say the next thing next next thing next year and the the Buddhist uh idea is that suffering is like a cycle that goes round and round and round but there is a way out which is to learn how to handle the suffering differently because there's suffering and then there's our thoughts about suffering and our how we relate to suffer that's where the solution lies so I'm going to keep our listeners on tenter hooks for your wisdom around that just for a little longer um we always like to have a little bit of the you know the the Marvel superhero origin story on the podcast oh in your case actually that's quite appropriate isn't it because I think you taught Doctor Strange how to meditate well if I did I did help on that film yes I teaching act at the a how to meditate but give us a little it possed history you like how did tubon become tubon I don't know that's like a big question but yeah I so I've been a monk for 30 years now and which is a long time I mean I was very young when I joined the monastery and I really have to say honestly that I joined a monastery because I was in deep burnout I I suppose there was a sense of a spiritual search spiritual seeking but the most predominant feeling was I was just completely messed up burned out why was why was um so I yeah why were you like that I had gone through a time of well I was an actor I was living in London then New York I was I was very much um kind of on the run from my own mind and CU I was experiencing quite a lot of uh emotional turmoil uh stress uh anxiety even panic attacks periods of depression and my way of dealing with that was just to be as ambitious as possible and also go to as many parties as possible I became really like a party animal and lived a really unhealthy excessive lifestyle and the combination of all of that was just too toxic for me and I had a full meltdown literally one day to the next I was I was in very severe burnout with a um a heart problem atrial fibrillation where your heart is incredibly fast and the doctors said to me um you you are you are you've had a breakdown a burnout breakdown need to look at your stress levels and um that when I thought about meditation and things just come together at the right right time right place at that time a really good friend of mine my oldest friend said to me there's a Buddhist Monastery in the boards of Scotland they just opened its doors for people who want to be a monk for the year because usually although not in all Buddhist countries but usually you you come among for your whole life well nothing I mean it's a bit it's such a jump was a year I felt very doable and I thought when it's like a retreat yeah Go's this Monastery I'll be a monk I'll kind of you know really sort myself out and then go back to normal life but that never happened because that year was so it it it went so deep and I wanted to do more and practice more so I ended up staying and uh spending my time as a month year after year for about three or four years and then then I took lifelong vows okay so I I I came to a point of of feeling this is actually the life I'd like to live complete turnabout from the life I was Liv before and yeah that was all those years what was the because it's I'd like to say we were slightly more enlight in these days like are you back then that was quite a would have been a major made decision like wasn't a common thing for people to talk even about burnout I mean what was your reaction like burn out what's burn out you know and actually when when I started to uh give meditation classes uh in the well late '90s when I start a few years after being a monk I started to give classes and I would go into um busy environments H tools schools offices and I did find people were reluctant to be as expressive about their stress and their mental health as they are now I mean this is now 20 years later is a bigger conversation isn't it yeah so yeah in those days the the words burn out the stress one felt a bit like a failure whereas now actually everybody is going around saying well I am completely burned out all the time the way we live and and so yes it was a different environment and the other thing that was different was in those days meditation wasn't so mainstream but if you want us to learn meditation you have to go to a well not always but generally to a Buddhist Monastery which for me is fine because I already had an interest in Buddhism and I come from a family that's always been into things like meditation and Eastern philosophy yeah I myself I'm half Indian half English okay yeah um but for for many other people it would have been harder to find so yeah I would agree that the culture has changed now and conversation around meal health is more vocal and also accessibility to things like meditation is is better it's fascinating that I'm talking to you today because there was a press conference earlier today where um sner re released this new data in their Vitality they do an annual survey every day uh and interesting even in a place like the uee which is one of the safest places on the planet right now according to surveys ababi safest city in the world according to a recent survey Dubai number four lots of Economic Opportunity here and actually in this Vitality report one of the leaders in the world around Vitality but then when you drill down always on feeling burnout still high and higher than the global average here in fact one of the highest in the world it it feels like we can't get away from it and you say like that's the Paradox of means that we now live in many areas of the world we now live in the most materially comfortable situation you ever have lived in and yet the most mentally uncomfortable it it it's a strange Paradox isn't it with increase in material Comfort we haven't had a equal amount of increase in mental and emo comfort so stress levels are through the roof um levels of anxiety and I think it's because with with the with the consumer culture we inhabit um comes a lot of fear and a lot of feeling of dissatisfaction and needing more wanting more time and also I I think we're living in times culturally where we don't feel very good about ourselves no he even though we might be successful we might be ambitious we might be really achieving things there's this kind of lack of selfworth that's really um endemic now in our society more um that fascinates me I was talking recently with like one of the reasons why I sent the started mental as a business in the first place was um I lost my father to depression and alcohol um uh and having had many conversations it felt like his generation and my generation were the first Generations were actively sold to by TV and advertising saying in that big space that big hole in your soul material things will fill that so all you need to do is work for the nicer car work for the nicer house and you will be complete and then how many people like my father um and even myself get to that point look around and going oh that was all a lie and actually the hole is actually even bigger for all of this stuff and not realizing we no idea where do we go now and and what we're not told is that the the problem there is that the more we want we want yeah wanting needs they all wanting is a Hab a so there's never an end we get what we want and then we realize oh that wasn't what I wanted I want something else and also at the same time as that in order to sell us things we have to be um inundated with imagery and messaging that tells us you are not complete unless you have my product unless you have buy this or buy that so there's this kind of subtle erosion of our confidence all the time telling us you're not enough you're not good enough you're not rich enough you're not thin enough you're not beautiful enough whatever it is and so with the endless wanting comes also endless feeling of um incompleteness and dissatisfaction so this is very prevalent now in in the modern world and yes there are great things also about Modern Life I mean it is good that we we have better health care and better Comfort L that but I think the time has come for people to really take time to look after their mental health as a matter of urgency now and then of course it's possible to have physical Comfort but also internal happiness what's the prognosis what's your view for our children I'm the father of a 22y old boy an 18y old boy or 17 Bo and an 8-year-old girl you know and my generation not not to say that we're we a lost cause but I think we're only just beginning to wake up and go oh God this was all a bit of a lie um it feels like the Millennials and the genzies are maybe a few steps ahead of us in terms of recognizing that it's not just the pay packet that counts but equally I always I worry because they are marketed to do as you say 247 258 as a kids would say um by Evil Geniuses and algorith that are literally telling them all the time you're not good enough you're not good enough you're not good enough where's where's the Reckoning are things getting better or things getting harder um what do you see for the younger Generations well it's a mixed bag isn't it because yes as you say the the the the next generation are even more embedded in that sort of um endless messaging and brainwashing that's going to make for really worse and worse but traditional models of success have changed when um the the younger people are thinking outside the box in a way they never did uh ideas around who they are and what they want is much more fluid and expansive and possibilities are there and also people's um ability willingness and ability to talk about mental health is very different yeah yeah so when I teach meditation in schools I I often you know I talk a lot to young children teenagers and they're very they seem very self-aware I've had groups of teenagers telling me we know we're addicted to our phones we know that social media is making us miserable we also know that we needs to look after ourselves better so there is that openness and they're very vocal about it so that gives me hope yeah and and what obviously in my in my um work and the world I move around and it's very much about meditation and I do see how much more mainstream that's becomes it's much more accessible in in many schools it's kind of on the curriculum now doctors are talking about it as a stress intervention to their patients yeah so while there's a growing problem there's also the solution is more available and that gives me a lot of hope I feel quite positive about that I don't feel pessimistic really I feel like there's anything's possible and we're we're we're in a time when anything really is possible more so than ever used to be so the miserable people from my generation the Boomers the Gen xers would look at the genz and call them snowflakes would call them not resilient um are you seeing that and it's interesting because your book is you know the guide to Fearless living how what's the lessons for our younger people in terms of it I mean I think there's a there's a lot of fear maybe they are vocalizing it more than my generation do I think there's a lot of people my age who are terrified terrified they just can't talk about it and unfortunately the End by the drinking themselves to death or kidding themselves as we see by the statistics around the world whereas at least I feel the younger Generations are a little bit more open about that fear see in my book I I really wanted to write about fear as a subject and what how much our culture is drenched in fear and I I I looked at how much the way we receive information is laced with fear through the news breaking news and how we so things through fear hurry up while stops last you might fomo I think we yeah fear is politics polit politics is now so much around making people frightened yeah uh rather than aspired yeah and so it is pretty horrible how fear invades up invades every aspect of our lives but from a meditation point of you in a way the bigger the problem the more you can see it and there's more to work with and so Fearless living as as I call it in the book can really only come about through exploring the fear and understanding the nature of the Beast so that you can start to transform uh the mind and I think ultimately we're very frightened of our own minds the frightened of our own emotions do we pick up our phone do we go to another party do we get busy because we don't want to face ourselves is is it is that what we're running away from and meditation is a very gentle and accepting way to face yourself with love and compassion and acceptance yeah I've done some work on self-compassion I went into therapy for that recently and it was absolutely fascinating to see even how I talk to myself um in your book which which will be the culmination of you know some of those lessons learned over the years practicing meditation what are the what are the first steps that people can begin to take you know or what are the what are the pillars so I really encourage people to um develop a daily habit of meditating and I try to address why that seems to be such a trouble for many people and I think people make it harder for themselves and they needs to be perhaps they think oh it's not worth it unless I do hours and hours and hours of a day and you know I'm a monk and they might look at me as always all right for him he lives in a monastery he son long Retreats he's bought that all the time in the world but actually I talk from where I'm at now which is I'm busy I write books I give talks I run centers I I'm busy and I find I can definitely meditate every day even with a busy schedule and it is possible for anybody to do short moments short short sessions maybe twice a day a short session but also little moments of medit ation as you go through your day so it kind of that mindful experience starts to leave its way into your system and starts to really start to dissolve your fears um I think one of the main reasons people struggle with meditation is they don't know that um it's okay to think do you know what I mean so much stimulation and yet no time to sit in silence and well we sit down in silence and then maybe there's an assumption that we're supposed to clear our minds yeah silence our THS and then we think we're a failure because we can't meditate so that becomes a whole process a whole I do remember the first time I tried and it just made me more stressed and more anxious no for a long time I'd sit there meditating thinking shut this mind down it wouldn't shut down yeah and I thought well I'm a failure at this and I I'd already become a monkless to back out what do I do I can't shut this thing down so I really had to to um change that attitude yeah um through the guidance of my teachers you know they really explain to me that it's not about clearing the mind it's about focusing the mind it's about learning to come back to your breath again and again or whatever the meditation practice is but we've got to stop fighting our thoughts because that in itself becomes a barrier to doing the meditation why would you want to fight your mind every day it'll be a nightmare so of course you're not going to do it but if you have a more gentle accepting attitude towards the Mind itself meditation becomes easier and more possible so it does feel that we you know not just our children but I and I'm a former journalist I I call myself a recovering journalist you know I look at so a recovering journalist um we are kind of living in a world that's end drenched in fear often you know we're fed a DA and diet of fear as you say through the particularly I mean I look back at the UK and the narrative and everything there is just like oh my how do we begin to wean ourselves off that I mean in in your book what advice do you without you giving away everything um how do we yeah how do we start weaning ourselves off all that Fe in in in the book I I talk about an approach that seems at first counterintuitive which is actually to lean into the fear oh lean into all your emotions in fact all of our painful difficult emotions um we can actually learn to use them as part of meditation rather than trying to push them away or thinking these are Dreadful things I need to get rid of them to embrace them fully uh it's almost like facing the thing you were running away from and it's not as bad as you thought yes yeah yeah so I definitely worked with this a lot with anxiety when I was having long periods of terrible anxiety in a in a long retreat which I write about in the in the book I write about how I went into a 4E long retreat and it was just Agony for a while with anxiety and panic and it only started to change when I stop trying to stop being anxious and so know I'll just be with this anxiety and there's obviously this part of me that is crying out for acceptance and compassion and when you can use meditation to move closer to your pain uh you start to explore how resistance and a desperate for comfort and a fear of discomfort yeah is actually what's creating the problem cuz we're almost taught or we almost there seems to be this common belief and I am guilty of wanting this for my daughter that nothing will ever be wrong you know there is no pain well everything will always be fine except it's not and that's not reality I'm s of trying to push ourselves into a state of I have to be happy everything has to go well yeah that's fear that's fear isn't it I must I I have to get everything right I must must make everything perfect that creates so much tension but what about being okay with what is now at first when when you think about that you might you might think well does that make you passive and so of just so not caring or putting up with misery I I when I I don't mean just sort of becoming uh passively accepting of everything goes wrong I mean actually learning to engage with the emotions that seem to torment us and to be okay with them that you are fearless in the face of a terrifying situation now I'm not saying I can do that or or we can just anyone can just jump to that level but what I do work with is moments throughout the day of kind of relaxing into discomfort relaxing into emotions into fear and I definitely find that this is a a a very helpful approach in meditation because sometimes we might think meditation is an escap how do I make myself feel better yeah what yeah learning just to feel what you feel and be okay with that that's much more powerful that's perhaps not the way that meditation often advocated for well so so my my book as a Buddhist monk my my book was rooted in Buddhist philosophy although I never had actively try and force buddist and D people's throats I know I try to write in a way that anybody can appreciate find something useful it and traditional Buddhist understanding of meditation is definitely about facing up to one's fears and not trying to always get comfortable but learning to be more Brave and I would agree with you that maybe in the modern world commercialization of meditation has maybe uh for some people not all but for some people has turned it into a kind of spa treatment yes feel good exercise it's that Placebo to there's a problem there which is that if you sit down down to meditate wanting to feel good you're back to that same old F was saying I lack I lack I lack I don't so the meditation starts to become quite dissatisfying I know because I've tried it like that and they would you know I I sat there trying to feel nice and just felt worse that's not that's not a healthy approach so for anyone that's struggling out there right now um what would be the three things you would say do you know we do we say the stop start repeat time thing even from your own you know your own experiences what were the things that you needed to stop need to stop I think it's very much about and this is not a oneoff thing but it's only EV ever evolving process about giving up or letting go of our um our fight with our own mind our feeling of I want these difficult feelings to go away because the more you push them away then more thinker they grow yeah so I think we need to find ways to stop pushing everything away and just relax with it now that sounds scary and kind of impossible but if you give yourself a daily dose meditation you're alarming yourself for hard times you're preparing yourself with giving yourself a medicine that will help you in fascinating to see how the conversation has changed as well over I mean you've been in mug now you say for 13 years you know how it it's been I mean sometimes it still describ is a little bit woo woo but from the medical the clinical uh Community you know once completely utterly dismissed and now being prescribed absolutely and the scientific research into medit ation has made it very um people have more confidence now because they they've seen the scan the scan results you can scan somebody's brain after they've done some meditation you'll see a difference maybe not in one day but after they've died for a few weeks or within actually a few days there will be a difference in the scanner so the the evidence is stacking up in a positive way and I think that has elevated people's view of meditation from being um kind of alternative Fringe activity to being a serious medical intervention that we all need oh we know we should exercise we know we should eat nutritious food so we're also seeing the the clinical Damage Done by stress yes and we know that there is something out there called meditation that has been clinically scientifically proved to help reduce stress and give us a better relationship our emotions so I think that science scientific backing has really helped with meditation more on the map may I ask because I me we talked the entire Community but one sort of demographic that I'm sort of super worried about at the minute is is met um in the world right now um and we we do seem to have you know a huge problem um 70% of all suicides last year were met um I think you know lots of guys getting to my stage of life you know the mid 4S the 50s and not being able to cope with all of the pressures the responsibilities but not being able to talk to others but possibly probably the most difficult thing is not being able to talk to themselves what what's your advice thoughts on that situation in terms of you know men being able to start a conversation with themselves and asking themselves and check in with themselves on how they're doing when I sort of keep banging the same drama which is meditation but yeah I I think it's if everybody can bring a practice like meditation into their lives or if they don't feel ready to meditate or they don't want to there are other things that talking therapies anything where you sort of are willing to um engage with your inner world yeah maybe with the help of a therapist that could be helpful to the whole idea is that you're willing to engage that in the world and and um in your research do you find that I mean it's hard to kind of generalize isn't it but do you find that men traditionally have a harder time expressing how they feel yes and uh sort of that sort of uh Macho image but is that also dissolving now culturally isn't the culture moving in a way where this sort of uh traditional ideas of masculinity and femininity all out the b now unfortunately I think at the again if we talk about the Boomers and the Gen x's in particular I mean I know as we've said before like my sons um are having a better conversation about mental health um I think they are more cognizant of it it's e for to talk about safer to talk about it it feels safe because it's it's in the culture as a conversation but now we have guys who are sort of my age in leadership positions they have mortgages they have you know School Fe scary to admit that you're struggling yeah because you've got people depending on you to look like you're not struggl yes and that's hard yeah I appreciate that that that that that asking for help is not a weakness thing I think is yet to to to click in Many Men of my generation particularly so one thing about uh meditation especially in a kind of corporate setting as setting is that people often start using meditation because they understand stand it will improve their mental F yeah improve their focus their productivity so in a way they're kind of walking into the meditation world through a very particular door but then once they're in that world they yeah will start to go deeper I mean look at me I became a monk because I was having a nervous breakdown so I can't say you know I was genuinely full-heartedly spiritually seeking I was just desperate for yeah but then the the my interest in Buddhist philosophy started to bro and my my reasons for being a monk started to change so the same with people's entry into meditation it could be more like a sport or uh a kind of like going to the gym for the brain and that some some men might appreciate that approach frame it in that performance enhance yeah that way but then once they're in the door they'll start to look at their emotions and start to find ways to um work mind at a deeper level so if I'm going to because you've been very generous with your time um if I'm going to let's say draw a reference from a Marvel movie in Doctor Strange if you were to able to forgive the pun you know as you project yourself back to your younger self before you became that m is that whole question of what would you have thought of your younger self or what would you have said to that younger self um I think I needed somebody to tell me that um I I could I there is there is a possibility a window of opportunity always present to choose to feel differently I I I didn't know that you you can work with the mind I thought this is how I am I'm miserable I'm upset I'm unhappy and I think the problem was I was blaming that on the outside world all the time it's because of him or her or this or that if somebody could have just told me you have a mind that has the potential to transform everything you want is within you it would have been so lifechanging it was cuz I went to a monastery and that's what they told me but maybe F if i' heard it earlier but then I'm glad I went through hell because Going Through Hell teaches you a lot that feels like the mic drop of mic drop moments uh to is it been a genuine pleasure uh to meet you and to talk to you today um if uh our listeners are tuning in and they want to know where where do they pick up your you know your book Amazon is it where yeah it's all over the yes and I've got two books I've got this one uh handled for hard times and then a book I wrote four years ago called among guide to happiness and there should go together in fact I'm writing a third one now so it be a trilogy trilogy yeah Sky Trilogy the Strikes Back in these books I I try to be I present the kind of philosophy and ideas but also practical tools so exercises cuz you you've got to give people tools they can use yeah so the books loads of meditation exis but give our give our listeners give our Watchers one tool at least that you you say was that's the go go there micro moments micro moment micro moments because I think everybody knows it's good to sit down and meditate and they want to kind of clear their schedule and do 10 or 15 minutes a day or whatever but maybe what they don't know is that it's also hugely important and helpful to practice tiny tiny moments of mindful awareness even in a busy day as you're walking down a street as you're doing things as you're sitting behind your desk just feeling the ground under your feet being aware of the chair under your body brushing your teeth mindfully washing your hands mindfully you start to see that actually that Med meditation um the benefits of meditation are always available to even in the middle of busiest situations I could talk to you for hours but I'm afraid our micro moments are up um if you've enjoyed this conversation as much as I have please remember you can subscribe to the mental space uh if you're watching on YouTube please cck subscribe and we are on all the podcast channels Apple Spotify Google podcast and many more uh once more galong to thank you so much for joining us on the metal space podcast today thank you thank you anyone enjoy that thank you [Music]

Channel: mentl

Views: 2,115

Keywords: mental health, wellbeing, Buddhist, Meditation, Monk, Author, Book, Fear, Anxiety, Stress

Id: x41NhaWBuGc

Length: 34min 36sec (2076 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 13 2024