Gelong Thubten explains how to develop a daily mindfulness practice

good evening I got my my favorite play so it's great to see you again I'm sure you've had a great day and this is now a workshop on meditation which of course can be also called mindfulness so I'm going to give a little class and I just want to remind you of one or two key points that I mentioned this morning in my talk and some of you might not have been here for that so just to remind you that one of the big misconceptions about meditation is about the thoughts that come up when we meditate and what what what does that mean you you know people try to meditate as if they're trying to switch their mind off and go into a blank state clear your mind blank out your mind still your mind I mean all of that doesn't work because the more you try to steal your mind the busier it becomes it's like if I say to you don't think about a monkey you'll think about a monkey and in fact the more you try and push your thoughts down that the more they bubble up and you've got a kind of question why would we think that that is the exercise what would be the point of just zoning out into a kind of trance that wouldn't really have much benefit so it's a different game altogether it's not about suppression it's not about silencing the mind it's about learning to not get so involved in the thoughts and just let them go traditionally they use imagery such as clouds in the sky the thoughts can just go by like clouds in the sky a modern image would be traffic you're standing at the side of a road lots of cars going by do you get in those cars or not that's the question maybe those cars are taxis taxi only stops if you put your hand out and then you get in the taxi and go for a drive so in my example these taxis represent our thoughts and our emotions and all the stuff that happens in our mind and we tend to like down the taxi and get in it even though we don't want to we go for a drive around town we end up the other side of town not knowing how we got there and there's a huge bill to pay that's usually what happens with our thoughts and emotions so it's it's almost as if we're compelled into these thoughts and emotions and we don't know how to distance ourselves and even though we are intelligent educated free thinking people we're not really free deep down inside because our moods our mind States we don't choose them we don't choose to be irritated we don't choose to get annoyed we certainly don't choose to be depressed or anxious so there's not much freedom there the mind is doing stuff we don't want it to do so it's almost as if we are automatically unwillingly jumping in all those taxis in our head so the meditation is about letting those taxis go by I'm not don't take this example too literally I don't mean you have to sit there thinking about taxis I'm speaking just in terms of a metaphor you know so it's about letting it go by so letting the thoughts go by not getting so wound up in them and remaining present now obviously in our daily life we need thoughts and we need emotions we need to think about the past we need to plan the future but can we do that with more choice more clarity more freedom so in the session itself we're learning just to let all those thoughts go and not get so wrapped up in them what that means is that our power of awareness and choice is growing and building through our practice and so as that grows and builds and we become better at it we'll find that we are less tormented by our own mind now sometimes we are tormented but also another thing is we'll find that we get less distracted and we can be more relaxed more calm more happy we can choose more how to feel this is how we can grow through meditation training but I really wanted to kind of break it apart for you too so you can see that what the technique actually does now how do you do that because it's very difficult just to sit there and not jump into those thoughts so we give ourselves something else to focus on we give our mind a focus and that's something like the breathing a very common meditation technique is to focus on your own breathing now you might think that sounds incredibly simple we will try that in a minute and you'll see how difficult it is what why is it difficult it's difficult because we can focus on our breathing for about three breaths and then suddenly we're off you know the mind starts writing lists shopping lists it does major internet shopping in our head it writes emails it plans dinner it plans revenge it does all kinds of stuff and the breath is going on all the time it's not that we stopped breathing but we've lost the connection so that's the work that it's like going to the gym and lifting weights you get back on the weightlifting machine you lift the weights so the work is you find yourself writing an email in your head or whatever and you just come back so you're watching the breathing and watching is the wrong word because that sounds visual your your more sort of you know you're aware of the breathing you're feeling the breathing breathing normally you're not breathing deeply you're just breathing normally and you are aware of it you are focused on it and then your mind starts doing its stuff it bit goes drifts away and then you catch yourself you think oh I've drifted you don't tell yourself off this is where the compassion and kindness comes in you don't feel like a failure you don't you don't feel like you've sort of done it wrong you just gently come back you just return you you literally just bounce your attention back to your breath and then you're there again with the breath few more breaths and then we're off and then you come back it's a it's an exercise of constant ongoing rebalancing refocusing coming back returning and it's incredibly boring don't look for don't expect to start having the halo or seeing lights or floating on clouds it's it's it's exercise but it's incredibly enriching because the more you do this the more you can start to feel less bothered by your own mind you you can find that you can let go of suffering more easily or you can put yourself in a positive mental state more easily because you're developing that that kind of inner power almost power of choice instead of the mind automatically unwillingly getting dragged into all those taxis you're learning which taxi to get into because every time in the meditation session every time your your mind wanders and then you bring it back to the breath every time you do that you are strengthening your mindfulness you're learning that skill it's like lifting weights and your muscles get bigger so it's a training it's like going to the gym I keep using exercise as a analogy because it really is like that and just like with exercise you've got to do it regularly I mean there's no point deciding to get fit and then just sitting around reading the keep fit books you've got to do the exercise and also there's no point going to the gym some people do this they go to the gym and they keep running to the mirror to see if they've got muscles or they've lost weight or somebody who's on a diet and they keep jumping on the scales every 10 minutes and then you know feeling like a failure that they haven't lost weight it doesn't work like that you do the diet or you do the exercise and then slowly over time you notice your body has changed it's the same with the mind this is fitness training for the mind that's what it is so that requires regularity in terms of doing it every day as much as possible and it requires patience just like going to the gym if you can really hold those two key points in mind regularity and patience then then you'll find it quite easy it becomes frustrating if you're constantly looking at your watch thinking when is this going to work so I would recommend starting with a 10-minute exercise every day 10 minutes is nothing people always say oh I don't have time for meditation everyone has 10 minutes even somebody with a really busy life I've got a really busy life and I meditate every day it it doesn't there's no question about it for me it's as important as eating or drinking so so it's quite easy to do 10 minutes a day I do more than 10 minutes but if you're starting out 10 minutes that is no sacrifice and when you start doing it every day you start noticing the benefits and then you might do 15 minutes you might do 20 minutes you might only do 15 minutes for the rest of your life and you will get a lot out of it so what do you do during those 10 minutes you would sit in a quiet place it's going to be relatively quiet you'll never find a place that totally quiet I did a four year retreat on the Isle of Arran and there were no phones no internet no interaction with the outside world but there were sheep bleating in the field outside my window and birds and I I thought I can't get quiet so wherever you go there's always a bit of noise but you can find a relatively quiet place and you would sit you can sit in a chair I mean the real traditional meditation thing is to sit cross-legged on the floor not many people do that really a lot of people tend to learn sitting on a chair and you just need to be in a quiet place quiet ish place morning is probably the best time were you here earlier when I talked about cortisol how we have these spikes of cortisol well when we wake up in the morning we have a massive cortisol spike when the body wakes up it produces a big spike of spike in cortisol to deal with the change of state so you want to bring that down so if you meditate first in the first thing in the morning you're bringing your cortisol down so it's a good time for training it means you don't start your day stressfully most people start their with stress think about it if you wake up with an alarm clock you've been shocked awake then we just jump into our day so why not take those 10 minutes just to bring it all down just relax just be calm be present and let your day start from that launchpad some people find it very hard to meditate in the morning that doesn't mean you're a failure just do it in the evening it really is you know very flexible but if you want to know what's the best time I think morning is best what do you do in the session you sit in a chair you don't want to sit in a big you know armchair where you sink into the chair you're fall asleep you want to sit in a chair where you're having to be quite upright so you actually don't want to be leaning back you want to be sitting upright now you if you do that you often get lower back pain because you're having to kind of hold your body upright so the way to remedy that is to get a small cushion and place that behind your lower back so that it's wedged between the base of your spine and the back of the chair and that gives you that little as a lower back support and then the rest of your back can be nice and upright your feet are flat on the floor you know planted parallel on the floor your hands are palms down on your knees or the tops of your legs so you're very you know balanced in your body you're very symmetrical to the best of your ability if you have some kind of physical issue that means you can't exactly sit like that that doesn't mean you're disqualified it's within your own capacity to be as disciplined as possible in your posture so you're sitting in a good posture and then the session we're going to do it in a minute but I just want to run you through the sequence first of all the session involves three or four steps step one is to actually think about why you're doing it it's no good just to launch into meditation it becomes very random you've got to have a few moments of positive thinking maybe positive thinking is not the right word it's a bit of a kind of weak term what I mean is you want to motor avail yourself with a very positive intention you want to kind of lay the ground of pure motivation to really put that in place as you start your session the way to do that is to spend a few seconds just making a decision I am going to meditate for my own benefit but also as a gift to the world it's not just for me it's for everyone because as my stress reduces as my clarity increases my compassion will increase my relationships will improve I can produce some kind of peace in this world so having that intention of compassion towards yourself and compassion towards others is a really good way to start the session you've created the right motive for your practice so that means spending a few seconds just creating that decision I'm doing this for me I'm doing this for others it's literally just an idea you create in your head that's the first step just takes a few seconds the second step before you go to the breathing is to be aware of your body what that means is just focus on your body and feel how you are sitting and where you're sitting the easiest way to do this is to feel the connection between your body and your chair you know you can feel where your body is in contact with the seat with the back of the chair where your feet are in contact with the floor those points of contact very easy to focus on this body awareness just puts you into that present moment gets you ready for the breathing that's the second step so first is motivation second is body awareness we do this together in a minute but I want to just talk you through it first the third step is the breathing well it's not like you start breathing we are breathing 24/7 but you start being aware of your breathing which means you don't change your breathing you don't have to start panting like a dog or anything like that you just breathe normally just lightly just however you normally breathe but you start focusing on it you you locate it you feel it where do you feel it maybe you feel it in your your chest maybe you feel it in your belly maybe you feel like a rising or falling where do you feel it just kind of hunt it down find it and then focus on it and then you can get more specific you can start feeling where it comes in and out of your nose if you can breathe through your nose it's ideal if you've got sinus problems of course breathe through your mouth but if you have a choice breathe through your nose and start focusing on the sensation of air flowing up and down the inside of your nostrils don't breathe heavily in order to feel something because that's too easy it's like not lifting weights properly or giving yourself too much help you want to breathe likely so that you have to put more focus to feel it do you know what I mean a lot of people want to do something that's deep breathing because it's really easy to feel at them but that's not training you want to just breathe normally so that you have to put just that more attention to find it to feel it so you're feeling the air coming in and out to the end of your nose you're literally feeling that sensation of air brushing against skin at the end of your nostrils if your nose is blocked of course breathe through your mouth and then you feel instead you focus on the air traveling across your lower lip so either way you've got one point of focus that's where you try and hold your attention and that's where you find it really difficult because within seconds the mind starts wandering but then you learn how to keep bouncing your attention back to that place that's your focus the mind drifts you bring it back mind drifts maybe for five minutes before you even realize is drifted it's okay you bring it back you get better at it as time goes on when you're ready to end your session you go to the concluding stage now how do you know when you're going to end your session well the best thing is to time it it's no good just sitting down and meditating to see how it goes because on some days you'll do one minute on some days you'll do one hour it becomes really random and very messy you want to actually give that kind of sense of discipline to yourself by saying I will do ten minutes no matter what the house is burning down course I'll get up and run but otherwise oh I will do ten minutes I will turn my phone off I will not five minutes into the session thing I wonder what's on TV I'll do the ten minutes so that kind of discipline is really helpful which means you time it so you have a clock next to you not in front of you because you'll look at it all the time just to one side some people set an alarm but make sure it's a gentle alarm not some shocking kind of drill you can program your phone to give a nice kind of chime sound like a like a bell or something but anyway the main thing is you time your session and when your 10 minutes are up you go to the concluding practice which is to take the focus more generally into your body again like you did at the beginning feel the ground under your feet be aware of your shoulders be aware of your body all of that and the last step is to again remind yourself of your motivation or intention which is the compassion to remind yourself I've done this while I'm doing this for my own benefit but also for the benefit of others through that kind of compassionate intention you have a much deeper journey you're on otherwise meditation is just about feeling a bit more relaxed there's other ways to do that you know meditations deeper than just relaxation it's about actually finding out who you are and living your full potential for yourself and others so you want to have that moment at the end of thinking why you Doug why you're doing this so to recap you've got step 1 motivation step 2 body awareness step 3 is the main practice breathing start generally and then go into the nose or the mouth wherever you feel the breath then step 4 is the same as step 2 which is body awareness and the last step is to again remind yourself of your motivation so motivation body awareness breathing body awareness motivation five steps does that make sense any questions about before we start we're gonna do five minutes together in a minute is it makes sense okay let's try it so what I like to ask you to do is kind of come away from the back of your chair because if you all if you're leaning back you'll get very tired you'll either fall asleep or your mind will go into a kind of brain fog you want to have that kind of clarity and awareness which is all about sitting up straight so sit up in a really nice posture feet flat on the ground parallel shoulders nice and open hands palms down on your knees or the tops of your legs it's better to have your eyes open people struggle with this at first they want to close their eyes but it just makes you sleepy or it makes you drift away having your eyes open makes you be super present being present means being here not going somewhere else so have your eyes open but don't look around the room that will be distracting have your eyes can are half closed and looking downwards so don't make your face fall forward that's one mistake people make the kind of style sit like that your face is upright but your gaze your eyesight is kind of angled downwards looking into space you're not looking at anything you're not picking out spots on the carpet or hairs on the back of the neck of the person in front of you I'm not doing that you're just looking downwards into space and close your eyes whenever you need to but essentially you're just leaving them alone does that work for you does it make sense okay so let's do the session I'm going to guide you through those five steps so get into that nice posture just find your kind of physical sense of balance and what's the word equilibrium good posture step one is to create that good motivation just have that thought or that chain of thoughts I'm going to meditate for my own benefit and the benefit of others it's for me is for everyone else just create that wish or intentional promise okay step two just relax into the body keep the posture nice and upright but relax with your body start with your shoulders be aware of your shoulders let your shoulders drop a couple of millimeters as the tension drop drops away travel your attention down your body notice your tummy your belly notice how usually it's held in or it's tight let it go let it relax bring your tension further down to where your bottom is in contact with the chair and the base of your spine is there just feel the chair behind you and underneath you focus on your legs travel the awareness down the legs into your feet feel the feet touching the floor feel the ground under your feet you're really in the present moment just exploring those sensations okay now we're gonna move to the main technique which is breathing just breathe normally don't start doing anything to the breath but start feeling it feel the breath feel it in your body moving feel your body moving just focus in on the breathing process a lot of people start holding their breath at this point but don't just let it be very natural flowing in and out no interference no manipulation just natural breathing feel it now in your nose focus on those sensations of air traveling across the skin as it travels in and out at the end of your nostrils so you're feeling the air just coming in and out at the end of your nose if your nose is blocked feel the air against your lip as you breathe through the mouth the mind wanders you bring it back it's that simple just keep returning don't get frustrated just return we'll do two minutes not a minute okay now to end the session focus on your body again stop the shoulders will bring the awareness down the arms be aware of your body by in contact with the chair feel the chair underneath you bring it down the legs to the feet feel the floor under the feet when the last step is to take a moment to remind yourself of the reason you're meditating just take that moment to feel the importance of kindness to yourself and kindness to others that's why we're meditating and stop there that was a five-minute session just to start with I would recommend doing that every day for a week and then expanding to ten minutes start small it's much better to start small because then you build it up so that was quite easy because you've got a structure there you've got five steps step one motivation step two the body step three the breath that's what you spend most time on when you're going to end you do step four which is the body step 5 motivation it's kind of a mirror steps one and two and four and five are like a mirror so does that make sense so that's really the technique that there are many others but that's the main meditation practice which you will find in Buddhism but also in the world of mindfulness whereas you know secular non-religious approach it's all the same it's all about breathing it so that's the main technique everywhere you'll go you'll find that one is the one everyone learns and then there are other ones as well using visual objects using sound using visualizations I mean there's a lot there but this is the basic technique which it's good to start with and also carry on with for a long time and just to learn not to get upset with yourself when your mind wanders a lot because sometimes you'll have a session where your mind is just crazy the whole time the mind is just whizzing round it's okay you occasionally manage to focus back on the breath and that will get stronger and stronger as time goes on now that's one thing to meditate every day for 10 minutes is a really brilliant thing because you're learning how to develop that different relationship with your thoughts and emotions but the other thing that's crucial is to then bring that practice into your daily life a lot of people forget this and they kind of do meditation in the morning and then they go to work and they're totally unconnected to it throughout the day but you want to have those moments of connection throughout the day like I mentioned this morning where you're just standing in a queue or sitting in your car or traveling or behind your desk four seconds of just being aware of your shoulders being aware of the ground under your feet being aware of your body relaxing your body being present with your body using the body as the easiest way of doing this these tiny moments are crucial maybe you're washing your hands you're standing of the sink washing your hands maybe you're brushing your teeth normally we do these things distractedly the mind is somewhere else all you need to do is focus on the sensation of the toothbrush moving and brushing against your teeth or your hands moving and the water and the soap and all of that you're not thinking about it you're just being you're there with that being experienced rather than going into a whole mental commentary you will go into a mental commentary but then you step out of that step into the being again the mind gets lost in commentary step back into the being if you can do this many times a day it becomes your friend you're always connecting with that mindful micro moments of mindfulness throughout the day doesn't matter how busy you are you can do this anywhere you can be in an open plan office with loads of noise you just feel the ground under your feet feel the chair on to you these moments of mindfulness throughout the day when you're walking when you're eating when you're traveling this is how it starts to work because you're training every day and you're on your own doing those 10 minutes alone and then you're also bringing it into daily life that's how it starts to really make sense we've got a couple more minutes if any of you have any questions no I do with different practices but that one I just taught you is the one many people most people learn especially to start with yeah anything else it's less effective it's not it's not wrong it's just less effective because if you close your eyes it's going to be much harder to integrate your practice with daily life because you start to associate the meditative state with darkness your eyes are closed it's dark so it's much harder to work out that you can actually be in meditation while you're in the busy situation so it just takes it a bit deeper if you have your eyes open anything else yes well that happens when you're quite new to meditation there are two two things if you're new to meditation or if you're doing it not every day but occasionally you get drowsy the reason for that is because when you sit still and do nothing the body's not used to that the body's used to being busy all the time so you're sitting still doing nothing the body associates that with sleep so it goes into a shutdown mode it's like when you leave a laptop alone it goes into sleep mode so the body doesn't know this new behavior it just knows busy or sleeping that's those are the two states our body knows you're teaching your body a new state which is your still but you're aware takes a while for the body to learn that so most people go through a drowsy period but when they learn meditation and then they start waking up anything else yeah yeah yeah it's so you you're not gauging the impact by how many thoughts you have or whether you're you know it's not about that you're gauging the impact around how it just helps you as an individual deal with your stress differently you start to find you're just more relaxed I work with a lot of teams in their offices and after go after teaching them I go back after three months or two months and they say they say things like you know we just react less we get along with each other less or we're less wound up by stuff the results creep up on you in a way you didn't expect maybe we just find that you're more relaxed you're you're more happy I mean I feel in myself I'm more chilled than I used to be I used to be very anxious person I used to be very tense and come jumpy and now I'm just more chilled out so I can feel it in my body and in my mind it just creeps up on you like that well that's ideal ideal is if you're having a you know you're having a crazy time and things are going wrong and you can could put yourself in a mindful state that's quite hard because we're in such a high-stakes situation the mind just kind of freaks out but if you train every day then it means when you're in those stressful moments you're more prepared for them so you're less likely to get so wound up or you will get wound up but you can come back to your state of balance more quickly so I always say don't keep this up up your sleeve for emergencies practice it every day so that you're ready for the emergencies anything else lose what what do you mean lose it do I have a flip-out absolutely but it doesn't last as long as it used to I don't get a chainsaw out but I said I get upset I get stressed I get annoyed that's that's normal but I find that it doesn't last as long as it used to and I find out I'm generally a happier person than I used to be and kind of easier to get along with anything else no but I do teach a lot of people how to use this in terms of driving we all know the big thing with driving is when were in a traffic jam or when somebody does something on the roads that we don't like or when we're stuck at the red light we go into a cortisol the body starts stressing use those moments to de-stress when you're stuck in traffic or sitting at the red light do some mindfulness don't don't close your eyes because you were you are actually aware of the present moments when the lights change you're ready to move but it means you've actually reprogrammed your stress response because normally we get stressed out in traffic it doesn't make the traffic move it's a pointless reaction but we can reprogram that twenty four years ago when I was 21 anything else what inspired me to become a monk tremendous amounts of stress which so I wouldn't really use the word inspire even I was really stressed and I wanted some kind of deep intensive treatment for my stress and I bizarrely chose a Buddhist monastery that seemed to work for me most of the people I teach don't go to monasteries or even become Buddhist they learn meditation and they use it in their daily life for me it just felt like I wanted to immerse myself in that atmosphere and that's what I did we have a monastery and the borders of borders of Scotland it's called Samuel Ling it's near Lockerbie and the reason I'm up here in the highlands is because we're trying to establish something similar around the lochness area hence the photo so we we are looking for a place we want to start the kind of Peace Center up here not not a Buddhist temple when totally not interested in spreading the word of Buddhism we've got more than enough Buddhists what we are interested in is is creating a place of peace where people can learn mindfulness yogurt Tai Chi kind of holistic therapies that kind of thing and so we are trying to build somewhere or find somewhere and if you can probably see on the top left-hand corner our websites if you look up there you'll can you can find out what we're doing and get involved we're looking for building a team of people to help run a center up here and there are also leaflets in your in your bags you've got bags so there are leaflets in their belief it with a picture of me it's got our website on it yes we have actually found a potential place what we now need is the people because there's we have a very small group up here we need people to help us make this happen so do get involved if you'd like to and even before we have the place we have regular classes every week look on our website and you'll see there's every week just down the road from you we've got mindfulness and meditation classes if you want to come along you would yeah I if you practice meditation you you can positively affect others you kind of chill them out but it's not really you know you can't just hang around that person all the time you have to do it for yourself so but no it's absolutely true that all of you if you practice these methods after a few days or weeks you'll start noticing the benefit and you and your friends and family will notice the benefit I know people who are in relationships where one partner is meditating and the other one doesn't but the other one begs that person please do more meditation as you're nice so when you do it you're easier to be around you can definitely you know affect people positively because you're more present you're more aware you're not wound up you're not less reactive it can definitely have a huge effect on the world around you we always try and live by the principles of the Dalai Lama his most famous quotation is inner peace leads to world peace what does that mean it means if we individuals pacify our mind that's gonna spread in the world another beautiful thing the Dalai Lama said was if every eight-year-old child learns meditation then in eight years there'll be no more Wars in the world because what happens in eight years those eight year old children are the ones who would potentially have been creating the wars but they won't if they're meditating so meditation is definitely not a personal introspective thing it's a socially engaged project to benefit the community any other questions I think that if you're a meditator you see other people doing stuff that's unskillful and you you learn to be more compassionate and maybe understand that they're stressed they're lost in confusion they're lost in the kind of mindless state and that's why they do that stuff so maybe you become a little bit less judgmental and I'd say 90% of our suffering is because we judge others really where we suffer because we don't like what other people say or do but that's a crazy way to live it means we're a victim of everyone else if you can change that through forgiveness compassion tolerance you free yourself I see the T sign time to stop yes yes yeah we don't use the breath they tend to hold their breath so we are we are doing a lot of teaching in schools and that that's spreading it I think it'll end up on the national curriculum I really do so thank you really so much for listening and [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] I'd like to I'd like to thank Susie for creating this incredible event and making it possible for us all to come together and share these ideas so thank you Susie [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Change Your World

Views: 430,981

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Keywords: buddhism, monk, meditation, mindfulness, Change Your World Conference, Suzy Beaumont, Samye Ling, Gelong Thubten, BBC, Online coaching, Change Your World Everyday, Personal Development, A MONK’S GUIDE TO HAPPINESS - Meditation in the 21st Century

Id: PYD-Gx_9K_M

Length: 43min 46sec (2626 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 22 2018