Gelong Thubten: The Monk who didn't speak for 9 months 🧘‍♂️

how are you tempton I'm well thank you it's good to see you again great to see you thanks for this book the last book was amazing this book is is as amazing if not better it doesn't have to be better does it handbook for hard times you know it is such a light read you know it's um it's but it's a big weighty subject and it's all about meditation we'll get there in a minute but for people who don't know you um you've been on the show before of course thank you for coming again um what's it like to to to be on your own for nine months in a solo Retreat what is that like it's more stressful than you would think I mean you would think that going into Retreat is a kind of Escape I'll get away from it all no phones no internet and then you're there with your own mind so the first Retreat I did was 9 months then I did one that was even longer it was four years and in both situations I was surprised at how difficult it was because there you are backed in a corner with your own thoughts your own emotions and you have to start to to deal with the the things you've maybe been using distraction to run away from so even as a monk you you can you can use distraction you know you you get involved in all kinds of work and teaching and doing other stuff and you don't really look at yourself and in Retreat that's when you get to take a good look 9 months on your own solo Retreat I mean that is something give us three things you found out about yourself in that that particular meditation that Retreat rather that was my first Retreat I I'd only been a monk for a year I was very new and I found out I think what I found out Mo most in that Retreat is how much self-loathing I had yeah you know I went in there and just this voice of you are no good you're rubbish you can't do this became louder and louder and louder and really oppressive and for me it's always been a process of learning to well first of all you start trying to push that voice away you try and just push your pain away and for me it's always been a process of learning how to meet that with compassion and how to be okay with that but it it's really difficult at first let's okay we'll go let's let's just get straight into that now that you've mentioned it so we all experience discomfort but the distress is in trying to push away the discomfort discomfort is natural but we bring on the distress ourselves by trying to push this thing away and it's that exhausting um redundant ultimately uh reaction that is our downfall yeah in my book I give a quote from K Yung who said what you resist persists so that is the the the problem is that there's pain and discomfort and then on top of that there's our resistance our emotional reactions to the pain and discomfort how would it feel just to experience it directly without that filter of resistance it would be very different yeah and not only does that which you resist persists it actually grows yeah you're holding a magnifying glass over it you think you're doing the opposite but you're not and that's kind of how we're living Our Lives we're chasing pleasure and running away from displeasure and the chase just gets more and the running away gets more until we stop and sit and take a look we're always on this kind of run running towards and running away from it's funny isn't it CU you know as we pursue pleasure and you are what you pursue and this kind of stuff um your the discomfort is in the car park doing push-ups waiting for us to return because it's just going to stay there isn't it it doesn't go anywhere it's a habit if we have a habit of resistance there's always going to be something there to resist until we look The Habit you see we keep looking at the things we're resisting yeah but meditation is where you turn around and look at the resistor until we do that there'll always be something because then you talk about rongan chat by the way rongan if you're listening thanks so much for having tued in on your podcast because that's why he's now on the show and thank you for giving me your annotated book that you used to research in the interview I really love you for that I'll see you at the weekend can't wait to see you um but talk speaking to that what rongan said on his podcast and I got to give this to him is that sometimes the discomfort does disappear for a while but we then have to create more discomfort because we come we become addicted to pushing this thing away we be we we be we practice or we become what we practice almost yeah I think we get addicted to the the resistance and the distraction and I think also I mean we know that we're living in a culture now which piles the distraction on us there's this completely invasive nature to information now we've got our phones we've got everything going on that is sort of invading us with messaging that tells us be happy don't be unhappy you're not good enough all of that so we're just being constantly conditioned like that yeah and then comes an advert 5 seconds later ad tell you might need this and you might need this because you're not good enough without it yeah yeah yeah so so we talked about the nine month solar Retreat and then there was the four-year group Retreat so so I mean they're pretty you think okay four year with four years retreat with some other people N9 years on my own pretty Even Stevens one would imagine in a way you know but you found the 4year retreat harder than the 9 months Retreat well it's longer and and you it is a group retreat but you're alone a lot and during the second year you take a vow of silence for five or six months what you are very much alone in there in your room meditating all day and it really is you and your mind and there is nowhere else to turn but inside and to look at what's going on and to somehow work with that otherwise it it gets you what's okay not saying anything out loud for six months walk us through that by the time you do that you've already been in Retreat for a year and a half so you're kind of ready for the silence you want to go deeper you you you just a St and don't you find that the thought of something is much worse than the thing itself so the thought of doing five or six months silence is just impossible and then when you do it you just do it we're much I think we're stronger than we think you know get I get it of course of course Rachel you've done the nine months did the four years do you see another one coming for you in the future I'd like to I'd like to do more retreat at the moment I'm very much in a phase of uh writing and giving uh like talks and classes that's what I do at the moment who knows in the future um I'd like to do maybe shorter Retreats on my own maybe every winter do a short Retreat I think Retreats a very valuable thing but I also don't want people to to think oh that's what you have to do no don't worry we'll get there but I'm fascinated by this yeah it's it's a way it's it maybe it suits people who are a bit extreme yeah I'm an extreme kind of person and so for me I was extremely wild before I was a you really were wild you left nothing on the pitch did you no I mean I literally you didn't you go to bed for like four months after that I was very ill I had a ma major burn out and that's what turned me into a monk was I had brought myself to my knees with wild living and also horrible amounts of mental suffering that I didn't know how to deal with and I became a monk which is quite an extreme move but I was only going to do it for a year that was the plan then of course I stayed so then with my extreme character going into these deep Retreats kind of suits me um but I was quite surprised at how hard they were he is the ultra athlete of Retreats well I mean it's I suppose you know you say you never think you could do it and then you do it and you're just doing it I I mean the idea of not speaking for 6 months I want to make a vassel shaped hole in that door you know it just but I suppose you don't you don't talk for a minute and then it's another minute and another minute and it's like running a 100 mile race you know you're just think you're just you're running that you're you're in the moment that you're in and also you're doing a lot of meditation you're not just stuck in a room silence silent you're you're meditating so you have this urge that you want to go deeper and you want to be less distracted cuz you really want to start to understand your mind okay so tubon will get us to meditation before this conversation over I promise but before that more just intriguing stuff from an observational point of view the four-year meditation this is so interesting this bit the four-year meditation that tubon went on was at a particular time during which we all became seduced and hypnotized by the smartphone so basically when tubon went into this four-year Retreat we weren't looking at our phones we had mobile phones and we could text and stuff like that but the four years that he was there I he you came out and it was a different world wasn't it just tell us about that cuz cuz you didn't see we were we were all um sort of uh soed we were slow boiled weren't we into it but you just you came you went you left one world and you came back into a different world yeah it was quite a shock it I was on this Scottish Island no no internet nothing in Retreat and then I come back to London and everything has changed as you say during those four years there was a huge speeding up in technology year what years were there 2005 to 2009 so the smartphone Revolution social media all of that YouTube it all happened in one Blackberry Blackberry sales peaked in 2007 so that's where we are yeah that's where we were I came out of that Retreat arrived in London first of all everybody's got these huge phones and their faces are buried in it I thought I'd landed in some kind of zombie apocalypse un everybody's around with their face buried in a phone and just the speed of things really shocked me I was on the tube going up the escalator and those little ads on the side are all digital moving images just that subtle change made me feel a bit I mean you would have felt an acceleration in life anyway coming back from a retreat it was a THX exactly anyway it would have felt shocking to the system but there's this new speed and new um kind of level of urgency around information you have to look at it right now and also I started to look at how how the information we receive is kind of tinged with a a lot of emotional um energy around triggering our anxiety triggering our sense of lack our sense of loneliness all of those triggers are embedded in the material we see this must have been so frustrating dare I say infuriating for you to see oh no look what's just look what's happened and nobody can see it and it's not our fault for not seeing it it's not that we're blindfolded or we you know um we have uh earplugs in it's just you don't know when it's happening to you yeah yeah we don't see it build up so maybe I had a different perspective cuz of being away and then coming back and and seeing the the change and I started to think what is this doing to people's mental health because our brains haven't had time to catch up with that new speed well then we're not wired for it no this is the first time in in humanity where techn technolog is over overwhelmed and will continue to overwhelm our own wiring because we were better than everything else now we are still better but not at one particular um uh discipline and they seem to have got us surrounded where that discipline is concerned yeah and and I think the the monetization of it has created information that you can't really trust because you know it's leading you in through a you know clickbait headline it's so hard because it's there at 24/7 addtive we're amateurs the the language used is addictive it gets you into it and then there's ads and and you're sort of seduced by that um I mean I'm not here to bash technology there's nothing wrong with it per se but it's it's a bit like we don't with food we we we wouldn't just overeat all the time cars are great as long as you don't drive into people on purpose and with technology what we maybe we need a bit more um discipline in how we use it to protect ourselves no 100% it's like smok it's smoking isn't it smoking 50 60 70 years ago right that's enough of that um let's talk about uh this handbook for Hard Times okay so it is a handbook it is a Playbook on how to meditate it's so simple at the end of every chapter is a meditation practice honestly if you've never ever done it before this is this could be your your key your key to the magic or your keys to the Magic Kingdom you now want us all to meditate for 10 to 15 minutes a day because you know the magic within I meditate twice a day you meditate a lot more than I do we know the benefits of it can you give the the sexiest cell ever to try and get people over the line please topturn I think people many people are interested in meditation but they're scared to try because they've tried it and they found it really difficult and why did they find it difficult because they thought they were supposed to sit there and clear their mind so they sit there and you you try and stop thinking and of course it's completely crazy because the more you the more you try to push away those thoughts the louder they shout so then the meditation becomes like a Battleground and nobody wants to do it it's actually much easier than you think it it's about being focused and being present but but the thoughts and emotions that come up are really useful yeah because they make you stronger yeah they are the weights on the bar in the gym they are because distraction is your friend it absolutely is because the whole point is to keep coming back into the meditation from distraction every time you come back to your breath or whatever technique you're using you get strong so that means you have to have somewhere to come back from yeah the thought that took you away is the very thing that brings you back therefore it makes you stronger are not weaker and the louder the thoughts come whilst you're attempting to meditate the better you're getting cuz the more desperate they are cuz they have to turn up their volume and they get louder just before they become quieter I think that they are friends not enemies I think they they are the thoughts that come up are helping us to deepen our mindfulness our awareness um also that that's just the first stage you know coming back to the breath but eventually the meditator learns to be the Observer of the thoughts and once you can learn to just observe you you can go deeper and then the thoughts and emotions particularly suffering can become the meditation I mean that's what my book is about is how to lean into pain and lean into discomfort so you're not trying to get rid of anything you're working with it and you work with it and if you don't resist it as you say you combine forces with it you realize it's all the best energy that you could ever wish for having a different kind of day and once you understand it and once you hear it and once you shake it by the hand I'll hold it by the hand and you go for a little walk or a wander together it melts away which is what you you always use that phrase it melts away and you know we don't think we are not thinking we have thoughts you know when people say oh you're angry you're not angry you're having anger and if you can look at everything from a point of possession as opposed to being encumbered by or inhabited by it that's when you get the separation and the grace and the space that you need to just take a breath why do we always use our breath well breath is one thing there are and in my book I give lots of options breath is the easiest because it's completely portable it goes with you everywhere but the main point is that when you're focusing on one of your senses such as your breath you're using a different part of your brain to the part that thinks and ruminates and they are competing brain areas only one can be active at the same time so the breath gives you somewhere to come back to which makes you present but that's not the aim the aim is not just to become really good at breathing it's simply technique to get you to be less invested in your own storyline yeah and once you can learn to let go of the stories you can work with the feelings directly and that's when the real work starts now you everybody's thinking you must be really good at meditating and you are really good at meditating but it can come back to bite you at any point you can fall off the off the bus at any point or fall off your perch at any point you two are distracted all the time you say this and you welcome that distraction and not only that you are not an enlightened being no um how close have you been have you have you snuck a glimpse of Enlightenment not at all oh come on tton geez 30 years of meditating what hope is for the rest of us I'm here to disappoint you I'm definitely happier than I was and I I have much stronger ability to deal with the suffering I experience than I used to so for me the big turning point was in that four-year Retreat the first two years I was really suffering with horrendous amounts of anxiety and depression and kind of oscillating between the two and what changed for me which has become the kind of birth of this book is how to move into those feelings without pushing them away and to give that part of myself compassion yeah I used to really really dislike myself I and now there's much more of a sense of self-acceptance which to me is a lifechanger if you within the emotion is energy it's our energy it's us and if you push push that away you're pushing away your energy which is why you become so exhausted yeah yeah I mean the emotions and thoughts are part of us they're not to be pushed away but we need to make friends with them we in a way we need to be in the driving seat rather than being driven yeah so meditation helps us to gain more power over ourselves but it's not about getting rid of anything it's about working with it I always try and think of the example of um rotten vegetables that you turn into compost you don't Chuck them away you make your Fields grow so though the worst parts of oursel the parts that we reject smelliest Parts the bits we're ashamed of the bits we can't stand those are the juicy parts that can help our meditation that's where the nutrition is isn't it that's where the go is exactly um all the tit all the chapters have different titles uh so hard times Fearless living meditation emotions just talked about those The Observer acceptance compassion forgiveness sickness and courage if you had to pick one of your children there to talk about would it be acceptance I think acceptance is the key and I always thought because my teachers always used to say you need to accept and I thought that means oh you have to kind of put up with it like Grim resignation I didn't realize until later that acceptance means embracing this moment with love with compassion making friends with your reality being okay with yourself it's a much more Dynamic process than just sitting back and being passive yeah and so I've worked with this with emotional pain but also physical pain so I wrote most of this book while having coid and long coid and being very ill and these techniques really saved me because I I found ways to to be with the sensations in my body and be okay with that yeah acceptance is not acknowledgement you don't acknowledge an invitation you accept an invitation you don't stu um universities don't acknowledge students they accept students a welcoming it's different isn't it it's a welcoming in yeah come in and and you might think oh if I welcome my pain surely it will get stronger but of course it's the opposite because what you resist persists we have like a minute um left you got to buy the book everyone hard book for hard times and just get into tubon um get into his world why wouldn't you get into his Wonder just give us anything you want give us a minute of anything you want it's up to you well I just think that that we're living in times when we're so conditioned to you have to be happy we're not even sure what that happiness is I mean is it in material things is it relationships what is it and it always feels so Elusive and I think that this has made us more frightened of discomfort so I think we're we're so obsessed with feeling comfortable all the time that the tiniest discomfort completely freaks us out and I I called the the book's called handbook for hard times but the subtitle is amongst guide to Fearless living and I think it's very powerful if you can learn to work with fear and go through it and become Fearless how would it feel to be in these challenging times but to be Fearless to be strong it's not about being passive or switching off it's about being able to face your reality with courage with interest with curiosity and with compassion that's what we need more than ever we're so disconnect we're so connected and so disconnected aren't we if we can learn to love others unconditionally and to train that muscle the muscle of Love unconditional love that would make the world a much better place wouldn't it it's a great position to be in and you can just do it for from a bit of meditation the great thing about meditation is the first Glimpse you have of what it can provide and and fuel you with and arm you with on a daily basis means that you know how it feels and you know that it exists and then the more you meditate purposefully twice a day once a day hopefully twice a day in the morning in the evening you then it's like when somebody takes the stabilizer off your bike one time in the middle of the day when you're not meditating it will come and help you you out because you have flexed that muscle absolutely and that that that is a gasp moment the first time happened to me I went oh my goodness me that's cuz I meditate I just did that cuz I just didn't react because I meditate well it's like going to the gym you you go to the gym it's not that your muscles then deflate when you leave the gym exactly they go with you and the other thing about meditation is it's not only about sitting down doing the breathing or whatever it's those moments I talk about micro moments of mindfulness you know you're driving your car you're stuck in traffic you're standing in a queue you're sitting behind your desk you can take take a moment to be present and that can become a habit it's like you you drop you little drops of mindfulness throughout the day keep you one step ahead of the suffering if you are going to use your phone for anything set the alarm why not once every hour make the phone work for you exactly well it should do shouldn't it it shouldn't be the other way around um we got to we got to finish now very quickly before you go there used to be that advert for personal do you remember the advert for personal used knock on the door the personal Challenge and they used to give you some personal for your old washing powder and come back a week later then they would offer you like loads of boxes of your old washing powder back or one more box of personel everybody took the peel the same has been proven by scientists for four or five days of meditation hasn't it you may not notice yourself but they've done um neuro um scans MRI SC SC EEG and they say within 3 or 4 days even though it's amateur meditation there's a change in the pattern of the 10 minutes a day after 4 days you can see difference in a scanner Goosebumps yeah you're the best thank you happy birthday thank you how did you know what did you get a monk for his birthday I don't know put me on the radio okay okay buy his book all the money goes somewhere very worthwhile hand booked for Hard Times a monk's guide to Fe this living by the brilliant top 10 gong top 10 thank you very much indeed

Channel: Virgin Radio UK

Views: 3,047

Keywords: virgin radio, virgin radio uk, virginradiouk, chris evans, chris evans virgin radio, chris evans breakfast show, graham norton, the graham norton show, graham norton virgin radio, Ricky Wilson Virgin Radio, Ricky Wilson, gelong thubten, monk, meditate, meditation

Id: p6U4yHN8AGs

Length: 22min 47sec (1367 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 17 2023