Life lessons from a Buddhist monk

[Music] welcome to another episode of the good people effect podcast today is a very very special day because today is my very first video episode on the podcast and I'm super super pumped to share something special with you guys today so about about three months ago at the end of last year my good friends J Jess and Sam we went on a trip to the mountains in remote location in Victoria Australia and we met up with a Buddhist monk at a meditation center to talk about life and from this chat I'm not joking at all from this chat we felt all of us felt so much karma and more peaceful but not only that we felt so much more connected to not only ourselves but the universe as a whole from this one discussion from this hour and a half chat with this Buddhist monk and I'm really really excited to share this with you guys and hopefully hopefully this translates and you guys get this calming peaceful serene awesome feeling of connectedness within yourselves as well so this is what the good people effects all about so the show is pretty much about creativity purpose and adventure and igniting that within people to help you grow as people so that you could pretty much and go out and take out take on all the challenges of life and in a better way and not everyone has access to the right people right now but that's what the show is about finding those good people to surround you with and giving that to you so yeah I really hope you enjoy the show if you haven't had a chance yet please subscribe to the podcast and subscribe to the channel because there's going to be plenty more good stuff to come but yeah sit back and enjoy another episode of the good people effect podcast I guess I maybe start with saying just thanks for having us here night it's my pleasure yeah and even just driving driving up here I felt karma every every few meters we got like it just felt like it's it's incredible how the fresh air and a nice nice bit of Sun and just being around nature can make you feel so different and just look at the outlook you know it's stunning isn't it it feels like we're miles away from anywhere but actually we're not really not that far at all it's it's quite accessible it's pretty cool that you can get get to a spot like this yeah without having to drive for hours and hours and I think we're pretty lucky to have this so close yeah well okay then so I'll tell you what I do then when I wake up in the morning yeah so as I was saying earlier we don't want me to say who's I was saying anything to you you can say whatever you like that's fine yeah yeah yeah yeah so first my first meditation of the day I usually do in bed as soon as I wake up so I'll just immediately wake up and I'll meditate on the unfindable 'ti of the self and the purpose of of doing that is to set a trajectory for the day because most the problems of life begin with waking up that should say in deep sleep there's no we don't conceive of the self in deep sleep which we call the the clear light of sleep or the clear light of bliss there's no grasping at a self and if and and if we don't grasp it itself there is no self to have any problems and you might notice this that as as you wake up as you ascend the various levels of consciousness which I always talk about in the classes is as you wake up the the first thought you tend to have is me even if you even if you travel a lot and sometimes you don't know where you are when you wake up you know that you're there even if you don't know where you are and it's only in dependence upon the thought me that problems come like you only remember the difficulties of work once you grasp it yourself you only become frustrated with the idea of getting out of bed once you remember the cell do you find once you maybe if you go to sleep in the stressful state I've noticed that sometimes you wake up and you're less stressful then you were that when you into sleep because that sleep has been I guess a break from thinking about about me yeah yeah this the self that was stressed disappears for a while you know and the longer you can be in deep sleep then the longer there is no experience itself and so it's it's very I think the word is cathartic isn't is very very healing to be in deep sleep of course the idea is we don't need one day we don't need to sleep because we don't do so much damage to ourselves through the grasping that we normally do so when you when you say you wake up and you meditate on on that sense of self I guess and and and removing yourself from that how do you how do you do that how is that is that a um is there a is there a certain way do you focus on that or do you do you not focus on it well I just asked myself a series of questions and then I answer my own questions and I try to experience the answer to those questions like for example is as I sit in the meditation posture it's sort of cross-legged and hands in my lap and I and I ask myself I have my first ever I say I Here I am sitting meditating and I say well what what is meditating is it my body and I think well looks like my body because of the shape of the thing sitting there but I always refer to my body as my body it's my possession so I always I okay that's not me that's my possession that's something that's dying something that will be buried in the ground I am bigger than my body faster than my body so maybe maybe I am my mind but then I think when I'm calling it my mind and also it doesn't fit what I relate to as being me because I relate to me being the shape so then I reached his conclusion I'm not my body I'm not my mind that two completely different things completely different you know the mind is a vast formless continuum and the body is this way my case is short small rotting piece of flesh and bone makes your being a bit harsh on yourself but I get your point so but over the but when I realize I'm not my body I'm not my mind I realized up as I'm meditating I really are there is there's no owner of these things there's a body here that isn't mine meditating but there's no owner and I just sit with that concept there's no owner no owner until everything just becomes calm because if there's no owner of the body of mind there's no self then there is no one to be frustrated with the alarm going off there is no one to be worried about what's coming and as I say that that sets a very good trajectory because then I get out of beds already very peaceful and then I can have breakfast because I need the nutrients rather than because I think I'm gonna get happiness from the breakfast that makes a lot of sense yeah most people they they think right what can make me happy now I've got to suffer the alarm going off now I'll have coffee now I'll have musli and as soon as that's finish then mine goes straight back to now got face work now I've got to face with my colleagues yeah and and if you put look if you look at that on it on a life time scale it's a miserable life you know it's interesting our people I guess they chase the sense of happiness and they do they think that they can attain it by either material possessions or I hate good be small as breakfast but it's like they're they think that I will do this and then I will become happy as opposed to looking within I guess and the result of that is that they have a life of aimless wandering because they that they get that new sofa or the new IKEA furniture or the new position and new possessions or the holiday or the new relationship and very quickly there's something wrong with it because they haven't ascertained that there's this unhappy self in the middle of it all that's just surrounded by scenery and the heads yeah so if we haven't really understood how to be happy then we will keep going to the theatre of life to distract principally we won't think this but principally to distract ourselves from the way we feel and try to find some temporary relief but if you look at what that's how that's happened happening in the modern world people are using the devices for distraction you know it used to just be the furniture and going to the going to the beach or going to do things or eating but nowadays it's also devices now as soon as the mind goes to a device the mind becomes turbulent and it goes into a searching process so people might go onto social media and they're looking for all the pictures and comments on social media this and searching for a cold isaq actually they're searching for rest yeah but as we know it's when we search for that in social media it's more of an abyss so the mind becomes more Restless which makes them more unhappy and because underlying that they're grasping at this true self yeah that true self becomes a miserable true self feels like sometimes it can be a snowball effect so once that's I guess that's what comes back to what you were saying about starting your day in a certain way and then kind of having that positive I guess momentum in the right direction because it can be it can definitely go that way or it could go the opposite way and it feels like sometimes it feels like things are going wrong and they lead to another thing going wrong and and then it just kind of gets out of hand but all along I guess the underlying thing is the mindset and where you're where your thoughts are at that are leading leading that that motor charge of momentum yeah I think it's probably good to discuss a little bit what is what is suffering what are problems so that you can weaken and piece these 2 things together and see how people then make their life is worthless yeah we always we always say in Buddhism that real a real problem and real suffering is part of the mind that experiences an unpleasant feeling that's that's the essence of a problem like if whatever problem we have in life maybe someone says my boss is a problem in truth the the real problem is the way you feel it's not the boss and if it was the boss and everybody that encountered that person would feel the same yeah so the real the real problem is the way that we feel so because we we mix what we call inner problems with outer problems we try to solve inner problems by making external changes so you know if we have an unhappy mind we would turn often to something external to solve that unhappy feeling problem so that and as I say the result of that is is that we to a degree we can distract ourselves like if you experience say the the pain of extreme boredom if you sing at home and you have this Restless bored mine most people will then try to solve that problem by going to the fridge or going to some kind of distraction and if you go into the fridge and you pull something out piece of cake blah that's better I can eat this piece of cake to solve this boredom problem but no problems have been solved all we've done is buried the problem and I've distracted ourselves so when the cakes finished and maybe we eat too much cake and then we have a problem of nausea the restlessness actually comes back and it comes back worse than beforehand because we've trained ourselves to remain West restless yeah it seems like that's a continuing theme among humans I mean from from the beginning of time it's just trying to solve problems and creating additional like he's trying one and here's another five so and it better feel like it is kind of it's interesting because that would be I guess your common way of thinking you know there's a problem here I'm bored well I'm gonna go do something and I won't be bored so I mean I guess it's it's it's interesting to to look at it from that point of view that if it is a common way of thinking and we kind of need to think in a different way to be able to actually get to the root of the problem and one of the things that you asked me was is how is how is a two and a half thousand year old tradition relevant to the modern world yes and I would say it's more than relevant it is essential because it looks like from my point of view it looks like the human society is a train wreck about to happen and and people are perhaps more desperate more miserable more neurotic than ever before in history and there's been so many fabulous inventions and advances in medicine and and so many good things have have been created but there has not been a corresponding increase in human peace and happiness in fact people are much more unhappy now than they've ever been you know it's only in this era that we have young children seeing psychotherapists and so on we never even seen that there's so many things that we there's there's so many things that are I guess that aren't I'm going great in the world I'm thinking the best way to put it but there's so many also things that that are great and that have better than kind of ever as well like a lot more people because of technology I guess and know about different techniques to relax I mean because the technology people will be hearing this conversation so I think it does go both ways and I feel like you're completely right it does it does put a spin on things where you know there's so much moment negativity on earth and it's brought about this imbalance that is kind of getting worse and worse that there are some good things as well I guess well I mean I think that it goes back to the again the relevance of a two and a half thousand year old tradition yeah you know as you quite rightly say we we we here at the temple we use Facebook to advertise our vents so you know it's not like we're blind to where people are looking where people are at but they can either continue to search for social media into the abyss of restlessness trying to solve their anxiety problems trying to solve their unpleasant feeling problems or perhaps as you say they might come across something that's gonna encourage them maybe just just to switch it off for a few minutes and find a bit of bit of inner peace so I always think you know if the real problem is a restless mind the real problem is unpleasant feelings and the rest is theater and the solution is to train the mind and Buddhism presents a method for training the mind then I think as I said the modern world is actually the perfect forum for Buddhist teachings and sometimes I even wonder if you know Buddhism has really been waiting for this time and this time has been waiting for Buddhism you know more and more with each passing generation he seems like the the practice of Buddhism is moving away from the forests and the caves and the mountains and moving into the the cities and the the urban areas and and like the workplace and the family it provides the best training ground for training your mind like if we could separate right I've got the difficult boss on the outside and I've got an unpeaceful unpleasant angry mind on the inside within my boss is providing me the opportunity to put these ancient teachings into practice now you could argue that if you were in a monastery in the forest you wouldn't get that opportunity to train you know you'd have a very regimented lifestyle but if you were then placed in the middle of a busy city would you be able to still train so that's why I think nowadays yeah yeah I think it's perfect yeah I think we say you know the world is getting worse and even I said earlier the world is like a train looks like a train wreck waiting to happen on the flipside if you've got a spiritual path it's never been better for food spiritual development spiritual training so you could say from a spiritual point of view maybe we'll say we're entering into a golden age of happiness because of the opportunities that we now have to practice yeah so what when you mention this the structure of the method behind Buddhism could you give me I guess like I know this is probably I'm not sure if we could squeeze everything in within the time so that we have fit and would you be able to maybe touch on that a little bit and and maybe give me a bit a bit of a brief or your version of how you see that that method working and how some people might be able to start applying that well so so the first teaching that predicative Buddha attained enlightenment about two-and-a-half thousand years ago okay and he stayed in deep meditation for a number of days and the gods Brahmin Indra came to him and said you need to now reveal what you've realized because people are suffering so he accepted that request and he gave a teaching in a place called Deer Park which is near a place called Sai Nath in India and he gave his very first teaching there and in his first teaching which I feel is probably the most relevant to the modern world it was you should know suffering you should you should know suffering and and and it's important to realize that what we need to know is not manifest suffering like if we're sick or if we're in pain or if partner leaves us these things a manifest suffering you know this yeah but but what we really need to recognize is that our pleasures are suffering and once we realize our pleasures suffering then night then we can understand how to be happy which seems a little bit counterintuitive but I talked about this process called the pizza' process whereby if it's a Friday night and we're hungry and we and we're bored and someone suggests to us let's get a pizza your initial thought is yeah and you start to feel happy but what you're actually feeling is a combination of excitement and anticipation and excitement and anticipation are the nature of a slightly turbulent mind which is which is an aspect of unhappiness but with promise so what we've got is unhappiness with promise which makes us think it's okay then when the piece of arrives and you open the box and this I don't know pepperoni or whatever you can smell it you can see it that anticipation and excitement bit more intense but what we really wanted to do is swallow the pizza so we can really start to enjoy the happiness and so as you as you pick up the piece of pizza Peter piece of pizza and you scan as you pick up the slice of pizza and it's coming towards you and you can smell it and you can see it and you're salivating and you put it in your mouth you still all of that process is still the suffering of anticipation and some people say to me no no once it's in your mouth that's where the happiness begins but I disagree because health people say that we're supposed to chew 20 times don't they before you swallow but can you actually do that you know like most people get about four four or five because they want to swallow but the moment that we swallow we experience the suffering of loss so the suffering of anticipation is immediately replaced with the suffering of loss and I you tell me where's the pleasure so the pleasure is an illusion which we project on that process a lot of people I feel have a they connect pleasure with happiness that is for them happiness is is pleasure yes yeah but my point is the pleasure is a trick because there is no pleasure in anywhere in that process only the promise or the illusion of pleasure so once you've swallowed what do you do next you have another bit because you haven't yet experienced the pleasure so nobody eats pizza for nutritional value people it Peaks her to be happy so you get through a whole slice of pizza and because you experience the suffering of anticipation and immediately the suffering of loss you have to have another piece of pizza until you actually can't stomach it anymore because while that process of anticipation loss projection and illusion is taking place our stomach is expanding and you know it's flexible but it does have a point of threshold and then at the end of it most people will sit down furry thing or what now they're not content they're not satisfied the pizza has been more like drinking seawater to quench their first because the the illusion of the pleasure which they're hoping will make them happy never came so then they move on to dessert because as we all know there's always room in the dessert stomach so maybe alright I have some ice cream now it goes on and on it kind of it's a great analogy because it comes back to what we were saying before it applies to whole life and it's just that yeah it's the mini version of that I guess and you know how many people were yeah there is not one experience of worldly pleasure but as you say we're just using pizza as an example or an analogy but it's not one experience of worldly pleasure where that doesn't apply and that's why people wandering aimlessly through life through their life basically towards their grave they're always thinking I'll be happy when they're always wanting to be happy but never really finding it I'm currently like I I agree with what you're saying I've kind of got a bit of a struggle with it though because I've I found some pleasure in the anticipation and I've I've kind of found and like I guess I've become comfortable in that space in certain times so I love I guess I love looking forward to things as a lot of people do but I love us so much that I have kind of I guess created a lifestyle where I'm I'm constantly looking forward to the and enjoying enjoying looking forward to things I guess but I guess I might be a bit dependent on it which isn't which is never a good thing well the thing is is the thing is is if you if every time you look forward to something the thing was taken away from you would you still derive the same pleasure probably not if you never ever ever got to have the thing you're looking forward to you just spent your life craving without ever being able to get the thing possibly I like for example when I if I was to travel to a new country and I love traveling the moment I arrived in that country I know maybe it's a different different I guess it turned his patient in some sense but I know that there's so many amazing things that are about to happen whether they're positive or negative experiences in my mind they're still experiences and I'm still going to grow from them and I'm really excited about what's to come and that that feeling of anticipation I really I guess enjoy that moment and I love that moment when that happens so it's a little bit different than a pizza but it is similar I guess but again it's the same it's this is you can still apply the same logic because I'll give you another example which might be a bit closer to to travelling yeah is there was I was once teaching in Sydney and somebody said that there aren't they they are never more happy when they're playing rugby league which is a very Sydney example because it's not an affair yeah but and I said and he said so I disagree I disagree with what you're saying because you know the thought of doing looking forward to it and then playing it which is similar to what you're saying about the thought of going somewhere and what may come and the experiences that will follow and I said well if if it's true if it's a source of happiness then you wouldn't need to not play rugby league you could keep playing and the experience of pleasure would be increasing but you know of them work like that no because you get exhausted yeah and also what's going to happen when he's too old so it's like a very very slow Pizza process because he's been basing his life on the anticipation but then all of a sudden he's too old to play so he just sits there miserably watching other people playing knowing that where he thought he would find happiness he can't do anymore and it's the same ring you know whether it's whether it's travel or and so on but I wouldn't want to go to the extreme of saying that travel sport Pizza is inherently bad always inherent causes suffering because it's not it's the mind that's relating to it like if you had already found a contented life if you you're somebody who naturally has a peaceful mind or someone who's already got a lot of pleasant feelings coming from within then you're a happy person going traveling you're not a person trying to take happiness from the exhibit pendant on that and you're not spacing it that makes a lot of sense that's the difference yeah so you know I remember years ago in Sydney buying a cup of coffee for example and thinking that the coffee actually is probably been more times than just in Sydney but thinking of the coffee as a source of happiness but buying a small coffee because I'm trying to be good and then getting to the end of the small coffee sucking the foam out of the cup wishing I'd paid the extra fifty cents and got the bigger one because I'm not satisfied there's a huge difference between drinking a cup of coffee because you're trying to get some happiness from the coffee versus being a happy person drinking a cup of coffee if you're a happy person drinking a cup of coffee you can have a small coffee in there's no problem you don't get a feeling of loss at the end of the coffee you don't get a feeling of loss at the end of the game at the end of the trip or or so on or if it didn't meet your expectations no problem none this problem because if we're already at peace well then it's it's more like it's more like sitting on a train with a comfortable chair and watching this the scenery is past sometimes it's nice sometimes it's not so nice but because our chairs comfortable it doesn't really matter we can enjoy it whether it's good or bad you kind of just explained I guess my perception of what meditation is and and doing the same thing with your thoughts I guess that's whatever way I look at it and it's just kind of noticing the thoughts that come past without I guess focusing on them too much or allowing them to kind of take over well that's a way into meditation but in the end if we if we do that we're not training the mind okay we're still letting the mind do as it as it once we're just which is less engaging with the thoughts okay what we have to do in and I know another question you asked me was what is mindfulness what we really have to do when training the mind is learn which objects are thought or which subjective states of mind function to make us calm and cultivate them and then mindfulness is like a posh way of saying not not to forget it's mindfulness holds that so if in the morning say for example we we meditate on love we manifest a subjective mind of love by contemplating kindness of others for example you know like considering all the millions of beings that were involved in the bowl of muesli reaching our breakfast table and we think my gosh I couldn't survive without others I'd like to think I could but everything my body my clothing my food everything is dependent on others and maybe we reflect on that and we think I appreciate others I need them and then a feeling of appreciation or affection comes the job of mindfulness is not to forget that so we would meditate on this affectionate love or appreciation and it would hold it and then when we when we leave and get on the tram or get on the train we try to hold it with respect to the people we pass just think you know for example because you're there I can have a nice mind towards you or because the train driver is driving the train I'm going to be able to get into the city or whatever you know but just trying to see how others are benefiting us but we can only do that if we mindful and normally we don't we don't choose what we think we don't give our mind a job to do it's normally just a tornado of thoughts and feelings related to ourself always with mindfulness we're making a decision I don't want to think about that I want to think about this how do you how do you discover those states that you mentioned earlier that you that that you should cultivate or kind of work on focusing on well those states of mind are the Buddhist path to enlightenment so you know we within Buddhism we cultivate several different states of mind which lead us mentally towards increasing happiness and so those states of mind are like in the beginning of the path like a recognition of our mortality holding in our mind the thought I'm impermanent I could developing a subjective realization I may die today and I mean we can just talk about that one for a few moments because that's one of the best and anyone who comes to the classes know that that's one of my favorite ones because so much happiness comes from that and what I like but particularly about that is that people think I'm quite pessimistic but it's really the polar opposite because say we get out of our bed in the morning and we think I'm not gonna die today I've got a neat least another 30 40 50 years and whatever hurt and how old you are so I've got years of putting up with my partner putting up with my job this alarm going off this miserable life I've got four years and then he kind of seems all quite bleak but if we were to think to ourselves but there's no guarantee but I'm not going to die today you know I talk about the in Melbourne City and they do this big and doing this big kind of awareness campaign on the trams to show that trams are killing people you know have you seen it like the skateboard with the Rhino on it and and I they'd won't they wouldn't spend millions of dollars on that campaign if people weren't being hit by Triumph's but the person that gets hit and killed by a tram didn't wake up that morning and think I hope today I get hit by a tram most people wake up in the morning think I won't die today but in truth we don't know and if we sit if we think this could be the last day of my life how do you then relate to your partner or your family or your flatmate you just you realize that the bickering and the disagreements are inconsequential they don't matter and love matters and then you say goodbye to your partner and give him a hug and and you mean it you know I goodbye I love you and that feeling that you then develop towards your family is so beautiful that it kind of allows you to leave with a big smile on your face and that beautiful mind which is a genuine source of happiness came from realizing our mortality so far from being pessimistic it's the secret of the meaning of life how to lead a good life and it's one of those sayings I guess people hear a lot but it's a bit it's a bit harder to actually put it into practice I think what I may die today yeah like this like anyone could die at any moment and I really should be doing you know making the most out of my life whatever that means whether it means being more loving or you know enjoying every moment of your day as much as you can and but it's it's I guess it seems it's one thing to say or to hear the phrase being thrown around and it's another thing to practice or just experiment with applying it to your life you know why it's because everybody has an intellectual idea of their mortality everybody thinks yeah yeah yeah yeah of course I'm going to die but nobody feels it in their heart like there is a spiritual journey that has to take place that connects our head it's about heart and that journeys meditation that journey is to sit and consider things like my body is decaying my body is on a journey towards powder do you think that could bring about sadness as well well it could Wow it's a good question I mean it makes me delightfully happy but because at the end of the meditation I feel like I have I have not a moment to lose to be a good person so if you were to I mean you need to I guess you need to watch out for that to make sure that you're you understand that the objective of the meditation is to let go of all the pizzas and find your happiness in in a good heart and do you know what is a good analogy for this you know you know the movie A Christmas Carol can't say I've seen a Scrooge the movie Scrooge with with is like a cartoon well there's several different versions of it made there is but it was a book originally by I think Charles Dickens wrote in a region doing it but that the story is that is this guy Scrooge who spends his whole life thinking of himself only and he becomes bitter and twisted and lonely and then he gets three visits the ghosts of Christmas past that goes to Christmas present and the ghost of Christmas future anyway by the final visit he died like in that in the visit he dies in the experience is this tremendous suffering but then he realizes it was a dream and he wakes up on Christmas morning realizing I'm still alive I've still got a chance to be a good person and his entire life transforms and he becomes the kindest most loving person and his whole life is filled with joy you hear about those kind of things happening to people that have I guess near-death experiences or yeah getting two car accidents to become handicapped but somehow become the happiest people walking the planet yeah because they've got perspective of an they I mean the things that we generally get anxious about are related to thinking I'm a permanent fixture and we're so not a permanent fixture Buddha said our life passes like a flash of lightning in the sky or like a water droplet falling from a high mountain which I like because if you think about the journey of the water droplet it doesn't have any choice but to hit the end it doesn't think I'm just going to hang out on this ledge for a bit like our life is falling and it has a finite period of time even the difference between the size of the droplet and the size of a mountain and the amount of time that you know the planets been around or yeah even the amount of time before that it just doesn't matter it's all it's it's not stopping yeah for not even stopping to take a break lifespan is constantly running out whether they're asleep wherever we are awake all the time so what what do you think I know this I'm just really curious about this and I want to know then but what kind of what happens when you die according to Buddhism so if we roll back to the beginning of our conversation on what who we are what is herself and we realize I'm not my body I'm not my mind but other than my body and mind there's nothing else we start to question well who are all these people who's talking who's communicating and we come to this realization that the self exists as a concept or an appearance in the same way that this yourself existed in last night's dream they when you were in a dream last night your body was in bed and your mind projected a new reality and in that new reality was you what doing your business walking around talking to people we never thought you know at that time in the dream world our body even though it felt solid was only an appearance to mind it was no there was no solidity to it whatsoever but whilst we were dreaming it felt very real and our mind felt very real and all the people we met felt very real but they weren't and when we wake up we realize oh all of those things in that in that world and that reality they've gone where did they where did they come from where did they go to where they come from nowhere and they went nowhere they just stopped appearing so Buddha said that death the death process is like the transition of one dream ending and a new dream beginning so Buddhist Buddhists believe in past and future lines and they wait the way they assert that they exist is in the same way that dreams exist as we die we leave this world begins to dissolve in inwards to our heart the cameras to perceive all of this is then severed and a new karma ripens new projection new dream new life new reality so in a way or in a sense we're all connected with each other and with everything absolutely yeah we definitely have a connection in fact one of the principal teachings of Buddhism is that all living being as I'm touched on earlier is the kindness of all living beings because we've all met and we've all been related many many times over and over again in different ways even the fact that we're sitting here now is not by chance because we already have a relationship that we've had probably many times in previous dreamlike lives well I think you just blew my mind well it gives you but it gives you a much wider context for experiencing and perceiving and living in reality yeah yeah it's interesting when you when you mentioned kindness that we share to others and it's I think it's also interesting what we gain from that kindness and and how it's easy for us to look at look at it in a way of well if I'm if I'm helping this person with their problems then you know you know it's it's bringing their problems into my heart and that's weighing that's going to weigh me down from that kind of an angle but then it's it's it's funny how the opposite usually happens well when I was in Sydney I I met a lady older lady and and she came along to a class and I never seen her before so after the class I asked her you know why had she come because you know just to have a cup of tea with her and have a chat and she said ah I'm here because my brother has died and I'm just looking for some techniques for dealing with the grief and then she said if you have a few minutes oh I'd love to tell you about my brother so I say yes sure and she said he was a survivor from a concentration camp in a second after the second world war and eventually they moved and settled in in Australia but he had what would now be diagnosis post-traumatic stress disorder but they didn't diagnose that at the time but he obviously had a lot of suffering and she said one day a few decades ago one day he decided I'm gonna love everyone he just made this decision one day I'm I'm going to love everyone regardless selflessly and unconditionally I'm gonna love the people that kept me captive the tormenters I'm gonna love the people in the shops the people in the community she just said he just decided to love everyone and so he started doing this like everybody that he saw every everyone's path that he crossed he just cherished them and she said as he went through his life he never expected anything in return but naturally people started to love him and she said at Christmastime people run out of their homes to give him gifts and he became like this incredibly well admired member of the community but the best part of the story was the best part of the story was that when he died so she hadn't heard from him for a while but she had a key to his flat so she went after she hadn't heard for while she went into the the flat to check on him went into his room and found his body in bed dead but smiling from ear to ear he had died smiling and if you consider this concept of transitioning from one dream to another yeah he was going somewhere pretty cool yeah and I said you know you don't need to grieve you know he's he's very happy he's got something he's gone something very very good and I just thought that was again you know we always think our people need to return my kindness people need to return my love I'm looking for loved ones but people who don't appreciate me enough but what the benefits of cherishing others far outweigh what a human being could do for us yeah yeah so just coming back to your journey a little bit where did you where did you find the desire to help others well how did that come about so were you born with it or did it was it something that kind of you had to discover or I think well I used to have a corporate job so I used to work in London what were you doing telecommunications yeah for big foods worldwide foods manufacturer and but I worked really in a technical role and after in 1999 I was paid a big bonus to be on call for New Year's Eve I don't know if you remember we thought the clocks were gonna stop yeah but be 1999 and the world millennium thing the millennium bug yeah yeah yeah so I've got paid a huge amount of money to be uncool that night and the next day nothing the world didn't end everything continued as usual and I I just thought I'm not sure this is the meaning of life this is doing this corporate life you know I like just thought I didn't think it was the meaning of life so I bought a one-way ticket to Australia with six months in Asia on the way where I just wanted to invest the gay or question the meaning of happiness and the meaning of life you know that was the purpose of the trip that was the purpose of the trip informing that was the thought that maybe sunshine is the source of happiness because you don't get a lot of sunshine in the UK so if I go to Australia I'm bound to be happy because Sunshine's in Australia eventually so I didn't find anything in Asia or they thought I would you know there's lots of ideas I tried to speak to the monks in the Buddhist countries but they didn't really seem that forthcoming and eventually I settled in Australia and I picked up my career in a merchant bank in Sydney working on the trading floor and again in a technical role and that similar feeling arose within you I just thought because you know if you if you work as a in a technical role on a trading floor you get paid quite a lot of money you know keeping the trading floors connecting okay to each other so I have plenty of money and a nice apartment I know and a good relationship but this sense of it being just scenery and this inner feeling this isn't the meaning of life this I'm wasting life like the scenery's passing but I'm not finding what the meaning is you know and at times I think it can be quite just quite depressing if you really feel this isn't it and you and you don't know what else to do you don't know what is it and you don't know what is it in your yeah for sure I mean I've definitely felt that before I remember my friends cuz I lived with some friends in the UK and I'm trying to have this discussion with them you know and they said you've got one of the best jobs of all of us you what the best income you shouldn't be having these thoughts so then on top of these thoughts are also felt a bit guilty did it pressure yeah you can't have a better life you know how I dare you yeah there's something missing yeah and then I guess if you can pay your life in that corporate world that didn't feel quite right to someone that you know has no access to money or even clean water or something then it does exactly does that another element to it doesn't it yeah so you end up thinking that I should be I should feel this is it yes I guess maybe a bit of yeah so you said guilt seeps into it which is exactly a good thing either so in the end I thought I know I've tried traveling I did enjoy travelling like you do and I've tried but in the end nothing you know it's like it's like mr. evaporates so you don't there's no essence to it you know can't hold any event you're left with I guess memories you left as memories but you can't think they're not powerful enough to change you as a person they for me may be unlike you for me they just made me want to go and do it again I feel I feel like traveling does change you as a person I feel like you you you grow and develop in a certain trajectory that you probably wouldn't normally if you stayed in your familiar surrounding yeah if you if everything was the same every day and you stuck to that corporate routine for example I think if you explored the world you would grow in a different way but I get what you mean as you wouldn't like when you're when you wouldn't fill you up inside I guess if that's all you did that would be a point where you've had too much pizza yeah basically but I mean you're right I mean also just decide step a second you're right I think the traveling did provide the necessary stepping stone for me then to look at spiritual development because I'm you know I was a down the pub drinking beer playing pool kind of purpose arguing outside of my career yeah yeah and going to dance parties and you know that was really my life it was very kind of mainstream kind of twenty-something life you know and then and I needed to break out of that but to perhaps see see there are other options but the principal driver was this feeling that it's all it's all senior that's passed and I'm still that's passed I'm now doing this again where does it end you know which the what's the goal what's the waste of place of rest how did you get from from that point to where we are he are sitting under this beautiful tree a Buddhist centre opened up in the next suburb to where I was living and and it made me think well look I've tried so I've tried traveling I've tried career relationship everything and I get this feeling but I've never tried meditating and so I pop around to the new Buddhist Center which was the temple in Sydney where I originally came from and I picked up a flyer for their courses and I thought yeah I'm gonna try this and I went to add a course and I thought that's it like that's the problem and a day course it was it was all about what I described earlier as the pizza process it was called constant craving that remember the title of the course was called constant craving and it was about constantly trying to get happiness from external things and then being left with a sense of dissatisfaction and how satisfaction comes from inside and then you can enjoy the things it's got to be that way around this is this is lining up with all the thoughts I've been having and so it wasn't like a revelation it wasn't like the clouds parted and then these were shards of light came down I just thought I'm gonna keep doing this because I can follow this logic and solve these these problems this feeling that I've been having so we just kept doing it and and I remember in particular my boss in the bank was very very difficult and I went to the teacher one of the teachers in the temple is he like I've got this I've been going for a few months I was feeling a lot happier but I still had this difficult boss so I said to the teacher I've got this difficult boss what shall I do about it expecting him to say you need to be patient but he didn't he said you have to love him and I said wall you know hold on a minute you don't know this person and he said well you don't have to love him it's a free world he said but if you don't love him you will never solve this problem so I said all right I'm prepared to take on a Buddhist project River mission yeah and you know these guys already know this story as long as most of these stories but I found it incredibly difficult because I had already too much invested in seeing him as the cause of my problems but over a period of about six weeks I tried a loss at the from tricks on my own mind and one of the things I tried was to superimpose my brother's face on him because I live monitoring not actually I didn't go out to him and stick a piece of paper on his face but I already loved my brother so I thought well okay just give this a give this a while and for as long as I could hold it I started to see my brother could behave my brother could get away with this behavior so why would I not let my boss get away with this behavior and then I started to have a different view of him and in the end after about six weeks we actually became friends and he started telling me jokes and for most people that's not a big deal but if you knew him you would think that was a big deal that he was saying telling jokes and I'd be working at my desk and I'd hear his chair come rolling up next to me and you tell me a joke and then he roll off again I for Wow everything's changing and then he started telling me about difficulties with his family and and and we became friends so you yourself was the one that that changed really well that's the key yeah that's interesting because I went back to the teacher and said thanks for your advice I'd put it into practice and my boss changed and the teacher said no he didn't and I thought wow I thought you know that scene in the matrix where I'm liking these movie race where Morpheus says if you take I can't member to collaborate employ I think yeah the red pill you go back to basically your ordinary life and you'll forget all of this and if you take the blue pill you see how far the rabbit hole goes from me that was that moment where I thought if I can change my reality that much with such a little effort with a relatively small situation I want to see how far my mind can be developed because my whole reality is dependent on the way I think you saw the potential of just just through that one way yeah and I saw a play of the life story of Buddha which it just made me cry I saw this this you know this man who just wanted people to be happy and showed them how their own mind was making them miserable and led them very skillfully into everlasting happiness and I just thought I want to follow his footsteps yeah those are those two things with the key the key kind of game changes for me and and I requested to become a monk and that was in I requested to become a monk at the end of 2003 yeah and I became a monk in May 2004 and since then the way you feel now how do you how do you feel I feel pretty good yeah I mean I have a very I have a very simple disciplined life yeah in which I know every moment what I'm doing and I think that alone is valuable but the fact that I my whole life is a path to everlasting happiness not just for me but for everybody because that's the goal is to take everybody to everlasting happiness it fills me with joy having such meaning in my life you know I suppose if you were to plot it on a graph you have better days than others but definitely the net result is is that every passing year I feel I'm getting closer to my goal I guess I kind of wanted to know what it would be like to be constantly peaceful I'm not sure if you are that was just an assumption but yeah I mean is it is it dull in any way he's a kind of do you take away the highs and lows of life and take away I guess the spice of life and yeah a lot of people say there's a lot of sayings in the world which is things like you got to have the lows to appreciate the highs variety's the spice of life yeah stuff like that but you know the the lows and the highs are in the same continuum you know like if you like a high as we talked about earlier heis like an excitement of something that's coming and often it doesn't come and then and then allo comes instead so rather than have this rollercoaster of emotions in Buddhism we say let's just let's get off the roller coaster and just have a constantly it's gold like inner peace you know like not a doll led like mine or a sparkly diamonds like mine a gold like constant inner peace and you know this same the variety is the spice of life I feel like it's a cop-out I feel like that's what people are saying because nothing's working so they have to keep trying lots of different things to keep distracting themselves whereas there is another way which we've touched on which is if you'd be peaceful if you've got a peaceful mind we say that we define happiness as the experience of pleasant feelings arising from inner peace if you've got a peaceful mind if you've got happiness it doesn't mean you you have to give up all of those things but we have to give up the view that those things are going to make us happy in order for those things to for us to derive happiness from those things once as I said once we've already got inner peace have so much fun and and it gets even better because if those things come to an end doesn't matter doesn't matter either way because if you spill that coffee you're still a happy person you're still on the train watching the passing scenery and something else will unfold but it's all a dance of changing appearances and conditions and yeah just enjoy the next the next act yeah so would you be able to just walk me through I guess kind of your day your your typical day so you get up in the morning like I was saying before and you is it other other monks here do you kind of have what kind of conversations that you guys have teeth you kind of do just hang out for the day do you do teachings like what do you kind of do yeah I think people kind of had this view that we just sit around incense burning yeah incense is actually banned to you I think it's a it's a it's a an allergen and a fire hazard so we don't actually burn any annoying sense no it's a I've got one of those oil burners though so I do my morning meditation and then I change all my offerings on my on my shrine and then ice and then I start work which means to check all of my emails meeting with the education team in the office so we've got a team of people here that do our marketing and they're also Buddhist practitioners one of them is a Buddhist nun the other one who you met earlier Jake he's he's one of our teachers and also our program coordinators so the three of us work together and we we think about the delivery of the courses and so on yes so there's a lot of work involved actually yeah and we don't we haven't escaped the modern worlds were very much in the modern world but we're trying to apply how meditation that is in a way yeah and then we have a community lunch and then I'll spend a long time doing my own study I'm under a process of constant study and assessment so I will get tested many times a year by the organisation to make sure that I'm memorizing scriptures and my understanding is increasing which is good for this place that's interesting so you're you're every kind of growing your understanding so it's not something you can I guess learn overnight it's something that it takes time to I guess it sounds like years to really to understand yeah the teacher training program that we run here is a 15 year program and I'm on a on a program that will probably last for the rest of my life and and that's good for the students because then they can have confidence that I'm you know I'm accountable like I have to be always studying always meditating always memorizing my teachings always need to be improving and the organization will be checking on that as well as my commitment as a resident teacher so I spend a lot of time studying and a lot of time preparing teaching so my day is made up of meditating prayers working and study and preparation for the next teaching it's very full actually yeah very full I mean actually becoming peaceful has been one of the busiest things I've ever done in my life but again fills me with joy yeah yeah yeah that's awesome I've got I'm just gonna throw this question in here just because I've got a friend that's that's struggling struggling with this and I was hoping actually a couple of friends have been have mentioned a similar kind of experience when when you meditate on a sound bit random guys what we were just talking about when you meditate a lot of people struggle with not thinking or thinking they need to not think or just getting into getting into it really have you got any I guess actionable tips or any kind of any suggestions for people that might have might kind of come across this problems I'm sure maybe your students would come across similar ones in the beginning the first thing I would say is that the are the idea of of meditation being about not thinking is a misconception yeah and there are there are a lot of people that believe that meditation is about letting the minds go blank but it's actually very this is not the best way to practice because if we let the mind go blank our mindfulness declined the the strength fair mindfulness declines because mindfulness and meditation is like a muscle you're working at you're increasing the strength of your ability to hold and if you if you're letting the mind go blank you're a strength of your mind and your ability to hold onto an object is degenerating and in the end you will you will lose the ability to remember stuff even if you can do it it may feel peaceful and relaxing to start with but they are ultimately it's going to cause a lot of problems with your mind and in our book how to understand the mind it's even printed the ultimate result of just allowing the mind to go blank is we become dull and stupid so meditation is not about letting the mind go blank it's about it's about ascertaining something to hold and then holding it with all your heart you know for as long as we can hold a single object of meditation it will work to make us peaceful okay so the question was to give an example of this object yes okay so an introductory meditation which we can do in a couple of minutes is is to meditate on the breath so what we do is we we first of all allow our breathing to take a steady rhythm and a rule of thumb in getting the breathing right is to ensure that you breathe through the nostrils and that you're not making any sound and there's no haste you use your diaphragm at all do you use a diaphragm and so we need to have a straight back but it's not essential I've got to use your diaphragm the most important thing is through the nostrils and breathing very gently and that's why I say as a rule of thumb no no sound sometimes if it your nostrils making sound not very good if you've got some if you've been congested but in general no sound and no haste so you be very gently very lightly and then the breath becomes the object so the we focus the mind on the subtle sensation of the breath just inside the nostrils so as normally as you inhale there's a there's quite a cool sensation and then when we exhale there's a warmer and softer sensation so it's like a cool as we inhale and a warmer softer sensation as we exhale and then we place the mind on that sensation so that that sensation feels the whole space of our mind there is just cool warm cool warm nothing else and we hold it rigidly you know when we don't we don't let go of that object if the mind does become distracted without any discussion we go straight back so this will happen you know when you first start meditating it'll seem like the mind is busier than it normally is but it's not it's just because we've become become more inwardly focused and so we're seeing more what our mind does to us 24/7 the analogy that I use is is if you want to go swimming in the ocean you have to kind of get through the breaking surf before you can start swimming up and down the beach and as you do that the surf knocks you over and you've got to get back up again you've got a duck under a couple of waves but eventually you'll get through it and then it's calm so the same will be the case now when we do this meditation is it might seem a bit busier there might be a bit of turbulence you might lose the the breath you might get distracted it's okay but as soon as we realize we've dropped the object the breath as soon as we realize we're distracted just come straight back we might have to do that a number of times and eventually the mind was set or we hold the breath and we'll start deriving pleasant feelings there's a bit of persistence so we need to not give up at those early stages and kind of push through knowing that we will eventually reach exactly yeah and then once we've through a bit of persistence once we do get through it says in the in Boo descriptions that just from this meditation alone just meditating on the breath a deep happiness and contentment naturally arises with that we can start solving some problems with life and we can start enjoying the coffee but we want to do it with a subjectively contented peaceful mind so should we I think I think it's yeah it'd be nice so the people listening can kind of follow along in and meditate with us and if it no one's tried it or some people haven't tried it before they can give it a go for the first time but okay about five minutes yes all right yeah just so that I know thanks very much so you're going to lead us so I'll guide the meditation you know about about five minutes that's all right okay oh yeah thanks very much okay so if we find a comfortable posture which basically means straight back hands in your lap if you like them the traditional Buddhist meditation posture which is your right hand on your left hand with your thumbs lightly touching or any comfortable posture is okay lower your eyelids drop your shoulders bow your head slightly place your tongue behind your upper teeth unclench your jaw and we can begin by remembering that the objective is to find a deep happiness and contentment for the purpose of solving some problems emotional problems and finding some happiness from the things in our life so then we set the breathing by breathing gently through our nostrils ensuring no sound and no haste so just breathing gently and naturally there's no need to force the breathing try to control it in any way to spread normally naturally and gently you may notice that as you gently inhale the air feels cool just inside your nostrils and as you exhale the air feels warmer softer focus your mind on this sensation single pointedly and remain focused for the next few minutes remember if you become distracted drop the distracting thought and return to the sensation of the bread okay and when you feel ready in your own time you can gently relax your concentration and arise from the meditation all right it's only short but if you do that for 10 or 15 minutes everyday it would completely change change your life yeah that's only an introductory meditation we touched on death we touched on love we touched on compassion we touched on wisdom but there are so many meditations that we can do that will form yeah a spiritual journey yeah to a complete transformation thank you thank you so much I really enjoyed this chat yeah anytime it's it's great meeting you and it's being here it just feels just coming out of that now I just I'll show you you guys feel bit I feel pretty good it's a blessed place as well it's a blessed place and if we are peaceful I think where our minds are aligning with how blessed it already is here yeah like this there's no gap but normally we come is still a little bit disturbed and tense and full of the world yeah but as we become more peaceful we've come a little bit more in line with how blessed and kind of connect with the surroundings it's nice yeah thank you for tuning in to another episode of the good people effect podcast I really hope you got something out of this show this show is just it's here for you it's all about you and helping you grow as a person and I really hope that you got something out of this chat and you enjoyed it so if you want to see more content like this and please subscribe to the channel if you haven't yet please subscribe to the podcast because I'll be releasing a new episode on adventure creativity and purpose every single two weeks every single two weeks every two weeks Leigha if you want some more information about the kadampa meditation Center in the Dan Jennings or about the Buddhist monk that I spoke to Kel sand or Ning please visit good people effect calm and check out the show notes but until next time be well

Channel: Today Dreamer

Views: 163,906

Keywords: Life lessons from a Buddhist monk, lessons from buddhist monk, lessons from buddhism, beginners meditation, buddhist monk meditation, meditation tips for beginners, meditation tips and techniques, buddhism, buddhism for beginners, meditation, how to meditate, how to meditate for beginners, how to meditate for anxiety, mindfulness meditation, mindfulness, spirituality, best podcast, guided meditation

Id: 3r6M4QFM0HM

Length: 79min 41sec (4781 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 25 2018