- Hi, so the title of
my talk sounds very long and very complicated,
but actually it's a kind of simple subject, but
I think very profound and very important, which is how to bring meditation into every aspect of our lives. And of course, particularly
our working life. So I go into quite a lot
of different companies to teach mindfulness and meditation and very much there's
a focus around how to bring it into moments throughout the day. So in the corporate
world and also education, healthcare, many different sectors, of course meditation is
becoming hugely popular. And I think there are
a few reasons for this. I think one of the reasons
is that the language used to describe
mindfulness and meditation is very much non-religious. So even though I'm a Buddhist Monk, I'm not talking from a
religion perspective. So the language used to
explain these techniques is very inclusive, very accessible. And because of that, more
and more people are attracted to training in these methods. That's one reason. Another reason is there's
been a huge amount of scientific research into
the benefits of meditation. How it affects our brain chemistry, how it affects our body. So because the evidence
from those research projects is so widely available
now people know that this is as important as nutrition and exercise. That knowledge is now filtering into everybody's life that we
need to look after our body, but also our mind. And so because of that
meditation has become something very, very popular. And then I think the third reason why meditation is now so popular
is a sort of sad reason, which is that we are just
more stressed than ever and we're looking for solutions. The speed of life has become really manic and we have so much pressure
and we're constantly upgrading the software on
our phones and computers, but we feel we need an upgrade as well. We're running behind
all of this technology trying to keep up with
it and we're looking for something to help us
upgrade our mental software so that we can keep up
with the speed of life. So I'm very interested
in how stress manifests in our mind and in our body and then how meditation can help to change that. Of course meditation
is more than just about stress reduction or even well being. It goes much further than that. And in today's talk I'm going to address the issue of stress,
but also mental focus, productivity, efficiency, creativity. Those are positive aspects. Otherwise I think people
just see meditation as something you use to fix what's broken. And maybe in fact some
people aren't stressed or some people enjoy
stress and then they think, well I don't need to meditate. But it's not just medicine for
stress, it goes much further. It's really about optimizing
our brain function and becoming more in charge
of who we are as people. Having said that, let's
start by talking about the issue of stress. So 20 years ago people were
less open about their stress. When I first started
teaching in the workplace people were a little bit embarrassed to say that they were stressed, especially leaders, managers. Maybe it looked like they were failing if the people around them
knew they were stressed. I think the culture has changed now. Now it seems to be the opposite. Now, if you don't say you're stressed people think you're lazy. So now we have to go around saying, oh I'm so stressed I can hardly breath. And that means you're
really doing really well. Like if you say to somebody how are you, they have to say busy. You can't say, well I'm
just chilling doing nothing. You fail. To be a successful person you have to say I'm so busy I can hardly walk. I'm so stressed. So people are wearing their
stress on their sleeve now. So the good side of
that is people are open, talking about how they feel. Obviously the negative
side is we are so stressed. And of course we are feeling
exhausted all the time and that's basically because our brain is producing huge amounts
of stress chemicals. The main one being cortisol. It's called the fight or flight reaction, which a human being is
programmed to experience as a matter of survival. Just like animals as
well when they're being chased by other animals
like a zebra or deer being chased by tigers and lions. They go into fight or flight. And that's what they need to survive and human beings as well. Maybe centuries ago when
we were hunter/gatherers and we were in danger
pretty much all the time, we'd always have that awareness of danger, we'd go into fight or
flight mode when we're being attacked by a sabor toothed tiger or whatever it was that was
coming to have its dinner. And then we go into emergency
mode and what happens to the brain is the amygdala,
which is the part of the brain that is connected to stress,
causes the release of cortisol. And this makes us ready
for fight or flight. So we either fight the
enemy or we run away. And then when we're safe,
the levels return to normal. We don't need to talk
about it or worry about why we were in danger. We're just back to normal. That's the optimum picture of survival with fight or flight, but
of course what happens to us now is we're not
living in the wilderness and we're not being chased by
animals or people with spears. We are in our offices, we're in our homes and yet the brain is relating to pressure in exactly the same way. So whenever there's an
email or a phone call or a notification, the
body has this kind of little jolt of cortisol,
basically we go into a kind of very microscopic kind of fight or flight. We're not sweating and panicking, sometimes we are of course,
but generally we're not. And the problem is these
moments build up during the day. So we spend our day lurching from one cortisol spike to the next. And we don't seem to have any downtime. We're just on that high
alert all the time. And this makes us very
tired and it makes us less productive, it makes us
less efficient, less happy. More worn out. So the great thing about
practicing meditation techniques and being mindful during the
day is that it's been proved that this reduces the cortisol. It doesn't take our stress away. I mean, sometimes people
think, oh if I meditate does that take all my stress away and then I'll be less efficient. In fact, I went to a company
once, many, many years ago before this kind of
knowledge was so widespread, I went into a company to teach meditation and the boss took me aside and said, don't make them too relaxed. (laughing) I said, what do you mean? He said, well I'd like
them to keep working. I think his image of
meditation was that you'd be so chilled that you'd just kind of lounge around behind your desk. Phones are ringing, you don't really care. Feet up. Profits down. Because maybe there is
an image of meditation that it's very disconnected from reality. I think some people think meditation means you close your eyes, you drift
away, you empty your mind and what does that got to do with work? Well let me tell you, if
you tried to close your eyes and empty your mind,
you're gonna find that really hard anyway
because meditation is not about clearing the mind. If you try to clear the
mind, you end up with a lot of stress, actually, trying to push the thoughts away. And so of course I explained to this man that the meditation class wouldn't make his staff less efficient. It would make them more efficient because don't you want people to be happy, focused, productive, and
stress if you learn to reduce the chemistry of stress, the cortisol, you can be more fresh,
more alert, more aware. But you're not less efficient. You're not less functional. And in fact, not all stress is bad. Maybe there's a kind of stress that's more like energy, motivation,
drive, efficiency. I'm talking about when it
becomes toxic and exhausting. So it's been shown that if
you practice mindfulness, this reduces the over activity
of the amygdala in the brain which is that stress receptor or stress watch tower in the brain. And so those chemicals
are gonna start to get, it's like cooling down the engines. You're gonna be less
anxious, less stressed. But of course, ultimately what is stress? Stress is our thoughts, isn't it? And how the mind relates to our thoughts. You know, people always go around saying I have stress because of
my boss, my colleagues, my clients, my husband,
my wife, my children, the list, you know, the list. Who's got a list? The list of things that make us stressed. And I'm not denying that
those things are difficult in our lives, but
wouldn't you say it's more our thoughts about our boss,
our job, our colleagues, our clients, our thoughts
about those things. That's the problem and
the way the mind goes into negative thinking or exhaustion. We have so many thoughts that we don't actually need, repeated thoughts. We have between 60 and
80,000 thoughts per day. Many of them are repeats. So meditation is not about
removing the thoughts. It's not about becoming a
zombie or going into a coma. It's not. But it is about learning
to become the boss of your own mind. And I think that's a really crucial thing because I think we are
educated adult professional, free thinking people in
control of our lives, but not in control of our minds. And that's a very shocking thing to hear and to think about, but it's really true. If you think about how we react to life in a very impulsive way, we're in an area of
bad traffic, aren't we? So Los Angeles traffic
is always horrendous and what happens when
you're stuck in traffic and you feel irritated,
wound up, frustrated, even angry, you know that's
not an intelligent reaction. You don't plan the reaction. You don't sit there thinking
okay, now I'm gonna get upset. You don't wake up in the morning thinking I'm gonna do anxiety at lunch
time, depression for tea. I hope I feel really bad by 6pm. We don't plan our moods. We plan everything else. So who's the boss of our mind? Are we choosing our thoughts
or our thoughts choosing us? I mean, it's not literally like that, but it feels like that. Where we're not really in
control of what our mind does. It goes into negative thinking. It goes into worry. It goes into stress very easily. So meditation is where you actually learn how to choose where to send your focus. And what do do with your mind. And a very typical medication technique is to focus on your own breathing. I'm not gonna go too much
into the technique today because tomorrow morning
I'm giving a class, which I'm sure you'll find interesting if you want to learn more. But just to break down the
sort of technology of it, is that you focus for
example on your own breathing and maybe you do that for
10 minutes, it's a session. Focusing on your breathing. What are you doing? You're focusing on your breathing, but then your mind is running away. The mind wanders. So you're breathing with
awareness and then suddenly the mind is thinking about something else. That's when people think they failed. That's when people who meditate
think they got it wrong. Like they've, because they think they're supposed to be doing it perfectly. But there's a reason why
it's called practice. It's not perfect, it's practice. Which means you're training. So you're focusing on your breathing and then your mind wanders
and that's the chance to practice returning. The mind wanders and then you return. Maybe not straight away, maybe
it wanders for five minutes. And it goes from one thing to the next. I mean, you're planning dinner, then you're skiing in the Alps and then you're, I don't
know, planning revenge or writing a really juicy email. It goes all over the place
and then you capture it, you catch the attention
and that's when you can return to the breath or whatever
the meditation focus is. There are many ways,
breath is the most common. So every time you bring your
attention back to your breath, you are exercising the power of choice. Because your mind lost direction. It's almost like you were driving a car and then you lost control of the wheel and the car is going all over the place. And now you get back
behind the wheel of the car and you turn it around and
drive it back to the breath. That's a big choice. You've made a choice to
detach from those thoughts and come back to the
moment, the present moment. If you train in that everyday, you're gonna get better at it. A little bit like lifting weights. If you go to the gym, you
lift weights, you get muscles. This is the muscle of mindfulness through training again and again. Every time you bring your
attention back to the breath, you are detaching from the wandering mind and choosing to send your focus
where you want to send it. So if you train in that
every day you're gonna get more proficient at that. And over time you're going
to find that you can step out of a negative mood more easily. You can step into happiness more easily. I think peoples' notions
of happiness tend to be very much result orientated. I'll be happy when, I'll be happy because. Whose got the list? It's the list again. The list of things I need
and then I will be happy. Happy when, happy if, happy because. So we think happiness will come to us when everything outside works out. But what about choosing
to put your attention into a positive state? And you could do that anywhere. You could do that in traffic. You could do that standing
in line at an airport where you're feeling impatient and tired, but you choose to put your attention into a positive mind state,
which means just to be present and detach from those wandering thoughts. And that way you're gaining a kind of mastery of your own mind,
which is gonna really help to transform our relationship
with our thoughts. I think that's what meditation is about. Transforming our relationship
with our thoughts. It's not about killing the thoughts. It's not about silencing the thoughts. It's not about clearing the mind. But it's about developing
a different relationship where you can choose what your
mind does and how it feels. So you're learning that sense of, kind of becoming the boss internally. So people meditate everyday
or regularly anyway, it's just like exercise. Doesn't work if you do it once a year. It doesn't work if you keep it up your sleeve for emergencies. You know, you pull it out of the sleeve in an emergency, that won't
happen because when we're in an emergency our
default state takes over. We don't have the
presence of mind to think, oh I'm stressed, shall I meditate. That's not gonna happen. But if you've meditated
everyday then when you are in an emergency, difficult situation, that meditation energy
will kick in automatically because you've trained
to not get too caught up in negative thinking and
you've trained in our how to be present and how to be, how to kind of free your mind. You've trained in that so
this becomes your strength whenever you need it. But what's really crucial
is to bring that energy into everything we do. I think a lot of people
view meditation as something quite separate from their daily life. They meditate at home, which is great and I would certainly recommend
doing 10, 15, 20 minutes, whatever, every morning. But then they kind of leave it at home and then they go to work and they're like a different person. You've got the person who meditates and then the stressed person at work. It's like having two people inside you and they never meet. So bring your meditation to work. Bring it to work with you. How you can do that is
through practicing moments of mindfulness throughout the day. I don't mean running off into a corner and doing meditation 20 times a day. You'd probably get fired if you did that because you're not gonna get much done. But I'm talking about something much more microscopic moments, tiny
moments throughout the day even while you're busy. So you're not stopping, you're
not stopping your activities. You're not even going into slow motion. Some people do that and I don't
know if it's so effective. They think to be mindful during the day they have to sort of drink
their tea painfully slowly and everything's very kind
of slow motion, you know. Or they walk very, very slowly. Everything's slow, everything's calm. That's not very dynamic and in fact it... It leads to another kind of
separation where you decide everything has to slow
down for you to be mindful. So when things are fast
you can't be mindful. I would recommend
something quite different, which is just to drop into those moments of awareness throughout the day. And maybe to start doing that
with very specific actions. Because this all sounds
great, but how do you actually make a habit of it. You've gotta give yourself very specific, you could start with brushing your teeth. You could start with combing your hair, well I don't have hair but if I had hair I would try and comb it mindfully. Brushing the teeth mindfully. I mean, when we're brushing our teeth we're brushing our teeth physically, but mentally we're off on somewhere else. So why not just feel the
brush against the tooth? I mean, that's really what mindfulness is. It's that moment where you
connect with your senses. And you're just totally there, while you're doing something
like brushing your teeth or washing your hands. You're not thinking
about washing your hands, you're just washing your hands. But you are in that mindful
moment and you're washing your hands in the same way, same speed, but the mind is connected
to what you're doing and you're just dropping
into that aware state many, many times a day. Maybe you could be in your office, even if it's a very busy
open office with lots of people, lots of noise. You could spend a moment feeling
the chair under your body. Just literally feeling
the sensation of the chair underneath you, underneath
you and behind you. You're just feeling it through your body. Or the ground under your feet. The first time I
discovered this for myself was really interesting, I'd
already been meditating. I was already a monk and I'd
been meditating for a few years but I never really understood this idea of bringing it into daily life. I was doing it in a very structured way. In fact, I was doing two hours
a day or sometimes even more, sitting down cross legged on the floor, but I wasn't, I didn't
know how to bring it into ordinary life. And the first time I discovered
this was I was in London and I was on the, we call it the Tube, the underground, the metro, the subway. And I was really tired. I'd flown in the night before. I hadn't had breakfast. I was tired, not feeling so good. It was rush hour, you can't get a seat. There's no air conditioning. I mean, everything's
stacked up against you to make you miserable. And I'm standing there on the train and feeling that kind
of exhaustion or sort of misery rising and then I just
remembered to be mindful. I decided to be mindful from
this station to the next. So not too long, just from
this stop to the next. So what I did was instead
of feeling all those negative feelings, I just
felt the ground under my feet. And I felt the sway of the train. I also had a bag on my shoulder and the strap of the bag was
pressing down on my shoulder and I decided to change my
perception of that feeling, because first of all it was tired. So kind of pushing down. But then I thought, well people
pay money to be massaged, it's the same thing, isn't it? I mean, heat as well. People pay money to go to a sauna, but if you're on a train and it's hot you feel angry about it,
but it's a free sauna. So I just decided to change my perception by experiencing the sensations without judging the sensations. That's one of the key
components of mindfulness. Experience the sensation
without judging it, good, bad, nice, not nice. Just feel it. So I felt the ground under my feet. I felt the bag pushing
down on my shoulder. I felt the sway of the train. I felt my breathing. I just did this in short bursts
during that train journey. And I got out of the train
feeling 10 years younger. I just felt energized. I felt like my batteries
had been recharged. And so that was the first
time I experienced it and since then I've done
this everyday, many times. I travel a lot so I'm in airports a lot, standing in line in airports
and security or the check in. There's three queues, isn't there? Check in, security, gate. Three chances, three free holidays. When you're waiting for
something, stuck in traffic, standing in line, internet slows down, computer slows down,
somebody sends you a huge attachment on your phone,
it takes ages to download. What else, you phone up
somewhere, they put you on hold. You're number 20 in the queue. These are moments, aren't they? Moments of waiting. So if you start with cleaning your teeth and washing your hands
mindfully and then progress to moments of waiting, it
starts to become very rich, very enriching because when
you're waiting from something, even a small thing such
as pressing the button on the elevator and waiting
for the elevator to show up, there's that moment where
we don't just relax. We go into that kind of stuck state. That's cortisol, the body is
producing the stress hormone because we're waiting. Stuck in traffic, standing in line. The cortisol is bubbling
away because we're waiting and we're stuck. Instead you could use
that as a mindful moment. So you just feel the
ground under your feet. You go into that mindful state. It sounds simple, but you're actually rewiring your own brain. I don't mean our brain is full of wires, but you know what I mean. We're reprogramming our stress reactivity because what happens in
our brain is that we have this automatic association between a stressful situation and tension. We don't plan it. We don't think, hey I'm
stressed, let me get tense. It just happens, like two
wires are joined together. When I'm stuck somewhere,
I need to be tense. It's not intellectualized,
it just happens. Here in this exercise, you're putting two different wires together. Stressful situation, relaxed response. Put those two together, create
a new connection mentally. Let that become a habit. That doesn't make you passive. It doesn't turn you into a doormat where you just, you know,
people abuse and insult you and you're like, hey I
don't care, I'm so mindful. It's not like that. It just means you don't get so upset, you don't get wound up, you can stay calm. And you're learning to
relax against the odds. Against the grain. Do you know what I mean? And so this becomes a habit. And then you know, you're
doing it standing in line, traffic, computer slowing
down, waiting for the elevator, waiting for the kettle to boil, anything. But because you're creating
that habit it means when you're in the bigger stress of life, you'll have already created the habit of not going into a stress
reaction, but staying calm, keeping your head cool and then you can make the right choices. So you're training in that way. Also, what you're doing in
this very simple exercise of being relaxed when
you're standing in line or stuck in traffic or
waiting for anything, what you're doing is you're
learning what I would call unconditional joy,
unconditional joy or happiness. Because normally our happiness
and joy are very conditional. Happy if, happy when,
have to be on the beach, have to have nice experiences,
have to have this, have to have that then I will be happy. Well actually this is a different thing because next time you're stuck in traffic, you might get a little bit interested or even excited and think,
great I can do that thing now. Bring it on. I can use this. So you're sort of open to that situation as a training opportunity. And so as well as developing
that calmness in stress, you're developing the ability
to be happy against the odds. So you're learning to have
independent happiness. And it means you can meet
discomfort in a creative way. And all creativity stems from there. Genuine creativity is
when you're not frightened of being uncomfortable. Most people are kind of
frightened of being uncomfortable, naturally, obviously, of course. But we'll never get creative
when we're frightened. But if you can meet
discomfort in a courageous, open hearted way, you
can be really creative and achieve amazing things. So I've talked a little bit about stress. I've talked about the
cortisol reaction in the body. I've talked about thoughts. I've talked about meditation and how to, for example, using the breathing. If any of you come to the class tomorrow, we'll look into that into more detail. How to use your breathing
so that you're learning to be less controlled by your thoughts. And I've also talked about
these mindful moments throughout the day. They're crucial because
otherwise the meditation is just in the morning or the evening and the rest of the day
there's no connection. But I also want to talk
about focus and presence. Because as I mentioned at
the start of this session, meditation and mindfulness are not just about stress reduction. In fact, even saying
stress reduction to me sounds very boring. I would talk about transformation. I would talk about using
stress in a creative way, but it is more than that. It's more than just about
stress or wellbeing, even. It's really also about
focusing and being aware and having that mental sharpness. You're honing your ability to concentrate. And of course this is I think
necessary now more than ever because we live with such distraction. What is the thing that's
happened to us now that wasn't there when we were kids is we all have phones in our pocket. We all have our office in our pocket. Which of course can be great for our work. It's changed the landscape
totally of how we operate. But the downside of that is
we're never really present. We're always somewhere else. So we've become more
distracted as a species really. More absent. We're not in the moment. We're in somebody else's moment. I mean, now a days people
when they're eating food they're checking what other people are eating on social media. What's everyone else eating? Or photograph my food and post it to see if other people like it. So there's this absence and comparison all the time, isn't there? And the way our phone constantly
sends us notifications can make us very distracted. And you see this when you
watch any kind of media, TV, or movies, you see
how fast everything is compared to how it used to be. Why is that? It's because we have
more distractable minds. If you watch old movies, they seem kind of boring, don't they? We call it art house now. But modern is very, very fast. Which seems more exciting
and more creative. It can be, but it also has something to do with how distracted we are. We need constant
stimulation to feel alive. And the downside of this is it's made it harder for us to concentrate. So this makes our work suffer. Also, I teach a lot of
mindfulness in schools and kids are really
distracted so they're not learning properly because
their mind is so scattered. But also in our personal life, it means we're never really present. We go to beautiful places,
but we're not really there. How many meals have we eaten,
which we haven't even tasted? How many movies have we
watched where we can't even remember what was in the movie? You get halfway through a
movie and you have to kind of nudge your neighbor to see what happened because we're not there. The mind is so easily distracted. Well if you practice these techniques such as mindfulness and meditation, you are honing your focus. You're training in how to be present and how to sharpen your
focus like laser like focus. It makes you very powerful mentally because you can be
completely on the button. And it's easy to see how that works. If you're, for example,
meditating with your breathing, there's a technique where
you start by feeling the breathing generally. And I'm not talking here
about deep breathing, just ordinary breathing and you're sort of feeling the breath in your
body, but then you progress to feeling the air brushing against the edge of your nostrils. That's something we don't normally feel. The air brushing against
the edge of the skin as you breath in and breath out. Either your nostrils or your lips if you breath through the mouth. That's a very subtle sensation. And you're focusing on
that and then of course your mind wanders and you
keep bring it back to that. That's gonna train you in concentration, but not a sort of tense concentration. It's an amazing mixture
of being concentrated and relaxed at the same time. And if you can create that
mixture, you can achieve a lot because you're not getting tired. Most people when they
concentrate, they get tired because they're kind of you
know, forcing themselves into a concentrating
state, it's exhausting. But if you meditate,
you're building an ability to focus and be very
relaxed at the same time. And that amazing combination
of laser like focus and a lot of space creates
a very interesting mentality that is very powerful
in terms of your work, but also in terms of enjoying life. And being in this moment
and being able to... To be able to find
simple things enjoyable. Just sitting on a bench eating a sandwich in your lunch break, you
can be in that moment feeling happy, really seeing
the grass, the flowers, the things we normally don't notice. I think we do live in a
culture that's very much about not appreciating, not being
grateful, not being happy. Because we're constantly shown imagery that makes us feel we're not thin enough, not beautiful enough, not rich enough, not driving the right car. That's the machinery of our society and I think it's important for us to learn not to buy into that too
much otherwise we just end up feeling dissatisfied all the time. And this mindfulness approach to life can help you to find the small things satisfying and interesting. And then people say, well will
that take away my ambition because I want to be successful. I want to be rich or whatever. Maybe they say that and it doesn't. It doesn't take away your ambition at all. It simply means that you
are stressing all the time about not having enough. The more we think we
don't look the right way or have enough, the more
we're created a sense of lack or deprivation in our mind,
even if we have everything. So I think mindfulness changes the balance and helps you to enjoy the moment more. So we're talking about stress reduction. We're talking about mental focus. We're talking about being present. I think there's another element as well, which is to feel connected. More than ever in human history, we're so connected and yet so lonely. You know? This connectivity through
of course the internet and yet at the same time isolation. Do you know what I mean? It feels like that sometimes, that we can connect anywhere, anyhow, but there's a sense of
not really connecting or sometimes the connection
feels like it's not, it's superficial or we're not sure even why we're connecting. Whereas if we can practice
mindfulness with a sense of compassion, compassion to
me is about connectivity. Interdependence. Interdependence. This whole world is interdependent. I depend on you, you depend on me, we depend on the flowers and
plants for the air we breathe. We all depend on everything else. Everything depends on everything. Everything is linked. Everything is connected. And if we can honor that
connection in a positive way and develop a real intention or wish to be of benefit to others,
that can bring enormous mental wealth to your experience. Sure, some people are
doing amazing things. They are doing charitable enterprises and helping many people. Maybe we're not, but it doesn't have to be always something so obvious. It can simply be about feeling that we are a part of everybody else
and we want to contribute to some kind of peace
in the world around us. So our way of behaving can be harmonious, ethical, compassionate, kind. Sometimes people think
to do well in the world you have to kind of walk
all over each other. I think that's an old paradigm. It's the old paradigm. The new paradigm is that actually compassion, empathy, understanding,
positive relationships means everyone does better. So what I'm talking about
here is how to connect mindfulness and meditation
to a journey of compassion. Compassion's a funny word
because people think it means you just feel sorry for people or you feel upset when
others are suffering. It's more than that. It's about actually feeling
that we can contribute positively to the world around us. And also we can stop judging
each other so harshly. We tend to judge each
other really harshly. We're constantly criticizing others and constantly feeling
negative towards others. And feeling like they should be different or how dare they or who
do they think they are. Actually compassion is about understanding what makes people tick and why they behave the way they behave and having
a little bit less judgment. Which doesn't mean you've become a victim or you lose your ability to make changes. It just means you understand others better and you're less spiteful or less negative. And also you want to help
others and that kind of spreads like ripples, doesn't it? If you're positive
towards those around you, that gives them the
strength to be positive to those they meet so you've
kind of sent out ripples. In inner peace inside the mind leads to a sense of peace around us. And so when I meditate, I
always start my session by sitting and making the intention, I'm doing this for myself,
but also for others. May this benefit others. Just making that wish at the
start of my meditation session means that the practice
goes in that direction because motivation is everything. Intention is everything. And at the end of a meditation session I repeat that intention. I spend a moment thinking, right, I've done this for me,
but also for others. So that move the meditation journey along a path of building
and training and compassion. Now the really interesting
thing about this is in the scanners, the MRI
machines and other types of brain scans that they've
done on people who meditate. The results are much stronger on those who meditate with compassion. The cortisol is lower. The areas of the brain
connected to intention. The premotor, the prefrontal motor cortex. All the areas of the brain
connected to activity, to benefit others are
lit up, were more strong. So the compassion side
of meditation actually leads to more happiness
and greater results. I think also it has
something to do with how we deal with our own thoughts. Some people find that they're really quite unkind to themselves. They're quite harsh toward
themselves, judgmental. And of course, that's gonna affect the way we relate to others. If we're constantly punishing ourself for our thoughts and our
emotions and feeling really kind of aggressive toward our own mind, that's gonna definitely
affect our relationships professionally and personally. So one of the most amazing
things about meditation is you learn to make
friends with your own mind. You learn to make friends
with your own mind. How? It's because when you're meditating and then the mind wanders, and then you capture
the attention you don't have to feel like you failed. You don't have to feel tense or upset. You just accept that your mind wandered and you gently bring the
attention back to the breathing. They did an experiment in
Germany in one of these labs where they test the brains of meditators. And they got one group to
meditate with the instruction when your mind wanders just
bring it back to the breath. They got the second group to
meditate and they were told, when your mind wanders just accept that and gently come back to the breath. The cortisol levels in
group two were way lower. That the compassion they were developing towards their own mind
had an amazing affect on their body chemistry. So when you learn to be less
at war with your own thoughts, then you can have a much more productive, creative, happy, experience of your life and those around you. Inner peace leads to outer peace. And what inner peace means is to stop attacking our own mind,
to stop feeling attacked by our own mind, but to
have some kind of resolving of that inside in terms of how
you deal with the thoughts. So I think that's really a
crucial aspect of meditation is you are at peace with your mind. So this is, if you remember
one thing from this talk please remember that, which
is that when your mind wanders when you're meditating,
you have not failed. Actually it's given you a chance
to come back to the breath and so you actually feel okay
about the wandering mind. It's not your enemy, it's your friend. And this is an amazing transformation in your meditation practice
because you're no longer fighting inside, otherwise
it's a nightmare. You're sitting there with the breathing, then you're thinking,
then you think oh no, come back to the breath. It's kind of exhausting. It's like climbing up
a hill dragging a bag of rocks behind you, it's not fun at all. But if you change your
mentality into this kind of self acceptance, this
really creates a strong meditation journey and can benefit our relationships as a whole. So I hope that the talk has gone some way to addressing this interesting issue of upgrading our mental software and optimizing our performance as a person in the workplace, but also
in our life in general. And I hope it's given
you some understanding around how meditation is not just about changing our stress
patterns, but also about becoming happier, more focused, more kind. There's all these positive aspects as well to the meditation journey. So thank you very much for listening and I hope it was useful. (applauding)
