0:00:00.481,0:00:03.049
We live in an incredibly busy world.

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The pace of life is often frantic,[br]our minds are always busy,

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and we're always doing something.

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So with that in mind,[br]I'd like you just to take a moment

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to think, when did you last take[br]any time to do nothing?

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Just 10 minutes, undisturbed?

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And when I say nothing, I do mean nothing.

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So that's no emailing,[br]texting, no Internet,

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no TV, no chatting, no eating, no reading.

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Not even sitting there[br]reminiscing about the past

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or planning for the future.

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Simply doing nothing.

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I see a lot of very blank faces.

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(Laughter)

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You probably have to go a long way back.

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And this is an extraordinary thing, right?

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We're talking about our mind.

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The mind, our most valuable[br]and precious resource,

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through which we experience[br]every single moment of our life.

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The mind that we rely upon

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to be happy, content,[br]emotionally stable as individuals,

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and at the same time,[br]to be kind and thoughtful

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and considerate[br]in our relationships with others.

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This is the same mind that we depend upon

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to be focused, creative, spontaneous,

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and to perform at our very best[br]in everything that we do.

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And yet, we don't take[br]any time out to look after it.

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In fact, we spend more time[br]looking after our cars,

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our clothes and our hair than we --

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okay, maybe not our hair,

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(Laughter)

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but you see where I'm going.

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The result, of course,[br]is that we get stressed.

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You know, the mind whizzes away[br]like a washing machine

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going round and round,[br]lots of difficult, confusing emotions,

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and we don't really know[br]how to deal with that.

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And the sad fact[br]is that we are so distracted

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that we're no longer present[br]in the world in which we live.

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We miss out on the things[br]that are most important to us,

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and the crazy thing[br]is that everybody just assumes,

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that's the way life is, so we've just[br]kind of got to get on with it.

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That's really not how it has to be.

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So I was about 11 when I went along[br]to my first meditation class.

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And trust me, it had all the stereotypes[br]that you can imagine,

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the sitting cross-legged on the floor,

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the incense, the herbal tea,[br]the vegetarians, the whole deal,

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but my mom was going and I was intrigued,[br]so I went along with her.

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I'd also seen a few kung fu movies,

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and secretly I kind of thought[br]I might be able to learn how to fly,

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but I was very young at the time.

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Now as I was there, I guess,[br]like a lot of people,

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I assumed that it was just[br]an aspirin for the mind.

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You get stressed, you do some meditation.

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I hadn't really thought that it could be[br]sort of preventative in nature,

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until I was about 20, when a number[br]of things happened in my life

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in quite quick succession,

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really serious things[br]which just flipped my life upside down

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and all of a sudden[br]I was inundated with thoughts,

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inundated with difficult emotions[br]that I didn't know how to cope with.

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Every time I sort of pushed one down,

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another one would pop back up again.

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It was a really very stressful time.

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I guess we all deal with stress[br]in different ways.

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Some people will bury themselves in work,[br]grateful for the distraction.

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Others will turn to their friends,[br]their family, looking for support.

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Some people hit the bottle,[br]start taking medication.

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My own way of dealing with it[br]was to become a monk.

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So I quit my degree,[br]I headed off to the Himalayas,

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I became a monk, and I started[br]studying meditation.

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People often ask me[br]what I learned from that time.

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Well, obviously it changed things.

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Let's face it, becoming a celibate monk[br]is going to change a number of things.

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But it was more than that.

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It taught me -- it gave me[br]a greater appreciation,

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an understanding for the present moment.

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By that I mean not being lost in thought,

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not being distracted,

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not being overwhelmed[br]by difficult emotions,

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but instead learning how to be[br]in the here and now,

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how to be mindful, how to be present.

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I think the present moment[br]is so underrated.

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It sounds so ordinary,

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and yet we spend so little time[br]in the present moment

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that it's anything but ordinary.

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There was a research paper that came[br]out of Harvard, just recently,

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that said on average, our minds[br]are lost in thought

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almost 47 percent of the time.

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47 percent.

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At the same time, this sort[br]of constant mind-wandering

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is also a direct cause of unhappiness.

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Now we're not here for that long anyway,

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but to spend almost half[br]of our life lost in thought

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and potentially quite unhappy,

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I don't know, it just kind[br]of seems tragic, actually,

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especially when there's something[br]we can do about it,

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when there's a positive,[br]practical, achievable,

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scientifically proven technique

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which allows our mind to be more healthy,

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to be more mindful and less distracted.

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And the beauty of it is that even though

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it need only take about 10 minutes a day,

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it impacts our entire life.

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But we need to know how to do it.

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We need an exercise.

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We need a framework[br]to learn how to be more mindful.

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That's essentially what meditation is.

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It's familiarizing ourselves[br]with the present moment.

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But we also need to know[br]how to approach it in the right way

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to get the best from it.

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And that's what these are for,[br]in case you've been wondering,

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because most people assume

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that meditation[br]is all about stopping thoughts,

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getting rid of emotions,[br]somehow controlling the mind,

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but actually it's quite[br]different from that.

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It's more about stepping back,

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sort of seeing the thought clearly,

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witnessing it coming and going,[br]emotions coming and going

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without judgment,[br]but with a relaxed, focused mind.

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So for example, right now,

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if I focus too much on the balls,

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then there's no way I can relax[br]and talk to you at the same time.

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Equally, if I relax too much[br]talking to you,

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there's no way I can focus on the balls.

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I'm going to drop them.

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Now in life, and in meditation,

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there'll be times when the focus[br]becomes a little bit too intense,

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and life starts to feel a bit like this.

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It's a very uncomfortable[br]way to live life,

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when you get this tight and stressed.

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At other times, we might take our foot off[br]the gas a little bit too much,

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and things just become a sort[br]of little bit like this.

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Of course in meditation --

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(Snores)

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we're going to end up falling asleep.

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So we're looking for a balance,[br]a focused relaxation

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where we can allow thoughts to come and go

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without all the usual involvement.

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Now, what usually happens[br]when we're learning to be mindful

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is that we get distracted by a thought.

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Let's say this is an anxious thought.

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Everything's going fine,[br]and we see the anxious thought.

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"Oh, I didn't realize[br]I was worried about that."

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You go back to it, repeat it.

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"Oh, I am worried.

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I really am worried.[br]Wow, there's so much anxiety."

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And before we know it, right,

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we're anxious about feeling anxious.

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(Laughter)

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You know, this is crazy.

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We do this all the time,[br]even on an everyday level.

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If you think about the last time[br]you had a wobbly tooth.

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You know it's wobbly,[br]and you know that it hurts.

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But what do you do every 20, 30 seconds?

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(Mumbling)

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It does hurt.

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And we reinforce the storyline, right?

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And we just keep telling ourselves,[br]and we do it all the time.

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And it's only in learning[br]to watch the mind in this way

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that we can start to let go[br]of those storylines and patterns of mind.

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But when you sit down[br]and you watch the mind in this way,

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you might see many different patterns.

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You might find a mind[br]that's really restless and --

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the whole time.

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Don't be surprised if you feel[br]a bit agitated in your body

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when you sit down to do nothing[br]and your mind feels like that.

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You might find a mind that's very dull

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and boring, and it's just,[br]almost mechanical,

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it just seems it's as if you're[br]getting up, going to work,

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eat, sleep, get up, work.

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Or it might just be[br]that one little nagging thought

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that just goes round and round your mind.

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Well, whatever it is,

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meditation offers the opportunity,[br]the potential to step back

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and to get a different perspective,

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to see that things aren't always[br]as they appear.

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We can't change every little thing[br]that happens to us in life,

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but we can change[br]the way that we experience it.

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That's the potential[br]of meditation, of mindfulness.

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You don't have to burn any incense,

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and you definitely don't have[br]to sit on the floor.

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All you need to do[br]is to take 10 minutes out a day

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to step back, to familiarize yourself[br]with the present moment

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so that you get to experience[br]a greater sense

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of focus, calm and clarity in your life.

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Thank you very much.

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(Applause)