The meaning of life | Lama Michel | TEDxLaçador

There are moments that mark our life. At age 11 Lama Michel observes adults and only hears complaints. No adult seems happy. He finds in a buddist master the example of life he'd like to have. So, he made a decision that made sense to him. Do your decisions make sense to you?
Lama Michel Rinpoche was born in 1981, in Sao Paulo. At age 12, inspired by Lama Gangchen Rinpoche, he decided to pursue a monastic life. He lived in the Monastic University of Sera Me for 12 years, in India, where he trained in Tibetan buddist philosophical practices. Since 2006, he's lived in Italy. He's vice-president of Fondazione Lama Gangchen per una Cultura di Pace in Italy and president of Fundação Lama Gangchen for the Culture of Peace, in Brazil. Author of books “Uma Jovem Ideia de Paz,” by Sarasvati Publisher in 1996, “Coragem para seguir em frente,” by Gaia Publisher, in 2006 and “Grande Amor,” co-written with his mother Bel Cesar, by Gaia Publisher, in 2015.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

I believe there are moments
that mark our life.

There are several phases in life we go on
living our day to day, life goes by,

and surely every experience
we have leaves a mark.

There are, however, some moments

that end up having
more impact than others.

I believe one of the most important
moments of my life

took place when I was very little.

I was five years old.

What happened was that I fell in love.

In truth, I met my master
for the first time,

master Lama Gangchen Rinpoche,

to whom I feel deeply grateful.

I believe I'm extremely
fortunate in this life

to have met and have lived
and still live and meet people

who have been, and still are,
great examples of what I want to become.

This encounter caused me, slowly,

to begin to ask myself some questions.

I started to wonder
about some things, to question...

Of course, this didn't happen overnight.

I am and have always been
slow in my inner self,

in the sense of what I think,

I'm not a very talkative person,

I've got my internal processes,

but when I make a decision,
it's a stable one.

And during these years, being in touch
with such an incredible person,

as Lama Gangchen Rinpoche,

I started to ask one question.

What am I doing?

I come from a family where religious
education was present,

on my father's side, Jewish,

and on my mother's,
Christian, Presbyterian.

My parents were always
quite open-minded.

And the question didn't have to do
with religion itself,

it was, "What am I doing here?"

I had a great life in São Paulo.

Good family, great parents,
great friends, cousins, school.

Everything was great.

I had no reason at all
to complain about the life I had.

But the question was always there,
"Where am I going?"

I study Math, Geography,
Portuguese, English, Social Studies,

all those things we know well about.

And the question I asked myself was,

"What do I study all of these for?"

The only answer I found at the time -

today I suppose the answer
would be quite different,

not so much, but slightly different.

But the answer I found at the time was,

"I study all of these to finish school,

to go to college, to graduate,

and, if everything works out,

I'll get a job I like and earn money."

And I said, "Yeah..."

But I started to look around me,
in family meetings,

looking at those around,

trying to observe the adult world
around me - I was 11 at that time.

I used to observe, every time
I was around adults talking,

I would listen to conversations,

and they were about what?

Complaints.

Rarely did I see anyone happy, satisfied.

I used to see many people
who had many things,

good education, good jobs,

but, little contentment, I could say.

And each time I saw my master,
I used to see, as it still is today,

an extremely healthy person
inside and outside,

happy, satisfied, content.

I live with my master until today,
it's been 30 years since I met him,

and never, at no time, have I ever heard
him complain or talk on someone's back.

And in this process I thought to myself,

"That's what I want to be like!
He's my example!"

Once I was in a family dinner in New York,
with the Jewish part of the family,

it was a wedding party,
and someone asked me,

"Why haven't you become a rabbi?

Maybe that would be closer
to your culture, wouldn't it?"

I said, "The reason, I believe,
is that the life example I found

was in a Buddhist master."

That was the reason, right?

Before I begin to talk a little
about the meaning of life for me,

where this has taken me,

which, yes, after all, I ended up
following my master's footsteps,

I mean, I made a decision that wasn't
conceptual, it came from within,

it made sense to me,

which was, "I want to follow the steps
of this person, the steps my master took."

So, at age 12 I went to India
to study in a monastery,

I who had never been a good student,
who had never liked studying,

there I was, having to study,

waking up at 5:30 am, beginning prayers,

starting to study from 7 am till 11 pm.

Monastery life is for those who like it.

Monastery life
is a little like, we can say,

being in the army, with a slightly
different objective, a lot of discipline.

In the monastery I lived,
there were more than 4,000 people,

the structure was very big.

But it was wonderful.

I think the best education I could have
received, I received it there.

But the first year after I was back
in Brazil, after living in the monastery,

my grandma took me to a meeting
that was very important to me,

with a person I think highly of,
the rabbi Nilton Bonder.

Somehow, making a joke out of it,

my grandma must have thought,
"What's happened to my grandson?

At age 12, he goes to a monastery,
let's go talk with the rabbi."

When I arrived to see the rabbi -

something to do with the Jewish tradition,
at the age to become "bar mitzvah",

the way it was, the way it wasn't,
I'd been at a monastery, complicated -

I sat to talk with the rabbi,

and the first thing he said
was very critical to me,

"If I'm me because you're you,
and if you're you because I'm me,

I'm not me, and you're not you.

But if I'm me because I'm me,
and you're you because you're you,

then, surely, we can talk,

because we're truthful."

I always remember this, wherever I am,
I'm me because I'm me.

It's natural that people look at me,
by the way I dress,

and I don't care, this is not important.

If they like it or not,
it doesn't change anything for me.

The fact is, though, throughout
those years, I've had a chance to learn,

to learn through concepts,

learn through examples, above all else.

I'd like to share a little with you
what to me is the meaning of life,

how to make this life a meaningful one.

In short: we can say it's a choice.

There are two ways we can live life.

one is to live to survive, that's it;

days go by and we just keep going.

Day in day out, there's a problem,

we try to solve it in between things.

An example of this,

once one of my masters,

who I lived with at the monastery, said,

"if you live life exclusively to survive,

then there's no difference
between you and a cow."

He used this example
because I lived in a farm,

in the countryside of India,
and there were many cows around.

And close by, there was a cow,
he said, "Look, a cow."

What do people do
when they live to survive?

They spend all their time trying
to avoid suffering and seeking pleasure.

If we spend all our lives
solely trying to avoid suffering

and seeking pleasure, we're just
living life in order to survive.

A cow in the meadow,

when the sun is too hot and there's room
in the shade, where does it go?

To the shade or does it stay in the sun?

It goes to the shade,
it seeks to avoid suffering.

If it's grazing out there
and the grass is dry,

and some place else it's green,
where will it go to feed?

To the green meadow. It seeks pleasure.

We have a slightly different
and more elaborate way of doing so.

(Laughter)

What happens is that to live life
just to survive is a choice.

It's the kind of life you live,
and each time there's a hard emotion,

a suffering, we want to run away,
to avoid it, and not learn with it.

Thus, we end up finding refuge
in alcohol, in having fun;

nothing against fun, but we end up
taking refuge in things that, in truth,

lead us nowhere except fun
so that we can run away

from our conflicts and difficulties,
our weaknesses, our shadows,

which are actually very precious.

The other choice is to make
this life a meaningful one.

To say, "OK, my life
is not an end, but a means."

And to me, to make this life
a meaningful one requires two aspects,

two fields of action,
which, in truth, are just one.

But, to make it easier, we can discuss it
as two separate things.

Ideally, these two fields of action should
become just one: to develop oneself,

to make sure each day that goes by
I can become a better person.

The least I want in all of it is to die
a better person than I was born.

But it's not so obvious.

In other words, all that I've learned,

the conditioning I've generated
throughout my life,

should make me a better person
at the end of it.

So, the choice is to become
a better person.

Another aspect to make this life
a life of meaning is to help others.

And this process isn't something
we learn from nowhere.

In Buddhism, there's a very clear process

which is to listen,
understand and meditate.

Anything we want to accomplish,

we need to go through these phases.

Listening means receiving the information.

Talking, reading, listening,
receiving information.

The second step is to make
the information we have listened to,

and agreed with,

not just one more piece of repeated
information someone told us about,

but, something that is ours.

I mean, I will understand the point.

And the third aspect is to meditate.

Meditate, literally, doesn't just mean
to sit in silence, which is wonderful,

but, it actually means, to be familiar,

to have experiences so that that concept
isn't just one more concept,

but becomes a real part of our lives.

I've discussed this in several contexts,
and sometimes I ask people,

"Is being angry good or bad?"

It's bad.

I've asked this question to adults,
children of all ages, and old people.

In any context, everyone says,
"Being angry is not good."

Knowing that being angry isn't good means
you're not going to feel angry anymore?

No.

Thus, knowing isn't enough.

We do need, in fact,

to have experiences
so they can become reality in our lives,

so they can become part of our lives,
and this is the meditating process;

to induce oneself to be in levels
of consciousness we'd like to be in,

and then, these levels may become
natural and spontaneous later on.

In other words, it's much better
to be an altruist...

as it is said...

much better to be an artificial altruist,
than a natural selfish.

As time goes by, as I know
it's better to be an altruist,

I'll try very hard to be one,

even if at first I'm not really genuine,
but I'll gradually learn.

In sum, there are two points
I'd like to leave you with today,

two aspects I think
are very important in our lives,

that we can develop,

either to make better people
out of who we are

or to help the world around us.

They are love and wisdom.

Years ago I checked
the word "love" in Wikipedia.

There were 67 definitions for love.

In Buddhism, love means
"to wish happiness."

"I love you" means your happiness
is very important to me.

I do wish you to be deeply happy.

Regardless of where,
when, who with or how.

I want you to be happy.

"I want you," I need you to my happiness.

These are two different things,
sometimes they can be together,

but to love is to desire
happiness for others.

And, quickly now, there's an exercise
I started doing a few years ago

that helps me a great deal,
and I'd like to share it with you

so as to leave you
with something practical,

and that is to approach someone,
at least once a day,

possibly someone you don't know,

in a restaurant, in the subway,
at the supermarket, on the street,

look at the person and say, "I love you."

Not verbally.

(Laughter)

So as not to generate conflict
or odd situations.

(Laughter)

I've had a moment of love with a mason
from Vila Madalena, it was incredible...

(Laughter)

In reality, the exercise is as follows:

we look at people in their eyes
and think in our heart,

"I wish you to be happy.
Your happiness is important to me."

That's it.

Once I was waiting for a friend
in Vila Madalena in São Paulo,

there was a construction site,
and the mason was looking at me...

Look at how I'm dressed, okay?

I looked back at him and, usually,
when somebody stares at you,

the norm is to look away.

But, in that occasion, no,
he kept looking at me and me him.

Maybe two minutes went by.

I started to do the exercise
of looking at him in the eyes wishing,

"I wish you to be happy.

I don't know who you are,
where you come from,

I know your happiness is important to me.

I wish you to be happy."

Slowly and naturally
I started smiling and so did he,

and that started to fill me,
to carry me to a state of plenitude.

And that's wonderful because we like
being loved, don't we?

Is it good to be loved?

It's wonderful. But, there's something
even better, it's to love.

When we truly open our hearts,

this brings us a level
of joy, of plenitude,

that goes beyond any pleasure we may
experience in life, in our day to day.

It's awesome.

That's why, selfishly speaking,
it's way better to be altruist.

The second important point...

is, because of all I've said,
do practice love.

Look around you, the world around you,
and wish it happiness,

regardless of whoever
stands in front of us.

This second, very important point

and the deepest and most complex
to Buddhist philosophy

which I won't be able to explain
in just two minutes -

(Laughter)

is what is called "wisdom".

But, briefly, what is wisdom?

It is to relate to reality

in a coherent manner
according to what reality is.

Two examples.

The world around us
is permanent or impermanent?

Things are always changing
or are they fixed?

They are always changing.

But when we see a person one day

and see that person again the next day,
who do we think we're going to see?

Someone who has changed because
they have interacted or the same person?

The same person.

And when people change, can we be upset?

Do we suffer with the change?

In other words, reality around us
comes up, it appears to be,

to have a permanent appearance,

even if it is truly impermanent,
and we believe it to be so.

Do we live in a world
of a subjective or objective reality?

Subjective.

Nothing is the same for all people.

However, how does reality appear to us?
How do we see things?

As if it were that way,
subjectively or objectively?

Objectively.

Upon analysis, we know it is subjective,

but in the direct experience,
how do we see it?

As if it were objective.

Where is the ignorance?

It is in seeing what is subjective
as if it were objective.

Therefore, wisdom is to relate to reality

in a coherent manner with what reality is.

The more coherent we are,

the better we'll relate with ourselves
and with the world around us.

To sum up, I'd like to tell you a sentence
that has been with me pretty much,

because my biggest flaw is,
I believe, laziness.

People who know me say,
"No, you're not lazy."

But I know I am, I know myself.

(Laughter)

It's also one of the things
I battle everyday to overcome.

And there's a sentence
that was said by a master,

about four centuries ago in Tibet
by Kunden Jampel Yang -

I'll tell you first in Tibetan; he said,

(Tibetan)

In English, it'd be something like this,

"Thinking about doing,
thinking about doing, 20 years went by.

I couldn't, I couldn't, 20 years went by.

Gee, why didn't I do it?
Why didn't I do it? Twenty years went by.

And so 60 years went by.

That's the biography of an empty life."

If there's something we'd like to do,
we've got to start now.

At that time the average life span
in Tibet was 60 years.

If we add, "Not thinking of doing,
not thinking of doing, 20 years went by"

it'll come to 80.

The fact is: it's never too late
and it's never too early.

Everything we do, each word we use,

each place we go, each person we meet,

each thought we have,
each decision we take,

are determining in our lives.

So, what I ask you, from all we hear,

from all we observe,

if there's something
we believe is truly beneficial,

let's practice it,
let's make it happen in our lives.

Thank you.

(Applause)