BITESIZE | A Monk’s Guide To Finding Happiness & Thriving in Hard Times | Gelong Thubten #678

What if the most courageous, compassionate thing you could do in life, was to learn how to be with yourself? It’s a powerful, perhaps surprising idea put forward by today’s guest. Today’s Bitesize is from episode 387 of the podcast with Gelong Thubten - Buddhist monk, meditation teacher and author of the fantastic book 'A Handbook for Hard Times: A Monk’s Guide to Fearless Living’. Thubten became a monk back in 1993 after suffering from severe physical and mental burnout whilst following his dream of becoming an actor in New York City. We begin by talking about distraction and addiction, two states that are very closely linked. He explains that when we distract ourselves by scrolling, overeating, or drinking for example, we’re pushing away emotional pain or discomfort - even if we may not realise it. But the discomfort is really in the pushing. If we can learn instead to sit with what’s making us uncomfortable, those emotions start to transform. Thanks to our sponsor ⁠⁠⁠https://thewayapp.com/livemore Show notes and the full podcast are available at drchatterjee.com/387 Support the podcast and enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts ⁠⁠https://apple.co/feelbetterlivemore⁠⁠ For other podcast platforms go to ⁠⁠https://fblm.supercast.com. DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rangan Chatterjee?

  Today's bite-sized episode is sponsored by The Way, the only meditation app with a single long-term pathway. Now, if you've tried other meditation apps before, I am certain that The Way will be the one that will finally help you develop a consistent practice. You see, one of the best things about it is that you are not going to get overwhelmed with different options. You simply open the app and do the next meditation, building up your practice step by step. After a few sessions, you will feel as if you've got your own personal meditation teacher, who of course is the wonderful Henry

• 0:41Rangan Chatterjee?

  Schukman, who has appeared as a guest on this podcast on two separate occasions. Now, I personally have been using this app for over six months now, and I absolutely love it. In fact, I love it so much that I have invested in the company to join them in their mission to get more people meditating. For listeners of my podcast, The Way is offering 30 free days to establish your own meditation practice. All you have to do is go to thewayapp.com/livemore to get started. Welcome to Feel Better, Live More Bite Size, your weekly dose of inspiration, insights,

• 1:24Rangan Chatterjee?

  and practical ideas to help you live well and thrive. Each episode brings you some of my favorite moments, useful tools, and inspiring ideas from the many incredible conversations I've had on my podcast. Today's Bite Size is from episode 387 of the podcast with Geelong Tupton, Buddhist monk, meditation teacher, and author of the fantastic book, A Handbook for Hard Times: A Monk's Guide to Fearless Living. Tupton explains that when we distract ourselves with low-grade addictions, we're pushing away emotional pain or discomfort.

• 2:06Rangan Chatterjee?

  But if we can learn instead to sit with what's making us uncomfortable, those emotions can start to transform.

• 2:17Rangan Chatterjee?

  If I look across society, what I see are a lot of people with low-grade addictions, things like alcohol, social media, pornography, online shopping. And it seems to me that the root cause of a lot of these addictions is distraction. You make the case that distraction or the pushing away of our feelings of pain, of discomfort, is actually the cause of many of our problems. Do you agree that we are a society that seems to be addicted to distraction? And if you do, what's the underlying cause?

• 3:00Speaker 01

  I think we're definitely addicted to distraction. And of course, the way we use technology has really fed into that. I went away into a four-year-long retreat in 2005. And when I came out of that retreat in 2009, everything had changed in the landscape of technology. So during those four years, the iPhone was launched, and YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, all of those things happened. So when I came out of that retreat, I was quite startled by how things had sped up. And so just noticing how everybody's face is buried in a phone, and there's this sort of constant barrage, this invasive nature to information, advertising, social media, all of that. And so that's incredibly addictive.

• 3:45Speaker 01

  And so, yes, we are all drowning in addictions of various sorts, and they are all based on distraction. What is it we're trying to distract ourselves from? Is I think we don't really know how to face up to our own feelings. So we use things to food, phones, anything to kind of get away from ourselves.

• 4:06Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah. There's a quote in the introduction of your book, which I'd love to read to you, because I think it really speaks to this. "In pushing away discomfort, we usually don't see how the discomfort lies in the pushing. It's our habit of chasing pleasure and running away from hardship that is the real problem. And as any habit simply proliferates, so we constantly chase more and push away more, reinforcing our sense of dissatisfaction."

• 4:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:40Rangan Chatterjee?

  There's a certain irony there where we're trying to use these activities, acquire these things, engage in these behaviors to avoid feeling what we're feeling.

• 4:55Rangan Chatterjee?

  But you're sort of making the point that actually doing that makes the problem worse. So why is that? And also, just to play devil's advocate for a minute, what's wrong with people engaging in these behaviors?

• 5:05Speaker 01

  There's nothing wrong with anything per se, but is it making us suffer? That's the question. Is it creating more suffering? And I think it is, because the more you run after something, the more it seems elusive. We never actually get what we want. And that's because when we're engaged in running after that thing, we're just building more of a habit to run after something. So even if we get what we want, we then find we want something else or a better version of it. The wanting never seems to go away. And in a way, we're just feeding more wanting. So the mind wants more because it's creating a habit of wanting more. So the wanting becomes an endless hunger. And then on the other side of the coin,

• 5:48Speaker 01

  the not wanting becomes an endless process too. Because the more we push away discomfort, the more we build a habit of needing to push away discomfort. Now, if you've got that habit running in your mind, there's going to always be something uncomfortable to be pushed away, even if you lock yourself in an ivory tower with no stress around you and everything just right. Because there's a habit of needing to push away discomfort, we'll find something uncomfortable. So we're sort of caught up in that chase, running after something, running away from something, and we never find any kind of peace there.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  Instead of looking at the things outside yourself as the cause of your suffering or the cause of your happiness, you look at your own mind, and you start to work out what habits your mind is running, a little bit like computer programs. And you can write new programs. You change the programming, and through doing that, your life changes, because you're starting to work with the mind itself rather than the objects around you or the people around you. You're working at your reactions.

• 6:51Rangan Chatterjee?

  I guess one of the central tenets of what you're saying is that we have a lot more control, or certainly choice, over how we perceive things and how we see the world. And until we realize that, we're kind of locked in a pattern, feeling that the world is happening to us. Is that what was happening to you in your early twenties, when you were in New York?

• 7:15Speaker 01

  That was definitely my experience. So I was an actor. I was living in London, then New York, and I was very ambitious. But what was tripping me up all the time was I had a lot of depression and anxiety, and I didn't know how to deal with that. So what I did was I got as busy as possible, both in terms of work, but also in terms of parties. I became a real party animal. But in a very obsessive, kind of vigorous way, as if I was trying to run away from something in me. And the distractions became my only place of refuge, but the distractions were making me ill.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  So I reached a point where I just burnt out very, very suddenly. I thought I was having a fantastic time. I was the life and soul of the party. I was the one always going out, doing stuff.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  But there was something underneath that that I wasn't comfortable with. And this was this deep level of stress and a suppressed feeling of depression, anxiety.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  I found it would come out at certain moments, and then I would have to push that back down again and go out and have a drink and just forget about it. So on the one level, I was having a great time. On another level, I was very unhappy. And I think that's the toxic mixture that created the burnout.

• 8:56Rangan Chatterjee?

  I think this is really important, because on the face of it, it can seem like, well, why does it matter if I just run away a little from my emotions and I spend two hours scrolling social media in the evening, rather than dealing with my marriage or my feelings about myself or my depression, or whatever an individual may be struggling with? But I think what happened to you in New York, having severe burnout, where you couldn't get pretty much off your mum's bed for months. In many ways, that's the inevitable end stage if you don't deal with this stuff. You can't really put those emotions in a cage, can you? They will come out at some point.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  And I'm grateful for that. I feel grateful. I feel grateful that I couldn't get away with it for much longer, the running, the running away. My body stopped me. Unhappiness is the key to a doorway. It's only when you learn what to do with your unhappiness that you can really break through and find stable happiness.

• 10:01Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, there's this lovely quote of yours, and again, in the introduction, "Our unhappiness is the most fertile grounds for the cultivation of inner strength, resilience, and compassion."

• 10:13Speaker 01

  I think the goal is to change how we think about hard times and to start to see them as, as I said, fertile ground or something that can benefit us in some way in terms of growing our compassion, resilience, strength, et cetera. But what we really need is methods that we can apply in the moment, because otherwise the hard times become toxic and destructive. But I try to provide in the book ways of thinking, but also ways of meditating in the hard times that can help you to work with a sense of transformation in the moment. Otherwise, it's always that you find out later that you are grateful. You have a terrible time, and later on you can think, oh, okay, that was good for me.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  I look back with gratitude, which is good. But wouldn't it be even more powerful to know what to do in the middle of the storm? When you are in the storm, how to work with it? So obviously, when I had that burnout when I was 21, I didn't know about meditation. I found out later. But now, when I go through hard times, I have tools that I can apply in the moment. And the hard times are still hard times, but there are ways of working with it as it's happening.

• 11:29Rangan Chatterjee?

  Let's say someone is listening right now and they're in the middle of a really difficult time. What's one of the tools you'd recommend for them?

• 11:40Speaker 01

  So what I recommend is that we start to work with the sensations in our body rather than the thoughts. And if we're going through a difficult time, there is the information about that difficulty. I lost my job, I lost a relationship, or whatever, whatever the thing is that that is troubling us. Those are the thoughts, the storyline, which is valid, of course. I'm not saying it's sort of pointless or anything. I'm just suggesting that we go beneath the story and work with the sensations in our body right now. So in your body, there is a discomfort, there's a feeling of tightness, a feeling of turbulence,

• 12:20Speaker 01

  and you can use that as meditation. The problem is that the mind then flies back into the story and gets lost in that. He said this, she did that, why me, why this, why that? And you've got to kind of keep going beneath the story into the sensation. And when you can work with those physical sensations through meditation, they start to transform. So you start to create a kind of alchemy inside yourself where the misery becomes a doorway into a deeper kind of peace. Because you're, when you meditate on your suffering, not the information, but the feeling, the suffering has to change.

• 13:00Rangan Chatterjee?

  Now, I'm on board with this. But what if someone is thinking, okay, I get that. I've just lost my job. I'm really stressed about it. And you're asking me to sit there and feel, where is this emotion in my body? Sure. And let's say they do that, and they find it's in their stomach, and their stomach feels tight, and maybe their guts growling, whatever it might be. It doesn't change the fact, does it, that they've lost their job?

• 13:30Speaker 01

  What it changes is their feeling about the situation. So the more they do this meditation, the more they can accept the suffering and be okay with the suffering. And then they develop a kind of strength. And from that place of strength, they can start to find solutions.

• 13:47Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  They can start to find ways out of the situation they're in, or ways of changing their environment, but from a place of strength, rather than a place of panic and misery. So I'm not suggesting a kind of passivity, where you just kind of go away and sit and meditate and just let your life fall apart. I'm suggesting that you reframe the suffering as an opportunity, and then doors open.

• 14:12Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  To things you can do. The deeper benefit is that you're learning how not to suffer. Because suffering comes through our mind getting locked into a suffering state. Whatever is going on outside of us is secondary. What's primary is how our mind reacts to that. So stuff is going wrong in my life, and I'm caught up in misery about it. I'm caught up in a sense of despair, and my mind is locked into that despair. I don't know how to get out of it. So I'm suffering. So if I meditate every day, I'm learning how to get myself out of the thought and back to the present moment. I'm learning how not

• 14:57Speaker 01

  to let that thought or emotion swamp me or control me too much. So then I'm going to start to suffer less. It means that when I get locked into the suffering, I can learn how to not be so glued into it.

• 15:10Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, I love that. Because it doesn't necessarily change the situation, but it changes how you view the situation. It changes how you relate to that situation. What are the main obstacles for people when they think about meditation?

• 15:26Speaker 01

  The biggest obstacle is that many people have an assumption about meditation that's absolutely not true. Which is they, they seem to feel you're supposed to clear your mind. I hear this phrase a lot, clear your mind. And it's quite a damaging phrase. Damaging, because when the person sits down to meditate, and they try to clear their mind, they can't. The more you try to shut the mind down, the louder it shouts. So then you feel really frustrated. Many people give up meditation because they sit there trying to silence their thoughts, and the thoughts just get louder. So there's sort of a feeling of being

• 16:06Speaker 01

  at war with yourself. So, so I find that the struggle comes from a misconception about what meditation is. So it's not about clearing the mind, but it's about changing the dynamic, changing the relationship between yourself and your thoughts, which doesn't mean getting rid of them at all. It means changing how you relate to them.

• 16:28Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah. You've been meditating for what, 30 years? Do you still get distracted during meditation?

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Yes. Yes. And distraction is good.

• 16:39Rangan Chatterjee?

  Distraction is good.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  Because distraction is what makes you stronger. So what you start to do is you, you meditate using, at first, you, you, you use something as a focus, such as your breathing. So your mind wanders, you realize your mind has wandered. It could be a while before you realize, you know, five, 10 minutes even. But then you gently come back to the breath, and that's what builds strength. Every time you come back to the breath, you are gaining power over your thoughts. Because you're making a decision to gently bring yourself back to the present moment. So the thought that took you away is precisely what brings

• 17:20Speaker 01

  you back. That is meditation, is noticing that you got distracted. It's just like lifting weights. Every time you come back, you are developing muscle. So if coming back to the breath is what makes you strong, you have to have somewhere to come back from. So the thought that took you away is good, because it's the thing you come back from.

• 17:45Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  So to understand this means that you no longer feel that you're at war with your own mind when you meditate. The thoughts and distractions that keep taking you away are part of the process. And when somebody discovers this, their whole relationship with meditation changes. They no longer feel like a failure for having a wandering mind. I hear so many people say, oh, I tried meditation, but my mind was too busy. I was, I was rubbish at it. And I want to take those people and say, no, that's not what it's about. The busier, the better in a way.

• 18:17Rangan Chatterjee?

  It's almost like you had a better workout. Oh, no, I was, I was lifting really heavy weights there, because all I could think about was my to do list and my emails. And because, as you say, it's interesting, we don't, we don't realize when we leave the breath, because otherwise we would be present and know that we were leaving the breath. But we do realize at some point, that in fact, there's a really nice meditation in the book. Is it the breath counting one, where you say, start off, see if you can get to seven, and then over time build it up? Could you just talk us through that? Because I think that's a really nice, practical exercise, that I think anyone listening or watching this, if they were so inspired to do so, could probably give this a go later on today, or even tomorrow morning.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. You, you, you are focusing on your breathing, without changing the breathing. You're not trying to breathe deeply or slowly or anything, just breathe normally. And you can mentally count the cycles of breath. So in and out is one, in and out is two. And you will get distracted, and you will lose count.

• 19:19Rangan Chatterjee?

  You will. And you know what? I was in bed this morning, and because I'd been reading your book, and I'm, you know, I knew you'd be coming to the studio. I was in bed this morning when I woke up. And, you know, I know some people say you shouldn't do this lying down, but I was lying down. I thought, I'm gonna do this breath counting. And I, I thought I wouldn't get distracted. And somehow, after five, I did get distracted. And I was really trying to concentrate and stay focused. So it is incredible how much you do get distracted. And that's why even trying to get to seven, it, it sounds quite easy. But, you know, we may be surprised how quickly our minds get distracted.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's amazing. And, and the whole point is just to keep coming back to the breath and start the numbers again. And you, you start to get better at it, and you start to get more focused. But you're not feeling like a failure because the mind wandered. The wandering mind is part of the thing that makes you strong. Because every time you come back to that focus, you are gaining strength, and you're gaining authority over your thoughts.

• 20:29Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah. You've been on a very deep and long journey with meditation. For someone who's not interested in being a monk, who's just struggling a little bit with their life, and maybe has some of these low-grade addictions that we've been talking about, how quickly can 10 minutes of meditation a day start to make a difference for them?

• 20:55Speaker 01

  What I found very exciting was to hear from neuroscientists, that when they do MRI scans on people who meditate, they notice visible changes in the brain, even after a few days of somebody doing 10 minutes of meditation a day. When I heard that, I thought, that's incredibly valuable information, because it gives us a lot of hope and encouragement. The more you meditate, the more you start to find an inner sense of happiness and strength. And these external things become secondary, rather than primary. So you, you start to free yourself, and you start to tap into an inner happiness that you never knew was

• 21:37Speaker 01

  there. You always thought it was outside. So you, you, we got so obsessed with the externals, and then you discover something inside yourself that's a deep kind of peace and contentment. And the more you can tap into that, the more free you become, the more happy you become, and also the more you can give to others. So your relationship with others starts to change. And that's where compassion starts to enter the picture. And you can't fail at meditation. Because meditation is, is where you just do nothing. I mean, you are literally sitting there doing nothing. And that's the beauty of it, is that you're not doing something in order to become a better person. You're doing nothing.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  And you're undoing all the things you normally do to run away from yourself. And through doing nothing, you get closer to your essence, and you discover happiness. So you're literally relaxing into what you already are. So it's very hard to fail at that, because you're just being you.

• 22:38Rangan Chatterjee?

  I really hope you enjoyed this week's Bite Size. Do spread the love by sharing this episode with your friends and family. I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Make sure you have pressed subscribe. And I'll be back next week with my new conversation on Wednesday, and the latest episode of Bite Size next Friday.