We're all at the mercy of our own minds.

But the problem is is that in modern

life, we're constantly made to feel

we're not good enough. Something's

always missing, and I will be happy or

unhappy if this or that happens to me.

So, we become prisoners of life. And you

learn this the hard way. Yes. When I was

in a long retreat, cut off from the

world for 4 years. And memories were

coming up from the past. It would build

into horrific amounts of depression,

anxiety, pain. And I jumped over the

wall and tried to escape because of what

happened to me when I was 14. Are you

comfortable talking about this? Gerong

Tupton is a Buddhist monk who spent over

30 years helping Hollywood stars, CEOs,

and corporations. Stay in control within

a world overloaded with stress,

addiction, anxiety, and burnout. Here we

go. I became controlled by distraction,

controlled by negative thinking. What is

life going to do to me next? How will I

handle it? And things only changed when

I hit rock bottom. I had spent so much

effort trying to push that suffering

away because it's so disgusting and so

shameful, but it was just making it

worse. So many of us run away from pain

though. But the reality is you can run

to the end of the earth and that thing

that has been tormenting you will always

trip you up. And so I went back into

that retreat knowing the methods are

there. I just need to know how to use

them and I could learn to conquer this.

And that's where meditation comes in. Do

you think you can teach me? Because I

very much feel like I'm on the receiving

end of life. First of all, chuck all

those things away. There's a lot of

spiritual tat, isn't there? I mean, I

said it. I actually hated meditation

when I first did it because there's a

lot of misconceptions and actually all

you're doing is these three things to be

less controlled by negative thinking.

And the beauty of this is that they can

show in brain scans, there'll be visible

changes in your brain. So, let's try

this.

[Music]

Galong Tupton,

why is your work more important now than

ever before? Why is your message more

important now than ever before? I think

uh because we're now living in times

where we need meditation more than ever

because of the the speeding up of life

obviously with technology and the way we

live and also I think because meditation

has become more widespread there are

loads of misconceptions about it. So I

do try to put some effort into kind of

clarifying some of those misconceptions.

When you look out into the world

and you perform your sort of own

analysis on what the world, the western

world is getting right and getting

wrong. What are some of your sort of big

picture feelings, thoughts and concerns?

Well, the way we are all buried in our

phones is quite something, isn't it? And

the way we interact with information has

changed so much. So we we are kind of

bombarded or invaded by constant flow of

information which has a lot of

persuasive undercurrents to it. And this

is affecting our stress levels and also

affecting our confidence levels. We're

constantly made to feel we're

something's missing. Something's always

missing. We're not good enough. If you

get this, you'll be okay. I if if and

when this happens to you, then and only

then can you be happy. So we've kind of

lost our power. We talked a little bit

about the word purpose as well. What is

your perspective on the state of human

purposefulness?

So I think um this issue around purpose

I think it it is connected to the

breakdown of religion

in that I would say well I think we'd

all say that religion used to be very

much the center of the table and it sort

of gave everybody their a sense of their

place in the universe and the question

of purpose was never such an issue

because everything was uh in context

according to one's religious belief and

of course now we're in a post-religious

culture and it's much more about the

individual and there are good things

about that of course but what happens

then is we become very obsessed with our

purpose and the word purpose itself

suggests I want something I want what do

I want and in in Buddhism we look at

that wanting mind and see how insatiable

it is and how the more you want the more

you're going to want and so from a

Buddhist perspect perspective. We're all

looking for purpose, but maybe

externally because we get what we want

and then want something else.

And maybe what we're actually looking

for is something deeper within, but we

don't know how to access it. So, is it

wrong then to be in search of purpose?

Is it a misguided pursuit?

No, I wouldn't say that. But I would say

what's misguided for us is that we are

obsessed with the idea that happiness

comes from the outside

and on the other side of the coin

suffering too. So I will be happy if I

get this or get that or this situation

or that situation and I will be unhappy

if this or that happens to me. So we

become at the sort of receiving end of

life. What life is going to do to me

next. how will I handle it? So, so

there's there's not much strength there.

And I think the message of meditation is

that you become your own purpose and you

you become the generator of your own

experiences because you learn how to

take hold of your own mind. In this

conversation, do you think you can teach

me how to do that? Because I very much

feel like in my life I'm on the

receiving end of life. Well, I'd love to

show you how or maybe help you to see

that meditation is easier than you

thought or more more applicable to daily

situations than you thought. When we

think about the state of well-being in

the western world, everybody knows these

stats around suicidality. Um, if we look

at the US for example, they've slipped

further in the unhappiness rankings than

ever before. The US fell to 24th place

in 2025 in global happiness rankings. In

2011, the US had been 11th place and now

they're 24th. And the UK followed the

same pattern. The UK dropped to 23rd in

global happiness rankings, which is its

lowest position in a long time. But then

more sort of horrifically, the suicide

numbers in the UK, the US are

tremendously alarming. In the UK,

suicide has reached its highest level in

many many decades.

Something is going on here. Absolutely.

So, so we we have developed the most,

you know, materially comfortable

culture in history. We are materially

more comfortable than ever and yet

emotionally more uncomfortable. So,

something hasn't added up. you know

we've created a comfortable to a certain

extent out outer world for oursel and we

can achieve high levels of material

comfort and somehow the more of that we

have the more emotionally uncomfortable

and I think this is all to do with the

mechanisms of desire so so when we are

in a culture that is constantly

promising us the next piece of enjoyment

the next hit the next bars the next

thing we're caught in a sort of cycle of

wanting more I I I was described this

the the search for happiness that the

problem in that is the search itself

because s searching is a habit that will

lead to more searching. So we're always

looking for the next thing. So we get

what we want. Not always but sometimes.

And then very soon we want something

else. So the more we're wanting the more

we're feeling we don't have. So we end

up possibly with a lot but feeling quite

empty inside. And then we're back to

this question. What is my purpose?

What's it all for? I've I I've reached

the the I've reached the the goal I

wanted to reach, but I still feel empty.

I still feel something is missing. We're

told something is missing all the time.

Because to keep a consumer message

going, you have to tell people they're

lacking in something. And the insistency

with which that message is fed to us

through our phones basically and through

through the the media that we consume is

going to affect us. I think 90% of

people listening right now would say

that their meaning in life comes from

the pursuit of something, the journey

towards something. It might not come

from the attainment of it, being

successful, being on the podium, but

they would say that the the meaning they

experience, the joy, the thing that gets

them out of bed is in the pursuit of

something, whether it's building a

business or, I don't know, becoming an

athlete or building a charity.

Are they misguided in that thought? No,

it's just that we we we could look

deeper into our own internal psychology

and see how well the the word pursuit is

everything. So, we're always in pursuit

of something. And the the the the

chemistry of of our body in the state of

pursuit is that chemical dopamine. The

interesting thing about dopamine is it

falls away just before you get what you

want. So, so the the chase is much more

exciting than the having or the getting.

And so we're in locked into this

constant chase and what is the next

thing? When will I get the next thing?

And I think the the reason why we feel

so sort of empty or disappointed is

because what we get is never enough. And

meditation comes into this conversation

to to show us that actually what we were

looking for

was already there inside.

That's the key point.

What were we looking for? We were

looking for freedom.

If you if you think about how it feels

when you get what you want,

you know, there's the chasing, the

wanting, and then there's the getting.

There's a kind of relief, isn't there?

It it's it's a feeling of, oh, the

wanting's gone away. It's like hunger.

You feel hungry, you eat a sandwich, the

hunger's gone away. I mean that's a

metaphor for everything and that you

when you get what you want there's this

relief the the the the the wanting the

the the the needy feeling the oh when

will I get it has gone and there's a

relief so actually what what we're well

momentarily and then it kicks in again

we're looking for the next thing but

what we're looking for is the absence of

wanting

that's the the happiness we achieve when

we get what we want is a kind of freedom

from wanting so the problem is is that

we're caught in a cycle where we then

just want something else.

So, I'm not suggesting let's all go and

sit on a mountaintop and meditate and

not have lives and not have careers. Not

at all. I'm simply suggesting that we've

put our focus very strongly on material

things. And I think there needs to be

also a focus on the mind and I think

that's how we can learn to free

ourselves.

You learned this the hard way through

your own experiences.

Can you talk to me about how you learned

these lessons? Well, I definitely became

a monk through extreme suffering. I

wouldn't describe myself as having been

a kind of, you know, a spiritual seeker

and I went to a monastery with a kind of

open glowing heart wanting to find the

answers. I went to a monastery in a

completely broken state because I had

been living uh in this kind of ambition

cycle wanting wanting wanting and and

really uh not looking after myself. I

had a very uh self-loathing and unhappy

mind, a lot of depression, a lot of

anxiety and

I was um I went to that monastery

feeling completely at rock bottom. And I

I didn't go to a monastery to live there

forever. I just kind of dipped my toe

in. But you know, I stayed. If I was a

fly on the wall in your life on that day

when you showed up at that monastery,

what would I have seen? So I was very

ill and I arrived at the monastery um

really needing help. So I was I was

living in London and New York. I was

trying to become an actor. My mother's

an actor, so I sort of wanted to follow

in her footsteps. and I got into a

really kind of dangerous kind of party

lifestyle, really wild and burning the

candle at both ends. I basically made

myself ill. I had a very very dramatic

burnout living in Brooklyn and waking up

one morning in my apartment thinking I

was having a heart attack. Um, I went to

I had didn't have medical insurance, but

I managed to find some kind of like

cheap ECG place and they checked my

heart out and they said, "You've you

have a heart condition. what have you

been doing? And you know, I really was

had to stop in my tracks and I was very

very ill after that for a few months.

What age was this? 21. Wow. And during

that time of being horrendously ill. I

had to question everything I was doing

with my life. But that illness is a

symptom. It's a symptom of of unhealthy

living, but also an unhealthy

relationship with my own mind. And where

did that unhealthy relationship with

your own mind stem from? So I think

things that that happened in my early

life uh traumatic things, difficult

things uh and then me not knowing how to

deal with those and just bottling them

up and pushing through, pushing forward

and not looking at myself. I had this

very sort of escapist way about myself.

I think that's what all the partying was

about to kind of get out of my head. And

so, so when I had that burnout, I think

it was a combination of physical stress

and mental stress that just exploded

very, very suddenly, literally

overnight.

Did you have an abusive childhood?

Because I was I was reading some of the

things that you had said and it

suggested to me that there was things

that happened when you were young that

left imprints on you that you had to

work through. Yeah. Yeah. I I would say

things happened in my teens that were

troubling. You know, when I was uh when

I was quite like 13, 14, I started to

run with a much older crowd. So, I had a

kind of double life. I was I was at

school and very studious and very quiet.

And then outside school, I was in a rock

band with much older people. Um, when I

was 14, I started to actually work as a

jazz pianist in wine bars across London,

pretending I was 21. And the the people

I was running with at that time were

much much older than me. And um, yeah,

there there there were some situations

where the relationships turned, I would

say, abusive. And I I would say I was a

victim of at the time maybe I thought I

knew knew what I was doing, but looking

back, definitely not. And I think that

left imprints and I think it made me um

frightened of myself and frightened of

other people. Are you comfortable

talking about this? Yeah. Was this

sexual abuse? Yeah. From from uh from

one of the people I was in in a band

with. Yeah.

And when you think when you sort of

trace the steps of the behavior that you

then saw in your early 20s, the sort of

escapist behavior, the sort of

self-medicating behavior, is is that the

cont is that where that originated from

the sort of processing of that and the

dealing with those? It's really hard to

make a very specific direct connection,

isn't it? And that's what we always want

to do. We want to say this happened

because of this and there's this, you

know, this happened and therefore I went

off the rails. In a way that's too easy

because I think there's a mixture of

many many elements that can send one off

the rails. You know my parents are are

incredibly loving people. I mean they

really loved me and brought me up very

well but they they split up very very

suddenly when I was 17. My my dad

literally ran off with one of my mom's

friends and it was a a very huge

explosion in the family and we were all

very broken by it. And so there are many

many things, many factors that came

together in my teenage years that I

think sent me off the rails. I got into

uh Oxford University and that was a big

prestigious thing, but I fell apart in

Oxford. I started to get horrendously

depressed and I actually got expelled.

It's actually quite hard to get expelled

from Oxford. I didn't I've never met

anyone that got expelled. Exactly. My

mother was delighted. She said, "Oh,

that's like Lord Byron, Shel, those are,

you know, very hard to get thrown out of

Oxford. you have to, you know, do

something pretty horrendous. But I think

in my case, they they threw me out

because I was just not functional. And

that then just led to my demise. And

then on the one hand, I was started

acting and being in plays and and having

this kind of um almost like a glamorous

persona and on the other hand crumbling

inside. I had this incredibly persistent

monologue of self- disgust,

you know, like like a voice in the head

that says, "You are disgusting.

You are no good. You are a failure." I

used to call it my devil voice, but but

it it it's obviously part of me. And and

that's something that later on when I

started to do retreats became incredibly

loud in my head. And I had to work hard

on meditation to help not to get rid of

that but to integrate it and and learn

to be at peace with it. It's definitely,

you know, it's gone away now. Where does

that voice originate from? You're not

the first person that I've sat with here

who's talked to me about a similar voice

in their mind. And I'm wondering is that

a is that something from we inherit from

our environment? uh something that

happens, a culmination of things that

happen. Is it genetic or is it all of

the above? It's many things because

that's very specific. It's many things.

And it's I think in my case it was

because I became very good at

suppressing my suffering because I

became very proficient at pushing things

down and just going to as many parties

as possible and and trying not to

suffer. I think the when you push

something down, the kind of volcano

effect happens and then this sort of

angry voice comes up. This this this uh

pressure leads to a kind of backlash

inside yourself and it's an internalized

um anger that also is is fed to us from

our environment. Absolutely.

So you arrive at the monastery. Yeah.

Who told you to go to a monastery? So,

my oldest childhood friend, Tara, uh we

grew up together and um when I was

completely falling apart with this heart

condition at 21, she basically scooped

me up and took me to the monastery.

She's the one who told me. She said,

"Oh, there's a monastery in Scotland

which it's called Samuel Ling. It's a

Tibetan Buddhist monastery, and for the

first time ever, they've opened their

doors to people who wanting to be monks

for a year.

one year and so she she said let's go

and do it this could she wanted to do it

too but she said this could really help

you so she basically pretty much carried

me there what were you saying to her

when she asked you how you were doing or

what your symptoms were I was lying in

bed with with horrendous heart

palpitations and any move I made my body

would be bathed in sweat I mean on we we

were in California because I got sick in

New York I managed to get to California

where my mother was living and Tara was

there and they looked after me. And then

literally flying back to the UK, I had

to lie down on the plane. She was almost

carrying me. It was really really heavy.

But she she said, "Look, this place

could help you. It's just a year. It's

just a year out of your life." I I I I

thought, "Okay, I'm going to do that and

then I'll go back to New York." I almost

sublet my apartment in New York, but I

didn't in the end. But there there

definitely was a feeling in me of,

"Okay, I'm going to go to this Buddhist

retreat, get myself straightened out,

and then go back to what I was doing

before.

So, it didn't feel too outrageous

because it was only a year. Of course,

it wasn't a year. This is 30 years

later. I'm still there. Wow.

And to give people like me who don't

understand what happens in a monastery a

picture into the what I would describe

as incredible dedication and sacrifice

that you've gone through over those 30

years. Can you can you share some of the

practical things that you've done in

those 30 years that most people would

think of as being just outrageous? But

do you know what? You say sacrifice, but

to me it didn't feel like a sacrifice.

It felt like immediate relief because I

Yes. When you become a monk, you you

take vows to give up things, certain

things, but the things I was giving up

were the things that made me ill. So you

you know you're giving up uh intoxicants

and you become celibate and you uh I

mean the there are also kind of moral

vows such as you give up telling lies

and stealing and harming others. These

are all you know good principles to

follow. But I suppose the two major

things are no intoxicants and celibacy.

And to me that was such a relief to to

just kind of give all of that up and be

in almost like kind of like a rehab

situation. And but I I have to emphasize

it didn't feel too heavy because I

thought it was only going to be for a

year. So celibacy is sex giving them

sex. Yes. Yeah. And and what I found is

that you actually develop stronger

relationships. So people often think

monks must be very lonely. But what I

found was that then you were in a

community of people where the the sexual

um chemistry is off the agenda. So you

start having friendships that really are

so heartbased and you meet lots of

people who are on the same path as you.

So I didn't feel lonely at all. What is

it about sex that is

maybe a distraction, but what is it that

puts on the list? It's not it's not to

say that that sex is wrong or evil or

bad. It's not a sort of uh weird sort of

moralistic anti-ex thing at all. It's

simply about where you're putting your

focus. So when you're when you're a

monk, you're giving up family life,

you're giving up sexual relationships,

you're giving up romance, you're giving

up all of that so that you can focus

very intent intensely on meditation

practice with the purpose that you can

eventually help others. It's not a

selfish thing is you're doing this so

that you can be of more benefit to

others. But you want no distractions.

And also you you at a deeper level, you

want to start to experiment with what

happens when you don't immediately run

after a desire.

You start to experiment with trying to

not suppress your desire because that's

incredibly unhealthy, but watch your

desire and observe it and find out that

you are more than your desire.

And so celibacy is an amazing

environment to start doing that work.

And that also means no masturbation and

those kinds of things. Yeah. I mean it's

it's really about working with desire

rather than just when I say working with

I mean ex observing it and learning ways

to transform it rather than just giving

into it or suppressing it and

I wouldn't say celibacy is for everybody

but it suits a certain type of person.

Mhm. And you know in Buddhism in general

there are in in in

the UK or America there's you know

thousands and thousands and thousands of

Buddhists but maybe a small handful of

monks who become celibate. It's a very

specific particular way to practice

Buddhism. It's not the only way. I'm

inquiring about this subject because

it's actually because of a conversation

I was having with a really good friend

of mine over New Year's who's had some

troubles in his life. um has struggled

in relationships, has struggled

professionally, has also struggled a

little bit with purpose and meaning and

has now sort of started to investigate

religion. And one of the things he said

to me because there's a particular

strangle hold that his sexual desires

has over him is that he was thinking

about abstaining from masturbation and

sex just for a short period of time. And

I think actually the reason for that is

kind of what you've described there,

which is just to try and separate get

back control from desire. He'll need to

meditate

because just abstaining from the thing

you want to the thing you're desperate

to do and you're abstaining almost like

locking yourself in a cage and saying I

won't I won't do that thing then what

are you replacing it with or so so for

example when I work in you know I often

teach meditation in drug rehab centers I

talk a lot about how okay yes you've had

to give up the drug that was making you

ill. But that's not the whole story. The

the rest of the story is what are you

going to do about the mind that is

addicted to that substance and how are

you going to resolve that? How are you

going to fill the the hole inside that

was craving something? Okay. So, with

the meditation, you're not just giving

up something. You're learning to fill

your fill your own spirit with something

more positive for yourself almost to

heal from the thing that was had the

desire. Yeah. Yeah. Desire is such an

interesting thing because it's we think

we want something. But what's going on

under the desire is a feeling of lack, a

feeling of hopelessness, a feeling I

don't have. There's something missing.

And so meditation is about filling that

with with light and with with love. You

know, the deepest addiction we all have

is the addiction to our own thoughts.

that that's the that's really the root

of it all is that a wanting thought

arises in the my mind and then I jump on

it and I want to get something to kind

of alleviate that. But it's that

internal attachment. Buddhism talks a

lot about non-attachment and I think

this is widely misunderstood. People

think it means you're supposed to be,

you know, detached and have no friends

and be unattached. It doesn't mean that

at all. It means how we're so attached

to our thoughts and our emotions and

they get into the driving seat and send

our life in all kinds of directions we

don't want it to go in. How do we learn

to transform that inner attachment to

the thought itself? And that's obviously

where meditation comes in.

Let's talk about Buddhism then. So I

said to you before we started recording

that in the last sort of 12 months or so

I've got really interested in Buddhism.

I uh started reading some books about

Buddhism and I find it to be most

aligned with this sounds like a strange

thing to say but I'm gonna say it anyway

with almost like the medication that I

need.

And I know it's not a medication but but

it is a deep medicine. It's a medicine.

It's a science to me. It's not so much a

religion. It is more of a medicine or a

science. Yeah. I've struggled with the

religions. I I was Christian growing up,

but I've struggled with like deities and

gods and these kinds of things because

there's like 5,000 different gods that

through history, so I don't really know

which one's real and there's lots of

books and I'm still on that journey, but

when I found Buddhism, it wasn't framed

like the other religions. I thought it

was much more compelling. What is

Buddhism? Can you tell me where it's

come from? Is it a religion? Is there a

god? Do I have to worship? Do I go to

hell, heaven? There's there's nothing to

worship at all. Buddhism is a path to to

um inner internal understanding. The

word Buddha means awake. And yes,

Buddhism has a his history in that there

was somebody called the Buddha in India

2,500 years ago who attained awakening

and gave teachings and Buddhism you

could call it that has come from there.

But actually this word Buddhism is a

modern word ism. It's a modern word.

Well, in the original languages of

Buddhism such as Sanskrit and Tibetan,

you find terms that are so different

from religion. You find terms such as

the science of awareness or the the um

the examination of awakening, the inner

inner awareness. It's a path of mental

discovery. It's a science. So, it's not

a religion per se. Technically, it is.

If you define a religion as a group

spiritual purpose and there are

monasteries, there are organizationals

within Buddhism. But it also defies most

categorizations around religion-

because it doesn't believe in a creator.

It doesn't believe in somebody to

worship. It it's really about the power

of your own mind. And is there a hell

and a heaven in Buddhism? They talk

about hell and heaven as um uh states of

mind. They talk about everything as a

state of mind. They say this is a state

of mind. Buddhism is very much about

exploring the the fabric of reality. Th

this table, this body, this this

so-called self, ideas of hell, heaven,

they say these are all mental

experiences. Everything is mind

according to Buddhism.

So you get to the monastery. Yeah.

Talk to me about your journey of

healing.

So I was quite ill for a while in the

monastery and they kind of left me

alone. They they let me rest a lot. I

did little light little bits of light

work around the monastery. Started to

meditate. Um

you know I I actually hated meditation

when I first did it. This was a problem.

You know I I believed in it. I grew up

in a Buddhist family. There's been this

kind of faith in Buddhism as I grew up.

But I never actually did anything. I

never I never meditated. Then I get to a

monastery, I become a monk and read the

small print. You know, you got to

meditate. And I hated it. I really

really hated it. And I thought, oh, what

am I going to do? I really don't enjoy

this at all. I find it an enormous

struggle. So I struggled a lot with

meditation in those early days, days,

weeks, months even. Why did you hate it?

I hated it because

I was doing it in a way that was making

me more stressed.

I would sit down. I I thought that

meditation is about clearing the mind.

I'd heard this phrase, clear your mind.

I thought that's what you do. So, I sat

there trying to clear my mind. And the

more I tried to clear my mind, the

louder it was was shouting.

And that particularly that negative

voice I told you about that you are no

good, you're rubbish, you're you're

awful, you'll fail. That became louder

and louder. And so the meditation became

incredibly stressful because I thought I

I can't do this. I can't I can't get get

rid of my thoughts. Of course, now since

now I've discovered it's nothing to do

with clearing the mind. But because I

thought it was, I struggled enormously.

What is it then? It's nothing to do with

clearing the mind. It's not about

putting yourself in an unconscious state

at all. It's about working with your

mind. So, it's about learning how to be

less

controlled by your mind,

but it's not about getting rid of the

thoughts. In fact, the thoughts are

quite helpful.

You know, they actually help you to

meditate. You see, what I was doing in

those early days was I thought, okay,

just sit down and just push everything

away and go into the kind of zen state.

And of course, that's just like

suppression, isn't it? You're just

trying to suppress. You're trying to

push.

It's like it's like trying to get a

small child to sit still in in their

high chair while you're feeding them.

They're going to, you know, they're

going to want to move around. So, it's

not about that pushing away of thoughts.

I mean, you've got to ask yourself if if

that was the aim, well, why why would it

be the aim? Imagine if you could clear

your mind.

So, what? You have 10 minutes of just

being blank

and then you carry on with your day.

Where's the Where's the journey? What

What journey is that? You just passed

out on the floor for 10 minutes. Might

as well as sleep or something. Yeah.

Yeah. And I can fully understand that if

if you're if you're really stirred up

and miserable and stressed, the idea of

10 minutes of switching it off would be

great. But it's not the solution. It

doesn't work. what is the solution? So,

so it is definitely about changing your

relationship with your thoughts. So,

okay. So, a typical meditation practice

is you sit and you focus on your

breathing. It's it's different from

breath work. You're not breathing in a

particular way. You're not trying to

breathe slowly, deeply, or anything.

You're just breathing normally. You

know, just let the breath do its own

thing and you're focused on it.

So on paper that sounds really clear and

clean and simple. Focus on your breath.

The reality is it's really messy because

you focus on your breath and within a

few seconds you're thinking about

shopping lists or food or sex or

anything. You know the mind just goes.

That's when the work starts because at

some point you realize your mind has

wondered.

Okay. That's when many people think they

failed. You know they were they were

meditating. and they were with the

breath and then they realize they're

thinking about emails they need to write

or shopping or whatever and then they

think, "Oh, I'm I'm a failure." And they

very angrily bring themselves back to

the breath. That's just going to make

you more stressed

because you're actually training in in

feeling like a failure. You know what I

mean? So, so I can relate. I mean, it

takes me 7 seconds to drift off when I'm

trying to meditate. So, it's not that at

all. It it's that you you're with the

breath

and then your mind wanders. It's not

even that you see your mind wandering.

You kind of find out afterwards, don't

you? It's not It's not like I'm with the

breath and I can see my mind step away

from the breath and then go to a

thought. It's more that I'm with my

breath. I pass out and I wake up the

other side of town. Yeah, that is the

meditation. Waking up inside your

thoughts. That is the definition of

meditation. So, you haven't failed at

all. You are meditating because what

happened was you were with the breath

you got lost you lost your mind and then

you found your mind again because you're

back you suddenly realize oh where was I

am supposed to be meditating so that is

meditation you're back with your

awareness and then you gently bring

yourself back to the breath and actually

all you're doing is those three things

throughout the session either you're

with the breath or you're noticing that

you got lost or you're returning

and it's that that returning

that makes you strong.

Every time you return to the breath, you

you are making a very powerful decision.

That's the attachment or the addiction

to the thoughts. The mind was lost in

those thoughts and you are recapturing

your attention and bringing it back. So,

you are choosing where to send your

mind.

And if you do this like an exercise,

almost like going to the gym and getting

strong day after day, week after week,

you you're you're teaching yourself how

to choose to be happy and how to choose

not to suffer.

So it such a simple technique on paper,

you know, focus on your breath, come

back when you get lost,

is actually

profoundly transformative

psychologically

because I think most people listening to

this assume that they're kind of

strapped to their thoughts and their

thoughts are the car driving wherever it

wants to go and we're just strapped to

the back of it, our ankles tied to the

back of it with a piece of rope. Yeah.

Absolutely. And we just kind of suffer

consequences. hijacked by our thoughts.

Yeah. Hijacked is a great great you know

it stormed the like pilot's cabin and

it's flying us. Exactly. Wherever it

wants to go. That's kind of the

experience we have. So then you

meditation puts you behind the wheel of

the car. Most people haven't had the

experience you've had training yourself

to sort of disassociate or realize that

you're not your thoughts. So, as someone

that's on the other side of this

practice,

how can you persuade me that my life

will be better if I listen to this?

Like, what's the before and after, I

guess, for you? So, I don't think

everybody has to join a monastery and do

extreme retreats and the kind of things

I do. It maybe that's my my kind of

extreme nature. I I have so many friends

who meditate while they have families

and busy jobs and they they do 15

minutes a day or twice a day or

whatever. It can absolutely be done in

anybody's lifestyle. But the whole point

is that you are learning to find your

own inner freedom. You're learning to

how to discover that you you are bigger

than the pain and suffering that seems

to drive your life. Because what what I

described earlier with the coming back

to the breath is is that first stage of

learning to gain a bit more power around

what your mind is doing. And then what

is so interesting is when you start to

think about okay when when I'm unhappy

or when I'm angry or whatever

if I am observing myself being unhappy

is the observer unhappy

is the is the observer angry and if I

feel angry and I know I'm angry the part

of my mind that's looking at the anger

cannot be angry because it's seeing the

anger. So, so in Buddhism they they they

use a metaphor to describe this which is

the sky and the clouds. The clouds can

be heavy and rainy and all of that but

the sky is always bigger than the

clouds. So our awareness of our minds

that that's where we can find our

freedom. And when we talk about seeking

purpose and seeking what are we looking

for in life, I think that's what we're

looking for all the time in everything

we do. Whether it be big life goals or,

you know, drinking a cup of coffee or

water, small moments, in every moment,

we're looking for release or freedom. We

think we're looking to feel happy or we

think we're looking for love or sex or

or whatever it is. But I think what

we're really looking for is to free

ourselves from from suffering and to

free ourselves from need and to to be

free to be more in touch with who we

really are. I think that's what we're

looking for. And when when you meditate

and you step back and look at your mind,

that observational

aspect is is key.

to become the sky. Yeah. To become the

sky rather rather than the clouds. And

then I think it can change your life

because

you you know when I first met my teacher

he he was quite a straight talking

person. He he would he he wouldn't you

know say much and what he said was often

could be sound sound a little bit harsh

but he said it with love. And when I

first met him, I'd go on about all the

stuff that was happening with me or had

happened with me or to me. And he just

says, "Stop taking yourself so

seriously."

And initially that could sound like a

slap in the face. I mean, imagine if you

went to a therapist and they said, "What

you've been through is peanuts. You

know, stop taking yourself seriously."

But he didn't mean it like that. What he

meant was stop clinging to a kind of

solidity. Stop making your your thoughts

and feelings and your past and make it

so solid. make try to be the sky instead

of the clouds. Try to step back and be

less solid about everything. Buddhism is

very much into this

notion that they call emptiness which

isn't emptiness in terms of a kind of

vacuous void but more that things are

illusurary things aren't as real and

solid and heavy as we think they are.

And I think meditation can help us to

think more in that way and find more

happiness. real happiness not not the

happiness that depends on I will be

happy if I will be happy when I can only

be happy because that's a very limited

happiness but imagine if you could be

happy no matter what is that what

Buddhism helps us to do I think Buddhism

is about freedom and I think freedom is

happy no matter what and I think but

more than that I think it's also about

compassion I the way I'm describing it

could sound like this is all just about

one's own personal development and

freeing oneself and becoming happier.

But the key point is we're living in a

connection, a world of connection. And

how can we genuinely help others? I

think through freeing our minds and

helping others to do the same. Can I be

in that state of mind where I am the sky

while also being incredibly effective in

my job as a CEO? Yeah, I think this is

this is possibly one of the

misconceptions. You know this is

something I came across quite early on

in when I was teaching meditation. I

started to give talks about meditation

in the workplace like 25 years ago. So

before it became very popular. You now

mindfulness is everywhere in in the

corporate world. But when I started it

was quite unusual. And I did come across

a lot of misconceptions. The funniest

one was before I went into a boardroom

to talk to the the people in there about

meditation, their CEO took me to side

and he said, "Um, please don't make them

too relaxed."

I said, "What do you mean?" He said,

"Well, I I like what you do, but I don't

want them to become too relaxed." I

said, "I'm not I'm not some kind of like

stage hypnotist. I'm not going to walk

into there and sort of, you know, put

everyone into a trance. That's that's

not what I do.

But it was such an interesting

conversation because it made me see that

his view of meditation is that you would

become this kind of spaced out, happy

with everything, don't care, and you'd

lose your drive. And it's absolutely not

that at all because it's about

precision. It's about being present.

It's about being less controlled by

distraction, be less controlled by

negative thinking. And if you can do

that, you can achieve more. So if you

are a CEO, if you are trying to achieve

something in your work and you meditate,

it can make you can work much much

harder and get less tired. And then also

you can start to think more deeply about

why am I doing the things I'm doing and

what am I really trying to achieve here?

Some of the most famous CEOs in the

world talk about their meditation

practice and this is why I've also been

slightly compelled into it. I think for

me I'm the type of person that's very

influenced by other people that I kind

of look up to and so someone like Steve

Jobs who I think had a deep sort of

spiritual practice which involved

meditation which I also think he cites

as being much of the reason he was able

to see around the corner and be more of

a visionary um was one of the big points

of inspiration for me to get more

curious about Buddhism and meditation.

Do you have any examples of like very

high productive, very successful people

that have had tremendous

benefits from meditation as it relates

to them being more successful in their

missions, their professional missions? I

mean, I can't I can't think of specific

individual names, but it's it's just

generally very well known that if you

meditate, it makes you more effective in

your life because you are becoming your

own boss. I mean we talk about being

your own boss but how many of us are

really really our own boss? You know we

can be the boss of other people. We can

be the boss of our environment to a

certain extent but to be to be the CEO

of your own mind

very very difficult. And so people who

can do that definitely become more

effective in the world. But I think what

also happens is they start to think

about how they could be really

successful and then do some good with

that success because they

they start to think about well is it all

just about the success and the wealth or

is there something I could do with that

success and wealth because meditation

makes you more compassionate. Meditation

makes you more ethical. It makes you and

not ethical in a kind of you know the

word ethics sounds so kind of Victorian

and so kind of restrictive but I mean

trying to make the world a better place

and I think there are many examples of

people who've become enormously

successful and used that success for the

good of the world and I think meditation

is something key in their success. I was

just looking for a couple of examples

and um Ray Dalio who a lot of people

know is one of the the best investors in

the world who wrote the book principle

said meditation more than anything in my

life is the biggest ingredient of

whatever success I've had. And Mark

Benoff who's the CEO of Salesforce a

tremendously large company said

meditation is the most important thing I

do each day. Oprah Winfrey Jack Dorsey

let's say who's the co-founder of

Twitter and Square said there's nothing

more impactful on my work than

meditation. And Steve Jobs said, "If you

just sit and observe, you will see how

restless your mind is. If you try to

calm it, it only makes it worse. But

over time, it does calm." And he

practiced Zen Buddhism and was a regular

meditator. And he um says that his

minimalist design philosophy and focus

were strongly influenced by his

spiritual and meditative practices.

You see, I think the the um

the thing that trips people up when they

think about how meditation could make

you more effective is the word calm.

Mhm. Because they think, "Oh, well, if I

become calm, I'm going to be I'm going

to miss I'm not going to be a

workaholic. I'm going to drop the ball."

Yeah. If I'm too calm,

but I don't think of calm in that way at

all as almost like a tranquilized calm.

I think of calm as being able to keep a

cool head under fire.

and be really precise and really on the

on the focus on in the now and really

hold on to your purpose and know why

you're doing what you're doing and be

less influenced by the areas of your

psychology that trip you up. I'm hearing

like clarity and emotional control.

Yeah. Optimizing your how your brain

performs. I started my first business at

12 years old and then I started more

businesses at 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18. And

at that time, what I didn't realize is

that being a founder with no money meant

that I also had to be the marketeteer,

the sales rep, the finance team,

customer service, and the recruiter. But

if you're starting a business today,

thankfully there's a tool that wears all

of those hats for you, our sponsor

today, which is Shopify. Because of all

of its AI integrations, using Shopify

feels a bit like you've hired an entire

growth team from day one, taking care of

writing product descriptions, your

website design, and enhancing your

products images, not to mention the bits

you'd expect Shopify to handle, like the

shipping, like the taxes, like the

inventory. And if you're looking to get

your business started, go to

shopify.com/bartlet

and sign up for a $1 per month trial.

That's shopify.com/bartlet.

This one change has transformed how my

team and I move, train, and think about

our bodies. When Dr. Daniel Lieberman

came on the DEO, he explained how modern

shoes with their cushioning and support

are making our feet weaker and less

capable of doing what nature intended

them to do. We've lost the natural

strength and mobility in our feet, and

this is leading to issues like back pain

and knee pain. I'd already purchased a

pair of Viva barefoot shoes. So, I

showed them to Daniel Lieberman and he

told me that they were exactly the type

of shoe that would help me restore

natural foot movement and rebuild my

strength. But, I think it was

planticitis that I had where suddenly my

feet started hurting all the time. And

after that, I decided to start

strengthening my own foot by using the

Vivo Barefoot. And research from

Liverpool University has backed this up.

They've shown that wearing Vivo Barefoot

shoes for 6 months can increase foot

strength by up to 60%. Visit vivo

barefoot.com/doac

and use code diary 20 from my sponsor

for 20% off. A strong body starts with

strong feet. Earlier on you said that in

Buddhism they talk about an emptiness

which is kind of this realizing that

life isn't so solid and your identity is

a mirage and all these kinds of things.

It almost sounded like that's the

opposite of like victimhood

because when we think about victimhood,

it is I create an identity for myself

and then I create a story around that

identity which has suffered some kind of

injustice and then I kind of live out

that injustice. How does Buddhism think

about victimhood and identity and trauma

I guess? So of course we identify

incredibly strongly with our past and we

in so many ways are prisoners of what

has happened to us in our past and it's

totally understandable of course but

Buddhism brings in a whole fresh

perspective which is that you are not

your past. I mean even on a physical

level every cell in your body has

changed and your mind has changed. You

are you are right now in the present.

The past is is an illusion as is the

future.

And we spend so much time in the past

and future or trying to manipulate the

present. Whereas with with meditation,

you're learning to to be in the now and

not be. It doesn't mean you don't plan

or don't remember, but you're learning

to be to cling less to the past and

future. And you're learning to cling

less to or hold less to the idea that

things are really as solid as you think

they are. I mean it's very scientific

that there's a there's a Buddhist uh

meditation which literally is about a

table like you know here we are with

this table and they say if you if you

take apart this table you'll find it

doesn't exist because the table as it

seems right now is is a is a top with

legs. You you you take the bits apart

and now where is your notion of table?

you've got these bits of wood or metal

or whatever it is and you start kind of

dissecting that further and further and

further. Uh this is where Buddhism and

and and particle physics become you know

talking a lot. There's a lot of

conversation there in that the the

smaller and smaller you go into these

these wood shavings and then particles

and can you find the smallest part that

makes up all of reality and Buddhists

would say no because if it's a part it

has parts.

There is no such thing as the partless

particle because if it's a particle it

can be further subdivided. So,

we can't find the smallest base that

makes up all of matter. What we're

experiencing is more like a dream or an

illusion. And uh the reality we live in,

of course, it feels very solid. You

know, if I if I throw this this cup at

somebody, it's going to hit their head

and hurt them. There's no point saying,

"Well, it's all empty. Don't worry about

it." But the idea behind this philosophy

of understanding things not to be as

solid as they are is that we can learn

to suffer less because we spend so much

of our energy constantly reacting to

things as if they're really solid and

really real and there's nothing that can

be done about them whether that be

people or objects in the world around us

or our mind itself.

And if we can desolidify some of that we

could become more free. We all carry so

many burdens in this regard. You know,

it could be grief, it could be

heartbreak, it could be a colleague at

work that doesn't dislike us, a comment

in our Instagram page of someone some

something someone said about us. How

does one go about

alleviating ourselves from this kind of

burden? Yeah. So, I for me it it's very

much about um dropping the story

and looking at the feeling. Okay.

Explain that to me.

So for me this became

very uh very

important practice for me when I was in

a long retreat.

So I went into a very long retreat for

four years. I became a monk for a year

and I stayed a bit longer stayed a bit

longer. It was after about four years

that I I decided to do this for life and

I took lifelong vows and then I knew

about these long I did some short

retreats but I knew about these long

retreats but it wasn't until 12 years

later that the opportunity came up to go

into a long retreat

uh four years long where you are really

just cut off from the world for that

length of time. No, no, nobody goes in

or out. And you are meditating many,

many hours a day. And it was the most

frightening experience of my life

because I I was in there alone with with

my own thoughts and emotions. It's not a

completely solitary retreat. There are

other monks there all doing their own

meditation in their rooms. So there is a

kind of group, but you are very much

alone as well.

And for me the whole thing was for the

first two years was just horrific

amounts of depression, misery, pain,

anguish, anxiety that would build into

panic attacks. I I was really really

shocked by what happened to me in there

because I I I think I thought I'd you

know I'd been a monk for 12 years and

I'd already started to you know give a

few talks about meditation and and

maybe I thought I was quite sorted but I

I wasn't and I got in there and really

fell apart. But it was an amazing thing

that happened to me because that falling

apart forced me after a while to to

learn how to engage with what I'm

talking about which is looking at the

suffering and working with that with

meditation

looking at the suffering. So for me

during those first two years of the

retreat

I was completely obsessed with the story

because I I was experiencing these

horrendous feelings of heartbreak

and feelings of depression uh anxiety

just kind of a whole

mass of suffering inside myself and I

was I was trying to almost do therapy on

myself and think okay let's you know

thinking memories were coming up from

the past and thinking about things that

had happened in my past and is this why

I'm suffering now and how do I resolve

that? And the more I went down that

road, the worse it got. And I found

myself really disconnected from

Buddhism. And it was a really

frightening experience because I I'm

there in a 4-year retreat. I'm a monk

and I'm I was feeling completely

alienated from the whole thing. I I kind

of wanted to just get away from it. I

wanted to run away. And things only

changed when I

hit rock bottom like hugely in that I

actually

I climbed over the wall of the retreat

to run away. I couldn't take it anymore.

I I at one morning I had the most

immense panic attack I've ever had and I

just like saw red and just ran I legged

it out of the retreat which is un it's

unthinkable. you know, in a four-year

retreat, you're not supposed to leave.

But I jumped over the wall and tried to

escape. I say tried to escape as if I

was in some kind of, you know, prison or

cult. It's not like that. People do

leave retreats, but for me, it was this

kind of dramatic get out of there and

run away. And

I remember um like freaking out and

running and running and running down

this road in the rain. This was on a

very, you know, remote area of a

Scottish island. and then just stopping

and thinking, "What are you doing?

What what has happened to you?" And I

just stopped and then went back and I

asked the leaders of the retreat if I

could be let back in. And they said,

"Well, no, you've left." But I really

begged them because I I had such clarity

in that moment. I wanted to go back in.

And they said, "Okay, the abbot of my

monastery said, "Okay, stay stay in a

little caravan on the edge of the

retreat boundary for a week, for seven

days, and think about what you're doing,

and then we'll see if you will let you

back in.

And during that time, I

I thought really deeply and I re I

really knew I wanted to go back in

because there was at that moment a

thought of shall I give up being a monk?

Shall I give up the whole thing? I I

can't do this. It's made me so

miserable. But I I really knew in that

moment what what my purpose was. I knew

I wanted to go back in and carry on. But

I also knew I'd been

tormenting myself with my past and that

I hadn't worked out how to

how to heal myself. I I I'd been sinking

so badly and I if I was to go back in

there, I would have to try a completely

new approach.

Why did you choose to go back in?

Because I I really strongly believed

that it was what I want to do with my

life. And a part of me thought, don't

give something up when you're freaking

out because you will regret it. If

you're going to give this thing up, give

it up from a place of clarity, knowing

that there's something better for you

out there. Don't give up because you're

having a panic attack and you can't take

it. That's the wrong kind of timing to

make a life change because I do I I

really do believe in what I'm doing. I I

I this is the life I've chosen for

myself and I want to do it. But it got

so difficult I couldn't take it anymore.

Why did you want to do it? If something

is painful and causing you anxiety

because I felt that this this pain I'm

going through

I've the the meth the methods are there.

I just need to know how to use them and

I could learn to conquer this. I I this

pain could be the breakthrough. Most

people in in their lives when they think

about the things that give them anxiety

or pain or fear, you know, we live as

sort of discomfort avoiding humans. So

we try and run to run to comfort or

pleasure. Exactly. So life is hard.

Let's run from it. Let's get on a plane,

fly to another country and try and just

set up a new life somewhere else. It

doesn't work because you go to your new

life and the thing that has been

haunting you like a shadow goes with

you. You can't run from yourself.

You can you can run to the end of the

earth and that thing that has been

tormenting you is part of you. And until

you learn to integrate that, it will

always trip you up. And so I went back

into that retreat knowing, okay, this is

your last chance.

If you don't if if you mess this up

again, that that's it, you know, forget

it. So it was a real like make orb

breakak situation. And I went back in

and I I I um

everything changed

because I found I I had to find a new a

different way of dealing with that

suffering. What was that? Okay. So, I'm

back in there and it's coming up again.

the depression, the anxiety, the

the pain. Like to me, it felt like

it it felt like like some something like

that was piercing me. It felt like a it

felt like there was like a knife

constantly twisting

twisting and turning in my heart or like

in the middle of me. It was really

painful. And what I'd been doing up

until that point was just trying to get

that knife out and also thinking, why is

it there? Is it because of what happened

to me when I was 14? Is it what happened

to me when I was 17? Is it this? Is it

that? Is it my my family? What is it?

That's the story. I say story. I'm not

I'm I'm not belittling people's stories.

I'm just saying it's the narrative,

isn't it?

So I I decided to to use the knife as

the meditation

to to actually meditate on it

and and the the whole thing starts to

change when you do that because until

that point you've been if until that

point you've been trying to get rid of

your suffering or get rid of your pain.

But if you turn your pain into your

meditation, you're moving towards it.

And

how can it hurt you if you've decided to

move towards it? You you you've made

that choice. So what I started to do was

just focus on the pain, but try to

bypass the judgments. I don't like this.

This is so terrible. Why am I depressed?

Why am I anxious?

And just feel the feeling. And it's a

sensation in the body

because one of the key um

instructions in meditation is when you

focus your mind, you focus it with less

judgment. This is good, this is bad. You

just focus. So you're focusing on that

feeling without pushing it away, without

saying why do I feel like this, but just

the feeling. And it you start it starts

to change.

it starts to change because

you're accepting it. My my teachers had

always said to me, they'd always go on

and on about acceptance and I just I

just wanted to hit them when they said

it cuz it sounded so grim. You know,

you've got to accept yourself or you've

got to accept your suffering. To me,

that sounded like you're going to for

the rest of your life be dragging this

bag of rocks up a hill. You know,

acceptance is so miserable and so

boring. I didn't realize that what they

meant was was compassion and

self-acceptance at a very very deep

level. So, so I was I'm I was focusing

on that feeling in my body and trying

not to go into the stories about it or

the hatred of it and just move towards

it and and kind of become become one

with that pain and then you relax and

something kind of releases.

And I mean, I think it works on a

chemical level because basically when

you're when you're trying to push pain

away, you're creating enormous amounts

of uh cortisol in your body, the stress

hormone. When you relax, the endorphins

arise, you start to feel happy. I mean,

it's quite bizarre that the thing that

has hurt you so much starts to turn into

a kind of joyful feeling and you start

to think, oh wow, okay, so happiness

is nothing to do with somebody being

nice to me or this object or that thing.

Happiness is about being okay with your

suffering

and and and not just being okay with it,

but actually sending love into the place

in yourself that you hated so much. So

for for me um that what started to

change was

from from from having a feeling like a

knife twisting inside me and hurting me

and wanting to get rid of it.

I found ways to hold that with with

love. And I I started to have this image

in my head of as if I had found a like a

frightened rabbit or a bird with a

broken wing and I'm holding that in my

hand with tenderness.

I'd never been able to do that for

myself.

I had never ever been able to be kind to

myself.

Everything in my life until up until

that point had been so harsh and so self

self-hating

and and I think you know in my teenage

years when I was trying to become a a

successful actor I think that was the

drive was I I hate myself so I better

get loads of people to love me instead

cuz I can't do it. I'm not saying all

actors are like that by no means but

there is a kind of actor who is like

that. We know that and that was me. And

then you know even as a as a as a monk

and you become celibate and you you're

you know having this kind of more like

looking after yourself lifestyle. I

developed all these incredibly strong

attachments with friends where I'd want

them to be nice to me and I didn't want

to be alone with myself. I couldn't

spend time alone with myself. And then

in the first two years of that retreat

I'm hating myself and hating my pain and

jumping over the wall and anything to

kind of jump out of my own skin. And

when I learned how to do this kind of

practice with sending compassion

into that part of myself that I'd hated

so much, it it it was really

transformative.

You said it felt like holding a scared

rabbit or a bird with a broken wing.

How did you come to feel about that

bird?

I felt um I felt love for that part of

myself. And for me, that's only possible

when you stop getting so distracted by

all the history and the the the the

details of your past, but you're just

relating to the feeling in your body

right now.

And I don't know if it's like this for

everybody, but for me, feeling it in the

body is a really easy way to start

because

yeah, it's depression, it's anxiety,

it's trauma, whatever it is that's quite

kind of nebulous. How do you find it?

And for me it was so physical. It was

like this twisting of a knife in the

heart or a sinking feeling in the in the

chest. And just to relate to that

sensation with kindness

taught me how to love myself but in an

accepting way you know not it's not

about you know becoming an egoomaniac

like I love myself. It's more have

kindness for yourself. How does this

translate to things like grief? Because

grief is one of the the hardest things

to get to acceptance on the sort of

finality of life, losing someone you

love. You've been through this yourself.

You you had a I think a best friend of

yours who was Well, my teacher. Oh, your

teacher. Well, he was my best friend as

well as my teacher. He he he was

murdered. He was in so 11 years ago. My

teacher Akon Rimpiche who had been my

everything for all those years, you

know, he he was my teacher, my closest

friend. He I also I spent a lot of time

with him. I became his kind of

assistant. So when he would travel, I

was with him all the time. So we were

very close. He was Tibetan and he was in

charge of our monastery in Scotland. And

part of his his work was he would run a

charity called Rockpa which has um oh

that's him. um he would go to Tibet

every year and um look after projects

there, feeding orphans, looking after

schools, hospitals, etc. He was on his

way to Tibet one year and he was in

Changdu in China and he was um basically

ambushed and stabbed, killed.

And I mean this completely rocked the

Buddhist world. It's like, you know,

horrendous news. But on a personal level

for me,

I was one of the first people who found

out. I I'd been on the phone to him

every day until then. I was his

assistant and very working very closely

with him. So it complet my it completely

like blew me apart. I mean it blew me to

pieces.

I cannot describe how badly it blew me

to pieces.

But

the meditation I've described to you

saw me through

because I at some point during that

grieving process I remembered what to

do.

At first I didn't because you know when

you're really in it in in it you you

can't think but then

so there was the whole aftermath you

know he was killed and it was in all the

press and then as his assistant I was

the one dealing with the media and in a

way that you stay busy when you're

grieving it kind of helps you to you

know stay focused but then the nights

the nights was nighttime was when it

started to hurt

because at night I would just be tossing

and turning turning and feeling like

feeling like I was on fire

because I had a mixture of grief, anger,

despair. It was a whole mixture of

things.

We knew the killer. The person who

murdered him had been a monk, a Tibetan.

He had been a monk in our monastery. We

knew him. He actually had the same name

as me and we knew him quite well. So

there was all of that mixed in with what

on earth happened to this person that he

did this thing. And so all of that is

consuming me at night and I'm just

tossing and turning feeling like I'm in

flames. And then at some point it kicked

in

the the meditation. It just had it just

happened because I'd done it in retreat.

It had seen me through. It had really

really helped me. And at some point I

just had to lie there and send love into

the flames in me. You know, I had to

send send that kindness into the place I

was in despair.

I'm not saying that I then just became

all right. No, but it absolutely

calmed things. Absolutely. And it it is

it is it is all about love. It really

is. You are sending love into the pain

you are experiencing.

And this helped me through the grief. It

helped me also with forgiveness with the

the guy we knew who did it. It helped me

on so many levels. And I'm not saying

that it, you know, it's it's all okay,

but I have I I've made peace with his

death. And

I mean, he taught me this practice.

He taught me how to do that. And then he

died and I had to do it. That I I think

of it as his last gift to me.

And um

I'm you know I I I I'm will be forever

grateful.

When you talk about sending love into

the flames, what is the the actual

practice there? Is it certain sentences

you're saying? No, it's thinking. Yeah,

I'm glad you asked this because it it is

so much about going beyond the words and

going into an experience of oneness.

So, so to make it really practical, you

know, you're feeling you're feeling

incredible trauma in your body for

finding it physically is the easiest way

to do it. Like you your body's in flames

or you've got like a feeling of a knife

twisting in your heart, whatever it is,

there's this feeling in the body and

first of all, you just focus on that

feeling.

So, anybody who who meditates knows how

to focus on their breathing. It's the

same thing. It's just where you're

focusing. So, you're feeling the feeling

and you're trying to bypass the thoughts

of this is uncomfortable. I want this to

go away. Why did he die? What happened?

You're just feeling the feeling.

And then you pay attention to that

feeling in a loving way.

You you flood it with love.

And the reason this is possible, I mean

this is touching upon a major a major

belief in Buddhist philosophy, which is

that our minds are naturally

compassionate.

We are not

these fight orflight killing machines

that some people like to think the human

being is. We are our natural state is to

be kind. It is who we are naturally deep

down. So when you clear away all the the

words and the the ideas and you just sit

with the feeling and you send love into

that feeling with your mind, you're just

loving that feeling, holding it with

compassion as if you were with a friend

who was grieving. You know, if you if

you were sitting with a friend who was

freaking out or grieving or whatever,

you you you're not going to slap them

around the face and say snap out of it.

You will hold their hand

and we all know how to do that. The

question is, can you do it for yourself?

And for me, that was a huge challenge

because I hated myself so much for so

many years.

I was my worst enemy. So to hold my own

hand internally in that sense, that's

what I mean by sending love into the

feeling. And what happens then is the

feeling starts to change.

It starts to melt. The sharpness, the

sharp edge of it, edges of it start to

melt. And you start to be okay with

being not okay.

And

it's almost as if a kind of happiness

starts to arise, but it's not like a

it's a kind of happiness you haven't

tasted before. It's a happiness of I can

be okay with this. It makes you

immensely strong.

You talked about forgiveness.

Did you forgive the man that murdered

your friend and teacher? Yes.

Quite quickly.

it I mean in a way it was made easier

because it became really clear that he

was psychotic

and of course that's no excuse or

condoning or anything like that but

somebody who is

really unable to control themselves I

mean how can you hate them or whatever

you know it's

that's an extreme case but there are the

practice of forgiveness is a hard one

isn't it because we we've all got people

in our lives that we think might have

wronged us or done

which has caused us pain and almost the

way that we

create our own perception of justice is

by holding the grudge. Yeah. Now, now

why do we do that? That's my that's the

question is do we think

do we think that if we let go of the

grudge we have let the other person get

away with it? That's how it kind of

feels, right? Wouldn't you say that by

holding the grudge they've got away with

it?

because you're the one suffering.

They've really won. They're winning in

each moment because you're holding on to

that. In Buddhism, there's a a teaching

that says it's like holding on to a

piece of hot metal or holding a hot coal

in your hand and it's just burning you.

So, if I'm holding the grudge, they have

absolutely got away with it because they

are the thing they did which was one

thing maybe I am now constantly hurting

and they are absolutely the winner. So

for I I wonder if we we assume I think

we do assume that forgiveness is a kind

of giving up even the word forgive the

give in the word. So it sounds like

we're taking a weaker position. We're

giving up. We're sort of surrendering

but I think forgiveness is a strength or

a power and

it's actually nothing to do with the

other person. They might you're not

going to necessarily write them a letter

and say I've forgiven you. But you're

freeing yourself. You're dropping your

burden because that rage is toxic and

that hurt is toxic.

It's so hard to let go of it. And people

can say, "Let go and you just want to

slap them in the face because what?

Okay, is it that easy? I'm just going to

let go." You know, it's not that easy.

It's bloody hard.

But meditation gives gives you the

tools. Partly because meditation anyway

is helping to loosen up that kind of

glue that we have in our minds where

we're glued into those feelings. It even

just a simple meditation like coming

back to the breath is helping you to be

less glued into those thoughts and

reactions and feelings. So the feeling

of rage can start to be less heavy for

you. You've been through several sort of

traumatic incidents. You talked about

being 14, being 17, sexual abuse, parent

parental divorce, a little bit of

neglect, it sounds like, as well. Have

you forgiven all of those people in your

life?

I don't know. I don't know if

forgiveness is a big huge massive moment

or if it's a process. I'm friends with

all those people,

very close friends with all those

people. And I think

here's what I think. I think I've

learned how to forgive the feelings

that those incidents hap gave rise to.

Mhm. That to me is much more important

than forgiving the people. Mhm.

And I think what's also happened to me

is I've started to find that the

suffering

that I experience has some use

because it is the thing that you're

using for your mental transformation.

Rimpache always used to say um suffering

is like compost.

Compost is made of rotten vegetables.

people chuck it away or they know how to

make the field grow and I I think it's

like that.

So with forgiveness um I would say yeah

meditation but I would say also thinking

thinking deeply about

about the situation.

You know what's really helped me

with with my dad and with other people

is to think about the suffering they

were going through that kind of like

propelled them to behave the way they've

behaved. There's always something isn't

there in somebody that has made them

behave the way they behave. And there's

a part of us that gets very indignant