How to Tap into Your Awareness | Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche | TED

Transcript

So I would like to discuss
about meditation. But first of all, I'd like to ask you
a very simple question. Can you see my hand? Yes, raise your hand. Audience: Yes. Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche:
OK, can you hear me? Audience: Yes. YMR: Yes? Great. That is the meditation. So finished. My TED Talk is finished. (Laughter and applause) Of course, I'm just kidding. But in a way that is true. Why? What we call the essence
of meditation is awareness. And what is awareness? Knows what you are thinking, feeling doing seeing hearing. That's all. So actually meditation is very easy, but many people find it difficult. Why? There are two misunderstandings
about meditation. So the first is many people think
meditation means, think of nothing, stop thinking, concentration. Ah. (Laughter) Shh! I'm meditating, keep quiet. (Laughter) So the more, when you try to stop thinking what happens, you will think more. So we will do a small experiment, OK? Now, please don't think about pizza. (Laughter) No pizza. No pizza. What happened? Did you think about pizza or not? Yes, raise your hand. (Laughter) I know. (Laughter) Actually, we don't need to stop thinking. We just need to connect with awareness. And another misunderstanding
about meditation is what we call “blissing out.” Looking for peace, calm, joy, relax. (Laughter) The more you look for relax, then peace, calm, joy, relax run away. So ... Let me share [with] you my own experience. When I was young, I had panic attacks. Although I was born right in the middle
of the Himalayan mountains, the area, the village, wonderful, but panic followed me like a shadow. And I have so much fear [of] strangers,
I cannot go out and meet people. And lot of storms
in the Himalayan mountains, thunderstorm snowstorm. These storms drive me crazy. And when I was nine years old, I asked my father to teach me meditation. Luckily, he was a great
meditation teacher. And the first thing what he said is, "Don't try to fight with the panic. Don't try to get rid of panic." "And actually," he said,
"you don't have to." Why? Awareness is like sky in the mountain, and the panic is like storm
in the mountain, like cloud. And no matter how strong a storm is, it doesn't change the nature of sky. So sky is always present, pure, calm. Similarly, our fundamental quality
of mind, awareness is always present, pure, calm. But the problem is we don't know
how to connect with awareness, what we see, only a thought, emotion, that's all. So he said, there are three steps
of practice to connect with awareness. The first one, we have to use an object. Support, to connect with awareness. So this is one of my first
meditation techniques that I learned from my father. So you can join and you can relax
your muscles in your body. If you cannot relax, also OK, allowed. (Laughter) And close your eyes,
and please listen to sound. (Ding) And when you hear the sound, through ear and mind together ... (Ding) That is the meditation. And let panic come and go. Let pizza come and go. (Ding) And maybe two pizzas,
three pizzas, ten pizzas. As long as you remember the sound, you can have pizza. (Ding) (Ding) (Ding) OK, how was it? Did you hear the sound? Yes, raise your hand. Great. That is the meditation. Very easy. Just hear, that's all. You don't have to do anything. So if panic comes,
let panic come and go, don't care. Just listen to sound. Monkey mind comes blah, blah, blah. Let it come and go, just listen to sound. So I did that. But I had a big problem. The problem is lazy. (Laughter) I'm lazy boy, I love
the idea of meditation, but I don't like the practice
of meditation. So on and off like that for five years. When I was 13 years old in India, there's traditional three-year
retreat going to start. I thought I should join this
because it's good for my laziness. And I join. The first month, wonderful, no lazy. Second month, lazy come back. (Laughter) Now what happened? My lazy and my panic,
they two become good friends. (Laughter) The life in the retreat becomes disaster. And I thought I should leave. But I feel embarrassed to leave because I told all my childhood friends
that I can do the retreat, you know. I don't want to lose my face. But if I stay, almost three years to go. Then I thought, what should I do? In the end, I decided to learn
how to live with the panic. So now we have
the second step what we call, actually, we can meditate everywhere, anytime with anything. So you can meditate with panic. How do you do that? Just like listen to sound, when you listen to sound, sound becomes support for your meditation. Now you're going to watch panic. If you see the panic, great. What we call, when you see the river,
you're out of the river. When you see the mountain,
you're out of the montain. So now awareness becomes more than panic. More than depression, stress. Monkey mind, whatever. Let them come, let them go. So that is the first benefit
and second benefit of what we call, there's a wisdom comes. So when you look at the panic, panic is not solid stone anymore. Panic becomes pieces. Sensation here, frightening image,
voice, background belief. And if you take one of these away,
you cannot find panic. So what I call panic
becomes like shaving foam, looks like a piece of rock
but inside full of bubbles. Then three, what I call
this is acceptance, like self-kind, self-love,
self-compassion. You let panic come and go, that's the real acceptance, isn't it? So three in one: awareness, love and compassion, wisdom. Sometimes what I call
buy one, get two free. (Laughter) Big deal, right? And all this because of panic. So now panic becomes your teacher, your best friend. So I did this practice and in the end, me and my panic become very good friends. And few weeks later, panic is gone. I miss my friend. And I finished my retreat,
my retreat went very well. And after that I have been eager to share
this wonderful technique with the world. So I taught meditation many places, wrote three books, become bestseller, and then students and become
abbot of a few monasteries. And what happened? Kind of new ego emerged within me. I thought, oh,
I have to watch out, this so. Then I decided to do
something very special, what we call wandering retreat. Meaning you leave everything behind, go on the street with nothing. So I decided to do that. In 2011, I left my monastery, my students, my wonderful cozy bed. Everything, and got on street
with only a few thousand Indian rupees, and that finished within a few weeks. Now I have to beg for food. And I got food poisoning. Vomiting diarrhea. I'm alone on the street, now I'm going to die. Then I thought, what should I do? So now we have the third step, what we call open awareness meditation. Awareness, be with itself. Sky, be with itself. Now, no need to have support. Just be awareness itself. I did that practice. Then what happened? My body become decayed, I cannot see, I cannot hear. But my mind becomes so present, beyond free. And I was in that state for a few hours. Luckily, I didn't die, I come back. So when I come back,
the street becomes like my home. When I look at a tree,
tree becomes like tree of love. And the wind blows to my face
become a joyful experience. And the rest of my retreat went very well. I learned a lot from my retreat. So I like to share this open
awareness meditation, but it is very difficult to explain. But I want to do something drama. And this is what I learned from my father. So what we call, this mala
is the crazy monkey mind, blah, blah, blah, yada yada. And the open awareness meditation
means you don't have to do anything. Just be. That's all, and you don't
need to meditate. The sense of presence,
being, but not loss. Be free. Be present. Thank you very much. (Applause)