I'm here to speak about the elephant in the room.
I know, but it's there for all of us, in one form or another.
It's this dissatisfaction and unhappiness with what we have in our lives.
Maybe if you're here or watching this, you have all the basics covered -
food, water, safety, shelter.
But somehow, we long for something more.
As a psychologist, I've really seen how we all want to be happy,
but keep chasing it in the future.
And I know that myself, really well,
because I had everything in life.
I had loving support, education, career,
but it wasn't enough,
and that really frustrated me.
Eventually, I discovered the real, obvious reason.
It's really obvious.
It's our mind.
It really gets distracted and lost in negatives,
and has a difficult time being right here
in the present moment.
What helped me see that so clearly was mindfulness meditation.
I came across it in the research in my field,
and started using it with clients.
And that took me on a personal journey,
which eventually led me to this ridiculous gut feeling
of what I had to do,
which was drop everything in my life
and go to a six-month meditation retreat
in Southeast Asia, in a forest monastery,
in silence.
I tell you, it was the most difficult, unpleasant, painful six months of my life.
(Laughter)
But it really taught me profound lessons that have inspired me to be here today.
So I'm here to really share with you my personal insights
and professional understanding of mindfulness meditation
with the hope that you give it a chance, so you can see for yourself
how it can redefine the way we approach happiness,
satisfaction,
and reduce the suffering in our lives
from the pain that's already there.
Okay, so back to some not-so-good news about our mind:
it has the tendency for a negativity bias,
or evolutionary psychologists refer to it as a survival mechanism.
So, if there's a bunny in the bushes,
and there are sounds,
our mind is ready with a stress response, for a flight-or-fight response -
I did it backwards actually -
(Laughter)
fight-or-flight response.
Even if there's just a bunny, we're getting ready for a tiger.
And neuro-psychologists refer to that
as our brain being like Velcro to the negatives.
(Thoop)
Latches on to negatives.
Anyone familiar with that? Just hang on.
And being like Teflon fabric to the positives.
(Whoosh)
Letting them all slip away.
Okay, so it's not all bad news.
With the advances in neuroscience,
mindfulness meditation has been shown to change the structure of our brain.
And you don't have to do a six-month retreat in a [forest monastery].
That's the good news.
Even in eight weeks in mindfulness programs,
practicing 40-45 minutes a day,
we can improve concentration, decision-making, compassion,
and, life satisfaction.
So, what exactly is mindfulness meditation?
It's one form of meditation,
and basically it's training the brain to be present.
It's based on thousands of years of wisdom tradition in Asia.
And how we do it, one way, is we place our attention on the belly,
to watch our breath.
But we do that in a particular way,
or as Jon Kabat-Zinn, who brought mindfulness to medicine,
which is quite big, actually,
he defines it in four words:
we pay attention on purpose, so with an intention.
And in the present moment,
so, right now,
and the hardest part for all of us:
non-judgmentally.
Really tough.
So, let's say this is our attention.
We place it right on the belly.
Guess what's going to happen with our mind?
(Whoo)
We're going to get distracted.
But, without pushing against the thoughts or hating the thoughts,
or clinging onto them, good or bad,
[we bring it] right back.
Now, you can get a sense of that if you like now,
if you'd like to join me,
by placing your hand on the belly,
and we're just going to observe two breaths.
Natural inhale; natural exhale.
Even slightly.
Inhale...
exhale.
Inhale...
exhale.
Okay, now, when we do that, and some of you maybe noticed that,
there will be thoughts,
emotions,
or sensations.
But we don't get lost in them.
We bring our attention back.
And every time we do that, guess what we're doing to our brain?
We're strengthening the muscles in the brain, every time.
It's a gym workout for the brain.
And in the process of doing that, patiently -
I mean it takes a lot of patience -
and compassionately,
we learn to work with our mind,
and be present with whatever is here.
We don't have to like what's here.
When I first arrived at the forest monastery,
I asked the monk, "Is it true there are poisonous snakes on the compound?"
He said, "Yes, yes. Deadly. Deadly."
(Laughter)
"Just stay away from them. Walk mindfully."
Great.
(Laughter)
"Use a flashlight at night."
And I love this one too:
"Check your meditation cushion before you sit on it."
(Laughter)
I mean... I could have died.
That was, you know, a possibility.
But the best part, he said,
"Send them love."
(Laughter)
"They were here before us."
Okay, Mr. Monk, I wasn't ready for that yet.
(Laughter)
But I did notice, even before going to this long retreat,
I noticed some changes in my mind and how I reacted,
just from daily meditation.
One day I was stuck in a traffic jam, really early in the morning, 5:40,
on my way to the gym, and unexpected.
And, instead of the usual, "Why aren't these people moving?",
get uptight, agitated,
and the mind going into
"This is going to be a horrible day. I'm late for stuff,"
what surprised me is what I heard, and I thought, "Oh, interesting."
The thought? "I hope no one's hurt."
Maybe there was an accident,
or maybe it's construction and those workers were up all night,
and I started wishing them well.
"May they be safe today."
Now, I still was late, so that didn't change,
but I didn't spiral into the negativity of the mind.
And it really showed me, "Wow, it was worth working that muscle,
and the daily practice."
So, let's put together what I shared so far,
with a little illustration.
Imagine this is pain
It could be anything.
Let's just say, stomach pain.
Signals travel to the brain.
If you magine this is our brain, our mind, relatively calm.
We have now a signal of pain.
But it doesn't stop there.
We're not usually loving to it.
We hate it, and we get agitated, and wish it wasn't there.
And then what we do, we let negativity
leak into the rest of our mind.
"Why me?"
"Why is this happening?"
And then?
We stir it all up with negativity.
"What kind of horrible thing this is."
We worry.
And instead of being present with the pain?
We get taken for a ride in our mind.
I know that really well,
because I experienced that deeply at this forest retreat.
You see, the honeymoon phase of "Ahh, following my dream,
meditating for so long,"
(Laughter)
that ended after the first night.
(Laughter)
You know, everything that brought me happiness,
or I thought brought me happiness,
was pulled from under my legs.
The people I love, there's no technology,
no social media,
no Internet,
just seclusion and deprivation.
And there was a wake-up call in the morning,
3 a.m. every day.
But, it wasn't this nice chime of (Ding),
(Laughter)
"Good morning, Kasim."
No, it wasn't that, it was, (Boom, boom, boom)
every morning -
startling -
which would begin our 13-14 hours of daily meditation.
In the heat with the lovely insects,
scorpions, yeah, scorpions.
Actually, someone got stung by one
as they sat on their cushion when I was there, so...
(Laughter)
And sleeping on this lovely wooden bed with just a little bit of foam.
Daily hunger.
Because last meal of the day? Guess what?
Lunch.
And when?
10:30 in the morning.
(Laughter)
That was the reality.
So whenever my mind got stirred up in any of that pain,
it was crushing.
I felt trapped.
I actually woke up one night screaming from it all.
I really saw how when we begin to fight and resist our reality,
it gets worse.
Things began to change for me when
I just started to look at pain as pain,
and saw so clearly that it was my mind that was creating the suffering,
which is optional.
Wow.
All I have to do is just be in this moment.
And mindfulness showed me we can be in the eye of the storm.
Watch it all pass, moment by moment.
And there is such freedom in trusting impermanence in that way.
And then, really holding our pain with great compassion.
Because it's painful already.
You don't need to hate it more; just be with it.
You know, there's a psychiatrist, Viktor Frankl,
and he said, "Choice is the last human freedom."
Choice.
I learned that using mindfulness is a choice.
And even when all my freedoms felt like they were taken away,
I experienced freedom right here.
And my biggest, biggest epiphany,
is happiness and satisfaction is not in the distant future,
or when I go back home,
it's actually available for all of us in every moment.
It blooms naturally from a state of mind that's calm,
not agitated,
and peaceful.
So I want to leave you with this... -
Oh, that was me there -
(Laughter)
I want to leave you with this acronym that captures some of my learning,
and I hope you use it when you find yourself lost in any kind of suffering.
And it's LOST.
The first letter: L.
Just know you are lost in suffering and thoughts.
Come back to the present moment.
O: Offer loving kindness.
You don't have to like the pain; just hold it with compassion.
See and smile.
See pain as pain,
or, joy as joy,
without the added agitation of the mind.
And smile knowing you just did that.
And T for take a deep breath, knowing you are not alone;
we are all dealing with the condition of the mind.
So I invite you to join me in taking a deep breath into the nose.
(Inhales)
And exhale.
(Exhales)
So to sum up: if we don't retrain the brain, it can cause added pain,
and the training can begin with mindfulness meditation.
It's not a quick fix
with magical results,
nor is it going to make us immune to the challenges in life.
But imagine, imagine if half of us created a daily meditation practice
to be more present in life with the good and the bad,
offer more compassion,
and feel more moments of satisfaction and happiness,
and let that bloom naturally from a state of mind that's more peaceful.
That's a recipe for positive change,
and it can start with you.
Thank you.
(Applause)