Life is easy. Why do we make it so hard? – Jon Jandai at TEDxDoiSuthep

Jon is a farmer from northeastern Thailand, who shares with us his realization and advice for living an easy and happy life. He founded a Pun Pun center for sustainable living, and he continually strives to find easier ways for people to fulfill their basic needs.

There is one phrase that
I have always wanted

to say to everyone in my life.

That phrase is "Life is easy."

It's so easy and fun.

I never thought like that before.

When I was in Bangkok, I felt like
life is very hard, very complicated.

I was born in a poor village
on the Northeastern of Thailand

And when I was a kid,
everything was fun and easy,

but when the TV came,
many people came to the village,

they said,

"You are poor, you need to chase
success in your life.

You need to go to Bangkok
to pursue success in your life."

So I felt bad, I felt poor.

So I needed to go to Bangkok.

When I went to Bangkok,
it was not very fun.

You need to learn, study
a lot and work very hard,

and then you can get success.

I worked very hard,
eight hours per day at least,

but all I could eat was just
a bowl of noodles per meal,

or some Tama dish
of fried rice or something like that.

And where I stayed was very bad,
a small room where a lot of people slept.

It was very hot.

I started to question a lot.

When I work hard, why is my life so hard?

It must be something wrong,

because I produce a lot of things,
but I cannot get enough.

And I tried to learn, I tried to study.

I tried to study in the university.

It's very hard to learn in university,
because it's very boring.

(Laughter)

And when I looked at subjects
in the university,

in every faculty, most of them
had destructive knowledge.

There's no productive knowledge
in university for me.

If you learn to be
an architect or engineer,

that means you ruin more.

The more these people work,
the mountain will be destroyed more.

And a good land in Chao Praya Basin

will be covered
with concrete more and more.

We destroy more.

If we go to agriculture faculty
or something like that,

that means we learn how to poison,

to poison the land, the water,

and learn to destroy everything.

I feel like everything we do
is so complicated, so hard.

We just make everything hard.

Life was so hard
and I felt disappointed.

I started to think about,
why did I have to be in Bangkok?

I thought about when I was a kid,

nobody worked eight hours per day,

everybody worked two hours,
two months a year,

planting rice one month
and harvesting the rice another month.

The rest is free time,
ten months of free time.

That's why people have
so many festivals in Thailand,

every month they have festival.

(Laughter)

Because they have so much free time.

And then in the daytime,
everyone even takes a nap.

Even now in Laos, go to Laos if you can,

people take a nap after lunch.

And after they wake up, they just gossip,

how's your son-in-law,
how's your wife, daughter-in-law.

People have a lot of time,

but because they have a lot of time,

they have time to be with themselves.

And when they have time
to be with themselves,

they have time to understand themselves.

When they understand themselves,

they can see what they want in their life.

So, many people see
that they want happiness,

they want love,
they want to enjoy their life.

So, people see
a lot of beauty in their life,

so they express that beauty in many ways.

Some people by carving
the handle of their knife,

very beautiful,

they weave the baskets very nicely.

But, now, nobody does that.

Nobody can do something like that.

People use plastic everywhere.

So, I feel like
it's something wrong in there,

I cannot live this way I'm living.

So, I decided to quit University,

and went back home.

When I went back home,
I started to live like I remember,

like when I was a kid.

I started to work two months a year.

I got four tons of rice.

And the whole family, six people,

we eat less than half a ton per year.

So we can sell some rice.

I took two ponds, two fish ponds.

We have fish to eat all year round.

And I started a small garden.

Less than half an acre.

And I spend 15 minutes per day
to take care of the garden.

I have more than 30 varieties
of vegetables in the garden.

So, six people cannot eat all of it.

We have a surplus to sell in the market.

We can make some income, too.

So, I feel like, it's easy,
why did I have to be in Bangkok

for seven years, working hard
and then not have enough to eat,

but here, only two months a year
and 15 minutes per day

I can feed six people.

That's easy.

And before I thought
that stupid people like me

who never got a good grade at school,

cannot have a house.

Because people who are cleverer than me,

who are number one
in the class every year,

they get a good job,

but they need to work more
than 30 years to have a house.

But me, who cannot finish university,
how could I have a house?

Hopeless for people
who have low education, like me.

But, then I started to do
earthly building, it's so easy.

I spend two hours per day,
from 5 o'clock in the morning,

until 7 o'clock in the morning,
two hours per day.

And in three months, I got a house.

And another friend
who's the most clever in the class,

he spent three months
to build his house, too.

But, he had to be in debt.
He had to pay for his debt for 30 years.

So, compared to him, I have
29 years and 10 months of free time.

(Laughter)

So, I feel that life is so easy.

I never thought I could
build a house as easy as that.

And I keep building a house every year,
at least one house every year.

Now, I have no money,
but I have many houses.

(Laughter)

My problem is in which house
I will sleep tonight.

(Laughter)

So, a house is not a problem,
anybody can build a house.

The kids, 13 years old, at the school,

they make bricks together,
they make a house.

After one month, they have a library.

The kids can make a house,

a very old nun can build
a hut for herself.

Many people can build a house.

So, it's easy.

If you don't believe me, try it.

If somebody wants to have a house.

And then, the next thing is clothing.

I felt like I'm poor,
like I'm not handsome.

I tried to dress like somebody else,
like a movie star.

To make myself look good, look better.

I spent one month to save money
to buy a pair of jeans.

When I wore them,
I turned left, I turned right,

looked in the mirror.

Every time I look, I am the same person.

The most expensive pants
cannot change my life.

I felt like I'm so crazy,
why did I have to buy them?

Spend one month to have a pair of pants.

It doesn't change me.

I started to think more about that.

Why do we need to follow fashion?

Because, when we follow fashion,
we never catch up with it,

because we follow it.

So, don't follow it, just stay here.

(Laughter)

Use what you have.

So, after that, until now, 20 years,
I have never bought any clothes.

All the clothes I have
are leftovers from people.

When people come to visit me,
and when they leave,

they leave a lot of clothes there.

So, I have tons of clothes now.

(Laughter)

And when people see me
wear very old clothes,

they give me more clothes.

(Laughter)

So, my problem is, I need
to give clothes to people very often.

(Laughter)

So, it's so easy.

And when I stopped buying clothes,
I felt like, it's not only clothes,

it's about something else in my life,

What I learned is that
when I buy something,

and I think about,
I buy it because I like it,

or I buy it because I need it.

So, if I buy it because I like it,
that means I'm wrong.

So, I feel more free
when I think like this.

And the last thing is,
when I get sick, what will I do?

I really worried in the beginning,
because then I had no money.

But, I started to contemplate more.

Normally, sickness is a normal thing,
it's not a bad thing.

Sickness is something to remind us
that we did something wrong in our lives,

that's why we got sick.

So, when I get sick, I need
to stop and come back to myself.

And think about it, what I did was wrong.

So, I learned how to use
water to heal myself,

how to use earth to heal myself,

I learned how to use
basic knowledge to heal myself.

So, now that I rely on myself
in these four things,

I feel like life is very easy,

I feel something
like freedom, I feel free.

I feel like I don't worry
about anything much,

I have less fear, I can do
whatever I want in my life.

Before, I had a lot of fear,
I could not do anything.

But, now I feel very free,
like I'm a unique person on this Earth,

nobody like me, I don't need
to make myself like anybody else.

I'm the number one.

So, things like this
make it easy, very light.

And, after that,
I started to think about

that when I was in Bangkok,
I felt very dark in my life.

I started to think that many people
maybe thought like me at the time.

So, we started a place called
"Pun Pun" in Chiang Mai.

The main aim is just saving seed.

To collect seed,
because seed is food, food is life.

If there is no seed, no life.

No seed, no freedom.

No seed, no happiness.

Because your life
depends on somebody else.

Because you have no food.

So, it's very important to save seed.

That's why we focus on saving seed.

That's the main thing in Pun Pun.

And the second thing
is it is the learning center.

We want to have a center
for ourselves to learn,

learn how to make life easy.

Because we were taught to make
life complicated and hard all the time.

How can we make it easy? It's easy,

but we don't know
how to make it easy anymore.

Because we always make it complicated

and now, we start to learn,
and learn to be together.

Because, we were taught
to disconnect ourselves

from everything else, to be independent,

so we can rely on the money only.

We don't need to rely on each other.

But now, to be happy,
we need to come back,

to connect to ourselves again,
to connect to other people,

to connect our mind and body
together again.

So, we can be happy. Life is easy.

And from beginning until now,
what I learned

is the four basic needs:
food, house, clothes and medicine

must be cheap and easy for everybody,

that's the civilization.

But, if you make these four things hard
and very hard for many people to get,

that's uncivilized.

So, now when we look
at everywhere around us,

everything is so hard to get.

I feel like now is the most
uncivilized era of humans on this Earth.

We have so many people
who finish university,

have so many universities on the Earth,

have so many clever people on this Earth.

But, life is harder and harder.

We make it hard for whom?

We work hard for whom right now?

I feel like it's wrong, it's not normal.

So, I just want to come back to normal.

To be a normal person,
to be equal to animals.

The birds make a nest in one or two days.

The rats dig a hole in one night.

But, the clever humans like us

spend 30 years to have a house,

and many people can't believe
that they can have a house in this life.

So, that's wrong.

Why do we destroy our spirit,
why do we destroy our ability that much?

So, I feel that it's enough for me,
to live in the normal way,

in the abnormal way.

So, now I try to be normal.

But, people look at me
as the abnormal one.

(Laughter)

A crazy person.

But, I don't care,
because it's not my fault.

It's their fault, they think like that.

So, my life is easy and light now.

That's enough for me.

People can think whatever they want.

I cannot manage anything outside myself.

What I can do is change my mind,
manage my mind.

Now, my mind is light
and easy, that's enough.

If anybody wants to have a choice,
you can have a choice.

The choice to be easy or to be hard,
it depends on you.

Thank you.

(Applause)