【正文】
uite different from that. Itamp。ve been wondering, because most people assume that meditation is all about stopping thoughts, getting rid of emotions, somehow controlling the mind, but actually itamp。s what these are for, in case youamp。s familiarizing ourselves with the present moment. But we also need to know how to approach it in the right way to get the best from it. And thatamp。s essentially what meditation is. Itamp。s a positive, practical, achievable, scientifically proven technique which allows our mind to be more healthy, to be more mindful and less distracted. And the beauty of it is that even though it need only take about 10 minutes a day, it impacts our entire life. But we need to know how to do it. We need an exercise. We need a framework to learn how to be more mindful. Thatamp。s something we can do about it, when thereamp。re not here for that long anyway, but to spend almost half of our life lost in thought and potentially quite unhappy, dunno, it just kind of seems tragic, actually, especially when thereamp。s anything but ordinary. There was a research paper that came out of Harvard, just recently, that said on average our minds are lost in thought almost 47 percent of the time. Fortyseven percent. At the same time, this sort of constant mindwandering is also a direct cause of unhappiness. Now weamp。s face it, being a celibate monk is going to change a number of things. But it was more than that. It taught me it gave me a greater appreciation, an understanding for the present moment. By that I mean not being lost in thought, not being distracted, not being overwhelmed by difficult emotions, but instead learning how to be in the here and now, how to be mindful, how to be present. I think the present moment is so underrated. It sounds so ordinary, and yet we spend so little time in the present moment that itamp。t know how to cope with. Every time I sort of pushed one down, another one would just sort of pop back up again. It was a really very stressful time. I guess we all deal with stress in different ways. Some people will bury themselves in work, grateful for the distraction. Others will turn to their friends, their family, looking for support. Some people hit the bottle, start taking medication. My own way of dealing with it was to bee a monk. So I quit my degree, I headed off to the Himalayas, I became a monk, a