How to Not Lose Your Way in Life | A Monk's Perspective

Good evening everyone, today we are going to talk about a topic that is very common but very important to talk about and that topic is how not to get lost in

life

and here at this moment for me I am in Los Angeles in southern California and during In my time I have met many different people and this is something that is common and that comes up often when people come together with us and share some of the challenges and struggles that they have just lost their

life

in and how many of you can relate to that. and here and some examples that I can think of are businessmen who are very successful and they are very rich and when they share their stories with us at the beginning, the intention was so pure that they wanted to get in business they wanted to develop a career to take care of their family, having time for themselves and then building something and as their path slowly continues, they become successful, little by little they have more responsibilities and that keeps building and building and building and the next thing you know the life they had set for themselves that intention now looking at their lives it no longer matches you know they want a family they want to spend time with their family they want to have enough to live on and now the picture looks completely different and the image is where you can work 50 60 70 hours some people don't even spend anymore time with their families they don't even see their families they don't even live in the same house some people have babysitters some people travel a lot but to me this is not a judgment at all it is simply the problem we are presented with.

Another example is in Los Angeles, we see this very common for artists and entertainers and they come to this area and try to chase the dream. and because they love art, they love entertainment, the art of acting, singing, dancing again, very pure, there is nothing wrong with that, then they begin to experience success, they make a name for themselves, then the circle around them begins As they get bigger, their lives start to become less. manageable and they have jobs and jobs and little by little along the way they start to forget, wait, what the intention was, why I got into this field in the first place and when we talk to them, a lot of them just love the craft, it's so simple that they love the expression. they want to express themselves and then over time with the responsibilities they have you can start to

lose

your

self and again the original intention that

your

life is now not even the same and the reason I am sharing this is because it is very common wherever you are. are in your life it changes the details but we will all experience this in one way or another so in this video I wanted to share a simple tool that I came up with that may be useful for you but before I do it again let me play around a little what this is the case and why this is the case where we get a little lost because you will have an intention, you will have some kind of direction at the beginning, very pure, very clear, very sharp and then when you enter the physical worlds you begin to interact with people you start to experience successes and now expectations and more duties and responsibilities then it can start to get cloudy and this is the same for those who have been following me for a long time like meditation and just like the mind, the mind when it is outside in the world now that any interaction you encounter where it involves your five senses, your sight, the things you see, your hearing, the things that are audible, smell, touch, taste every single interaction with the world will begin to become cloudy. , we will start polluting the purity of minds and through this cloudiness our original intention of why we started doing the things we started doing we can't even see them anymore and we are disconnected from that so this is just the explanation and again we come back to the point that it is very common, so before I share with you a simple tool, let me share a personal story and one or two personal stories from the monastery. that may be relatable to you and me and all the new

monk

s who went to Thailand the day that is so important to us is ordination day this is where we have been training to become Buddhist

monk

s and wear these saffron robes and Before that specific day, our teacher monk reminds us that he said that before you come to the day of ordination, make sure you spend time with yourself in solitude, in silence, in meditation and reflect and see why you are here and what you are doing.

He is going on this spiritual path. You are leaving everything behind from your old life and now you will embark on this journey as a Buddhist monk, take the time to remember this, this will be the first and only time you will become a Buddhist monk for the first time and in this space it is here it is where you will be the clearest, you will be the most innocent because when we take the vows to become Buddhist monks, we participate in a ceremony of forgiveness, so we let go of any heaviness, any conflict, any resentment from the past.

There, we are entering a new dimension of ourselves and then now when you take the vows, you wear the robe and, like I told you, this is your first day as a Buddhist monk. I don't care how old you are. 20 years 30 years 40 years and all the experience you have had in the outside world is fine, but as a Buddhist monk you have one day, you are a newborn and you will be taught this new realm from grinding how to eat how to sleep how to chant how to perceive the life and how to see things accurately, so at that time many people in Thailand came to support our ordination and this is a moment of great pride and the laity want to be a part of it This is because you are the purest at this moment, you just of making this vow, you are this new monk and you will give them blessings that they can donate to the monks to be part of their journey and then secondly, they I will receive a blessing from a new monk who made no mistakes, but has done nothing, intentional or not, to break the rules.

His mind is bright and clear, so everyone wants to come together to be a part of this, but for me this moment is very critical. because in this space as a new Monk you are clear that you are pure, you know why you enter this path and you know what you want to do with your life, so this is just an example of when your intentions are public relations and innocent, another example that I can share, I'm sorry this is a lot, but stay with me. The second example that I can share with you for me is really about writing these books and for me when I started on this path with my lump monk brother Michael.

We knew that we were very grateful for what we learned at the monastery and we wish that people could have the same access at the same time because we grew up in the United States, both myself and the monkey Michael, and we did not have access to this wisdom. and when we were struggling as laymen, when we were trying to find our way, we wish we had had this, we wish this resource had been told to us and communicated to us in a way that was practical and simple to improve our lives, so that now that I had the idea to write books Let's give wisdom.

The first is about morality, Buddhist cleanliness. The second one is about meditation, so we want to teach you how to meditate properly so you know what even the purpose of meditation is. and then knowing how you use it and apply it in your real life, but before we went on this journey to start writing, we had to be clear about what your purpose is and what your intention is, that was even more important than writing the books. because this was the foundation and we met, we meditated on it, we sat down, we discussed it and we were clear about what we wanted.

Our intention in writing these books is to package this wisdom in the simplest neutral Universal, take out the religious part to help people. who are suffering and people who want to change their lives by using practical spiritual tools and then they can begin to transform their lives. This was the intention, we didn't care how many people it reached, we didn't care about fame and praise and what people were going to think about it some people would love it wonderful some people might criticize it it's not that academic we don't care yes sure think what you need to think but this is our intention so now this is an example number two, but I share it because returning to the topic of how not to

lose

your way, I came up with this concept of or I came up with this concept that I call Time Capsule , it's just something that I made up that was an analogy or a symbol in my mind that captures this moment and what it is is that if you can try to capture these key critical moments in your life where your intentions are pure and clear and encapsulate time, It means writing it, capturing it, and writing it.

What is that feeling right now? It captures what the intention and purpose is of trying to do this and then the second part is to follow that path, but what I find is that a lot of people will be clear that they will continue to pursue it. their life and then slowly but surely, because the mind becomes contaminated, the original intention is now lost and what they set out to do is no longer the case, but if you can now you have this time capsule, a screenshot captured in Time Frozen in time now. You can come back to it at any time for me, at any time, for my brother monk, when we are participating in the world and things get a little chaotic, we open our journal and come back to this moment.

Wow, so many things have happened, so many responsibilities, so many. duties, but why did I become a monk? What is the original purpose? I opened this time capsule and it brings me back to that moment. How lucky I am in this life to have the opportunity to train myself to come to understand the truth and help other people in this process I cannot imagine anything else for my life look at this and now let's go back and tune into this again remember that and use it to your advantage please move on you're off course but now let's get back Of course, even with regards to books, more problems arise, eh, forget that's not the reason you set out to do this.

Go back to the original intention, so for your life do the same. Capture these moments, so the next question is what? What moments are we capturing and how do we use this Time Capsule concept appropriately? For me, what I encounter are three types of situations: One is making positive changes in your life. Milestones if he bought a new house that he has been working so hard for. a house that you can call your own and the day you receive the keys to the Time Capsule, how incredible is it that when you get a new job, the job of your dreams or a simple job that you had set out in your mind. for a while when you get married imagine when you say your vows to your partner Time Capsule that day you are the purest husband new husband and new wife or new partner at that moment don't forget it because we know from those who have been married to him time you start to lose that essence you start to lose that original intention so new babies new homes new pets anything that is positive in your life take a moment as soon as possible Time Capsule that other part second example of ours The second chance is now the crisis of Time Capsule in your life.

Life is not all high moments, but life can be very challenging and hard, and when you're going through a breakup, when you're going through a divorce that destroys your life, we have it where. We lose people to death, to illness, to greed, to old age, when you lose a parent, it will shake your whole world, but also in that moment you will find a moment of clarity, you will find life lessons that are so special and these crisis points. In your life it can be a turning point with wisdom and, if possible, write it down and freeze it in time.

Then when you're going through tough times, come back to this and you can use it to recharge and revitalize. A third type of Opportunity is when you don't have these important opportunities in life, maybe you're just worldly and maybe you're just lost and maybe you're not sure and you're trying to find your way, you're meeting friends, mentors and moments. of clarity will appear, you will have these aha moments and you will say: oh my god, this was a light bulb that went on in my head, life is so clear now, capture this moment and you can use it to your advantage too, so to link with this How do you get clarity in your life?

I'm going to spin a little bit how you get clarity in your life is meditation if you're not sure where you're going and need some common sense. of direction meditate, calm down, calm yourself, train your mind to be neutral so that you can see reality as it is again, you can see yourself, you can see other people and you can see the world as it is, take your lens, get your

perspective

very neutral, that's the first part the second part that we can learn from the wisdom of Buddhism is now use wise reflection now that we have meditated your mind is even more neutral now reflect on your life this is not a two-way thinking minutes no, this is not It's very logical, but really in this Stillness, go deeper into reflection, go deeper into contemplation of your situation and this will take time and do it over and over again, allow yourself this space and a moment of clarity will arise that will help you. will support in the process of Time capsules a moment or intention in your life of clarity so with that to summarize everything is that you will have moments of clarity in your life twoyou will start to get involved in the world and that original intention that you had you will be removed from it, you will be disconnected friend and maybe even you will lose it completely, so when you feel lost or you stray from the right path, now come back, come back to the original intention of why I went down this path and hopefully, It can help you correct course, but if you're going to improvise and that's okay, let me live life, let me do it with this Clarity. whatever and if I get lost, I'll try to remember that that it's an option and again, it's not bad, it's not right, but for me I just find that if you don't freeze it in time and you have a reference or reference source, you can forget about it and This is just a simple tip, a tool that can help you not to get lost in this difficult world at this difficult time, but I hope it's helpful to someone and as always, I just want to send you my blessing and I hope you're doing that.

Well, then take care foreigner.