For a long time,
Through my teens especially,
I was searching for what is always true,
What is always helpful,
And I didn't find it in any religion.
What can I always rely on?
No matter what is going on,
What can I think of or what can I do to make any moment better?
And I found that there are three questions I can ask myself at any point,
And the result is just better.
And I want to share those three questions with you so you can apply them to your life.
So no matter what is happening,
No matter good,
Bad,
Awful,
Confusing,
Difficult,
The first question is how can I bring more awareness to this present moment?
How can I bring more awareness to what is happening?
This is experiencing life fully,
And this is a way to get all the answers.
We tend to disconnect when something is uncomfortable.
How do you reconnect?
I love the phrase stare adversity right in the face.
So if it's joy,
How do you connect to joy more?
If it's suffering,
How do you connect to the suffering more?
And it might seem kind of vague,
How do you connect to the moment?
Connect to the moment by connecting to your body,
Feeling what you're feeling.
Like an exercise,
It's like fully doing the exercise,
Feeling it,
As opposed to like letting your body avoid it and like falling into your joints.
How are you fully aware?
How do you fully listen,
Taste,
Pay attention,
Notice the feeling in your body in response to the world?
So that is,
I think,
One of the most helpful and also hard practices.
So the second question is what would self-compassion look like right now?
What would self-compassion look like in this moment?
Or another way to phrase this is what would I do if I truly loved myself?
I think this question is everything.
There are always so many things you could do.
What would I do if I truly respected myself?
What would I do if I truly loved myself?
What would I do if I truly cared about myself?
And that's self-compassion.
In any moment,
If you bring more self-compassion,
You're not being selfish.
You are just making the moment better for you and for everyone because the self-compassion of choice is often the compassionate choice.
The two are one in the same.
And then the third question has a lot to do with compassion.
And I'm going to phrase it the opposite way.
What would it look like to pile on more suffering onto the situation?
And how do I not do that?
So we can always imagine what it would look like to pile on more suffering.
You can be more judgmental.
You can blame.
You can complain.
You can be in a bad mood.
There's so much you can do.
You can give someone a really hard time.
Or you can live and let live.
And you can connect to the moment and connect to people with your full heart.
And that's compassion.
So it's connecting to anything and anyone with care and with inner lightness and with a calm,
Positive relation to the rest of the world from a place of calm,
Wishing for the long-term happiness of yourself and everyone around you.
So I've created more than 200 different programs for happiness.
And they really work.
And people's lives change.
And people's relationships get better.
They have more energy.
But everything I teach can be distilled down to how you connect to the present moment.
And if the present moment is joyful,
You can be all guilty because you're experiencing joy.
You can be all stressed.
When will this joy end?
When will this good relationship end?
When will this money end?
When will this opportunity end?
You can be really stressed about it.
You can be attached to the joy.
Or you can approach the joy with appreciative joy,
Fully enjoying and realizing that there are endless sources of joy in the world.
You don't need to grasp to just one of them.
Things come and go.
And they will always come and go.
And you can enjoy.
So any moment of joy,
Connect to it with appreciative joy.
And now,
Any moment of anyone else's joy,
Even someone you don't like,
Still have a joy.
I rejoice at your joy.
I delight at your happiness.
Your joy is my joy.
So whoever is in love,
Whoever is successful,
Whoever looks beautiful,
Letting that be a source of joy for you is a very high wisdom.
Only three things to know about the moment.
Connect to any joy with appreciative joy.
Connect to any moment of suffering with compassion.
You can be numb to it.
You can run away from it.
But just let it open your heart.
Like if it's sadness,
It's sadness.
If it's helplessness,
It's helplessness.
It's feeling all the emotions and feeling them and wishing well and wanting everyone in the world to be well,
Which is not the same as trying to save everyone.
But letting the emotions move you and having the intention to reduce suffering.
One of my favorite Zen practices is to speak only to reduce suffering.
But everything you do,
Letting it reduce suffering.
So joy,
Connect to it with more joy.
If it's suffering,
Connect with care,
With compassion,
With an open heart from common humanity.
And then any moment whatsoever,
Connect to it with your full awareness.
And this is how you'll feel like you're living 10 lives in one.
I certainly feel that way.
I've already lived definitely five or six up to this point.
If you are fully aware,
It's like the day is longer.
More happens,
You connect more deeply.
It's like,
You know,
When you go to a foreign country,
And the first day feels like it takes like three days in the foreign country,
Because you're aware,
You're paying attention,
You're in a new place.
The goal is to bring that to your life,
Your apartment,
Your everyday.
So that's really the biggest wisdom that I've come upon,
Where it's so non dogmatic and form that you can apply it to anything and make the present moment better.
So I hope that you feel happier every day.
Thank you for listening,
And I'll see you soon.
