What I found was that there are two ways to make a problem.
One: You say, "yes, sir!" Second: You say, "Hey, get out!"
So, "yes, sir" or "hey, get out." These two are the problems.
Do you want to learn "yes, sir” and “hey, get out?"
I will teach you.
OK, what is the meaning of “yes sir?”
Any message of panic, or what I call the crazy monkey mind.
I don't mean that in a bad way. Monkeys are nice.
I'm not insulting the monkeys, you know.
I love monkeys, but they are very, very active, you know.
Similarly, the mind is active a lot, you know,
and the mind gives you bad messages, like,
"Oh there's danger! There's a reason to be fearful! There's a problem!"
And you say, "Yes, sir! Whatever you say is true, sir. I believe you, sir."
That's the problem. Then panic becomes your boss.
Or you say, "Hey, get out! Panic, I don't like you!"
Then panic becomes your enemy. Maybe I will show you a little bit.
The boss is like this: "blah blah blah."
And you say, "Yes, sir! Alright."
For 24 hours. That's kind of tiring, yeah?
Or you say, "Hey, get out! What are you talking about? Leave me alone!"
And then it becomes a big enemy.
I made a little drama so that you can understand.
So what I said to the "blah blah" was, "Hello, good morning.
"Good evening. Hello." Nice.
This way, now panic becomes a support for your meditation.
This works not only with the panic, but also with any other situation.
Depression, low self-esteem, anger, shame, guilt, panic about panic,
fear of fear, resistance to anger.
These are what I call “boosters of emotions.”
You can use anything as a support for your meditation.
Not only the problems, but also even forms, sounds, smells, tastes, senses,
normal thoughts and normal emotions.
Everything becomes a cause of meditation and joyful experience,
and you can be happy all the time, everywhere, under any circumstances.
This is why meditation is very important.
Without meditation, maybe I could not be here.
Maybe I’d still be hiding in a cave somewhere in the Himalayan mountains.
Because of meditation, I'm here.
I’m giving you this talk because of meditation.
I made friends with my panic.
I wrote two books because of the experience
of using meditation to make friends with my panic and problems.
The mind becomes stable.
The goal of meditation is to develop your inner joy
and inner peaceful experience.
There's wisdom. There’s love and compassion.
And there's a kind of strength, a power within you.
And this joy, this peaceful experience
does not depend on outside circumstances.
That’s why I call it “inner joy.”
And this joy is not like the stock market, going up and down.
It's stable.
Why? Because it doesn’t depend on outside circumstances.
Any problem can become a cause for developing inner joy.
That's why it's good for you, good for your life,
good for your health, good for your body, you know.
Now, let me tell you more about science,
because I'm not the only one talking about these benefits.
Nor are my teachers. Even scientists agree.
I participated in some experiments at the University of Wisconsin,
University of California, Berkeley, Harvard University.
And, especially at the University of Wisconsin,
they tested my brain. They put me in a big machine called an fMRI.
It’s shaped like a wide coffin,
and a sort of tongue comes out of it, and I had to lie down on that.
And they tied my head here and here,
and they put big earphones on me here,
and they put me inside the machine.
The machine is like a tunnel. Dark. Cold. Very noisy.
And there I had to meditate using three meditation techniques.
Open presence first. Second, concentration.
Third, loving kindness and compassion.
The scientists were in the next room giving me instructions.
"OK, now you have to meditate on compassion for ninety seconds.
"Stop compassion. Compassion. Stop compassion. Compassion."
It was nice.
And they were having fun, you know, drinking tea and coffee,
sometimes eating some hamburgers, maybe, I don't know.
And the result of this: What they told me is that I am totally crazy.
I was disappointed. No, no, I'm joking.
It was not only me: They also studied other meditators.
There were sixteen or so of them.
And what they saw is that there were very big changes in our brains,
and especially in the left prefrontal lobe, around here.
The activity in that area increased enormously.
What I learned with the scientists were three important things.
First, what they call “neuroplasticity,”
which means your brain is capable of change.
Maybe thirteen or fifteen years before,
neuroscientists didn’t believe our brain was capable of change.
If you were born unhappy, the rest of your life would be unhappy.
But, nowadays, no. You can change.
If you're born unhappy, you can become a happy person.
That's why there's hope.
And secondly,
one of the best ways to change is to apply daily meditation.
They also experimented with novices, beginners —
university students who didn’t have any idea about meditation.
They tested them, and gave them meditation instructions
that they applied every day for one hour.
Eight weeks later, their left prefrontal lobe activity
had increased by ten to fifteen percent.
And this was in only eight weeks.
Thirdly, this positive change in your brain
is good for your physical body, and your immune system.
There are many other studies, also,
ongoing studies in other universities
in which they say meditation is good for your heart,
good for your blood circulation, diabetes,
respiratory tract infections,
and stress reduction. And many other benefits.
So, now,
I want to add one more.
It’s from my laboratory. No, no, I'm joking.
Mine is: it’s good for your life. Why?
A happy mind. A healthy body.
of course it's good for your life, yeah?
This way, your life becomes wonderful, joyful.
That is the benefit from meditation.
OK, thank you.