How to tap into your awareness -- and why meditation is easier than you think | Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

**Elise Hu** (0:04)
You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu.
Meditation sounds like it should be the easiest thing in the world. Just sit still, breathe, and be present. So why does something that sounds so effortless often feel so hard? Spiritual leader Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche says, it's because most of us misunderstand what meditation actually is. It was never about emptying your mind or forcing yourself to feel calm.

**Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche** (0:36)
We don't need to stop thinking. We just need to connect with awareness.

**Elise Hu** (0:41)
In this talk from 2022, Yongey shares three simple steps to accept the natural ebb and flow of your emotions. He came to meditation not as a naturally calm master, but as a kid who struggled with panic.
Growing up in the Himalayas, his panic attacks followed him like a shadow. When he was nine, he asked his father, a meditation teacher, for help. And what his father told him changed how he understood his own mind.

**Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche** (1:07)
Awareness is like sky in the mountain, and the panic is like storm in the mountain, like cloud. And no matter how strong storm is, it doesn't change the nature of sky.

**Elise Hu** (1:22)
He reveals the surprising place all of this eventually led him. Once he stopped fighting the very thing he most wanted to get rid of, that's coming up right after a short break. And now our TED Talk of the day.

**Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche** (1:42)
So I would like to discuss about meditation. What we call the essence of meditation is awareness. And what is awareness knows what you're thinking, feeling, doing, seeing, hearing. That's all. So actually, meditation is very easy. But many people found difficult. Why? There are two misunderstandings about meditation. So the first is many people think meditation means think of nothing.
Stop thinking.
Concentration.

**Elise Hu** (2:21)
Shh.

**Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche** (2:22)
I'm meditating. Keep quiet.
So the more when you try to stop thinking, what happens? You will think more. So we will do small experiment, okay? Now, please don't think about pizza.
No pizza.
No pizza. What happened? Did you think about pizza or no? Yes, raise your hand.
I know.
So, actually, we don't need to stop thinking. We just need to connect with awareness. And another misunderstanding about meditation is what we call blazing out. Looking for peace, calm, joy, relax.
The more you look for relax, then peace, come joy, relax, and run away. So, let me share you my own experience. When I was young, I had panic attacks. Although I was born in the right middle of the Himalayan mountain, the area, the village, wonderful, but panic followed me as like shadow. And I have so much fear for strangers. I cannot go out and meet people. And a lot of storms in the Himalayan mountain. Thunderstorm, snowstorm, these storms drive me crazy.
And when I was nine years old, I asked my father to teach me meditation. Luckily, he was a great meditation teacher. And the first thing what he said is, don't try to fight with the panic. Don't try to get rid of panic.
And actually, he said, you don't have to. Why? Awareness is like sky in the mountain, and the panic is like storm in the mountain, like cloud. And no matter how strong storm is, it doesn't change the nature of sky. So sky is always present, pure, calm, similarly, our fundamental quality of mind, awareness, is always present, pure, calm. But the problem is, we don't know how to connect with awareness. What we see, only thought, emotion, that's all. So he said, there are three steps of practice to connect with awareness. The first one, we have to use an object, support, to connect with awareness. So this is one of my first meditation techniques, what I learned from my father. So you can join, and you can relax your muscles in your body. If you cannot relax, also okay, aloud. And close your eyes, and please listen to sound.
And when you hear the sound, through ear and mind together, that is the meditation.
And let panic come and go, let pizza come and go.
And maybe two pizza, three pizza, ten pizzas. As long as you remember the sound, you can have pizza.
Okay, how was it? Did you hear the sound? Great. That is the meditation. Very easy. Just hear, that's all. You don't have to do anything. So if panic comes, let panic come, and God don't care, just listen to sound. Monkey mind comes, blah, blah, blah, blah, let it come and go, just listen to sound. So I did that, but I have a big problem. The problem is lazy.