Gelong Thubten - How A Retreat Can Help You Find Yourself

 My guest today is one of my favourite people on the planet, Gelong Thubten. I never met Thubten before - we met on a Zoom call two and a half years ago during the times of covid where he truly changed my life. He doesn’t know that but I’ll talk about that in a minute.  At that time I saw in Thubten an amazing soul that went through an amazing journey to help the rest of us souls find a path to happiness and enlightenment. We stayed in touch as much as we could after we recorded that podcast episode. And now finally at my best friend’s studio in London, we meet for the first time and we meet for me to realise that he is exactly what I thought he was. Thubten has written a new book that he so kindly shared with me before he shared with the rest of the world it’s called Handbook For Hard Times -  such an appropriate title for what we are about to go through if you don’t mind me saying. It’s a monk’s guide to fearless living. I absolutely loved it. The book is out in just a few days on August 31st. I would ask you to please pre-order it.

Gelong Thubten is a Buddhist monk, meditation teacher and author. He became a monk 30 years ago and has spent over six years in meditation retreats, including one which lasted for four years.  He is regarded as one of the UK’s most influential meditation teachers, working with corporations, schools, hospitals, prisons and rehab centres. He has lectured at the University of Oxford and for large organisations such as Google and The United Nations. He is also a director of several meditation centres as well as the humanitarian aid charity ROKPA International. Thubten is the author of the Sunday Times bestseller ‘A Monk’s Guide to Happiness’. His new book ‘Handbook for Hard Times’ will be published in August 2023.

Listen as we discuss:

02:30 - Finding Monk-hood 05:00 - Getting through a hard time 06:30 - Spreading the message 09:00 - What my teacher taught me 12:30 - A humbling retreat 15:00 - Pretentious spirituality 17:00 - The high of meditation 23:00 - The opposite of meditation 25:00 - Hard times, risks, fear and anxiety 30:00 - Growth from adversity - The Four Noble Truths 33:00 - Fearlessness 36:00 - From resistance to acceptance 42:00 - The Great Depression 44:00 - What is the point of retreating? 46:30 - How to cope with suffering 48:30 - Suffering is the teacher 

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