We live in an incredibly busy world. The pace of life is often frantic, our minds are always busy, and we're always doing something.

我们生活在一个忙碌得让人难以置信的世界里。生活的节奏快得常常让人发狂，我们的大脑总是很忙，我们总是在做这做那。

So with that in mind, I'd like you just to take a moment to think, when did you last take any time to do nothing? Just 10 minutes, undisturbed? And when I say nothing, I do mean nothing. So that's no emailing, texting, no Internet, no TV, no chatting, no eating, no reading, not even sitting there reminiscing about the past or planning for the future. Simply doing nothing. I see a lot of very blank faces. (Laughter) My thinking is, you probably have to go a long way back.

所以考虑到这个，我请让大家花一点点时间想一想，你们最近一次什么都不想是什么时候？就10分钟，没有被打扰的十分钟？我所说的什么都不想，就是真的什么都不想的状态。就是没有发邮件，没有写东西，没有上网，没有看点电视，没有聊天，没有吃东西，没有看书，甚至没有回忆过去或者计划未来。真正意义上的什么都不做。我看到了很多迷茫的表情。我想，你们可能要想很久。

And this is an extraordinary thing, right? We're talking about our mind. The mind, our most valuable and precious resource, through which we experience every single moment of our life, the mind that we rely upon to be happy, content, emotionally stable as individuals, and at the same time to be kind and thoughtful and considerate in our relationships with others. This is the same mind that we depend upon to be focused, creative, spontaneous, and to perform at our very best in everything that we do. And yet, we don't take any time out to look after it. In fact, we spend more time looking after our cars, our clothes and our hair than we — okay, maybe not our hair, but you see where I'm going.

这是个非常奇怪的事情，对吧？我们来谈谈我们的大脑。大脑，是我们最有价值也是最宝贵的资源，有了它，我们可以体验生命中的每个时刻，我们可以成为一个快乐而满足，情绪稳定独立的人，而且，我们还可以成为一个善良的，有思想的，对家人考虑周到的人。同样的，用我们的大脑去全神贯注，充满创造力，随心所欲，而且让我们表现出色。但是，我们从未拿出时间好好关心我们的大脑。事实上，我们花了更多的时间关心我们的车子，我们的衣服，我们的头发，好吧，也许不是我们的头发（演讲者是光头），但是你们能理解我要说的东西。

The result, of course, is that we get stressed. You know, the mind whizzes away like a washing machine going round and round, lots of difficult, confusing emotions, and we don't really know how to deal with that, and the sad fact is that we are so distracted that we're no longer present in the world in which we live. We miss out on the things that are most important to us, and the crazy thing is that everybody just assumes, well, that's the way life is, so we've just kind of got to get on with it. That's really not how it has to be.

当然，结果就是我们感到很紧张，压力很大。是的，思绪就像轰隆隆的洗衣机一圈又一圈的转动。很多固执而混乱不堪的情绪，这些真的不知道怎么去处理。而悲伤地事实是，我们心烦意乱以至于我们无法或在当下。我们错过了对我们来说最重要的事，而且最令人抓狂的是所有人都只是假设，好吧，这就是生活的方式啊，所以我们只好这样过下去啊。真的没必要这样啊。

So I was about 11 when I went along to my first meditation class. And trust me, it had all the stereotypes that you can imagine, the sitting cross-legged on the floor, the incense, the herbal tea, the vegetarians, the whole deal, but my mom was going and I was intrigued, so I went along with her. I'd also seen a few kung fu movies, and secretly I kind of thought I might be able to learn how to fly, but I was very young at the time. Now as I was there, I guess, like a lot of people, I assumed that it was just an aspirin for the mind. You get stressed, you do some meditation. I hadn't really thought that it could be sort of preventative in nature, until I was about 20, when a number of things happened in my life in quite quick succession, really serious things which just flipped my life upside down and all of a sudden I was inundated with thoughts, inundated with difficult emotions that I didn't know how to cope with.Every time I sort of pushed one down, another one would just sort of pop back up again. It was a really very stressful time.

在我十一岁的时候我上了第一节冥想课。相信我，课堂上有一切你能想到的那些老套的东西，在地板上盘腿而坐啊，烧香啊，草药茶啊，素食主义者啊，但是我妈妈要去参加课程，我被这些东西深深吸引，所以我就和她一起去了。我还看了一些功夫电影，我还偷偷的认为我我会学会如何飞行，只是那个时候我太小了。当我在那个地方的时候，我想，像很多人一样，我只是觉得这些东西只是心灵的止疼药。你感到压力很大，你做了一些冥想。在20岁之前，我都认为紧张的情绪不可能从根本上预防。在我二十岁那年，很多非常糟糕的事情接二连三的发生了，彻底搞乱了我的生活，突然之间，各种各样的想法和糟糕的情绪将我淹没，而且我不知道如何应对。每当我把一种情绪稍微压下去一些，另一种情绪就会出现。那真是一个压力很大的时期。

I guess we all deal with stress in different ways. Some people will bury themselves in work, grateful for the distraction. Others will turn to their friends, their family, looking for support. Some people hit the bottle, start taking medication. My own way of dealing with it was to become a monk. So I quit my degree, I headed off to the Himalayas, I became a monk, and I started studying meditation.

我想我们每个人处理压力的方式都有所不同。有些人会埋头工作，感谢工作让他们转移注意力。还有些人会向他们的朋友和家人倾诉，寻求一些鼓励。有些人会整日喝酒，开始吃药。我自己处理压力的方式是做一个修道士。所以我放弃了学业，我去了喜马拉雅，我成为了一个修道士，我开始学习冥想。

People often ask me what I learned from that time. Well, obviously it changed things. Let's face it, becoming a celibate monk is going to change a number of things. But it was more than that. It taught me -- it gave me a greater appreciation, an understanding for the present moment. By that I mean not being lost in thought, not being distracted, not being overwhelmed by difficult emotions, but instead learning how to be in the here and now, how to be mindful, how to be present.

人们常常问我在那个时候我学到了什么。嗯，很明显，它改变了一切。表面上，成为一个禁欲的修道士会改变很多事情。但，远不止这些。冥想教会了我——他让我理解当下，让我更加珍惜当下。我的意思并不是变得沉思，不是不再分心，不是不再被糟糕的情绪淹没，而是学会怎么活在此时此地，怎么保持正念，怎么活在当下。

I think the present moment is so underrated. It sounds so ordinary, and yet we spend so little time in the present moment that it's anything but ordinary. There was a research paper that came out of Harvard,just recently, that said on average our minds are lost in thought almost 47 percent of the time. Forty-seven percent. At the same time, this sort of constant mind-wandering is also a direct cause of unhappiness. Now we're not here for that long anyway, but to spend almost half of our life lost in thought and potentially quite unhappy, dunno, it just kind of seems tragic, actually, especially when there's something we can do about it, when there's a positive, practical, achievable, scientifically proven technique which allows our mind to be more healthy, to be more mindful and less distracted.

我觉得我们太过低估当下这个时刻。当下听起来很平常，然而我们很少专注于绝不平凡的当下。有个最近的哈佛研究指出，我们的思想平均有47%的时间陷入沉思。47%啊。同时，这种持续的走神也是不幸福的一个直接原因。我们不会在这里花时间讨论这个，但是不管怎么说，花几乎生命一半的时间去发呆而且可能会让我们难过，我不知道该怎么说，事实上，这看起来有点悲剧，尤其是当我们能做些什么来改变，当有一种积极的、实用的、能做到的、科学已经证明能让我们的思想更健康，更警觉，让我们少些分心。

And the beauty of it is that even though it need only take about 10 minutes a day, it impacts our entire life. But we need to know how to do it. We need an exercise. We need a framework to learn how to be more mindful. That's essentially what meditation is. It's familiarizing ourselves with the present moment.But we also need to know how to approach it in the right way to get the best from it. And that's what these are for, in case you've been wondering, because most people assume that meditation is all about stopping thoughts, getting rid of emotions, somehow controlling the mind, but actually it's quite different from that. It's more about stepping back, seeing the thought clearly, witnessing it coming and going, emotions coming and going without judgment, but with a relaxed, focused mind.

冥想的美好在于虽然我们每天只花十分钟，冥想却会影响我们的一生。但，我们需要懂得怎么去冥想。我们需要练习。我们需要框架来学习怎样变得正念。这就是冥想的本质。专注当下让我们更加熟悉自己。但是我们需要知道怎么用正确的方法做到冥想然后让心灵得到最好的

So for example, right now, if I focus too much on the balls, then there's no way that I can relax and talk to you at the same time. Equally, if I relax too much talking to you, then there's no way I can focus on the balls. I'm going to drop them. Now in life, and in meditation, there'll be times when the focus becomes a little bit too intense, and life starts to feel a bit like this. It's a very uncomfortable way to live life, when you get this tight and stressed. At other times, we might take our foot off the gas a little bit too much, and things just become a sort of little bit like this. Of course in meditation — (Snores) — we're going to end up falling asleep. So we're looking for a balance, a focused relaxation where we can allow thoughts to come and go without all the usual involvement.

举个例子，现在，如果我太关注这些球，我就没办法同时跟你们讲话。同样的，如果我过于放松地更你们聊天，我就不能专注于这些球，我会把他们弄掉的。在生活中，在冥想的时候，我们可能会有点过于关注一些东西，然后生活就会感觉有点像这样。像这样紧张，很有压力的生活方式是很不舒服的。还有些时候，我们可能过于放松，事情就会变得像这样，在冥想中当然会——（打鼾声）——我们会睡着的。所以我们要寻找一种平衡，一种专心的放松，让我们的思维通畅而不是想法混乱。

Now, what usually happens when we're learning to be mindful is that we get distracted by a thought.Let's say this is an anxious thought. So everything's going fine, and then we see the anxious thought,and it's like, "Oh, didn't realize I was worried about that." You go back to it, repeat it. "Oh, I am worried.Oh, I really am worried. Wow, there's so much anxiety." And before we know it, right, we're anxious about feeling anxious. You know, this is crazy. We do this all the time, even on an everyday level. If you think about the last time, I dunno, you had a wobbly tooth. You know it's wobbly, and you know that it hurts. But what do you do every 20, 30 seconds? (Mumbling) It does hurt. And we reinforce the storyline, right? And we just keep telling ourselves, and we do it all the time. And it's only in learning to watch the mind in this way that we can start to let go of those story lines and patterns of mind. But when you sit down and you watch the mind in this way, you might see many different patterns.

可是，通常会发生这种事情，当我们学习保持正念的时候会被另外一个想法分心。我们且称其为一种焦虑的想法。所以，开始一切都进展的很顺利，然后跳出一个担忧的想法，比如像这样，“哦，不要想我刚才担心那件事。”你要回到刚才，然后重复。“哦，我正在担心。哦，我真的在担心。哇，我好焦虑呀。”在你了解这些之前，我们正在为我们的焦虑而焦虑。是的，这很疯狂。我们一直甚至是是每天都在做这件事。想想最近一次的焦虑，我不知道是什么，也许你的牙齿有些松动。你知道你的牙有点松动，而且你知道腰有点疼。但是每个二三十秒你都在做什么？(含糊不清的说)好疼，好疼。我们自己放大了痛苦，对吧？我们一直告诉自己很疼，我们总是做这样的事。只有当我们用这种方法来观察我们的思维我们才能摆脱这种思维的怪圈。但是当你坐下来以这种方式观察思维时，你可能会看都很多种不同的方式。

You might find a mind that's really restless and -- the whole time. Don't be surprised if you feel a bit agitated in your body when you sit down to do nothing and your mind feels like that. You might find a mind that's very dull and boring, and it's just, almost mechanical, it just seems it's as if you're getting up, going to work, eat, sleep, get up, work. Or it might just be that one little nagging thought that just goes round and round and round your mind. Well, whatever it is, meditation offers the opportunity, the potential to step back and to get a different perspective, to see that things aren't always as they appear. We can't change every little thing that happens to us in life, but we can change the way that we experience it. That's the potential of meditation, of mindfulness. You don't have to burn any incense, and you definitely don't have to sit on the floor. All you need to do is to take 10 minutes out a day to step back, to familiarize yourself with the present moment so that you get to experience a greater sense of focus, calm and clarity in your life.

你可能会发现我们的心灵一直是非常不安定的。当你坐下来什么都不做而心里产生了焦虑时，不要惊讶。你可能会发现我们的心灵很迟钝，感觉很无聊，而且几乎是很呆板的，真看起来就像你正在起床，要去工作，吃饭，睡觉，起床，工作。也许想法就像是在你大脑里不停的唠叨。不管它是什么，冥想让我们拥有机会去回首过去以不同的角度去观察，你会发现事情并不是像它出现的那样。我们无法改变发生在我们生活中的任何事情，但是我们可以改变我们体会它的方式。这是冥想的可能带给我们的，也是可能让我们正念。你不需要焚香，你不必真的坐在地板上。你只需要每天花10分钟去回味过去，利用当下熟悉自己，你就会在生活中体验到更深刻的专注感、平静感和清晰感。