Everytime I see Dr. Robert Waldinger he just seems so happy and peaceful, he radiates that calmness and that alone to me means he's probably doing something right.

I studied religion at Harvard and I'm an Atheist. However, Buddhism (and some aspects of Hinduism Its parent so to speak) are more of a philosophy than a religion. And It speaks to me as more of a humanist view than a religious one. Its beautiful.

1- Impermanence, things are always changing. 2- live with suffering 3- mindfulness 4-Cling less tightly to our preferences, be flexible . 5- Loving kindness toward others, including those you don't like. 6-Remain open to many possibilities, and you will suffer less.

1. Impermanence. 2. Suffering 3. Mindfulness 4. Attachment. 5. Metta 6. Beginner's Mind

I’m Buddhists for my entire life because of the cultural context in my country but I’d never paid attention to the concepts or the core of religious itself. Last year I got the biggest heartbreak which made me hit the rock bottom in my life. believe it or not I could get through that and have become a better person because of starting to understanding these concepts. I’ve practice mediations a lot and it is now one part of my daily routine. Now I’m feeling very very happy with my present moment life and feeling thankful for everything that happened in the past which shaped me to who I am today. 🎉

1:55 Life is suffering 3:00 Pay attention to the present moment without judgement 4:00 Cling less tightly to our preferences 5:05 Loving, kindness medication 6:30 *In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind, there are few.*

I’m sorry. Am I the only one distracted by that giant lamp in the back? I was waiting for it to jump on him like in the Pixar short film. lol

"Zen is a way of life, a state of being, that is not possible to embrace in any concept whatsoever, so that any concepts, any ideas, any words that I shall put across to you this evening will have as their object, showing you the limitations of words and of thinking." ~ Alan Watts

I personally don't know much about Zen Buddhism. I'm always open to learning more about different cultures and religions all over the world.

I don’t know who taught Robert here about Zen Buddhism but it wasn’t the person who taught me. Zen is SIMPLIFIED Buddhism. The idea is that all you need are the 4 noble truths, 1. Life is suffering, 2. Suffering is caused by attachments, 3. You can eliminate suffering by letting go of attachments, 4. You let go of attachments by practicing meditation. Other types of Buddhism have many religious elements which aren’t bad but they aren’t needed either.

This is beautiful. Just watched this at exactly the right time!

I loved this video. Sounds like Zen buddhism is a great way to navigate through modern life. I love the idea that the pain of accepting a situation is evened out by the pain relief of ceasing to try to control it. Also the idea that the escape from pain itself could be a source of pain is so fascinating to me.

How did I already align with this viewpoint before watching this video? I have been living Zen.

As a follower of the Buddha , it is,such,a joy to hear the Buddha.

I recently read “Buddhish” by C Pierce Salguaro and it is a wonderful introduction to the history and varieties of Buddhist practice as well as the underlying values of each sect

Wish all the listeners can pay attention to the present moments of your life.

Nagarjuna's teaching on impermanence is even more liberating, paraphrasing: change is so thoroughgoing that nothing ever exists to BE impermanent. Therefore, there is no impermanence. Just change. Nothing to do but "join the dance" as Alan Watts used to say. 🙏🏻

🙏 deep gratitude for the simplicity of your message. This was just so refreshing to hear ❣️

May all creatures be happy

Wow! What an incredibly succinct and as a result, powerful presentation. This is my first experience seeing Dr. Waldinger. What a heartwarming teacher. 💕🙏🏻

I recently is reading this book called "The power of Now". What the professor has said in this video is so align with the moral of this book. I am deeply touched by it and I believe it can be an empower school of life that deserves me to learn more about.💗

I watched all your videos this year. I was never disappointed.

I needed to hear this today. Thank you.

I am also a practioner and dont even mind when angry people insult me. In my therapy I am supposed to learn that I have to stand up for myself. To me this seems like a step backwards. It however is true that some people dont have the environmental and social conditions necessary in order to be so mindful and loving. When I try to teach them about it, they sometimes get offended and defensive. Maybe rightfully so because it is unreasonable to expect this from people that have faced more disadvantages than us priveleged. It is kind of rich to say, I am so mindful and empathetic while not being aware that we exploit poor countries for starvation wages, giving us the necessary security to get detached. Well try to be detached when a gun is pointed at you. I hope you got the point.

What a cool and wise individual.

a humble new year!

I’m going to watch this video many times. ❤

What a wonderful human

மிக அழகான, ஆழமான பதிவு ! இந்தியாவில் சங்க காலம் ஒரு பொற்காலம்!

Brilliant. Thank you.

Thank you for the reminder.

from syria i will told u Dr thank u for saving my life in the first day of my new year...2024🎉

This was perfect for me to view today. I have just set 4 intentions for my life from now, and they gel almost seamlessly with these zen concepts. Serendipity? I'm open to the possibility 😊

Thank you❤❤

Simple and lovely

I got more interested in this subject when I watched a Big Think video about consciousness. They talked to several different people with various expertise including what I think was a Buddhist Lama. His discussion seemed very insightful in an appealing way so I'm looking into it further.

Love this video. Big Think rocks.

this is amazing!

Thankyou

🙏🏼. Thank you

Thank You.

Taoism and Zen Buddhism has a lot in common!

it works, I'm Zen now and never wasn't

Great video and I came across zen in iaido training through Musō Jikiden Eishin-ryū. Meditation and learning to calm your mind has more benefits than I thought possible.

Hello sir. You are a professor in Buddhism. Zen Buddhism. I am a freelance researcher in Bihar in India where the Buddha moved around. I realize the Buddhist world failed to study and recognize Indian Buddhism in India. Buddhism in eastern UP and Bihar in India is alive and kicking. Sir, I have some good news. Day before yesterday I videographed the Vimalakirti's temple which marks the spot where he preached when he was sick, I videographed Kotigama where the Buddha would stay, I videographed Amrapali's property. Sir, she was stinking rich. She was the owner of ten sq km of land which she got through her profession. I videographed the place where her musicians lived, where she lived, where the Buddha's foster mother Maha Prajapati Gautami lived. And to top it all I videographed the exact spot where she attained Parinirvana. Locals pray to her as a village deity and they maintain the place where she died. It is a lovely temple with no statues or pictures of God. There were five tiny stupas on the spot she attained Parinirvana. I will be releasing the videos in my channel in a few days.

As a non-Buddhist, I figured this video would be the usual vacuous and deceptive New Age feel-good bullshit, so I was pleasantly surprised to be wrong. This guy's pretty smart.

Perfect. Thank you. 🖖

I get the title was click baity on purpose to get views, but the message was good. As a Taiwanese-American, I wish more people would study Buddhism and Taoism. Even in china, very few chinese study these philosophies and practice daily. Zen isn't a destination, it's a daily practice. Some days you well and other days you fail and that is all part of it.

Really amazing actually. Just the methodology of thinking not the religion itself is just absolutely amazing which should be taught everywhere. It just needs to be translated differently or in other words instead of Buddhism there needs to be a new word for it or name so people don’t have predominant shade on it.

What is the music part playing in the background during the impermanence part? I swear I know it from somewhere...

Brings to mind what Votaire said when he compared eastern religions (including Zen Buddhism and Confusianism) to western religions. Eastern religions have "no superstitions, no absurd legends, and none of those dogmas which insult reason and nature" which is the basis of western religions.

Incredible 💖

@Prof. Waldinger, do you think it is possible to become equivalent to a "zen master" naturally? I love your You Tube speech "Harvard professor’s 6-step guide to zen | Robert Waldinger" from Big Think. On all the items you discussed, I've came to the same conclusions a long time ago.

Beginner's Mind is the Curiosity of a Child, even Jesus encouraged experiencing life as a child.

I struggle with these ideas when I see all the suffering in the world caused by humans. I want to practice the philosophy but see how it can be exploited as a weakness. As an ex soldier I joined to put myself between aggressors until they found the ability to cease aggression but the levels of hate I saw demonstrated how people can become entrenched in kill or be killed siuations. I fear that humans will never evolve to work in harmony and simply revert to win/lose thinking up to the point we all lose.

"We specialize in blessing Zen Buddhists." - Dean Martin.

The combination of the stock imagery with the stock music to try and illustrate these simple, humble teachings, I find clashes with their essence, and ultimately only serves to cheapen them.

Is it fair to say that focus is the basis for all meditation?

Taylor is my beginning and Swift is my end!

You are so sweet ❤️☀️🌙

Why would it be such a struggle to simply be what we are ? Ohh, ‘cause we are trained to identify with symbols of reality instead of reality itself.

good

Culturing joy is a byproduct.

Some knowledge is gathering in years. Don't blame yourself

Sangh literally means Together

Cool

Dear Big Think, My only comment would be that for all future videos, could the background the speaker talks in front of be something other than the typical very bright white? My suggestion would be a soft grey texture and a light source on the background behind the person, and the person also to have soft lighting made from two separate light sources. Just removing the harsh white background would help to bring the main focus of what the person is saying, without any distractions Thank you.

8:01 beautiful

❤❤❤

❤

tam aydınlanacak gibi oluyorum .....

This seems to be more about Buddhism per se than Zen.

WOW ❤ GREAT NEW YEARS FORTUNE COOKIE - MAKING AMERICA KIND- LOVING, COMPASSIONATE- TOLERANT; great DON Q BALM - fixing the broken -righting the wrong- TO FOLLOW THE METTA STAR towards a NEW EVOLUTION! -thank you!

I'm confused. Zen=禅? Like 禅宗?? Seems more like Tibetan Buddhism. They are both Mahayana, but....😅

Они пели колыбельную мне

Is it stoicism? Or am I mistaken?

Isn’t it “there is suffering” not life is suffering?

First

My main beef with Zen ic philiosphies etc is that we would not have developed science, technology, machine knitted underware, clothes, safe food, the internet, or gone to the moon. We got all that stuff and more (pain killing drugs, CRSPA tech, antibiotics) by struggle. I am happy for Zenites, Epicureans and Stoisists who know how to "enter into that rest" that Paul of Tarsus talked about..........

Lots of judgement in these comments. Your parents gave you a different religion, therefore yours is the world's best and all other possibilities suck.

in the Buddhist language? what language is that?

I wish they didn’t say Harvard Professor. The quality of a Buddhist practitioner has nothing to do with being a professor at Harvard. Just tired of having only one message - rich, famous, esteemed people. How about the common person like me? There’s no mirror in media.

🙏🙏🙏🤍🤍🤍🤗🤗🤗✨✨✨🕯️🕯️🕯️

I wonder how it helps to stop wars, famine and climate change

The only religion that seems to make any logical sense

Hold up. The Buddhist language?

1)There's nothing fixed in the world. Yet we are on the earth but not of the earth. There is truth. Ask and you shall receive; not from the world but from God. 2)Suffering? My yoke is easy and my burden is light. Accepting pain is self-sacrifice, which is not the way to peace, but we can think it is. Accepting Jesus' sacrifice on the cross seems to be enough to make us innocent so we need not suffer. But forgiveness does that, not sacrifice. "If you had known what these words mean, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the innocent." Forgiveness ends not just some of the unfairness, but all of it. 3) Forgiving the past lets us live in the moment without fear of the future. 4)Through forgiveness, we see each other created as spirit, not as bodies seemingly doing things that affect us. 5)As we observe and correct the errors of our own thinking that will bring us to peace, we can help others do the same. 6)"Thy will, not my will" opens us to the mind of God working through us.

Root-Less / Un-Anchored / Drifting Feelings ... can be Eliminated by Belief of God / Practice of his Teachings. The Devil … Does Not Care If You Believe “In Him” or Not … That is Until … It is Sin by Sin … Too Late for "You" to Save YourSelf … Then, He Steps Forward.

Beware. This could become a form of escapism if not understanding it properly.

Can we take Harvard professors seriously anymore? If the university president can rise to such a position with little credible scholarly work (of their own), why should we have faith in any of these other 'experts'?

So, what language, exactly, is the "Buddhist" language? Is the term "samsara" not derived from Sanskrit, or, any of the predecessors of Hindi? That's the same logic as saying "Allah" is the name of the god in the "Muslim" language instead of it being the word for "god" in Arabic. If that kind of stereotyping is casual for you, I'm good on the rest.

"ZEN IS JUST ZEN. There is nothing comparable to it. It is unique -- unique in the sense that it is the most ordinary and yet the most extraordinary phenomenon that has happened to human consciousness. It is the most ordinary because it does not believe in knowledge, it does not believe in mind. It is not a philosophy, not a religion either. It is the acceptance of the ordinary existence with a total heart, with one's total being, not desiring some other world, supra-mundane, supra-mental. It has no interest in any esoteric nonsense, no interest in metaphysics at all. It does not hanker for the other shore; this shore is more than enough. Its acceptance of this shore is so tremendous that through that very acceptance it transforms this shore -- and this very shore becomes the other shore: This very body the buddha; This very earth the lotus paradise. Hence it is ordinary. It does not want you to create a certain kind of spirituality, a certain kind of holiness. All that it asks is that you live your life with immediacy, spontaneity. And then the mundane becomes the sacred. The great miracle of Zen is in the transformation of the mundane into the sacred. And it is tremendously extraordinary because THIS way life has never been approached before, THIS way life has never been respected before. Zen goes beyond Buddha and beyond Lao Tzu. It is a culmination, a transcendence, both of the Indian genius and of the Chinese genius. The Indian genius reached its highest peak in Gautam the Buddha and the Chinese genius reached its highest peak in Lao Tzu. And the meeting...the essence of Buddha's teaching and the essence of Lao Tzu's teaching merged into one stream so deeply that no separation is possible now. Even to make a distinction between what belongs to Buddha and what to Lao Tzu is impossible, the merger has been so total. It is not only a synthesis, it is an integration. Out of this meeting Zen was born. Zen is neither Buddhist nor Taoist and yet both. To call Zen "Zen Buddhism" is not right because it is far more. Buddha is not so earthly as Zen is. Lao Tzu is tremendously earthly, but Zen is not only earthly: its vision transforms the earth into heaven. Lao Tzu is earthly, Buddha is unearthly, Zen is both -- and in being both it has become the most extraordinary phenomenon. The future of humanity will go closer and closer to the approach of Zen, because the meeting of the East and West is possible only through something like Zen, which is earthly and yet unearthly. The West is very earthly, the East is very unearthly. Who is going to become the bridge? Buddha cannot be the bridge; he is so essentially Eastern, the very flavor of the East, the very fragrance of the East, uncompromising. Lao Tzu cannot be the bridge; he is too earthly. China has always been very earthly. China is more part of the Western psyche than of the Eastern psyche. It is not an accident that China is the first country in the East to turn communist, to become materialist, to believe in a godless philosophy, to believe that man is only matter and nothing else. This is not just accidental. China has been earthly for almost five thousand years; it is very Western. Hence Lao Tzu cannot become the bridge; he is more like Zorba the Greek. Buddha is so unearthly you cannot even catch hold of him -- how can he become the bridge? When I look all around, Zen seems to be the only possibility, because in Zen, Buddha and Lao Tzu have become one. The meeting has already happened. The seed is there, the seed of that great bridge which can make East and West one. Zen is going to be the meeting-point. It has a great future -- a great past and a great future. And the miracle is that Zen is neither interested in the past nor in the future. Its total interest is in the present. Maybe that's why the miracle is possible, because the past and the future are bridged by the present. The present is not part of time. Have you ever thought about it? How long is the present? The past has a duration, the future has a duration. What is the duration of the present? How long does it last? Between the past and the future can you measure the present? It is immeasurable; it is almost not. It is not time at all: it is the penetration of eternity into time. And Zen lives in the present. The whole teaching is: how to be in the present, how to get out of the past which is no more and how not to get involved in the future which is not yet, and just to be rooted, centered, in that which is. The whole approach of Zen is of immediacy, but because of that it can bridge the past and the future. It can bridge many things: it can bridge the past and the future, it can bridge the East and the West, it can bridge body and soul. It can bridge the unbridgeable worlds: this world and that, the mundane and the sacred"

those that know do not say, those that say do not know.

Salam, Shlama, Shlomo, Shalom, Peace. In The Year 325 AD Roman Constantine [Treaty Of Nicaea], Emulated Greek And Roman Mythological Polytheistic Religions. The Greek Zeus Son Of God, Became Jesus Son Of God. The Roman Triad Of Juno, Jupiter And Minerva, Became The Trinity Father, Son And Holy Ghost. The Rabbi's Say That In Torah It Mentions Moses, But Moses Was Their Bringing The Torah, Thus It Is The Prophet Muhammad. Songs Of Solomon, The Word Muhammadim, The Rabbi's State This Means His Lover. But King & Prophet [Missing In Torah/Gospel] Cannot Have Unwed Relations. Thus The Translation Error Of His Lover = Praiseworthy = Muhammad = im = Respect. Also Both Torah/Gospel State That Abraham The Friend Of God, Was Unwed To Hagar The Egyptian Handmaid. Once Again The Friend Of God, Cannot Have Unwed Relations. The Vedas [Monotheistic] Bans In Many Verses All Forms Of Polytheism, But Modern Hindu's Follow The Guru Books, Into Polytheism, With Their Pandits Banning Them From Reading Vedas. In Many Verses Of Vedas It Mentions The Coming Of Prophet Muhammad. The Avesta [Zoroastrian Bible] Also Mentions Prophet Muhammad. Ancient Jews & Christians [Sabaeans Monotheistic Sect] Used To Perform The Hajj At Becca [Now Mecca]. Even Moses Performed The Pilgrimage To Becca [Mecca]. The Polytheists Kingdoms Envied Becca [Mecca] So They Built Replica Kaaba's. Eventually Over Time, They Captured Becca [Mecca] And Placed 360 Idols Into The Kaaba. The Polytheists Bared The Jews, Whilst Allowing The Sabaeans [Christian Monotheistic Sect]. The Jews Exiled From Pilgrimage, Make A Replica Kaaba Made From Leather, Religious Scripture Within, With Leather Straps Going Round The Arms Seven Times, Replicating The Seven Circumambulation Of The Kaaba. Even Birds Circumambulate, The Planets, Stars All Glorify God, For Their Existence. The Kaaba Was Originally Built By Adam And His Family, But Over Time The Kaaba Has Been Destroyed And Rebuilt.

I did not understand anything

I would be wary of anyone who calls himself a Zen master.

I used to agree 100% with this way of thinking, I lived it, I believed it, I exuded it. After being poisoned and maimed by negligent and ignorant doKtors, and the horrific practices used in today's medicine, and the insurance companies and corporations who protect these "medical professionals", I don't feel the same way. I watch people and animals get injured and oftentimes die due to their brutal practices and KNOW that it isn't right and there is a time for reaction and change.

Please use better skills for the video element. Such horrible backgrounds. I apologize, but it diminish the message.

Some of this sounds like what a domestic violence person would say when everyone is telling them to get out she might be saying maybe he just had a bad day maybe he had a hard upbringing I wish I compassion to him I think a lot of the stuff is dangerous and let’s evil persist in the world

Sangha Sanskrit language not Buddhist