How are you currently balancing a material life with a spiritual life?

What you said about being gentle with yourself while staying consistent in building a spiritual practice really resonates with me. When I tried to push myself to do long meditations, journal, etc., it was so hard. When you think of your new practice as a seed-starting out tiny and growing slowly as you nurture it-it helps you to establish a healthy and rewarding spiritual life. There’s nothing wrong with you when you get fatigued doing too much, you are just expecting a flourishing tree full of apples when you need to simply plant the seed, water it, and wait patiently for the fruit to appear. When you approach your spiritual discipline in this way, you suddenly look back in grateful surprise at how much you’ve grown, organically and authentically. Thank you, and have a healthy and prosperous 2022, everyone! ❤️

I started practicing meditation 🧘🏽‍♀️ over 14 yrs ago in the morning at4:30am and before going to bed at 9:45 pm and it has changed me in ways I can’t begin to explain I’ve learned not to worry and let go off everything that doesn’t serve me

The ambient sounds in the background were an especially good example that there's no need to wait for the perfect moment... just get started! Thank you for a beautiful and practical message for the new year!

Your spiritual wisdom and your calming voice is a blessing to our earth. Thank you for your present existence, much love ❤️

I work full time helping treat people with cancer, and have 3 years old boy at home. Hard to find a balance but I have a rule to meditate 🧘‍♂️ 3 time per week and I have only 10 minutes for this but I appreciate what I have now. There will be a time when I will have more time for longer meditation:) I also every time when I can - I hike in our beautiful mountains to be with nature:) sometimes I feel like I have not enough time to be outside. Thank you for sharing wonderful videos ! 😊

I have only one goal for 2022 ⚖️ BALANCE 🧘🏻‍♀️🍃 Thank you for this video Nick ❤️ Perfect timing!

I’m a “I’ll get to it later gal” which means I don’t do half of what I plan. And it’s usually the most important things: exercise, practice, journaling etc. I will assign times for what is.

As usual, Nick's video has made me feel lighter. I will just ad that love from my pets is really what I need most.

Thank you. May you be free from hostility, danger, mental, physical, and spiritual suffering. May all beings, seen and unseen, in all realms and planes of existence bless you. May all beings feel inner peace and happiness. Satu

many things I follow your way. thank you for teaching

I struggle so hard to develop structure in my daily life. But, each day I begin anew.

Living in Thailand at age 26 was the best thing I’ve done for myself for life experience. ☕️🙏🏽🧡

Ven Nick, recently a severed flood hit many parts of my country ,in a few minutes water rise to the roof of houses and there was no time to save their belongings, things that were accumulate over years of hard work were destroy. After this tragedy I learn a humble lesson , I realized that nothing is permanent and all the material wealth Iwas craving for so many years was meaningless. Sometimes I wonder why divine intervention did not happen that day , I mean most peoples will pray to their gods in their hour of needs.

Thank you for your wisdom. I am at present trying to gain my balance in life that was lost in 2021. Being gentle with yourself l feel is the answer right now but to do something rather than nothing now matter how small is a start.

I’m reading “think like a monk” right now and I love it

Found your channel a few months ago. Literally has changed my life. Thank you Nick.

🙏 Thank you. 💚 I’m minutes away from heading back to my classroom to prepare for my students’ return from break. I asked my spirit guides last night to lead me to help with balancing it all - development of the sweet humans I share space with and my sanity mostly. I also asked for help with my own spiritual development. And then KZfaq sent me your video. Thank you for filling my heart and meddlesome-mind with hope, happiness and the exact ideas I needed. 💚💚💚 (My spirit guides kind of rock!!😃🥰🥰🥰)

This video came at a perfect time. It was very helpful. Whenever I feel off or not centered I always put on your videos and I get back on track. Thank you for your knowledge and posting these videos. 🙏🏻🙏🏻

Material vs Spiritual - love how simply you stated the goals for both: Survival & Purity. And keeping a balance in the energy we use for both goals and be aware that this very individual balance will change over a lifetime because life is constant change, constant adaptation, constant evolvement - always keep balancing :)

Love to listen to you. You really have a mission here with your knowledge as both a counsellor and a monk. ❤️❤️❤️

🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏❤️❤️❤️! Your amazing!!!!

Sadhu 🙏

Thank you. Happy new year.

I do struggle with balancing material vs spiritual. Financial stability worries me these days. I need to continue to be simple. Thank you for your sharing 🙏🏻

Thank you for the gentle message ✨🙏🏽

Wish you a Very Happy New Year Nick.

Love it

Thank You 🙏🏻🧘🏼💞

Hi Nick. Happy New Year's from Maine😊

Bless you Nick.

Thank you❣️

Thank you very much! Have a wondeful year!

Thank you for sharing 🙏🏻

Thank you for sharing 🙏

Thank you for this video and making it easy for most folks to understand.

Wise as always, thank you! 💝

Wonderful video as always💛

Your talks comforts.

This is gold! Thank you for your insight Nick!

Thank you Nick for sharing, appreciate

❤️🙏💯 thank you so much Nick and Happy New Year - hope that you are well and that I get to come on one of those retreats sometime:-) much netta and very best wishes, xxx

Thank you Nick! Happy New Year 💖🙏🌠peace n joy to you🙏💖

Thank you!

Your calm and helpful words are now an important part of my spiritual and mental routine, together with yoga, meditations and walks outside in nature. Thank you for all you share with us, Nick 🌸

Nick HAPPY NEW YEAR 🎉🎊 thank you inadvertly by just being yourself and teaching me that combining/balancing both spiritual and life in general is possible THANK YOU Thanks for making this amazing channel and making me know and love myself despite its imperfections. I had TBI and Im still experiencing its side effects but you are one of the chanells that helped me get my life (sort of) back in order Happy new year and may you all have a prosperous 2022

Really good video as always. Blessings

Extremely grateful for your will to guide us and teaching. Lots of blessings for you.

Absolutely love love your advice ❤️. Thank you

Just what I need. Thank you!

Thank you for your words Nick. It’s always interesting to hear your insights and consider how we can adapt them to our own lives. Peace to you and those amongst you.

Thank You.

Happy New Year and thank you for your advice. Blessings.

Thank you. This is something I have been thinking about lately.

Thank you 😊

Thank you 🙏 for sharing this beautiful simple message! You have a true gift 💕💕

Thank you for this. It came at the perfect time

Thank you 🙏

Happy New Year sir and a million thanks for your optimistic and balanced words!!✌💖

Good to see you Ven. Nick.... Great topic for the new year.... To live in balance I think it's critical to a good life... Balance is key 😊 🙏🏻☮️🙏🏻

Wonderful lesson! I am struggeling to balance my material and spiritual life and your message gave me some clarity. Blessings to you and all the best for your life

Well explained, Nick. thanks.

Happy New Year Nick! Thank you for this video. Your videos are always helpful and encouraging! I will try to be more grounded and not be so materialistic this year. Thank you so much!🙏

Thank you Nick, great job as usual. The guard rail metaphor is wonderful. I will add it to my kit in working with newcomers I sponsor, very helpful. As always, stay safe my friend!

Namaste Brother. Happy New Year to you. Stay blessed

Thank you once again, Venerable Nick. A lovely insight into the monastic life and how one cannot just “escape” the material and thought processing life by entering a monastic life. We are built to think and to fight our thought processes is futile.

I thank you very much for all these advices , I will try gently . Have a beautiful and happy new year

Thank You! I watch you every day and learn so much.

Sending You Blessings to Thailand. 😌💖 May Peace be with You 🌱

Thank you for sharing your wisdom 🧘‍♂️

Dear Nick, thank you for your wise words and your refreshing perspective onto life. The balance and structure you are talking about is exactly what I am trying to establish in my daily life. I found that meditation is a real blessing, but in the last weeks of my meditation practice a for my daily life unsustainable problem occured, which made it impossible for me to continue with my practice. Since I know this problem from various past attempts at developing a meditation routine, I no longer just want to drop meditation but try to find a way to follow through. I have talked to many people, but no one really understood what I am talking about, so perhaps you can help me understand a little more with what is going on. So here is my little meditation story: For the last six months I meditated for 10 minutes every morning after taking a cold shower. Therefore I sat down in a cross-legged position and counted my first 25 breaths and for the rest of the time I just observed the breath in my body. Due to being too goaloriented regarding meditation in the past, this time I was, just as you described, satisfied with the fact that I meditated every day, despite the outcome. During my mdeditation sessions I felt quite well and relaxed and open to the experience. But in the last weeks directly after my meditations there occured an ever stronger feeling of thightness in my chest, where I get the feeling that I can't breath in fully into my chest. As a consequence my nervous system ramps up and I feel that my inner energy is stuck at several points within my body. Other consequences are an lower overall energy level, an increase in compulsive behaviour (more eating) and a greater restraint when interacting with other people. After several hours the tension relieved and a euphoric feeling and relaxation occured. Since the intensity of these symptoms depends on my meditation time, I have tried to adapt my meditation time, but even after reducing each meditation to just 2 breaths (this feels almost like classical conditioning) I still felt these symptoms for most of my day, which made it impossible to arrange with my work as a teacher and life in general. Despite the negative effects of my meditation practice, I would love to continue, since there are many wonderful things that are cultivated by it and influence my life in a positive way, but right now I feel like I have to drop it again. I know this comment is quite long and maybe too much to ask, but perhaps you heard of something similar or you know a strategy on how to tackle this hurdle. Nevertheless, I want to say thank you very much for your well put and thought out videos. I recently came accross your channel and I like it very much! Thank you and have a wonderful 2022! Best wishes!

Thank you Nic

Thank you... This is a good starting point to start the new year... I hope to achieve the balance so that i can live with peace of mind.

Thank you Nick for sharing your knowledge and experience. It's so easy to get out of balance in your day-to-day life. Your words reminded me about the need to ground yourself every day. Will give it a go. Thank you again! Happy New Year!

Happy New year 🌼🙏🙏

Thanks

Thank you ven. Nick for your advices, sharings, teachings. You are an anchor for us, lay people. Regularly to listen to your spiritual teachings helps us to practice regularly, to set a routine. This video about material life vs spiritual life shows one the most difficult task for lay people. Again thank you and happy new year to you and everybody your followers! 🙏 Catherine from Switzerland

Wow. This is beautiful insight and advice.

Happy New Year Nick and everyone! I'm am so happy right now. I've come so far since last year when I was under so much anxiety I was in tears. Today, as the pandemic rages once again, I am at peace inside. I am going to hit the road this spring, and tour all 50 US states starting in Florida visiting recording studios, music stores, museums, and national parks and scenic places I've never had the time to visit. AND!!! I will be visiting any Buddhist monestaries I passby. I intend to continue to work on my meditation, and if they want, put me to work with chores!!! lol. I'd love that. Cheers and thank you again. 2022 will be a beautiful year. Peace.

Thank you

Thank you so so much . I have been on this spiritual journey and also had established this Schedule for about a year now . It is so validating and brings my so much joy and gratitude to know my that I am on right path. And also thank you for the reminder to be gentle with myself and the goal is to surrender, go with the flow and enjoy just being here right now at this moment. Much love ❤️

Nice to hear your voice again . Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom . Happy New Year

Very helpful. Thank you very much 🙇‍♂️

Thank you for sharing this 🙏 ❤ blessings and happy new year from Niagara on the Lake, Ontario Canada 💫

This came right on time . I know now I'm grounded, and my daily practice is working. Falling apart is not an option.

Thank for the video Balance 🙏 I’ll definitely try to get there one day 🙏❤️

Ven. Nick, thank you, thank you, thank you! I want to let you know that watching this video has been my best start to 2022. I have always struggled with "balance" between the two worlds. Your warm words filled with hope, clarity and kindness is immensely encouraging. Words fail to convey how helpful this is to me! Sending you love and hugs with tears of gratitude.

Happy New Year..Love and Blessings for you.

Love this video for the start of the new year. My goal for this year is to continue to have and maintain balance. I have some tried and tested ‘gutter guards’ in place to assist me with this. The gutter guards are a wonderful idea and if you can find some of your own to implement it’s a big help in staying grounded and present. Thanks once again for your invaluable insights Ven. Nick. ☺️🙏🏻

You have hit on so many things that I'm dealing with right now. Been dealing with it for years.

Thank you Nick. This really helps me a lot to have a balance life both material and spiritual. I didn't know who could answer my questions regarding this and your video pop up. Perfect timing. God bless you always for being here as a guidance for a confuse soul of mine.

Happy new year🍃🌠 venerable Nick, happy to see you well and wishes for achieving everyday contentement☯️ You are very right its simple but not easy. Before crossing you and the Monastery wisdom, to achieve balance I used to read a lot of books, all kind and many spiritual targeted and beeing a lot in nature, silent walks through the parks or the squares of the city. I Still do it but now I am more organized with meditation and a more lightweight state of mind through your wisdom. But I confess that I do lose the ball sometimes. When illogical supervisors demand work results in less than normal time and I lose my routine and time of meditation and right hours of eating. It gets upside down, but fast enough, I start over again the next "new" day. As a vegan I understand you,in the sense that you give up something because you believe in the pureness of something else🛡️ Ahead from now strong roots make our everyday beliefs easier🛡️🕯️ Thank you for sharing and for your everyday effort. Happy new year to all the members of the Channel and their beloved ones🌷🌷

Thankyou thankyou thankyou always blessings too you for 2022🙏💖🙌✨💫

I love your calm energy and appreciate your practical tips. Thank you!

Thank you for teaching. Your voice is very calming. 🌷

Thank you a world! 🙏🙏🙏🌿🌱💚

thank you for sharing your message

great video

Wonderful lesson to start the New Year.Thank you Venerable Nick,I needed this.Blessings.

Thank You Nick. This is a question lingering on my mind in recent years. I was looking for a structure to incorporate spiritual life amidst material life. This video would support me to accomplish that.