"It All Begins With Your Evening Routine" | | Nick Keomahavong (Buddhist Monk)

Why am I sharing this and why is an evening routine even important? And for me, I think why it's so important is because when all of you, myself included, are back home, you're ready to go to sleep, you're winding down for the day, your body's here, like physical body is right here, but what I find is your mind is not here. So where is it? It's still, for many people, still stuck at your job. You're laying in your bed, but your mind is with the activity at your work. Your mind is still with the argument that you had earlier in the day. Your mind is with a project going at this where you're heightened and you're thinking and you're alert 24 hours a day with no rest and no recharge. That's not sustainable. And that's why so many people have mental health problems because of this. And when we have this evening routine, it's kind of a structure and a protection and a training for your mind to come back home. You can clean yourself, you can recharge, you can get balanced. And then the next day we started all over again. But the difference is you're starting on a full tank. Many people are starting the day on an empty tank and then they keep doing more activities and they wonder why, like, I'm burnt out. I'm at my wits end. I don't have the energy. Yeah. It's because of this. This first one that I'm picking to share with you is how do I shut off? We train a lot of new monks who come here from around the world and they struggle with this same issue as well. The new monks here are so busy. They're training different aspects of themselves. They're engaged in different chores and activities and meditation and studies, all these different things. And sometimes when they're engaged in different projects, their mind are still there. So for us as working with the new monks, one of the tips that I always give them is again, have a cutoff time when you're out in your daily life, do the best you can, give it all you got, but also then when you do come back, you need to retreat, you need to recharge. And the way you do that is then pick kind of a time, pick an activity that helps to remind you of, okay, now we're done. Now it's the cool off process. And what I find is simple for our new monks and maybe for you is then shower time, because shower time is something that we do in the evening, uh, before we wind down, so then automatically train yourself, teach yourself that. Now for us as the monks, uh, they shower around five, five 30, then leave everything behind. And as you are going to the shower and now getting ready, then use that already to tell your mind that we're shutting off. And when you're in that act of showering, when you have the water on and it's cleaning your skin, just take a breath, just close your eyes and imagine, okay, now we're done for the day. Let go of everything that you experienced from the day and wash it off, wipe it out. This is the most important part because we need the rest of our time to recharge and recoup. Evening chanting and meditation. And when the new monks or when monks and the lay people come to join the evening chanting already, like I said, we're attached to everything that happened throughout the day, so it's a bit difficult in the beginning and it's okay. Many times the mind will still wander. It will still go back out to that activity. And then the new monks train themselves, get back into the rhythm, follow the chanting book, follow the sounds, follow, and just go and slowly and slowly and slowly, they just get more calm, more still, more focus without them even knowing it. Then when the mind is more still, then we go into sitting meditation and the sitting meditation now, then with the mind, even more still, we take it to the next level and drop into an even deeper stillness again, we're trying to get rid of the logic part and no more thinking. It's okay. Every day, if you can then do this act of chanting, if you have it available, and if not, then just go into the meditation. In this good space, what we do is because the mind is more pure now, we use this energy and we spread loving kindness. First, we spread that loving kindness to ourself because it's the easiest and just cover yourself with this good energy and just surround it to cover your body, just like a bright light, just like a bubble, the sun, the moon, anything to cover and just feel this good energy and dedicate this good energy for yourself and in this moment, you've been through a lot from the day, just end the day with this dedication of this loving kindness to yourself. What it does is by doing this act, we're training the mind to get rid of that anger inside of us. Sometimes we still hold some hatred, we still hold some resentment, we still hold some negative emotions or thinking or feeling or experiences towards ourself and towards others. And this daily practice helps us again to cultivate this getting rid of the anger part. In the monastery, as monks and also as laypeople, we do 10 daily reminders, not right before you go to sleep, but earlier in that evening, just take a moment to reflect on how your day was. What good did you do today? You know, just in this last 24 hours, what good habits did you do? How was your meditation? How did you give to other people? All the positive things that took effect as of today. Also, then reflect on the things that did not go so well. Maybe there are specific patterns for you that keep struggling with it. And today it was challenging and today you were not that successful and it's OK. But just reflect on that and understand that, OK, now that I know this, I want to make a vow and intention that I will not repeat this and keep doing this every day. The premise of this is every evening before you go to bed, take the time to recollect all the good things that you've done, all the generosity, all the act of kindness, and then reconnect with that proud feeling. No, this is not about pride, but again, a proud feeling. What so many people struggle with was they do want to change their life. But the habit we engage in is right before we're going to go to sleep, many people think about their problems. They just lay in bed. They just kind of wrestle with themselves of this is what I'm struggling with. This is my worry. This is my stress. How am I going to fix this? OK, let me go through the details. OK, what steps do I need to do? OK, and then we just sit in this problem mode and then we just think and we ruminate about the same issue over and over and over again. And what is the danger of this? The last thing you think about before you go to sleep automatically, as a rule, is the first thing you think about. So many times people go to sleep thinking about their problems, they wake up and already it started all over again as if there was no time that has elapsed that you didn't even sleep. And already I started on this note again. Nothing even changed. And here we are. And it's a repeat. So hopefully that helps to recharge you and improve your life as well. So give it a try.