Name: Living lightly » in a distracted world
Uploaded: 2026-03-09T21:39:41.000Z
Duration: 10 min 13 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

To-infinitive

So I want to start today's video with a little bit of an analogy.

Past simple

It's a story that a friend shared with me, and it really stuck.

The imperative

This cup has a weight, could be something like 16 ounces or half a kilo.

But the weight of the cup actually doesn't really matter too much, because how heavy it's going to feel to me depends on how long I hold it up for.

For the first few seconds, holding it up might be really easy.

But then as we kind of move into me holding it up for a couple of minutes maybe, my arm might start to ache and shake and the cup is going to start to feel heavier in my hand.

If somehow I manage to push through and hold it on for longer still, my arm is going to start to feel paralyzed.

And eventually I am going to probably succumb to the weight of the cup.

And so a similar thing can be said as well for any difficulties and fears, worries that we experience in life.

Just like the cup, if we hold on to these thoughts and feelings for a moment, it might not do too much.

But if you hold on to them for longer still, they might start to weigh on us and overwhelm us.

So what we need to remember to do is to put the cup down.

So I thought that was a really beautiful story when she shared it with me, but

then kind of immediately my thought went to, yeah, okay, but how do you put the cup down?

Because it's a lot easier said than done.

And I think a lot of us tend to distract ourselves in all sorts of ways from the fact that we're even holding on to a cup to begin with.

But if we do want to put the cup down, one of the first things that we want to hopefully do is to become aware of when and how we distract.

So recently I was listening to this audiobook.

And that's exactly one of the things that she discusses is the ways that we try to escape our fears and our worries by distracting ourselves.

And we do that by attaching ourselves to something she calls the Three Lords of Materialism.

So the first Lord of Materialism is the Lord of Form.

And this is where we tend to attach ourselves to some physical thing that is outside of us in order to distract from what's really going on inside.

So if we're feeling like we're stressed or anxious, insecure, we might start to turn to watching tv.

We might pick up our Phones, smoke, drink, eat, shop, we read a book, we go into nature.

And some of these methods are seemingly harmless.

I mean, it might not seem like it's a big deal, but

what we are doing ultimately is we're distracting.

We're still holding the cup up, but we're distracting from the fact that we are.

The second Lord of Materialism is the Lord of Speech.

And this is when we attach ourselves to certain beliefs.

This could be in the form of labels or groups, certain ideologies.

And we do this to kind of create a sense of security.

And while there's nothing wrong with a belief in itself, it's when we take refuge in Lord of Speech that we tend to create this feeling, this sense of self and other.

And with that what usually follows is also a feeling of right and wrong, good and bad.

And so we might not address certain insecurities that we feel, jealousy, maybe anger or frustration, or with ourself and this other person or these other groups, because instead of reflecting inward, we tend to project outward.

We might judge people who see the world differently than we do, and

we take some comfort in believing that they're wrong.

The third Lord of Materialism is the Lord of Mind.

And this one kind of comes about anytime we try to achieve a heightened state of mind in order to overcome the uneasiness of life.

And we can do this through a few different ways.

It could be through drugs, through lust, sports, intense spiritual practices, and

just like before, the heightened mental states in themselves, they might not really be the issue.

What's more potentially harmful is their addictive quality.

And these states of mind are really alluring because they, they seemingly give us this escape from the mundane experiences of day to day life.

And there was a quote from Pema that I really liked where she says that since it's inevitable that what goes up must come down, when we take refuge in the Lord of Mind, we're doomed to experience disappointment.

So now we know that there's these three different ways that we tend to distract ourselves.

And we create this illusion of security because it's things that we feel like we are in control of, but.

But all the while we're distracting from what's really going on inside.

And with each passing moment, the cup is getting heavier and heavier.

And so if we want to put the cup down again, we need to realize, and

this is something I'm still practicing a lot and I think we always will.

I don't think it's Something that we master at any particular point.

what we want to try to do is to become aware of when and how we distract.

No, seriously, what are you doing this weekend?

And I feel like since having learned about these three lords of materialism, I'm starting to recognize and label sometimes even out loud to Robin.

Anytime I'm seeking refuge in one of them.

Like if I'm going to reach for my phone when I'm clearly trying to distract from something, I'm like, yeah, okay, that's just me giving in to the Lord of form.

Or if I'm a little bit frustrated at the way someone is describing something because they clearly see the world very differently than I do.

And I'm starting to feel like I'm getting angry because I'm not agreeing with them.

I'm like, oh, okay, that's actually me just seeking refuge in the Lord of Speech.

I mean, it might not be something that we can do all the time and it's something, like I said, it's a lifelong practice, but

it's already a step in recognizing the when and the how of our distractions.

When we become aware that we're distracting, then we can start to explore the why are we even distracting in the first place?

How we really do that is to learn to stay and sit with those feelings and those emotions, as difficult as that might seem.

And when we sit with those feelings, we have the opportunity to decrease how much it weighs on us.

And we do that by looking for middle ground.

Like when we tune into those feelings, those emotions, we try to avoid labeling them as good or bad or right or wrong.

Like if we take the rain for instance, for one person, the rain might bring about a feeling of stress because they were planning a picnic.

But for another person, it might bring about a sense of relief because they forgot to water their garden and now it's taken care of.

These are two polar opposite feelings that are brought about by the exact same cause the rain, it just is.

But we're the ones that assign meaning to it.

And so the same is true for our thoughts and our feelings and emotions as they arise.

When we sit with them, we can look for the middle path and try not to get carried away by the extremes.

The extremes being attraction and aversion.

But this is obviously a lot easier said than done.

And I think especially so when we're dealing with really painful emotions.

And it's only natural that when we feel those things that we erect these walls to protect ourselves.

But what we want to try to do, instead of letting those experiences harden us, we want to try to let them soften us.

And this is kind of the main message that Pema shares in her audiobook.

Instead of being harsh or judgmental, we can look at these feelings with a loving kindness and with compassion, with light heartedness, maybe even a sense of humor because it helps us in recognizing that these hardships, it's just part of the human experience and it helps us become more connected with ourselves and with others, knowing that these struggles, they're not ours alone.

This is just a little snippet, a little chapter out of PEMA's audiobook and it's really worth listening to.

I personally thought it was incredibly refreshing.

also like a no nonsense approach to confronting the things that scare us.

And the audiobook teaches us how we can see these problems as opportunities and how we can learn to be present with them in difficult times.