Gelong Thubten — A Tibetan Buddhist monk of 30+ years and Sunday Times bestselling author who teaches meditation to Hollywood stars, CEOs, and corporations. He came to the monastery in a broken state at 21 and has since become a widely-followed mindfulness teacher.
The gist
Steven Bartlett sits with monk Gelong Thubten to unpack why modern life, driven by phones, consumerism, and fear-based media, leaves people emotionally miserable despite material comfort. Thubten shares his own raw story: childhood abuse, a self-loathing inner voice, burnout and a heart condition at 21, and a four-year silent retreat he tried to flee. He reframes meditation as not clearing the mind but noticing when it wanders and gently returning, training the muscle of choice. The core practice he teaches is dropping the story behind pain and sending love into the physical feeling of suffering, which carried him through the grief of his murdered teacher. He closes by guiding Bartlett through a short live meditation and arguing the only missing ingredient for everyone is actually doing it.
Big reveals
- Thubten reveals he was sexually abused at 14 by an older bandmate he played with in London wine bars.
- He was expelled from Oxford University because he became completely non-functional from depression.
- At 21, after a wild party lifestyle in Brooklyn, he woke thinking he was having a heart attack and was diagnosed with a heart condition.
- During his four-year retreat he had a massive panic attack and physically climbed over the wall to escape, then begged to be let back in.
- His teacher and best friend, Akong Rinpoche, was ambushed and stabbed to death in China by a former monk who shared Thubten's own name.
- He reveals he has lived with long COVID and heart/lung damage for years, using the practice to sit with an ill body.
- He went to the monastery intending to stay one year to get straightened out; 30 years later he is still there.
Things worth remembering
- The US fell to 24th in the 2025 global happiness rankings, down from 11th in 2011; the UK dropped to 23rd.
- Dopamine falls away just before you get what you want, so the chase is more exciting than the having.
- Ray Dalio, Marc Benioff, Oprah, Jack Dorsey, and Steve Jobs all credit meditation as central to their success.
- Brain scans can show visible changes after just 10 minutes of meditation a day for four days.
- Realizing your mind has wandered and returning to the breath IS meditation, not a failure.
- Buddhism uses the sky-and-clouds metaphor: thoughts are passing clouds, but your awareness is the unchanging sky.
- Rinpoche taught that suffering is like compost, made of rotten material but able to make the field grow.
- Buddhism and particle physics meet: if a particle has parts it can be subdivided, so there is no smallest partless particle.
- Fear is now deliberately used in politics, news, and shopping ('hurry while stocks last') to influence and control us.
- Thubten practices 'microscopic moments' of meditation in queues and traffic jams to rewire his stress response.
Recommended in this episode
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A Monk's Guide to Happiness: Meditation in the 21st Century
Gelong Thubten
“you've got these incredible books which I'm going to recommend everybody check out. Both Sunday Times bestsellers I believe. And a monk's guide to happiness, meditation in the 21st century.” — Steven Bartlett 01:48:07Find it on Amazon
Handbook for Hard Times: A Monk's Guide to Fearless Living
Gelong Thubten
“this book is called Handbook for Hard Times, a monk's guide to fearless living.” — Steven Bartlett 01:48:07Find it on Amazon