Buddhism For Sleep | GSP Ep 77

Welcome to the Grounded Sleep Podcast. Tonight, you don't have to do anything except get into bed, close your eyes, and allow me to guide you into a deep, restful sleep.

Enjoy letting go of the day, quieting all the mental noise, and going back to that primordial place of stillness that is calling you back.

Transcript

Good evening and buenas noches,

Welcome back to the Grounded Sleep Podcast.

At the time of this recording,

I am in Barcelona,

Spain,

Practicing my Spanish,

But don't worry,

I will do this podcast in English.

In tonight's episode,

We're going to go back in time and walk through the history and the stories of the Buddha and Buddhism.

When you're ready,

Get into bed,

Turn the lights off,

Make sure you're nice and comfortable,

The temperature is good,

And everything is set for you to let go of the day and start to drift off into sleep.

And with your eyes closed,

As you begin to breathe in,

As your belly fills with air and rises,

You breathe in a sense of gratitude,

And as you exhale and your belly drops,

You breathe out relief.

And again,

As you breathe in and your belly rises,

You breathe in a sense of gratitude,

And as you breathe out and your belly drops,

You release a sense of ease and relief.

As you begin to melt into your bed and let go of the day,

We're going to take a journey back over 2,

500 years into the foothills of the Himalayas in what is now present-day Nepal.

And in this place,

There was a kingdom where a special child was born,

Surrounded by legend,

And his name was Siddhartha Gautama.

And the legend goes that a wise man came to his father,

The king,

And told him that his son would either be a king or be a sage,

A master.

And like many fathers,

He wanted his son to follow in his footsteps,

So he kept him inside the palace walls,

Away from any suffering,

Giving him all the indulgences and luxuries that life at that time had to offer.

But as you can imagine,

That protection didn't last forever.

It couldn't last forever.

And as Siddhartha grew older,

His curiosity about the world,

His curiosity about what was outside the palace walls,

Began to deepen.

And in Buddhism,

In many traditions,

They say that the reason he had such a desire to go outside of the palace walls was because of all the knowledge and wisdom and experience that his soul was born with.

So,

One day,

He eventually ventured outside,

And what he saw changed the course of his life.

As the story goes,

He encountered for the first time an elderly man,

Bent over with age,

Then a person suffering from being sick,

And then somebody who had died.

And these sights revealed to him the truths of aging,

Of illness,

And of death,

Universal realities that we all eventually experience.

But then he saw a fourth figure,

A wandering monk,

Who was calm and peaceful.

And this man's presence really struck Siddhartha deeply.

How could someone live with such serenity in the face of life's inevitable suffering?

And that question stayed with him,

Echoing in his mind until he couldn't ignore it anymore.

And at the age of 29,

Siddhartha made a choice.

He decided to leave the palace,

His family,

His title,

And everything behind to seek answers.

He wanted to know why we suffer.

Is there a way to find peace?

What's enlightenment?

And so he ventured out into the forest with nothing but a robe and a begging bowl.

And for six years,

Siddhartha traveled across northern India,

Studying with various teachers,

Finding different practices.

He fasted,

Barely eating any food,

Living a very basic life.

Until one point,

His body was so frail,

He was so weak,

He could barely stand.

Yet even after pushing himself to the edge of human endurance,

He couldn't seem to find lasting answers to his questions.

And it was then that Siddhartha realized that the path to wisdom wasn't in extreme wealth,

Nor was it in extreme poverty or suffering.

It was neither in indulgence nor,

We could say,

In deprivation.

Instead,

He discovered what he eventually called the Middle Way,

A path of moderation,

Balance,

And of harmony.

And one night,

Siddhartha sat beneath a great fig tree,

Known as the Bodhi Tree,

In a quiet village called Bodh Gaya.

He decided not to get up until he had found the answers that he was looking for,

The enlightenment that he was searching for.

And the story goes,

He meditated for 49 days.

And in his meditation,

He had many different experiences.

Temptations,

Doubts,

Physical,

Mental,

Emotional pain.

But he sat still.

And then as the morning began to break on the 49th day,

He attained enlightenment.

He became what we refer to as the Buddha,

Or the Awakened One.

His realization was profound and yet simple.

And he turned that realization into the four noble truths.

The first noble truth,

He acknowledged that there is suffering and discontentment in the world,

What he called dukkha.

Life with all of its beauty,

With all of its pleasure,

Also contains pain,

Loss,

And impermanence.

And then the second truth,

Or the second noble truth,

That there's a cause of suffering.

Part of that cause is our cravings,

Our attachments,

And our resistance to change.

It's our clinging to what's temporary in life that brings us so much suffering.

And then the third noble truth,

That suffering can end.

By letting go of these cravings,

These attachments,

We can find inner peace.

And then the fourth noble truth,

What he called the Eightfold Path,

Which was a guide to ethical living,

To meditation,

The cultivation of wisdom,

And really how to live life.

And that was the foundation of the Buddha's teaching.

And before we go any further,

Make sure you're nice and still,

Perhaps even just slowing your breath down a bit more,

And really easing into the night.

Now let's take a bit of a journey into the philosophy of Buddhism,

What came out of the Buddha's teachings.

So at its core,

Buddhism teaches us to embrace impermanence,

Impermanence.

You can think of it like waves on the ocean or clouds in the sky.

Everything is constantly in motion.

And when we cling to something that changes,

That's impermanent,

We begin to suffer.

But when we learn to let go,

To accept life as it is,

That's when a deep peace arises within us.

In Buddhism,

There's also not a fixed self.

The person that we think we are is actually more like a river,

Constantly flowing,

Constantly changing.

And another core philosophy of Buddhism is compassion.

The Buddha taught that all beings,

In whatever form they come in,

Human,

Animal,

Or otherwise,

All beings are interconnected.

And when we act with kindness,

We nurture that web of life.

Even as you're falling asleep,

You can notice that compassion,

That kindness inside yourself,

And you can extend it through your whole being as you fall asleep.

Kindness and compassion are not just energies we extend to others.

Just feel that for a moment in yourself.

Reviews

🙏🏼

Welp, whatever you said, I slept. TY so much

So nice! Thank you. Perfect the bed time.

love this

As with all of David's Grounded Sleep meditations, I fell asleep way before the end of this one! Heartfelt gratitude. 🙏💞

It did its job! ☺️🙏💤

Thank you!

Hi David I’m going through a stamcel transplantation in Maastricht these days. In dark nights happy to hear your soothing voice. The message of this Buddha story is just what I need. Letting go of attachments. How did somebody put this. The bad news is you’re falling. Good news is nothing to cling upon (or sth like that). ☮️

Thank you 🤎

🙏💗

🙏🏼❤️

Always wonderful 🙏

Always look forward to new episodes!

A very soothing listening experience.

Another great sleep story. Thanks David 🙏🏻

I tried twice and didn't make it to the end. Thank you, David.

Wonderful, thank you, David🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻 I fell asleep rather quickly, before Siddharta left the palace🙏🏻🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🙏🏻