Thanks for watching!
So now we have the opportunity to listen to the Dhamma.
So we've come together on this retreat.
And this opportunity is important because this mind,
This citta,
It's an element whose nature is to know aramanas,
To know sense impressions.
And having known sense impressions,
Then there's liking,
Disliking,
Attraction and aversion.
So this feeling comes up,
This experience,
And there's attraction to it or aversion to it.
And there's not knowing,
There's ignorance,
Avicca,
Delusion.
This is a cause for proliferation to arise.
There's me,
Mine,
Self,
Liking and disliking.
It's the I.
The I is liking,
The I is disliking.
In the world,
In the worldly way and having liking,
Then one feels at ease and relaxed.
But one doesn't realize that this feeling of ease,
It's not true ease,
Because it's actually that ease is the cause for disliking to arise.
So we have something,
Have some possession,
And we like it,
But then it changes,
Or we lose it,
And suffering arises.
This is because the mind has clinging.
So we practice to let go,
To not get lost in liking,
To not cling,
To see that liking is just liking,
Disliking is just disliking.
There's nothing there,
But there's this knowing,
This wisdom.
But our minds don't yet have this wisdom,
So we need to train,
To train the mind to be peaceful.
And to do that,
We use a kamatana meditation object.
And there are many methods,
Many meditation objects,
40 kamatanas.
And one meditation object that's of particular importance is knowing the in and out breathing.
So we recollect the breath and call this mindfulness.
So we have the breath already,
We're breathing all the time already,
But we're not aware of it,
We don't know it.
So we practice to recollect and know the breath as it comes in.
We can feel it at the nose.
And then as the breath goes out,
We feel the breath as it goes out.
For instance,
At the end of the nose or upper lip.
And some practitioners might put some liquid on the upper lip so that they can feel the breath coming in and out more easily.
And one makes effort not to let the mind get lost in proliferation.
Because the mind's been proliferating all day already,
Even when sleeping the mind proliferates.
So if we don't practice,
If we don't train,
Then this proliferation just keeps increasing and increasing.
So we train the mind to become still sometimes.
So when the breath goes in,
We know it.
As the breath goes out,
We know it.
So in the beginning,
We feel at the end of the nose,
The area around the mouth.
And so we practice like this,
We train like this.
And when we practice like this,
The mind still might be thinking a lot,
Might be very agitated.
And so we can use the word bhutto.
As the breath goes in,
We recite bhut.
As the breath goes out,
We recite do.
Bhutto.
And we sit in a way that's relaxed and easeful.
We can sit on a chair,
Particularly if we're older or have some health issue,
Body's not the same as it once was.
Or we can sit on the ground with the left leg over the right,
The right leg over the left.
So we sit meditation,
We make the body straight,
Not leaning front or back,
Left or right.
In the beginning,
We can have the eyes open,
Looking towards the end of the nose,
And we feel the breath as it goes in and feel the breath as it goes out.
As the mind gets more and more peaceful,
We can let the eyes naturally close.
We don't have to control our vision.
We don't have to control the breath.
Because when we're not sitting in meditation,
We're not controlling the breath.
The breath just comes in and out normally.
But if we start to control the breathing,
We can start to feel tense and tight about it.
We might feel some pressure.
And so this isn't,
This is not correct.
We might feel some agitation or annoyance.
When we're sitting in meditation,
The mind's chasing after this or that.
In a single minute,
The mind can think a great deal.
And so sometimes we're not aware of this and we close our eyes.
And as soon as we close our eyes,
It's like there's a fire in the mind.
The mind feels really hot and agitated.
We might feel like this.
We might feel like just sitting for five minutes that we can't even do it,
That it's too hot.
But we have effort,
We persevere,
We train in patient endurance in Kanti first.
This kanti,
This patient endurance,
It's a dhamma that leads to success.
So for a Dhamma practitioner,
One can also say,
One who has wisdom,
One who's wise and needs to have patient endurance,
To train in patient endurance,
One sits meditation,
Watches the in and out breathing.
This is one method.
Or if we do that and we're feeling tense,
If we're a person that likes to control the breath,
Then as the breath goes in,
We can count one,
On the out-breath one,
On the in-breath two,
On the out-breath two,
On the in-breath three,
On the out-breath three.
So we can count in pairs like this.
On the in-breath four,
On the out-breath four,
On the in-breath five,
On the out-breath five.
So we observe the breath in this way and we count in a way and we feel at ease.
We count in pairs one to five,
Then we go back to one,
And then we can count all the way up to six.
In breath six,
Out breath six,
And we feel at ease.
Then the next round we can count up to seven,
The next round one to eight,
The next round one to nine,
And the next round one to ten.
So we count the breath in pairs like this.
And if her mind gets lost or forgets about counting the breath,
Then we just go back to start at the beginning.
In breath one,
Out breath one,
Up to five.
And when we're able to do this well,
Then the mind becomes peaceful and collected in samadhi.
This word samadhi meaning the mind that's peaceful,
Gathered together,
Collected.
So we count the breaths.
Then once the mind becomes peaceful,
Then this counting just subsides on its own.
And if we're not peaceful,
Then we can just count starting from the beginning again.
Once we reach the tenth pair,
We go back to counting from one pair of one up to five.
Then we go all the way back up to ten.
And so we can do this in two or three rounds or four rounds and the thoughts reduce.
The mind is able to become more peaceful.
So this is one way to train the mind.
Because the mind that's well trained brings happiness and peace.
If we don't train the mind,
There's just a lot of thinking,
A lot of self.
In a single hour the sense of self can arise a great deal.
There's eye contacting visual forms and there's sounds,
Taste,
Smell,
Touch,
Mind,
Objects.
So there's all these sense contacts.
And the sense of self is arising all the time.
The sense of me and mine,
You and yours.
So when it's like this,
It's difficult to abandon the sense of self.
And it's just constantly giving us suffering every day because we're seeing things in terms of self.
And there is happiness there,
But it's a worldly happiness.
It's a happiness that comes paired with suffering.
And so we keep cycling around like this in our daily lives every single day between pleasure,
Pain,
Happiness,
And suffering.
So it's like this every day for this lifetime and it's like that in the next lifetime as well.
It's the same thing all over again.
So therefore we train,
We have effort.
And why?
Why do we do this?
Because there are things that we must meet with in our lives that later we will meet with suffering in the future.
And why is this?
It's because we'll meet with sense impressions that we don't like.
We become separated from that which we love.
We get older,
We get sick.
These are things that we all must meet with.
Having been born into the world,
These are things that all of us must meet with.
But we're not prepared for it.
Our mindfulness isn't quick enough,
So therefore we have to train the mind to know the breath as it goes in,
To know the breath as it goes out.
To train counting in pairs as described,
Then the mind can become peaceful and collected like this.
Then there's another method as well that we can count quickly with the in and out breathing.
As the breath goes in,
We count 1,
2,
3,
4,
5.
As the breath goes out,
1,
2,
3,
4,
5.
Then we can start to feel more and more at ease.
Or on the in-breath,
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6.
On the out-breath,
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6.
So we can count quickly.
So there's these three methods that have just been described,
All ways to bring the mind to peacefulness.
So the first method with Bhutto,
And then as the mind gets peaceful,
The word Bhutto subsides.
The second method,
Counting as pairs until the mind becomes still.
And then the third method,
Counting more quickly,
One,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
With the in and out breath.
Then the mind becomes still as well until we reach the point where we don't need to count.
And when the mind becomes peaceful like this,
We can get this experience of rapture,
Fullness and happiness of heart.
This feeling arises.
Thank you.
And so sometimes people might get a feeling of rapture or in Pali,
Piti,
That's related to worldly things or things that we like.
But this piti or rapture from the peaceful mind is of a different level.
It's the rapture of samadhi.
So the mind feels very happy,
A great deal of well-being.
The mind can become still.
There's this rapture,
Happiness,
Fullness of heart.
And so don't worry about this,
Just sit.
We sit and we start to feel peaceful.
Sometimes we don't feel our feet anymore.
The feeling of the feet,
The hands disappears.
Normally we have a sense of the body,
We feel the body.
But as the mind starts to become gathered in peacefulness,
The hands and feet might disappear.
We're sitting meditation,
The mind becomes peaceful.
It feels light.
The body feels light all over.
And this is the mind gathering in samadhi.
It's like we're sitting in the middle of the air,
Like we're floating.
We don't feel a sense of self,
We just feel the still mind.
And then when the samadhi gets even deeper,
Gets even more,
Then the stillness becomes even more profound,
More deep.
Mind is very quiet,
Like everything's gone.
There's just stillness.
One might feel like,
Where am I sitting?
One doesn't know where.
The mind's peaceful and still.
So this is all possible with samadhi.
Then there's these obstacles to samadhi,
And what are they?
It's these five mind objects,
Or five aramanas.
So we sit in meditation,
We start thinking about the past,
We have liking or disliking with regard to these thoughts of the past,
And then we proliferate about it all over again.
Or there's this clinging to sight,
Sound,
Smell,
Touch,
Taste,
Mind objects,
This attraction,
And mind becomes agitated,
The mind's not peaceful,
And so samadhi does not arise.
There's doubting,
Which also stops samadhi.
There's a busy,
Distracted,
Annoyed or agitated mind,
Thinking about this or that,
Maybe getting angry,
Thinking about this or that.
There's a case where we sit in the body starts to become sleepy as well.
So these are all obstacles to samadhi.
Sometimes we come back from work,
We feel tired,
So in that case we can chant.
Or maybe we don't sit for very long,
Then we go have a rest.
But then when we wake up in the morning,
We can feel fresh.
And the weather is good,
So we can sit in meditation at that time.
Or if we don't have work,
We might have free time in the afternoon,
Then we can sit in meditation then.
If we have good health,
We can sit meditation and we practice like this until it becomes a habit.
We get accustomed to it and then when the time comes there's this feeling in the mind that we want to enter the state of peace again.
Like when we're done work or we get home,
There's this feeling that the mind wants to sit meditation.
We don't need to force it,
But our work is done and the mind wants to get that cool,
Peaceful feeling again.
This is because the mind's become accustomed or habituated to it.
And for some people they feel a lot of thinking or a distracted mind.
And so if they just sit,
Then the mind just isn't there.
And so we can use the method of thinking and contemplating first to bring the mind to peacefulness.
For instance,
We can be sitting meditation and we can reflect and contemplate that our life is not sure,
That nothing truly belongs to us.
Nothing is truly ours.
Having been born,
As we've learned,
There's this cell,
Splits into two and then four,
And then into millions and millions of cells,
Into various organs gathered in groups.
We think,
Well,
Why do we cling to that as self?
It's something that we just use temporarily.
So this body is just like a house that we use temporarily,
And then it degrades,
Then it falls apart,
And this is normal.
This body is composed of these natural elements of earth,
Air,
Fire,
And water.
That which is hard or solid is the earth element.
The water element sees fluid or liquid components like blood or lymph.
The body also has the fire and air elements.
So it's these four elements gathered together.
And then they disperse,
They degrade,
They come apart.
And when the four elements are not in balance,
Then we experience illness.
And it's the same for.
.
.
All beings in the world.
And that this body is not self,
It can't last.
If we just stop breathing for a short time,
Like if all beings in the world just stop breathing for five minutes,
Then all beings on the planet would all die.
So we see that the body is able to be here because of this breath.
The mind doesn't want to die,
But it can't keep on going.
It's the house falling apart.
This body as composed of these natural elements,
These four elements,
And it changes.
When the breath ceases,
The body changes.
The sankharas,
These conditioned formations,
Degrade,
Fall apart,
Pass away.
It's something not beautiful.
We see it's just composed of blood and flesh,
Bone,
Skin,
And so on.
It degrades and falls apart.
There's nothing there.
It's not a me,
Mine,
You or yours.
And when we see this,
The mind becomes deeply at ease,
Becomes free and open and spacious.
So during the day we think about a great many things.
So during the day we can think about this instead,
To bring about wisdom.
And this is wisdom that brings the mind to peacefulness.
So we see the body as impermanent,
As unstable.
It's composed of these four elements whose nature is to fall apart and degrade.
This is vipassana,
Clear seeing.
This is using wisdom to train the mind to become peaceful.
To reduce the distractedness of mind.
We see the breath come in and out.
And this brings rest to the mind.
We can count the breath as pairs.
We can count quickly.
We'll bring the mind to stillness and samadhi.
And once we do that,
Then we can come contemplate again.
So in this way we alternate these methods.
And when we do this,
Then true knowing can arise.
The mind feels at ease and relaxed,
Open and free.
We see the truth.
We see impermanence,
Stress and not-self.
Anicca dukkha aratha.
And so we do this often.
We practice this often.
We have virtue as our foundation that leads to a peaceful mind.
And we train in this daily.
When we're at work,
We practice to keep a watch over the mind because whenever greed or anger,
Agitation,
Delusion arise,
It uses up the energy of the mind.
It wastes the energy of samadhi so that when we come to sit meditation in the evening,
The mind just isn't there.
The mind's distracted.
Because the mind just hasn't had mindfulness throughout the day.
We've let go of our mind too much.
So we need to see the drawbacks of this.
We need to be careful about this,
To have care and caution.
For instance,
These days there's a lot of news.
We're able to read or receive a lot of news,
But we need to be careful about this so that it's not too much.
We can know about it sometimes so that we can live our lives in the world,
But we make it not too much.
So we need to train our minds continuously.
And we see that it's not sure.
We're going to have some old spiritual virtues,
Some old parami from the past.
And we keep practicing like this,
Keep contemplating,
Listening to the Dhamma.
So we're sitting,
Applying our mind to listen to the Dhamma.
And we're making the mind peaceful at the same time as well.
So we're listening to the Dhamma,
And we're training the mind in samadhi as well,
To have mindfulness with the breath.
The mind's not busy or distracted.
The mind's still and peaceful.
Then understanding can arise.
We see everything as convention.
So we have the intention to listen to the Dhamma.
We apply our mind to it.
And then true understanding arises.
We see that,
Oh,
There's truly nothing here that's all just convention.
The eye sees a form and thinks that it's this or that person.
Thinks that it's I am seeing,
I am hearing.
But if we have Dhamma,
We see that there's no one there.
Right now I'm speaking,
But when we see according to truth,
There's no one speaking,
No one listening.
We see that everything in the world's just convention.
It's just these four natural elements gathered together,
Arise and cease.
And so seeing like this,
The mind gathers,
Sees everything as empty and there's nothing there.
It's all just convention.
This is the mind seeing convention,
The mind realizing liberation.
In this way the mind can become free,
Can be free of thinking in terms of self,
Free of taking everything to be self.
So we see not self.
The mind is empty.
The mind is bright.
The mind is radiant and light.
We feel this fullness and rapture for three days and three nights continuously.
This is a fullness of the Dhamma.
This is the mind that's awakened from delusion.
So this mind gives rise to knowing.
This is wisdom.
This is vipassana,
Clear seeing.
This is the experience of Dhamma.
There are many aspects of the Dhamma arising.
We see the truth.
We see it on a more subtle level.
We see everything,
All objects,
All people,
They're all going towards death.
And we feel like we don't want anything in this world.
We see that it all degrades,
All passes away.
So seeing like this,
The mind becomes joyful and radiant.
We see the truth.
So in our daily lives we think that we won't die,
That things are permanent,
Things are lasting.
So we build a house or monastery and we,
In terms of convention,
Or we think it'll last a hundred years,
But when we understand,
Or this is understanding according to perception,
According to thinking,
But when we see it according to truth,
We see that it's constantly degrading,
That all beings must die.
So when we see with insight,
We see with wisdom,
See with vipassana,
Knowing arises,
Clear seeing arises.
In this way,
Our faith is imbued with wisdom.
So like all of you here today,
We start out with faith,
With belief.
Belief that the Buddha truly exists,
That the Buddha truly awakened.
So since childhood,
We might have had this belief that we learned about it,
And then we believed it.
So then we come to do the practice.
We bow,
We bow,
We pay homage,
We take up the precepts like we've all done this morning.
This is something not easy to do,
The five or the eight precepts.
We practice and every day during the day,
Or every day we meditate,
We practice bhavana,
Mental cultivation.
We train just as the monks explain.
We train in giving virtue and meditation.
So we practice according to the teachings,
We train in it,
So we study,
We listen to the teachings of the fully self-awakened Buddha.
We see conventionality clearly,
We see liberation.
And so this is something we're able to see.
So we start training from today on this eight day retreat,
All the way up till the 29th of this month.
And during this eight day retreat,
It's possible for you to see the Dhamma.
So may all of you set your hearts on this.
If you're at home,
Then you can practice speaking little,
Having mindfulness a lot,
Meditating a lot,
Having mindfulness at work.
It's something that's not beyond your capacity to do.
Why is that?
We see that Venerable Ajahn Chah taught that if you just keep digging,
There's water underground.
If you just keep digging,
Then you will eventually meet with that water.
You will definitely meet with that water if you don't stop digging.
So in the same way,
If we practice without stopping,
You'll definitely meet with the Dhamma.
It really is like this.
So may you keep practicing.
You don't have to doubt about this.
You don't have to wonder about doing Samatha,
Tranquility practice,
Or Vipassana,
Insight practice.
Because in truth,
They're not separate.
They go together,
This wisdom and peacefulness,
Or tranquility and insight.
They're like the handle of a knife and the blade of a knife.
Life.
They go together.
The mind knows impermanence,
Stress,
And not-self.
Then true wisdom arises.
