The Emperor's Three Questions Meditation | Ajahn Brahm

Ajahn Brahm begins with an introduction of the emperor's three questions. When is the most important time? Now. Who is the most important person? The one you are with. What is the most important thing to do? To care. The answers to these questions are a wonderful guide to meditation and life in general. This is followed by a gently-guided meditation of about 20 minutes, using the emperor's three questions and the answers to those questions as a theme for the meditation.

Transcript

There was a story,

A good story,

Which is in my book,

Which was also first saw written by Leo Tolstoy called The Emperor's Three Questions.

It's a beautiful story and I've adapted it to many,

Many different situations.

The Emperor's Three Questions,

To start this off,

I'm going to use this as the type of meditation we will do in about five or ten minutes time.

Everyone wanted to fill up with all the other religions always fighting one another and eventually,

Okay,

Yeah,

Eventually he decided to start his own religion.

Like a practical one,

Simple.

But he wanted to find three answers to the three basic questions of life.

When is the most important time?

Who is the most important person?

And what is the most important thing to do?

So there are answer the first question.

When is the most important time?

Yes,

It's the only time you'll ever have.

So I look at the clock there,

It's now minutes past the nous hour of the nous day of the nous mark of 2000 and now.

Everything else is just what we add on to reality.

Now is where your future is made.

Now is the only time you have to do anything about your future.

So now is always the most important time.

Who is the most important person?

Who is the most important person?

No.

That's right,

You know that.

The person right in front of you is the most important person in the world.

So engage with them,

Whoever they happen to be.

Now is the most important thing to do?

Have I destroyed it before?

To care.

Not to cure,

Not to change,

But to be with and show us wonderful kindness.

So what's this got to do with meditation?

When you close your eyes and start meditating,

When is the most important time?

Now,

Not when you're enlightened or not when you decide that you had enough of this and go out.

When is the most important time?

There's always an hour.

What is the most important thing to watch in your meditation?

Whatever is in front of you in this moment.

So when you close your eyes,

What's in front of you?

What are you aware of?

That becomes the most important meditation object in the whole world.

Now what do you do with it?

Try and get rid of it,

Try and keep it,

And know to care for it.

So you're sitting here and you might be tired.

Tiredness is right in front of you.

You care for it.

Well if you care for it,

You learn a lot from it.

That tiredness is there to teach you something you do not know what,

But you learn from it when you care for it.

You don't push it away and its message has not been heard.

It will come back afterwards.

You are depressed.

It's right in front of you.

So you're aware of it.

It's the most important feeling in the world,

Because it's here.

So what do you do with it?

You care for it.

You don't try and get rid of it.

You're anxious.

You get to know anxiety instead of always running away from it.

I used to be a ghost hunter when I was at university and I always knew if you run away from ghosts,

You gave them the power.

If you were being chased by a ghost and you turned around,

It was a ghost who was scared.

So you face fears,

You face anxieties by knowing that's the most important thing in the world for you.

It's here.

And you care for it.

And the care for things,

That's where we get the wonderful story of the monster in the Emperor's palace.

I won't go through totally,

That's a beautiful story.

The monster came into the Emperor's palace,

The Empress's palace.

He said,

I say,

Get out of here,

You don't belong.

The Empress said,

Welcome monster.

Thank you for coming here.

And because she cared for the monster,

The monster was not a monster anymore,

It became a friend.

So this is actually what we do with whatever's in our mind right now.

It's here,

We embrace it,

Care for it,

We learn so much.

What usually happens is after a little while,

The monster gets smaller and smaller and disappears.

The anxiety,

The fear,

Whatever is in the negative emotion,

You stay right in front of you,

You're with it,

The most important time in the world is now,

You care for it.

And then it disappears and you're very,

Very peaceful.

And so the sound of the sword is right in my ears now,

Wonderful.

It's here,

But I've learned so much from the sound of the sword.

I care for it.

And then it disappears.

Thank you.

Because you can't always have it exactly as you want it.

But you can learn from those things which entertain us in life.

If I care for them,

They vanish.

So anyway,

Adversary questions meditation.

Now is the most important time,

Whatever's in front of you right now is important.

I know you just care for it,

Nothing else.

I need to see what happens.

It makes meditation so easy.

It means you can meditate on your deathbed.

It means you can meditate at any time.

You don't have to get rid of objects and choose something else,

Try and focus on something when the mind wants to go somewhere else.

Wherever the mind goes,

You go with it.

You care for what you experience.

Soon you understand it.

And then you get so peaceful.

So easy meditation.

Don't know why people think it's so difficult.

Okay,

So let's get going.

A little bit of meditation.

Okay,

That's good.

Ten past.

Twenty minute meditation,

Then talk,

Create questions and answers,

And then jokes.

So,

You can sit straight up,

You can lean back,

Whatever is comfortable for you.

So close your eyes,

This is just getting things started.

So for me right now,

I'm just going to lean back a bit,

That's nice.

If ever you feel sleepy and feel like you're going to fall off the chair,

Next time bring a motorbike helmet so you can fall off,

Or you'd rather a seatbelt.

So first of all,

Be aware of your body.

How is the body?

If you don't get it in a good position to begin with,

It's very difficult to find enough peace to do any type of meditation.

To find your body as comfortable as you possibly can.

Once it's comfortable,

Then we come into the present moment.

So you can do a little imaginary exercise.

Imagine you've been shopping,

And you've been carrying two heavy bags,

One in your left hand,

One in your right hand.

And on the left hand you look on the outside of the bag,

It's always a muggle of the company,

Or the shop where you went shopping.

But you look on that bag,

It's not Harrods,

It's got the words P-A-S-T,

Past.

Because in that bag you are carrying all the memories,

Both good and bad,

Of your past.

And it's so heavy,

You make your arm ache and your shoulders sore.

In the right hand,

In another bag,

Equally heavy,

You see on the outside of that shopping bag,

The letters F-U-T-U-R-E,

Future.

In that bag you carry around all your fears,

Anxieties,

Dreams and hopes as well.

All that heavy baggage related to the future which you're carrying around.

And some people carry that around 24-7,

Even during the night they're anxious.

So feel the weight of those two bags which makes your arm ache and shoulders hurt.

Let the real past and the real future make your brain tired and make your heart have no energy.

Now you focus on the bag in your left hand,

The past.

You feel its weight and then you imagine leaning to your left.

So you can lower the bag in your left hand containing your past.

Lower it closer and closer to the floor.

When it meets the ground,

The weight disappears.

And that allows you to unclench the fingers of your hand.

Let go of the bag and move your arm and hand to your left side where it can relax,

Re-energise and the aches in the shoulder disappear.

You've let go of the past.

And then you imagine the bag in your right hand,

The future,

Fears,

Anxieties,

Hopes and dreams.

How heavy that is.

Imagine leaning to your right so you can lower the bag in your right hand to the floor.

When it does meet the ground,

Again the burden disappears.

So it allows you to move your hand away from the handle of the bag and move your arm up so it's hanging loosely by your right side.

Holding nothing,

Having let go,

Allowing you to re-energise and recover.

And as you've let those bags down onto the floor,

That's your real past,

Your real future.

You've let go of for a while.

You don't have to worry that someone's going to take it away.

Unfortunately you'll be there for you afterwards to pick up.

You put it down for a while to rest because you deserve to rest.

And you look down in this little imaginary exercise.

There's those bags,

The past and the future,

And you are standing right between those two in the middle,

In this magical space between the past and the future called now.

During the rest of this brief meditation make sure you don't pick up something from any of those bags.

Leave it in the bags because you need to grant yourself this moment of peace to be free.

Now is the most important time.

What are you aware of right now?

What is right in front of your mental eye?

What are you aware of?

Don't try and figure it out.

Don't try and put it in the letter name.

Don't try and capture it.

Instead just know the most important thing that goes right in front of you now.

And the only thing to do is care for it,

Even a little bit more.

So whatever you are experiencing now can teach you,

Whatever its message is,

Will keep coming back until you've learnt and then you'll manage.

Now is the most important time.

What goes in front of you is the most important thing in the world.

As long as you are in this moment you can never lose your meditation object because the moment is always here.

You're not going somewhere,

You're not doing anything.

You're actually being right here by giving this moment 100% importance and you're kind to it,

Beautiful nurturing and you're kind to all beings.

They become soft and peaceful in your presence.

It is a kindness which relaxes and softens and even brings beauty to whatever is in front of you right now.

Now is the most important time.

The feeling,

The idea,

The thought in front of you is the most important in the whole world.

And all you do is care.

The wisdom will come later.

Now you just have this beautiful opening the door of your heart to this moment.

Welcoming this moment.

Sometimes my practice has been so painful but I'm welcoming and that takes most of the pain away.

Not trying to get rid of it but giving it importance,

Learning and being compassionate.

Just like my mother when I would play soccer in the streets of Acton,

Whenever I would do myself she'd kneel down and kiss it better.

The pain would always go.

The love of a mother for her child.

Your kindness,

Your care to whatever you're experiencing at this moment makes it so peaceful.

I'm now going to be quiet for five minutes to let you carry on experimenting with the Empress who questions meditation.

Now is one of the important in caring.

Now is one of the important in caring.

Now is one of the important in caring.

Now is one of the important in caring.

Now is one of the important in caring.

Now is one of the important in caring.

Now is one of the important in caring.

Now is the only time you have whatever you're aware of is the most important.

Careful.

Now is one of the important in caring.

Now is one of the important in caring.

Now is one of the important in caring.

Now is one of the important in caring.

Now is one of the important in caring.

Now is one of the important in caring.

Now is one of the important in caring.

Now is one of the important in caring.

Now is one of the important in caring.

Now is one of the important in caring.

How do you feel right now coming close to the end of this 20 minute meditation period?

Not journeying through life but just stopping.

Now most important time.

Whatever is in front of you is the most important in caring.

Now please count the next three breaths in and out,

In and out,

In and out.

The end of the third out breath for now.

Now is the end of the third out breath for now.

Reviews

Lovely as always. Such a wonderful sense of humor. Many thanks. ☮️💖🙏🕉️

Great meditation. Very calming and liberating.