Learning To Breathe: Dhamma Talk With Bhante Assaji

Bhante Assaji shares his wisdom when it comes to our breathing. He shares stories and the Buddha's teachings so encourage us to relax the mind by focusing on the breath. Try to apply mindfulness, love and kindness to yourself and direct positive energy into your meditation practice.

Transcript

Good evening everyone. How are you today? Tired. So thank you very much for coming today. Today I have to share with you few different ideas. So I want to tell you I came last year January 19th. Now I am almost living here one year. So I learned so many things last 12 months. I came to here from different culture. So but I saw in here people how applied this meditation and Buddhist teachings for their life. So I want to tell you we know as a human we always taking breaths. Who know how many times we taking breaths per day? Who know? Any guess? 40, 000? So I had this question also then I find answer from Google. So what I found as a human usually we take a taking breaths between 17, 000 to 13, 000 per day. When you are rest relax that our normal breathing process. But think when you got anger or fear how about your breathing process? It's increase. But we are never going to count our breath. It is automatically happen. Because this breath is our life. Without breath it's mean we are dying. One day our breath impulse is going to end. It's mean we are dying. So we know how many times per day we are taking breaths. But we are never going to count them. Think sometimes you are get anger. What you are doing next? Sometimes you are annoying to someone, Blame to someone. So when you got fear, Anger or some difficult situation in your life usually what you are do? Talking. That's it. Sorry. Yes. And also what you do you take a taking some deep breaths. Why you do like that? Calm down. Because you need calm down then you are taking breaths. Maybe it work, Maybe it not. Usually we do different things for calm down relax our mind. So that is my first step to today talk. What is the second step? I have a story. One day one of young boy decided to learn meditation and Buddhist teaching. You know in Asia so many Buddhist countries. So he decided to go to Tibet. Tibet is one of the beautiful country. It's located in mountain area. So many temples. Most temples are top of in the mountains. Then he went to one temple in Tibet. He met who chief monk of the temple. He told I want to learn Buddhist teaching and meditation. That's why I am here. But did chief monk following day he sent that young boy to the class. Then he before enter the classroom he just look around. He was very confused and excited. Because he saw all the students that all the student was little boys between age 6 to 10. He was thinking I am not a kid. I am not a little boy. I am young. I don't want to sit with them. So then he enter the class. Again he look around. He confused again. He saw the teacher. Can you guess how about him? Teacher was also little monk. He was thinking I don't want to listen to him because he is little. Like this audience. Some young people, Some old. I am also young. So what that boy did he went to close to the monk. He told I came to learn meditation and Buddhist teaching. What you are going to teach me today. Then that little monk asked again can you remember your kindergarten? I think when we think about kindergarten our mind go to our best. We know what we did. What we did. Sometimes we draw the pictures. We learn how to write the numbers, Alphabet. So that little monk told this class like a kindergarten. Now I ask you today some new people also I think we have. Also some regular people. So I think you learn so many things from this building. What you learn last few months or few years from here? What you learn? Anything? Okay so I think you all learn something from here. Something new. You know what you learn. So I told how many times we take a breath. Thousand of times we are never going to count but breath is our life. Also when we get anger or fear we most of times we take a breath for the relaxation. For the calm down our mind. You know 2600 years ago Buddha left from his palace and he went to find true happiness. He worked around India. He saw so many people how they try to find true happiness. In India still now there are so many faiths. More than 64 faiths. Also now and during the Buddha's time. So Buddha followed that all the faiths to find a solution. Then finally he found this is not a way. What he did then he tried to focus his breathing process. That little monk told can you guess what is what was his answer? Now why I ask you what you learn from here? Mary told she learned meditation. That little monk told I am going to teach you how to breathe. Now you know we are learning here what? How to breathe? What is the interesting thing? We always breathing but we are learning how to breathe. That is the Buddhist teaching. We always focus our breathing process but we are breathing. It can relax our mind. It can concentrate our mind. That's why this breathing process it's very important. So very recently one of our Sangha member came to the temple and she was discussing with us and she told recently he went to the hospital with his husband and there was a doctor she came to them and she start to advise what she told how to work mindfully, How to breathe mindfully, How to move mindfully. She start to talk that doctor told that mindfulness how to work mindfully. That our Sangha member she told I felt like I am in guided meditation. Then what she did she told us I told that doctor this is part of Buddhist teaching but that doctor don't know this is came from Buddhist teaching. That's why I told in here in this country so many people use this meditation for the different ways. So because it can help your life. I know in Sri Lanka people are usually come to the temple but some people they don't like meditation. They just like chanting. They like to offer the flowers and doing the that all the things. I think Mary visit Sri Lanka. Yeah I think she had some experience but most of times they don't like meditation but Sri Lanka is traditional Buddhist country. That's why I told you after I came here I saw how people apply this teaching for their life. So that little monk told I am going to teach you how to breathe. Now you are learning here how to breathe. But I think when we are going to do this meditation it is not easy. Sometimes we felt it is hard, It's boring, I don't like this, I have to sit. People are making so many stories. So Buddha said we have to find two good qualities. We have to develop two good qualities. First one is Buddha said in Pali we call Utthana Sampada. Utthana means energetic. It can translate to English the accomplishment of determined effort. We need effort to practice meditation. We need effort to develop our good spiritual qualities. Without effort we can't do this anything. We need this effort for our day to day life. Also practice this good qualities and meditation. That is the first one. Also Buddha told us, Buddha taught us, Kalayana mithu, Who know mithu word in Pali? Mithu means friendship. Kalayana means noble. Noble friendship. We all are noble friendship. We all are noble friends. Noble word has very deep idea. We know noble friends guide us very well. They always guide us to good way. So effort and noble friendship very helpful for our life to practice this meditation and practice good qualities. So I won't tell you we are learning how to breathe but we have to put more effort. We need good friends for this and develop this good qualities. So this mindfulness meditation we are using to our life different ways. So you can practice this meditation. You know how important for your life. You can understand. You can handle the situations. So try to apply this all the ideas. Try to be a mindfulness loving kind person to yourself. So thank you very much for coming today. Have a beautiful night.