Day 001/365: Guided Meditation | Ajahn Brahm

This track includes several tools to help strengthen your meditation practice.
* 15 minutes Dharma talk/meditation advice and inspiration.
* About 20 minutes of guided meditation.
* About 25 minutes of silent meditation practice.
* A Q&A session/closing thoughts after the meditation practice.

Transcript

And usually talk a little bit about meditation for 15 minutes,

And after the meditation class instructions are completed,

We usually meditate for about 45 minutes.

I usually guide the first part of it and then let you just continue on by yourselves.

And there was a question last night after my talk,

And the question was a common question about when do you go from one stage of meditation to the next stage of meditation.

And a long time ago,

Just for the sake of clarity,

So you know what you're doing and what to expect in meditation,

I did write some books about how to meditate and describing different stages of meditation.

And basically the stages which I will describe here were first of all just the comfortable body and then present moment awareness,

Being here right now,

And then silent present moment awareness when there's hardly a thought going on in your mind,

Where there's no commentary occurring,

And after that the breath,

And after being aware of the breath,

Then the full awareness of the breath,

Which is not just being aware going in,

Going out,

In,

Out,

In,

Out,

But from the very beginning of an in-breath to the end of an in-breath,

Beginning of an out-breath to the end of the out-breath,

Seeing the whole of the breath,

And then from that the delightful breath when the breath starts to become very beautiful,

And you're very happy just washing this breath,

And after that these lights come up into the mind,

Called the nimittas,

And from that into these jhana experiences.

And it's a very accurate description of the process of meditation,

But then once you give this description of stages,

People always want to move quickly,

Further down the line to get some more what they think is progress.

And that wanting to move further on is one of the great hindrances in meditation.

So even though we do have those stages of meditation,

And they're valid stages of meditation,

Please don't use that framework and description as another reason to start desiring things,

Because if we want to describe the process of meditation as anything,

Some deep understanding of what meditation is,

Is letting go of all your desires,

Letting go of all the wanting,

Letting go of all the trying to get rid of things,

Letting go of all the controlling,

Basically so we can relax and be peaceful,

Be still.

That is the basic part of meditation,

Learning how to let go.

Of what?

Let go of wanting and doing things.

Now if we can start to let go of that,

Then you will find that peace comes by itself.

However,

It's very important to try and bring those two together,

Just letting go of wanting,

And these stages in such a way that it does not confuse anybody.

And so I developed the simile of the thousand petal lotus.

I usually teach this on retreats,

But very rarely teach it on a Saturday afternoon.

So now I wanted to introduce the thousand petal lotus here.

Now the story of the thousand petal lotus is that once that lotus is closed up,

The outside does not look very attractive.

If you did not know that that was a lotus flower with everything closed up at night time,

You would never imagine that on those hard,

Rough,

Even sometimes a bit dusty,

Outermost petals which have no fragrance and no colour in them,

You would never believe that inside were these beautiful fragrant petals.

And you also know that in the morning when the sun rises,

When the light and the warmth of the sun hit that lotus,

The lotus starts to open up.

It opens up layer by layer.

So when the outermost petals,

The rough outer casing,

Receives the warmth and the light of the sun,

It opens.

And inside you see the next layer of petals.

Still very thick,

Not that pretty,

But then when that can receive the warmth and light of the sun,

That opens up.

And when that opens up,

The second layer of petals is revealed so that can receive the warmth and light of the sun.

Layer by layer it opens up in turn.

And once the layer which is receiving the light of warmth and sun receives enough,

Then that opens up itself to see what's inside.

And that is a beautiful simile of what meditation is.

And in this case,

You are that lotus.

Sometimes we are quite rough on the outside,

But inside we have these beautiful,

Beautiful layers of petals.

Fragrant,

Beautiful,

Very refined.

And our job is somehow to open up that lotus.

And the warmth and light of the sun,

That stands for kindness and mindfulness.

The warmth is the kindness,

The light is the awareness,

The mindfulness.

And when you shine the warmth and light of kindness and awareness onto your body and mind,

You find it does exactly the same.

It starts to open up.

And how this actually happens,

You first of all watch your body,

You are aware of your body as you start meditation,

And you must be kind to it.

When you are kind to your body,

What happens is it starts to relax.

Any sort of tight parts of the body,

You can move itchy parts,

You can scratch.

And even as I often mention on a Saturday afternoon and a Friday evening as well,

Focusing on parts of your body which are sick,

Which are in pain,

Which are aching,

Focusing on them and adding kindness,

You find with a little bit of practice you can relax those parts of the body until the ache,

The pain,

Vanishes,

It disappears.

Simply with the application of mindfulness and kindness together on those parts of your body.

So your whole body can relax so much,

It is at ease,

It's not bothering you,

Which means it can disappear.

You can go inside of it to your mental world.

Whenever there is an ache or a pain in the body,

As many of you know,

It's so hard to let it go.

It's like it's always calling you.

Sometimes it's like having a child.

You want to get it to bed at night so you can relax after a hard day looking after your kid.

But once the kid is settled,

Once it's asleep,

Then you're free.

That's just like this body.

Once it's settled,

Once it's comfortable,

Then it can vanish.

And so that we look after our body first of all with kindness to relax it so we can go inside into our mental world.

Again,

Going inside.

So that body is the outermost layer of petals in the lotus.

By mindfulness and kindness it opens up so we can be aware of our mental world.

And in that mental world again,

The first thing we have to become aware of,

It's just all over the place,

Very restless,

To go inside that mental world,

To go to its centre,

To open up this lotus of the ordinary mental world.

We want to go inside.

What do you mean by going inside,

Going into the centre?

It's actually going into the centre of time,

To this present moment.

This present moment right now is in the centre of your life.

So all we really need to do is to be aware of all this stuff to do with the past and future and to be kind.

If sometimes,

I often wondered why it is that people can't let go of the past and let go of the future.

A lot of times it's because back in the body there's hard knots of pain which won't let you sort of go to sleep at night.

There's aches which are very deep and it won't let you sort of let it go.

And so first of all we have to soften those knots of pain in our body,

Relax those tight areas.

When they relax,

When they're softened,

Then it's easy to let them go.

Same with past and future.

We soften the past,

We soften the future with some kindness.

What do I mean,

Someone's hurt you last week,

Just be kind to them,

Give them the benefit of the doubt,

Never mind,

They may have been in a bad mood,

They may have had some terrible thing happen to them today,

That's why they shouted at you that afternoon.

Give them the benefit of the doubt,

Be kind,

And then it doesn't really hurt you so much.

Last night somebody was saying,

Something I often hear in Thailand,

Which is a traditional Buddhist country,

That somebody smashed the window of their car last week and they took their wallet which they left in the car,

Which you should never do,

And spent a bit of money on their credit card.

We said,

No,

Shouldn't have been able to do,

But they did that.

And then instead of getting angry,

This was a Western guy,

He said,

Oh maybe that was my karma from a past life.

Maybe in a past life I stole some money from someone and they have to steal it back from me,

So it's just paying off my old bad karma.

Now you can't really prove that,

You can't really say that that is how karma works,

But it does have the effect of,

Oh well you know,

Maybe it's all balancing so I'm not going to get angry,

I don't keep saying why me,

Why me,

This is really unfair and getting angry.

I can soften that bad experience from last week with a bit of kindness,

I hope that fellow is enjoying the money which he got from my credit card.

That sort of attitude there,

That does soften the past,

And soften the future,

All the things you may be anxious about,

All the things which you may worry about.

Tomorrow,

Early in the morning,

I'm flying to Bangkok on the way to Bhutan,

There's big elections tomorrow,

There's big protests in the city,

What if I get caught up in the protests,

What if the airport gets shut down,

What if I can't go anywhere,

Ahh.

It's so easy for people to get really anxious,

But what happens is you soften the future.

Oh well that happens,

Doesn't matter,

There's lots of places I know I can just hang out in Bangkok and just enjoy,

It's an extra little holiday.

In fact,

Going to Bhutan is really cold,

It's freezing,

It's minus 9 degrees there,

So I won't have to worry about the cold if I can't get there.

So whatever it is,

You soften the future with a bit of positive thinking.

And by that softening the future it's much easier to let it go.

Which means that with that kindness,

The past and the future,

Just like the relaxing the body,

The past and the future relaxes away,

Gets so comfortable you can come into the present moment.

This is what happens,

Being kind relaxes things.

Relaxing things means it disappears,

Which means all you're left with is this present moment.

So look,

If ever you have trouble with the present moment awareness,

There's something in the past or the future,

Please be kind to it.

Don't try and get out of here,

I don't want you,

I'm supposed to be meditating in the present moment.

No,

Go to that future,

Be kind to it,

Soften it just like you soften your body and then it vanishes for you.

So you're going actually into time with mindfulness and kindness,

To whatever you're watching,

You don't choose what you're watching,

You're just mindful and kind to it.

The past and future come up in meditation,

Don't throw it away,

Don't get it away.

If you try that you just get more tense.

Be with whatever comes up in the mind,

Be kind to it,

Be aware of it,

It softens and then it vanishes.

You go inside,

That's how you open up the lotus.

So you've got this present moment awareness,

So what do you do next?

Again you just keep being mindful,

Being kind to the present moment.

A lot of times people get to the present moment awareness,

They can't stay there.

Then they go thinking of something else.

You know why?

You're aware of the present moment but you forget this beautiful kindness.

Opening the door of your heart to this moment,

Whatever it is.

Because sometimes the present moment at first will be not so nice,

Maybe tired,

Maybe negative,

Whatever it is,

It's not always wonderful.

Yeah I know Eckhart Tolle said the power of now,

But I don't think he stays in the now long enough because sometimes it sucks being here,

Being right now.

But if you stay there and be kind to it,

Then it does become beautiful after a while.

Because it becomes beautiful,

Because you're in this moment,

Really into it,

You get so focused in the centre of the present moment.

You can't say anything,

You can't think anything.

If you just look at thought,

It's all about what's just happened.

Or about what's going to happen next.

Really in this present moment you just have no time to say anything,

No time to think.

You're right in this moment,

Timeless,

And then you find you're silent.

So you don't go on to the next part of meditation,

You go in to the next stage of meditation.

That's the beauty of the Lotus Simile.

Always going inside to wherever you are right now.

As you go in to the present moment,

You have silence.

In other words,

The more you stay with the present moment,

The more you develop it,

The more you're fully into this moment with awareness and kindness,

The more focused you are,

You're right inside,

You find you're silent.

And sometimes you don't know when that transition happens.

Just start with,

Wow,

I wasn't thinking,

I was really quiet.

This was really peaceful and still.

So what happens next?

You're still in this present moment,

You don't need to go looking for the breath.

After a while in stillness,

That tends to open up and right in the middle of the still mind,

You experience the breath.

Basically it's the only thing moving now,

The only thing which is active and that's what the brain notices.

And then you're aware of the breath going in and going out.

What do you next?

Just be mindful,

Be kind,

All the way through the light and the warmth of the sun,

You're watching the breath,

Soon you can be aware of all of the breath from the beginning to the end.

It's not a stage you decide,

Yeah I've been aware of the breath for five minutes now,

Now I'm going to go on to the next stage.

It's not like going to school,

Grade one,

Grade two,

Grade three.

Grade two is like inside grade one classroom.

Grade three,

You can find that if you look in the grade two classroom,

Some little corner or centre of that class you find grade three.

That's actually what it's really like in meditation.

Of course not in school,

They have separate rooms.

But these are one inside of the other.

So you're watching the whole breath and soon it becomes very delightful.

It's just the,

Because of mindfulness and kindness,

Just the lotus opens up and you go deeper and deeper inside.

And just like with a real lotus,

The deeper you go inside,

The more beautiful are the petals.

The colours are just more delightful and the fragrance is more full.

And even the petals are thinner and more delicate.

And that's just in the mind as well as you go deep into meditation.

You've got this beautiful delightful breath you're watching.

And the sign of that is,

When I ring the gong,

You don't want to get out.

You think,

Why does he ring the gong?

Surely it can't be time now.

You're really having a wonderful time.

You're enjoying the meditation.

And that delightful breath is just in the full awareness of the breath.

Stay there,

Be aware,

Be kind and it just happens.

And then you're watching this delightful breath having a wonderful time.

I've often talked about these lights,

Very rarely get round to them on the Saturday afternoon session.

But after a while these beautiful lights appear in the meditation.

How do you do that?

Is this a stage I've got to go to,

Let go of the breath and go into the lights?

No.

Those lights are right in the centre of the delightful breath.

Use that metaphor of the lotus,

Stay with the delightful breath.

And after a while,

The lotus leaves open up and inside you see this beautiful light.

It's a good simile because sometimes that light doesn't stay very long and the breath comes back again.

It's like the lotus is opening up but not enough awareness,

Not enough kindness to really open it up fully.

So you don't have to worry what to do.

All you have to do is carry on being aware and being kind all the way through.

The only things you need to do,

If you can call it doing,

Be aware,

Be kind.

And you have these incredible beautiful lights.

These get really exciting.

This is the really juicy part of meditation.

See these beautiful,

We call them nimittas in meditation,

Beautiful,

Beautiful lights.

And they can be very powerful,

Very delightful,

Full of incredible bliss even.

You're really getting into some amazing meditation now.

A lot of people think,

Ajahn Brahm,

What should I do?

You know the answer now?

Just mindfulness and kindness all the way through.

Just be aware and being kind.

If those lights want to stay,

Fine.

If they want to go,

Fine.

That is called kindness.

Opening the door of your heart to these things no matter what they are.

Blissful,

Powerful,

You can come in,

You can go if you want.

Remember opening the door is not just to bring things in,

It's also to let things out as well.

If you open up the door of your house,

Nice things can come in but nice things can also leave as well.

That's part of the open door of your heart policy.

So with that open door of the heart,

Sometimes these beautiful lights come in,

Sometimes they vanish.

It's all the same to you because you've opened the door of your heart and you're just aware.

But soon they come in,

They stay,

They grow.

And then sooner or later they go so strong,

You find that you go right inside of them.

The nimitta layer of petals opens up and then you go into these jhana realms which are fantastic.

When you go into that you're really getting into very,

Very high meditations,

Brilliant meditations.

And you really,

If you want to know what bliss is,

You really find out.

And from that you also get incredible insights.

To find out more about those,

Then come on one of my retreats or you read it in the book,

Mindfulness,

Bliss and Beyond,

Or get there on the talks which are on the internet.

But the whole purpose of this lesson this morning,

Or this afternoon,

Sorry,

Is not to talk about those deep states but the whole process,

How they happen.

All you need to do is be aware and be kind.

Nothing else.

Don't get rid of things.

Don't aim for things.

Just mindfulness and kindness.

That takes you all the way into the deepest of the meditations.

And don't ever think,

I have to get on to another stage.

That's abandoning what you have now and you just lose everything.

Keep what you have,

Whatever state you're in,

And go into it.

Even if you're restless,

Go into the restless.

Don't try and get rid of it.

If you're tired and sleepy,

Don't try and get rid of the sleepiness or the tiredness.

Go right into the centre of it.

There you will find the next stage.

Okay.

So that's a little teaching about the Thousand Petal Lotus Simile.

Just to say again,

A few people came in after I started,

If you come for the beginning meditation session,

When you haven't meditated before,

The introduction class I should say,

That's being held in the room to my right.

This is the ongoing class,

So I go into more depth of meditation.

This is more for the addicts.

These are only for those who are just starting and testing it out.

I should have called it that,

The addict meditation class.

Okay,

So now we can actually start.

So if you want to get yourselves comfortable first of all,

And just move around,

Fidget a little bit.

So we're going to start in about ten seconds' time.

Very good.

So close the eyes.

The eyes being closed keeps it more simple,

Just like we try and keep quiet,

So the sounds don't need to be processed.

We sit still so the feelings in the body can relax,

Simplify the sensory input as much as possible.

So with the eyes closed,

You can become aware of your physical feelings in the body.

This Outermost Petal of your Lotus,

Your body.

Be aware of it,

And now add the kindness.

It's like the sun has risen,

It's not that warm yet,

But it's light.

Light enough as you're aware of your body to start the kindness.

Relax your body with kindness as much as you can.

Like having a child,

Their bedtime,

You've got to settle them to go to sleep.

If you have a child and you grab it by the throat and threaten it,

Go to sleep or else your child will be awake for hours.

You probably go to jail as well.

So you stroke the child's hair,

You're kind to the child,

You speak very softly to your kid,

And then the child settles into a sleep so you're free.

It's what you're doing to your physical body,

Settling it down,

Soothing it,

Making sure it's comfortable,

Tucking it in,

As it were,

In your meditation posture.

It's like the sun has risen,

It's not that warm yet,

But it's light enough as you're aware of your body.

Be aware of it,

And now add the kindness.

Be aware of your body as Just being aware and kind to your body.

When the body is relaxed enough,

It does disappear.

You become aware of your mental world,

Which is inside your body.

That's a good enough metaphor.

In your mental world,

You have pains of the past,

Hard memories.

You've also got these very solid fears of the future,

These anxiety balls.

If you see an anxiety ball really hard,

See if you can soften it with kindness.

You're not trying to get rid of things.

You're trying to be aware and being kind.

The same way you can soften a physical pain in the body.

You can soften with kindness,

Fears for the future,

And hard,

Dark memories of the past.

Soften them,

Melt them,

Dilute them with compassion.

And your whole effort is to maintain the awareness and the kindness and nothing else.

When the past and the future are softened enough,

The mind will quite naturally,

Automatically come into the present moment.

It's right in the middle of this thing we call our life,

Our time,

Right now.

And if there's still some softening to be done of the past or the future,

Then let the past come in,

Soften it some more before you go into the moment.

Soften the past,

Soften it some more,

And then let the past come in.

And then let the past come in.

And then let the past come in.

In the middle of the present moment,

Just allow the mind to go right into the centre of the moment,

Happens naturally,

Just with awareness and kindness.

Being kind to whatever you're experiencing now,

You tend to centre.

So you get very still.

No need to give things a name.

No need to describe things.

No need to note them down in your memory book in your head.

Just trust in silence.

You learn more in silence than you do through thinking.

All wisdom arises from a quiet,

Peaceful mind,

Not from thought.

So trust in a mind which is empty of all words.

And then let the past come in.

And then let the past come in.

And then let the past come in.

And always having the attitude of going in with awareness and kindness,

All the way through.

I will start speaking now.

Thank you.

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Thank you.

Getting close to the end of the meditation now.

Then open your eyes here.

How do you feel?

How deep into the lotus did you go?

What's it like in there?

How do you feel right now?

What's it like close to the end of the meditation?

How do you feel?

Now go into the gong three times.

Please keep your eyes closed until the last ringing vanishes.

Allow the ringing of the gong to draw you out of meditation back into the world.

There we go.

So the end of the class.

We usually have the opportunities for questions about special meditation.

Are there any questions from here before we get the questions from overseas?

Just waiting for the overseas questions.

Some of these questions come from a long way so they take a long while to get here.

Where have we got them today?

Two questions.

USA and Canada.

Okay,

North East.

Okay,

Now this is not so much the meditation,

But how do you explain dreams in terms of the five aggregates of beings,

The Buddhist concept of the body or forms,

Feelings,

Perceptions,

Things like thoughts and will and consciousnesses.

Most of the time they are so illogical.

Does a dream stop once the mind has experienced jhanas?

Okay,

Dreams is just a state of low mindfulness when one is dreaming.

One is sort of aware but not strongly aware and because one isn't really aware it means that the controller which stops you thinking stupid thoughts is not there.

So you can think of almost anything when you are dreaming.

And because for those of you who are strict Buddhists,

For those of you who worry about the karma of dreams,

If in a dream you dream of killing Ajahn Brahm and just doing all sorts of stupid things,

You are not karma at all because there is no real intention or awareness there.

So they are illogical because they just go to see a psychologist to know what dreams are all about.

It's just old unfinished business.

Do they stop once the mind has experienced jhanas?

Jhanas come,

Jhanas go.

These are the deep meditations.

After jhanas happen,

The deep meditation,

It's unlikely you will dream very much.

And if there are any dreams,

They will be very positive and very powerful.

They don't stop.

And from Canada,

Even after listening to you for the past ten years,

I'm not convinced about karma and rebirth.

I see the benefits of meditation and karma in the mind of being able to live a better life.

But I'm not convinced that this practice will lead to the cessation of rebirth.

Please comment because of this I'm not able to give my 100% to the practice.

I'm not quite sure what you mean there,

Whether you understand that rebirth is a fact.

I know that many people,

This is a meditation class,

Not a Dharma class,

But nevertheless a question has been raised,

Is many people sometimes doubt the existence of reincarnation.

That's very much because the materialists are pushed from modern science.

And if anyone is interested,

I want an excellent book to read,

And I asked Paul to read this one,

It's Rupert Sheldrake,

Professor Rupert Sheldrake,

He was an ex-professor from Cambridge,

I think still is a professor from Cambridge,

Wrote the wonderful book,

The Science Delusion,

Where he made a very good distinction between the scientific method,

Which is a Buddhist,

We always agree to,

Which is challenging everything,

Making sure everything is evidence-based.

And the scientific dogma,

Which is,

And this is an ex-scientist from Cambridge,

Theoretical physics,

I would have met for sure Stephen Hawkins,

When I was young,

He was in the same department,

But he wasn't,

Sort of in a wheelchair then.

I certainly went to his same teacher,

Same lecturer,

Professor Sharma.

But anyway,

As a scientist myself,

I know that science can be so dogmatic,

Basically refusing to follow the science method of facing the evidence.

And a very,

Very clear area of that is the nature of consciousness,

Which is a scandal,

I go so far to say,

That science is just so closed,

So narrow-minded,

Will not even consider hard,

Well-researched,

Rigorous evidence from people like Professor Ian Stevenson,

Who did brilliant work on people who had spontaneous recollection of previous lives,

Checked it out,

Watertight,

Could not have got the information of many where else accurate,

Proven,

That people have been reborn before.

And the other one is Professor Pim Van Lommel,

L for London,

O double M for Malaysia,

E L for London,

Who did ground-breaking research on near-death experiences,

The old experiences of people having an accident on their operating table,

Leaving their body floating above the ground,

Being able to see and hear real conversation which actually happened at a time when their brain was so dysfunctional it was clinically dead.

So it could not have been,

The consciousness could not have been by any stretch of logic to be brain generated.

So because of this,

There's very strong evidence that rebirth is a fact.

In fact,

A little interesting piece of information,

I think it was about 500 and something,

There was an emperor,

I think it was a Roman emperor,

He jailed the pope,

Put the pope in jail for one year because he wanted to make the Catholic pope sort of agree to make the idea of reincarnation a heresy.

And the pope refused,

Refused to make it a heresy.

Basically the pope at that time,

500 AD,

Believed in reincarnation.

And the pope was actually Justinian was the pope,

Sorry Justinian was the emperor,

Phidulus was the pope who got put in jail.

And one year later,

Justinian,

He convened an ecumenical council and declared that reincarnation is a heresy in the Catholic Church.

It wasn't the pope's fault,

It was the Roman emperors got involved and used their power,

Put the pope in jail for a year.

Basically say if you don't follow what I say,

I don't care,

You may be in contact with God,

But you know I've got more power than you have.

You may be infallible,

But I'm omnipotent as the Roman emperors used to be.

So it was there in Western culture for so many years,

And that's actually how it got stopped.

But I'm not quite sure if that's what you meant.

Or whether you meant about the meditation leading to the cessation of rebirth,

Which probably it is.

And the reason it does work,

You have to get into a jhana first,

Paul.

It's not just living a better life,

You have to really,

Really get deep.

When you get deep into meditation,

Here we go,

This is one of my best similes,

When you get deep into meditation your body vanishes,

Which many of you have experienced,

Your hands going,

You've been sitting there and you can't feel the body,

Even you can't hear things,

The sound vanishes.

And basically the whole five senses vanish.

Once you get into those stages I mentioned,

You see the lights,

Those nimittas,

Already you are a long way away from your five senses.

When you get into the jhanas,

You cannot feel anything.

Even if somebody taps you on the shoulders,

You will not feel that.

If you hear the bells go,

You will not notice the bells going.

The five senses of seeing,

Hearing,

Smelling,

Touching have stopped.

You don't need to be afraid,

It's very healthy,

Incredibly safe.

Many people have got great healing experiences,

Even going into nimitta stages,

Or the jhana stages,

And sicknesses vanish.

There's powerful experiences.

But the most important thing about these jhanas is that when you come out afterwards,

You are incredibly clear,

Your mindfulness is very,

Very strong,

Like super power,

What you see,

You can see so deeply.

You realise what the difference is between being awake and being asleep.

Please,

I don't mean to demean anybody,

But most people live in a half sleep in their world,

And suddenly they come awake,

Really alive,

After these big jhanas.

You really are seeing things for the first time.

And that is one of the reasons in Buddhism,

The five hindrances have been abandoned,

Stopped for a long period of time.

With those five hindrances gone,

Because of the jhanas,

Because of deep meditation,

That's when you can see deeply.

And what you really see,

What's really important,

If ever you have any of these meditations,

Don't just look back and think what had happened,

What was there.

Ask the question what was missing,

What had disappeared.

Because that is the sort of question which you really start to get deep insight from.

And the simile is the simile of the tadpole.

Once there was a little tadpole who was born in a little lake behind a Buddhist temple.

And the little tadpole,

She grew up,

And as she grew up she went to tadpole school,

Grade one,

Grade two,

Even to tadpole high school,

Where she majored in chemistry.

And there was a little university in the lake where she also did a degree with honours in chemistry.

And in that sort of school she learned all about what water is,

H2O,

And just even the way the molecules of water are actually all put together.

And she knew all about water,

So she thought.

But how can a tadpole really know what water is?

No more than a fish can know what water is.

Born in the water,

Lived all its life in the water,

Swam in the water,

Slept in the water,

How on earth can a fish know what water is?

The difference between a fish and a tadpole though,

Is one day a little tadpole,

She grew some legs and arms.

She changed.

She became a frog.

And one day the frog,

She didn't know what she was doing,

Just playing around,

Experimenting,

And she jumped out of the lake.

And when she jumped out of the lake,

That was weird,

That was strange.

She'd never had any experience like that in her life before.

Something was missing.

Something which had always been there,

From the earliest times you can remember,

Had now vanished.

Water.

Now,

Tadpoles become a frog,

Now can understand what water is.

The thing which had disappeared.

And from the poor from Canada,

Once you get into those jhanas and come out afterwards,

You'll notice there are things which have disappeared,

Which have always been there,

Every moment of your life,

And you haven't got a clue what they are until they've vanished.

No more than you can know what water is when you're a fish.

Things which disappear,

Your body,

Even doctors have no clue what a body is.

They can dissect it,

They can know the parts of it,

But they don't really know because they've lived in a body all their life,

That's all they know.

Five senses,

Seeing,

Hearing,

Smelling,

Tasting,

Touching.

Do you really know what they are?

You assume they do.

That's the problem,

The assumptions,

But one day they totally disappear,

And then you can understand.

Now even more interesting stuff,

This is where I sometimes give people sleepless nights,

Your will,

The thing which made you come here,

Your choice,

The thing which is behind every action.

Have you any understanding what that is?

Of course you don't,

Because every moment you can remember the will has always been there for you.

Like a fish living in water,

You swum and lived and breathed with your will at your command.

When you go into the Jhanas,

That disappears,

That vanishes.

Now you know what that is,

And that will shock you,

Because that's nothing to do with you,

Just a process,

Not you at all.

It vanishes,

It's not important.

You see it as an enemy,

Not as a friend.

You all believe that your will can actually help you.

Many people come to a temple like this trying to make their will smarter,

Not realising that it is the enemy,

Stops you being peaceful,

Stops you being free.

But you all believe your will belongs to you.

It doesn't.

Of course,

You can't see that just because I say.

It's just like me teaching a fish,

Hey fish,

Water's wet.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

You monks should get a life.

What do you know about water?

This is what happens,

It's because of that you get enlightened.

When you realise that it has nothing to do with you,

You have nothing to do with it anymore,

Therefore you can be so still,

You can let it go.

Stop craving,

Stop will,

And you stop rebirth.

For those of you who know,

I'm just going to go for a bloke here,

Because it's on the internet.

Sankara Nirodha,

Vijnana Nirodha,

Dependent origination,

Patitra Samuppada.

From the cessation of will,

Consciousness stops.

Second and third link of dependent origination,

Patitra Samuppada,

From the Pali,

Core teachings of the Buddha.

But,

Today we just talked about meditation,

How to be still and peaceful.

But I had to answer the question,

And hopefully Paul could realise,

That if you give it 100%,

In other words you let go totally,

100%,

The jhānas will happen,

Your will will vanish,

And much of your idea of what consciousness is,

And who you are,

Will be seen to be just an illusion.

When there's no one there,

Then you can let go totally,

And end being reborn.

Anyway,

Convinced or not convinced,

I've done my job.

Any questions?

Okay,

So let's finish off for today,

And we can just pay respects to Buddha,

Dhamma,

And Sangha.

Thank you for the questions from overseas.

Reviews

Ajahn Brahm is a one-of-a-kind teacher! What a lovely session 🙏🏼 I’m so grateful for the Thai Forest Meditation Tradition 🧘‍♂️ and for having his meditations/talks here on Insight Timer
Thank you for creating this teacher profile 😌

I hear you.

❤️🙏🏻

Great guided meditation & talk. Looking forward to going deeper.

Kindness
Appreciate the additional suggested readings. Thank you

Oh my goodness, in some 20 years of exploring meditation no one ever explained it to me like you have. This is beautiful and inspiring me to go about things differently. Very grateful 🙏

Comprehensive and very well paced and structured. I look forward to going along this series for addicts.

I am grateful _/|\_. Thank you so much Bhante and Admin.

Ajahn Brahm meditation class gave me more clarity and calmness. Very long session compared to what I usually did, but the guidance was very helpful. Lots of great insights I have learned from this class.

This is so powerful:

Open Door Policy of the Heart

When you have an open door policy, you should know, the door is Open for the Good Things to flow in, and it is also open for the good things to flow out. Let Go of the wants and desires, be Open and Kind to your body and mind, let go of the control will give you true PEACE.

Thank you 🙏💝

Amazing! Wonderful wonderful practice and lessons and talk. I will definitely come back for more. Many thanks and much Metta to you. ☮️💖🙏