Day 013/365: Guided Meditation | Ajahn Brahm

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

Transcript

To happy hour at the Buddhist centre in Nollamaa.

Because meditation is the happiest hour you can possibly spend.

And also,

I have to keep mentioning anybody coming to the Introduction to Meditation class,

Which is the 4 lessons,

One after the other,

Where you learn the basics of meditation.

That class is being conducted in the room to my right.

This is the ongoing class for those who have been meditating before.

So,

Here we go,

People are coming in,

Very good.

So,

Please take a seat.

So this is the ongoing class,

We sit for about 40 minutes.

And one of the things which somebody was saying earlier about having big egos,

Being a control freak,

This is just the place if anybody is a control freak,

Is big ego.

Because if you try to do things like that here,

You'll find you get more and more frustrated and tense.

Because you never get success in meditation by controlling and by doing things.

This is where you learn that such actions don't work in the realm of meditation.

The only thing which does work is to relax and actually not to do things.

It's one of the little teachings I'm going to be focusing on this morning,

The understanding of the ways of meditation is the idea of the two halves to the human mind.

The first half is the doing mind,

The one which always wants to control,

Make things happen,

And just to try and get this happening in meditation,

That happening in meditation,

It is that part of the mind which thinks,

Which works out problems,

Which plans for the future,

And which initiates actions,

It is the doing mind.

And that type of mind is just half of the human mind,

The other half of the human mind is what we call just the being mind,

Which just is,

It just knows,

It can hear,

It can see,

It can feel,

But it doesn't react,

It's a passive part of the mind,

Whereas the doing is the active part of the mind.

So if you can understand those two parts of the mind,

Then you'll also understand what we're actually doing in meditation.

We are stopping,

Just restraining the doing mind,

We're not planning anything,

We're not fixing up problems in this part of the meditation,

We're not here to work out the meaning of life,

That's too much activities.

Even thinking,

We learn how to calm our mind down so much that thoughts don't arise inside of it,

Because the basic underlying stratum of the mind is very,

Very peaceful.

So,

If we can lessen the doer,

In other words,

We let things be,

We let it go,

We're peaceful,

We're calm,

We don't do much,

We are kind and accepting,

Which means that there's nothing much which is a problem which we have to fix up,

We do less.

And when we're calm,

We do less,

We find all the energy which would have been used up by our mind in doing stuff can now go to the knower.

We just are aware.

When awareness gets stronger and stronger,

It builds up in intensity,

Simply because you're not wasting it on doing things.

When I just came back from Singapore,

I used a simile,

Just it might be that your internet quota for the month is used up,

Which means that it's very hard to download anything,

Just information just dribbles into the computer.

But that's just like all of your mental energy,

Your mental energy quota is used up by doing stuff,

Which means you're tired,

You can't even think of anything,

You can't know,

You're dull and depressed.

But if we stop downloading all of those movies,

Then all that energy which would have been used in downloading all this really heavy stuff,

Now can go into the important stuff,

Which means into the knower.

The knower starts to receive the energy and starts to brighten up.

We simply can be mindful more deeply,

More powerfully.

This is what's happening in meditation.

It is like we wake up.

The awareness,

The mindfulness,

It's when you're very dull,

Sleepy,

You've got low mindfulness.

In this part of your life,

It's just what you got used to,

You think this is ordinary mindfulness,

But this is still a low power.

And because we don't do anything in meditation,

Energy starts to flow into knowing.

And mind,

If you wake up,

The mind becomes very powerful,

Which means that what you see and what you hear is very rich.

This is what happens.

If you have a really nice meditation,

Afterwards you'll be surprised.

Just you go outside and the leaves are greener than ever before,

The sky is bluer and even just feeling the wind on your face,

It's electric,

You can feel it so fully,

You haven't dulled out.

What is happening is you're coming into reality,

Your senses are becoming alive.

And if you have something to eat afterwards,

The food is really delicious,

Simply because the mind has woken up.

And many times that's happened to me in meditation.

Many times,

One of the first times,

Even one of the first retreats I did,

I actually practiced,

I wasn't teaching it,

I was still a lay person,

44 years ago or something.

And I went on this retreat and we were allowed to go on a walk for one hour a day,

Otherwise it's meditating all day.

And I went to the Cambridge Botanical Gardens and it was only 5 minutes from the retreat centre.

And there at the entrance to the gardens,

I was supposed to go there for exercise,

Was this clump of bamboo and as soon as I entered the gardens,

I couldn't walk any further,

Because that bamboo was spectacular.

I don't know if you've ever seen Chinese water colours,

But they always have bamboo in it somewhere,

Simply because the way that slender pole of bamboo just tapers and bends,

It's just sensuous.

And even the leaves,

Not like fat,

Just like the leaves on the trees outside,

They're very thin,

Slender,

Going to a point,

And the colours in the stem,

The yellows and the greens,

Just the way it blends together,

It's actually beautiful.

And this morning,

That clump of bamboo was one of the most beautiful I'd ever seen.

And I stood there transfixed,

Looking at it.

And I was self-conscious enough to know that if I'd carried on standing there,

I'd already stood there,

Just staring for 15 minutes,

Any longer someone would see me and call the ambulance to take me away to the funny farm,

Simply because you're not supposed to do things like that in a place like England.

So there was a bench and I sat down and stared at that beautiful clump of bamboo for about 50 minutes,

Until I had to go back for breakfast.

I was a young man and breakfast to young men are really important.

So I went there the next day and the next day for 8 days,

I literally stared at this most incredible piece of bamboo,

The most beautiful bamboo I've ever seen in my whole life.

And then the retreat ended.

A few weeks later,

I had an afternoon when I had no studies to do,

And I thought,

I'm going to go and have a look at that really beautiful bamboo.

I got on my bicycle and cycled through the busy traffic,

Found my way to the entrance of the botanical gardens.

With high expectation and excitement,

I saw the bench and saw that clump of bamboo,

The most pathetic bamboo I've ever seen in my life,

Dry,

Desiccated,

It's just bamboo in an English climate,

It's not supposed to grow in places like that.

And I thought,

Where's my most beautiful bamboo gone?

I realised it was because my mindfulness had gone.

It was back to its ordinary level of dullness.

It hadn't got that edge when you become awake,

Alert,

And can see beauty where others can't.

So this is one of the things which happens in meditation,

When you start to calm the mind down,

Which means you're not doing anything,

You're not controlling,

You're not thinking,

You're not giving plans,

You're not saying where you're going to go and how you're going to get there,

Which all wastes so much mental energy.

You're just still,

Just watching,

Just aware,

Without reacting.

And the awareness grows and grows and grows,

And the mindfulness starts to become really powerful.

And then when you come out afterwards,

You open your eyes,

And this old carpet which has been in here since we built this place,

I think this is still the same carpet,

Isn't it,

Rodney?

What's it,

25,

30 years?

And you look at it,

Wow,

That's incredible.

Have you seen all the colours in the carpet?

Incredible number of colours in there.

You can't see it now,

When the mind wakes up.

Wow!

And I can't resist.

I was trying to resist telling my story about when I was on a meditation,

Teaching a meditation retreat down at Jhana Grove.

I tell this to the monks,

I tell it on retreats.

I was meditating,

It's a nice meditation,

As well as teaching.

One afternoon I got a very deep meditation.

When I came out,

My mind was so awake,

So wonderfully alert,

That I walked out,

The reason I got out of meditation was because I had to go to the toilet,

To do what they call a number 2.

And afterwards I made a big mistake.

My mistake was I looked inside the toilet bowl.

Wow!

I've never seen in my whole life such a beautiful piece of shit.

Now you may think this is funny,

But have you ever with mindfulness really strong,

Seen the different shades of brown?

It's not just brown,

There's a whole artist's palettes of brown,

Dark browns,

Light browns in the middles,

And the way it's all put together is like some Picasso painting.

And then the shape of it,

These are just balls and they're stuck together like a statue.

And just the way that the colour and the form all interacted,

It was incredible.

And as I often say,

There's always some tiny little bit of mucus on there somewhere,

Which makes it glisten like a diamond,

Like a gem in the water.

And then,

And then I started to notice the aroma that was rich,

Earthy,

Full,

Not like these ladies' scents these days.

This is really rich and earthy,

Really just,

And I was really just blowing my mind on this.

And I told people in Singapore just a couple of days ago and I have to be honest with you,

This did happen,

I really thought for a few seconds of picking up and showing it to my friends.

But,

But,

It's because as a monk,

I've trained for so many years in renunciation,

In letting go.

It's only because I had a lot of training in letting go I could actually do it.

It was very hard,

It was very difficult.

I had to turn my eyes away as I pressed the button.

And the most beautiful bit of shit I've ever seen in my whole life,

Left my life forever.

I was grieving for,

No,

I wasn't really grieving,

I let it go.

But it was an incredible experience and that's true,

Okay,

It's a bit of a gross story.

But it just shows how your mindfulness,

When you're very still,

You don't do anything,

It increases.

You wake up and you get this wonderful feeling of just being able to look at anything,

It's beautiful,

It's deep,

You start to see things you've never seen before.

Insights start to arise.

And the other thing,

Everything you look at is beautiful.

Now imagine if a piece of,

You know what,

In a toilet bowl looks beautiful.

Imagine what your grandmother must look like.

Anything,

You have natural happiness,

Positive mind from learning how to be still and getting the mindfulness strong.

Oh,

You want to say,

Be positive,

Be positive.

But you know,

It really makes you negative trying to be positive all the time.

So this is how it really works,

So still,

So peaceful,

Mindfulness strong.

And then,

Wow,

You actually do see life in a different way,

Beautiful,

Positive and happy.

Just one of the many benefits of meditation.

And it also indicates what we're doing and why.

Why are we not supposed to concentrate and put forth too much effort?

That just tires the mind out.

We need to relax and let it be.

And then the mind wakes up,

It's powerful,

And amazing things happen.

So that's the promise,

Let's deliver.

So if you haven't yet,

Please get yourself in a meditation posture.

A chair is fine,

Cushions are great,

Leaning against the wall is also okay.

Wherever you can find a comfortable position for your body.

So here we go.

I should make the announcement again just in case any late-comers.

This is the ongoing meditation class.

If you come for the Introduction to Meditation class,

A series of four lessons.

For those who haven't meditated before,

The Introduction to Meditation class is in the room to my right.

Because now we're going to meditate for about 40-45 minutes.

And if you haven't sat there long before,

It's going to be torture.

So,

Sitting down,

Close your eyes.

And start to notice this thing we call mindfulness awareness.

And focus it on your body.

Just to feel the sensations in the body,

Especially if there's any pressure,

Any aches,

Pains anywhere.

Move the body.

Adjust the legs.

Cough,

Sneeze,

Scratch.

Just move the body around,

Loosen the shoulders.

Make sure your arms and hands are in a comfortable position.

For the first two or three minutes,

With the eyes closed,

We learn how to get the body into a good position.

In every meditation,

Your posture can be different.

You are aware of the needs of the moment which weren't there yesterday.

And adjusting your body accordingly.

.

And once you think that your body is comfortable,

Think again.

You can always make it more comfortable,

More relaxed.

See if you can find tight places in your body.

It may be an irritation,

A headache,

And even a pain somewhere.

You can be aware of the most irritating sensation in your body right now.

Don't move away from it,

Move into it,

Be aware.

Because once you have awareness of that irritating,

Tense,

Tight place in your body,

You have the ability through feedback to relax it.

What do you need to do to bring that tension into relaxation,

That pain into ease?

And you'll find letting it be,

Being kind,

Opening the door of your heart to this sensation,

As it is,

Not trying to change it.

That is what relaxes and eases.

And kindness soothes the irritation away.

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.

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Keep being aware until you relax that part of your body so deeply,

The awareness allows you to get feedback.

You can see the level of relaxation increasing and increasing,

You can feel it.

And you learn how to relax,

Just one part of the body after another.

Until your body feels the delight of relaxation,

One of the nicest subtle pleasures of a body which feels so at ease,

No tightness anywhere.

If there is still some tightness,

Be aware and learn how to relax it.

Sometimes it's trial and error.

But being aware of your level of ease gives you the opportunity to see what you need to do to relax every last tightness and tension in your body away.

By relaxing your body through being aware of the feelings,

Straight away you are coming into this present moment.

Because physical feelings only live in the present.

And you are taking away,

Taking your attention away from thinking into feeling,

Into the real world of being with the experience of your own body instead of just thinking about it.

This is reality.

And if it's the sound of the silence,

Be aware of that sound without reacting.

Just sound and it stops.

Once the body is relaxed,

Then you can put your awareness onto your inner world,

Your mind.

Too often we are caught up with thinking and planning and remembering.

See if you can notice how you feel inside your mind right now,

Especially how tense you are or how relaxed.

Be mindful of the tension meter inside your mind.

Just like on the dashboard of a car,

There are many dials giving you rolling information on the temperature of your engine,

The speed,

The amount of fuel in the car.

There is a dial I'd like you to be aware of,

Your tension slash relaxation meter.

Where is that?

And how tense or how relaxed are you?

And more importantly,

What do you need to do to bring that dial,

That meter,

Down into deeper and deeper relaxation in your mind?

Letting all the tightness inside,

All the wounds of the past,

All the future trying to drag you off into planning and worrying,

All that tension and tightness.

See if you can allow it to relax.

Being so calm that you don't need to think.

Hearing the sounds,

Knowing the feelings,

Just knowing the mind before the thoughts arise.

And as you do relax your mind,

Like you relax the body,

You find doing things,

Thinking,

Planning,

Commentating,

Working out problems,

That just agitates the mind,

Gives you more suffering.

Now is the time to let go.

And little by little your awareness gets stronger and more able to see things inside of yourself that you've never seen before.

As it gets stronger,

There's a delight,

A pleasure,

Of a happy peaceful mind.

And the longer you practice like this,

The more the energy builds and builds,

And happiness comes,

Deep happiness.

Being able to hear a thousand sounds in the blowing of the wind,

Full,

Rich.

As you notice the relaxation meter in your mind,

Show you're getting more and more calm,

More peaceful.

The more calm and peaceful you become,

You may notice the less you think,

The less you need to.

And as the mind becomes content in the present moment,

When the mindfulness increases,

You may be able to be aware of your breathing.

Naturally,

I don't need to tell you where or how.

You relax deeper with your breathing.

I'm now going to be quiet until a couple of minutes before the end of the meditation.

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How much mindfulness have you developed?

How still,

Quiet have you been?

I'm going to ring the gong three times.

After the third ringing of the gong,

Will you open your eyes?

For an experiment,

Have a look at the carpet.

If you kept your eyes closed all this time,

You may see so much more in it than you've ever seen before.

Very good.

Okay,

Now many of you know this afternoon session is usually stream live,

So you should get some questions from people overseas who have been logging in.

So let's see what we have from overseas.

The questions on meditation,

Thank you.

Yes,

We've got from Belgium and Germany.

First of all,

When one meditates and eventually attains enlightenment in a Theravada Buddhist tradition,

Does this attainment equal to the attainment of the enlightenment in Zen Buddhism?

One,

Because Zen Buddhism includes the practice of kong an,

Those are the koan's,

Or the questions which people keep asking.

These Zen Buddhist monks which we know very well in our tradition come from Korea.

I've been over to see them and they've spent months here in Perth and they have been practicing the koan type of meditation.

It's almost,

It's very,

It's actually quite fierce as they explained it to me.

They have to keep repeating this question until it's almost like the brain fuses and then they have a moment of insight.

But for many actually,

You do that for years.

And they don't seem to be having too much of a success according to what the Korean monks say.

This is one of the reasons why they've been travelling to Burma and Thailand and also here to Australia,

To see other ways of meditating.

And I really like what's happening here,

Also that Theravada Buddhist enlightenment,

Zen Buddhist enlightenment,

Basically from what I've heard,

This is a calmer,

More peaceful way of doing it,

An easier way as well.

But basically I only know my own experiences.

I do remember the times in Zen monasteries and I love telling the stories of when they come around with the big stick.

I've never seen a documentary of the old Zen monasteries,

Rinzai especially.

I think in some sort of do it as well.

They meditate with your eyes open,

Facing the wall and the teacher comes around with the big Zen stick.

And if you're a little bit sleepy,

Whack,

On your back.

I went to a Zen retreat when I was,

Was it 22,

No 21,

22.

The only sort of monastery where I was living at the time.

And they had this Zen master who came around with the stick early on a Saturday morning.

I was sleepy too,

But I always say I had some very good karma from the past because I never got hit with the stick.

Because the guy sitting next to me got hit,

Whack!

And all my sleepiness suddenly disappeared.

I was replaced by fear.

I wasn't even told I was going to be hit by that.

Sadly,

Really terrible.

That put me a bit off the aggression of forces then.

But,

You know,

It worked for some people.

So basically from Germany,

I have to say I only know my own experience.

So I cannot say enlightenment is equivalent or not.

Don't know.

So the enlightenment is just you get so incredibly still.

Okay,

Here we go.

I usually tell these stories in meditation retreats,

Not on a Saturday afternoon,

How it works.

Okay,

So when you get very,

Very still and calm,

Relaxed,

You notice as well as mindfulness increasing and lots of happiness,

Things start to disappear and vanish.

You will notice this in small ways,

That you're meditating and you can't feel your hands or your legs or your body.

It starts to disappear.

Why does that happen?

It's because you are still and the brain only notices things which move.

In that Zen monastery I went to,

I had one really interesting experience.

Sitting there in the morning when I wasn't afraid of the stick,

Just relaxing,

And then you're supposed to keep your eyes open,

Watching this wall,

White washed wall,

And after about 15 minutes,

The wall vanished.

It can only do this if you're not thinking.

So my mind was silent enough,

Trained enough just to be,

Sit there and just be still,

And then the wall vanished.

It wasn't there anymore.

I thought,

Wow,

This is weird.

But remember this was the early 70s when weird stuff was cool.

You weren't afraid of it anymore.

You just thought,

Wow,

This is interesting.

So,

Anyway,

Afterwards I was afraid to learn that.

What happened?

It was quite sort of natural.

Your brain,

Especially the sense of sight,

Only notices things which move,

Which change.

Your brain is very,

Very efficient.

If nothing moves,

It turns off.

Again,

The other computer simile.

If you don't click the mouse,

After a while,

Even the screen shaver turns off.

It goes blank,

Nothing's happening.

The brain is like that too.

So,

If there's nothing happening,

Sense of sight turns off.

I also recognize,

Hey,

That happens all the time when I close my eyes.

If you close your eyes,

The first thing you notice when you close your eyes is the inside of your eyelids.

But that doesn't move,

It's not important,

So the sense of sight turns off.

We try and sit in a reasonably quiet place.

So the hearing shuts down.

Smell,

Taste.

As long as people haven't been eating too many beans this morning,

The sense of smell soon turns off.

I always say this to people,

If you do have trouble with wind,

Please sit in the back of the meditation hall,

So this leaves people behind you.

I know you know why some people always sit in the back.

So anyway,

The sense of touch,

Physical touch,

That's the hardest one to turn off.

Because there's always some feeling in the body,

But you sit comfortably and still you relax,

Which is why I really focus on relaxing the body in the beginning.

And then most of the body vanishes,

Leaving only your breathing.

Ahhhh,

Ahhhhh,

Ahhhhh,

That's always moving.

But what happens is because you're being pretty still,

And you're not thinking especially,

Because thinking takes energy and that uses up oxygen,

Which means you have to breathe quite a lot.

If you're not even thinking,

You're really still,

Your brain is calm and your body's not moving.

You don't need so much oxygen,

Which means naturally your body compensates by breathing really lightly.

And when you're very quiet inside your brain,

It's incredibly light.

So light is the breathing that it vanishes too.

And with it,

Your body is gone.

It vanishes,

Disappears.

And the next thing which happens,

Well I'll just go on a few steps,

But the next thing happens because you're very content and happy,

Because you don't need anything,

You don't want anything.

Other things start to vanish,

Such as your will disappears,

Because it's not moving.

What has happened is your heart will disappear.

When things vanish,

Then you know what they really are.

This is my famous simile of the tadpole and the frog.

A tadpole grew up in the water,

Lived all its life in water,

Can never know what water is.

It can study water,

It can go to lectures on water,

It can do experiments on water in Tadpole University,

But a tadpole will never understand what water is,

No more than a fish can.

One day,

Tadpole grows legs and arms,

And tadpole jumps out of the pond,

And something which has always been there is missing.

Something it just took for granted,

It couldn't even perceive before because it was always there.

Water,

Now it's gone.

Now the tadpole can understand what water is,

There's a frog now,

Outside of the lake.

Then you can understand what these things are.

So,

Even if you are professor of anatomy,

Even if you are the coroner who keeps cutting up bodies in autopsies,

Do you really know what the body is?

Do you really know what seeing,

Hearing,

Smelling,

Tasting,

Touching are?

You may think you do,

But you don't,

Because they've always been there.

When they vanish,

Then you know what they are,

And it shocks you.

You get insight into the nature of your body.

And if your will vanishes,

Then you understand what is this thing which you think is yours,

The controller,

The thing which you cherish.

And so many people come to places like this,

Not only to understand their will,

But to train it to be smarter,

Thinking if I can learn all the tricks from these monks,

Then my will won't make bad decisions,

Only good ones.

Ha ha ha.

You find out what the will really is,

And when you find out these things,

Then through those incredible insights,

Then this is the thing we call Buddhist enlightenment.

When everything vanishes,

What's left?

As my master used to say,

Ajahnjaya,

Nothing,

There's nothing.

And he'd ask me,

Do you understand?

And I said yes,

And he would answer,

No you don't.

Now from Belgium.

Whenever I try,

From the moment I start meditation,

I get very tired and fall asleep.

It's the only because of tiredness or other possible causes.

Usually tiredness is the number one cause.

People are very tired,

They don't rest enough,

When they do go to bed they don't know how to sleep.

They worry,

They dream,

They're restless,

They take all the problems of the day before into bed with them,

And they also tell you what hasn't happened tomorrow,

You're concerned into bed,

And of course they don't sleep very well.

Even when they go to work,

They don't know how to work efficiently,

You keep pushing yourself all the time,

When you're tired you don't take a rest.

And you've heard me say so many times,

That if the glass of water,

Or the bottle of water,

The longer you hold it,

The heavier it feels,

If when it gets too heavy to hold comfortably,

You just put it down and rest for a few seconds,

When you pick it up afterwards it's light again,

It's not because of the weight has changed,

Because you've rested it's easier to carry.

The stress of your work has got nothing to do with how much work you have to do,

It's because when it gets too heavy to do comfortably,

You don't know how to rest and relax.

Put it down for a few minutes.

What most people do when it gets too heavy,

It gets too difficult,

They keep pushing,

Pushing,

Pushing.

Now that is what really tires out people,

Which means that when they come home from work,

They're exhausted,

They've been pushing too hard.

And if you could only learn how to take a break,

When you're tired,

And then go back to the computer or the task,

When you go back again after a break,

You are efficient,

You get 3 hours work done in 2,

Basically you make time at the office at your work.

That's why I've been teaching that for years,

Harvard Business School took it on and calls it an investment of time.

Relaxing means you have more time to work for your employer.

You have to be more efficient and then you don't get so tired.

So please,

Learn how to work efficiently,

Use your brain efficiently,

You get more work done,

More productive,

Less tiredness.

Unfortunately people just keep pushing,

Pushing,

Pushing because they're control freaks.

You know how to do things,

We don't know how to put things down.

So here you learn how to do that,

You get less tired.

There's also sometimes the other problem with this sloth and torpor business,

We say you've been trying to meditate,

Now that's wrong from the start.

Don't try to meditate,

Just let go of trying.

The trying just,

You're already tired,

Meditation is another task you have to do,

Another job,

Another thing on the list you have to tick off.

That's the wrong attitude,

Meditation is relaxation,

It's time off,

It's not the usual thing you do in the world.

You get your degrees by working hard,

You know,

You just,

You get the dishes done by exercising your arms and doing it.

But meditation is totally different,

This is time to relax doing nothing,

Or rather nothing doing,

Relaxing.

And as I said in the beginning,

Mindfulness.

The more you do,

The less mindfulness you have.

When you stop doing things,

Let things be,

Relax,

The mindfulness starts increasing.

Soon you have to go through sleepiness,

But it doesn't matter,

Just be sleepy.

And soon that lifts and you're really aware,

The energies start to come up.

So one of the other reasons is,

You know,

Because sometimes when we start meditation,

It's also a bit of boredom,

Because we're not used to doing nothing.

Which is why many people say,

I'm meditating,

What should I do?

Give me something to do,

Anything to do.

Sometimes I'm just too soft and I give you something to do.

Watch your breath,

Breathing in peace,

Breathing out,

Letting go.

Yeah,

But it's best not to do anything.

Just to be,

Just to be.

What's wrong with being tired?

Just be tired.

Stop judging yourself.

Be stupid.

What's wrong with being stupid?

We stigmatise so much in this world,

We judge too hard.

So part of letting go is being non-judgmental,

Being,

Opening the door of your heart to anybody.

Not judging gays,

Not judging elderly people,

Not judging people with mental disabilities,

Not judging anybody.

And when you don't judge,

And you don't judge yourself,

When you don't judge yourself,

Honestly,

Do you really need to be improved?

Who said to you,

You're not good enough?

I really object to that.

You are good enough.

So,

Sit down and just relax.

This is not improving yourself,

It's actually stopping improving yourself.

You've been doing that all your life,

Since you went to school.

This is just being you,

Doing nothing,

Relaxing,

Just being.

And that's where you start to get peace.

And from Belgian,

Once you actually get through that sleepiness,

Then the mind,

Just be at peace with it.

It vanishes like the mist in the early morning.

And then you're really peaceful.

Don't do anything,

Keep being peaceful,

The energy builds up,

And then you really start flying.

Really happy,

Deep happiness in meditation.

So,

Just be with the tiredness for a while.

And the last little message which I often quote,

And this is directly from the early teachings of the Buddha.

This is for the person from Belgium.

In here,

It's in the Samyutta Nikaya,

If you want to look it up for yourself.

Authentic teachings of the original Buddha.

And the Buddha was going with his attendant monk,

Ananda.

And he saw a monk in the forest,

Sitting,

Perfect posture,

Full lotus,

Straight back,

Chin tucked in,

Eyes closed but not screwed up tightly,

A slight smile on his face,

His right hand over his left hand,

Thumbs just slightly touching,

Not even moving,

Perfect posture.

And the Buddha turned to his attendant Ananda and said,

I'm worried about that monk.

And sure enough,

Two weeks later,

That monk disrobed.

The same day,

Deep in the forest,

He saw another monk.

And that other monk was nodding.

He was half asleep.

His robe was probably half off,

His posture all over the place,

Nodding away.

And the Buddha turned to his attendant Ananda and smiled.

I'm not worried about him.

And two weeks later,

He became another one of the enlightened beings,

An arahant,

With all of the psychic powers as well.

So,

Caroline from Belgium,

If you get very tired and fall asleep,

Just wait for another couple of weeks.

Who knows?

You have a once.

But in that story,

Why was the Buddha worried about the monk who could sit perfectly still?

Because that was control freak.

You can do that.

Anyone can do that.

A bit of endurance,

A bit of force.

Even,

As I often mention,

Guards of Buckingham Palace can do that,

Stand perfectly still.

But I guarantee,

They are not enlightened.

The other monk was letting go.

Yeah,

He was letting go,

You fall asleep,

You go through the sleepy stage,

But after the sleepiness disappears,

Wow,

Now you're flying.

Really peaceful deep meditation,

Having a happy time.

Sometimes we need to go through that.

But it passes as long as you don't waste your mental energy,

Fighting it,

Judging it.

So,

Caroline from Belgium,

Well done for being sleepy.

In all the years I've been a teacher of meditation,

The sleepy people are no problem at all.

You shouldn't pass through it.

The problem meditators are those who keep thinking too much,

Who can't even fall asleep.

The restless ones.

So if you're one of those restless ones,

I'm just going to take you through the stages of sleepiness and dullness.

You're making progress.

Well done.

Okay,

Any comments from the floor from here?

Anyone have anything to say?

Really,

Nothing from here.

If any of you hear.

.

.

Sorry?

Oh,

Giggling,

Go for it.

If you feel like giggling,

Laughing,

Crying,

Sometimes that happens in the meditation because you're letting go.

Then some of these emotions are coming up and some of the things which are suppressed,

Which are,

Ooh,

I can't giggle in public,

I can't cry,

People will think about me,

Oh,

They won't think about you.

Just in this meditation,

If you feel like doing that,

Just go for it.

Sometimes people go crying.

There's this one guy,

I always remember this guy.

He came on a meditation retreat and after one or two days he started crying.

He came to me and he said,

What's happening?

And I asked him,

It's about in his mid 40s,

When was the last time you cried?

I was about 8 and my father told me the Australian boys don't cry,

Haven't cried since.

I told him,

You've got a lot of crying to catch up on.

He spent the rest of the retreat crying his eyes out.

6 or 7 days of lots of crying.

And afterwards,

How you doing?

He said,

I feel great,

I feel wonderful.

What a wonderful therapy that was.

See how controlled people are?

Guys,

Australian guys from the bush,

We're not allowed,

We don't cry.

That's girls crying,

Not men.

And this poor guy was so suppressed.

When he started to let go and be natured,

Oh,

He got his crying out of the way after a while.

And he was happy and peaceful.

So he said he was giggling,

If you need to giggle,

Go for it.

Okay,

So that's early,

Oh,

It's over 22 past now.

So let's now pay respects to Buddha Dhamma Sangha,

Those who want to,

Do a little bowing to exercise the tummy muscles and then we can do whatever we need to do.

Reviews

This guy makes me crack up.😆 wonderfully lighthearted teachings.

Oh my, what stories! Funny but definitely good lessons. My thanks for sharing these practices. ☮️💖🙏🕉️

Such profound teaching. Thank you 🙏