Day 026/365: Guided Meditation | Ajahn Brahm

This is a guided meditation with Ajahn Brahm. About 15 minutes of Dharma talk/meditation advice and inspiration. About 15 minutes of guided meditation and about 30 minutes of silent meditation practice. These are followed by a Q&A session/closing thoughts after the meditation practice. This track includes several tools to help strengthen your meditation practice.

Transcript

Excellent,

So welcome to the ongoing meditation class.

For those who are coming for the first time,

The introduction to meditation class is in the room to my right.

This is the class for the experts,

The adepts,

Those who just study a little bit more to get enlightened.

This is the class again for people who have been meditating before.

So one of the reasons we do this is because yes,

For the people starting meditation they need one type of teaching and if you've been meditating a long time,

You don't need the same teaching as you get to the very beginning.

Sometimes you need a little bit more encouragement,

A little bit deeper teachings so that you can go further in meditation and also not just the type of teachings but the length of time we meditate for because here we meditate for 45 minutes and that's a long time for someone who's only just began to learn how to meditate.

You know the mind would usually just go off wandering,

Fantasizing,

Dreaming,

Planning because they haven't got the training yet to meditate for such a long time.

So if you are coming for the first time,

Or the first couple of times,

Please in the room to my right,

Which is the beginners meditation class.

Don't ever think,

Oh beginners,

I'm much more advanced than that.

That's called like spiritual pride.

Because many people who have been coming here and they think they need a top up of the beginners class,

They go there and it really helps them.

So you know,

Being a beginner is nothing to be afraid of or to be embarrassed about.

It's sometimes just a very beautiful way of getting the fundamentals back again.

So beginners classes are great.

But here we sort of teach a little bit more deeper into meditation and I know that I always tend to talk about the early stages of meditation and it's sometimes I neglect the deeper stages of meditation which are really,

Really important.

So when your mind does get a bit peaceful,

And by here I mean you can just watch many breaths in a row,

Breathing in,

Breathing out.

And the reason why you can watch many breaths in a row is because you are content and happy.

The cause of stillness in meditation,

Which is really important,

Stillness,

The cause of stillness is letting go.

And once you become still,

One maintains that stillness from contentment.

Just being happy to be here,

Not wanting anything.

And there's many similes,

I can do this simile here because I've got my glass of water here,

That if you can get into your heads,

That meditation is about being still.

Physically still,

So you don't need to move.

And mentally still,

So you don't need to think.

Incredibly still.

And I usually use the simile of a glass of water,

Trying to hold it still.

It is impossible to hold a glass of water still.

Doesn't matter how hard I concentrate,

How many years I train,

The nature of the muscles in the arms are always moving.

So you can never keep a glass of water still.

So if that's my mind and I'm trying to hold it still,

I will always get frustrated.

But there is a trick to making the glass of water perfectly still.

And that is to put it down.

Because when I put things down,

When I let them go,

When I stop grasping and holding things,

The water becomes still all by itself because that's its natural state,

Its default state.

We usually use that word these days.

And that's the same with the human mind.

Its natural state is to be still.

But when we do stuff,

We try and control it,

Make it still,

Worry about stuff,

Think about stuff,

That is what stops the mind being still.

So our job is to let go and just allow the mind to be still,

To get out of the way,

To stop wanting stuff,

Stop doing stuff.

Now to be able to achieve that non-doing,

It's important that we learn about how to be content,

Happy to be here.

Unfortunately,

Human beings,

We have to do this in the world,

We always have to judge and measure and compare,

Always trying to achieve things,

Make things better.

But in meditation that's counterproductive.

Don't try and make things better.

That is endless.

Don't try and improve.

You just get worse the more you try to improve.

Instead,

Just put it down,

Let it be,

Stop wanting anything and learn to be content right where you are,

With what you have,

With your stupid,

Dull,

Restless,

Crazy mind.

Be content with your mind.

Be content with this hall here.

You know that we spent a lot of many years ago trying to design this hall,

Trying to find a place which was nice and quiet in the suburbs,

Not next to a busy road where most religious churches and organizations are.

It does mean it's difficult to have parking and access but we thought it's more important to have some quietness here.

But then you try everything to make this nice and quiet and what happens?

The house behind decides to mow the lawn,

Find out they want to sort of do some chainsaw repairs behind or they start a party at three o'clock.

It doesn't matter what you do and if you calm everything down outside so there's no one making a noise,

Your neighbors are very quiet.

Then,

Someone in here bursts out coughing.

You know,

It's not their fault.

They don't deliberately come here with a cough,

With the purpose of disturbing everybody.

It just happens and that could be you.

Or sometimes a mobile phone goes off.

And I used to think only those people who've only come here for the first time,

The mobile phone comes off.

But then I opened my eyes and look,

It's one of these people who've been here for years and years and years and they should know much better.

But still,

You forget.

You know,

It's a mistake.

These things happen.

Which means that we can't control our environment.

We can do a lot but there's a limit.

But what we can do is to control our reactions.

In other words,

To let it be.

And be content that there will be noise.

Be content that sometimes it's too hot for you,

Sometimes too cold for you.

I always sing with all the people who come here from all the different nations.

There must be someone,

Someone in this room who's just the right temperature.

For me it's always cold or too hot.

I'm never that lucky one but one of you might just about get the right temperature.

So instead of just measuring and judging and complaining,

We are content.

Content and easily satisfied.

Which means we can sit here because we're content and satisfied,

No complaints.

It means we have no business.

When we have no business to do,

Then we can be quiet and peaceful and still.

So we develop that mind of contentment and also of gratitude.

You've managed to come to a place where you can quite safely meditate for 45 minutes,

No one's going to disturb you.

No one's going to say,

Hey come and help me with something because they don't value meditation.

Sometimes that happens at home.

You're meditating and somebody disturbs you.

Come on,

You're doing nothing,

I need some help.

It's important.

Meditate later.

I never think they can do the important stuff later but here this is a meditation hall.

You've got your cushions,

You've got me guiding you,

You've got the energy of this place built up over the years.

So you should be very grateful you've managed to find time in life where you can actually meditate.

Be so grateful,

Happy just to be here.

So everything else is just extra.

So sometimes I remind myself that even I've been meditating a long time,

Even I'm supposed to be a well-known meditation teacher,

Sometimes I just sit down,

Close my eyes and at that point when my eyes close,

This is good enough.

I'm meditating.

45 minutes,

No one's going to bother me.

I just sit here peaceful.

Oh,

What bliss.

I don't ask for anything else.

So you're contented.

When you're contented,

Then there's no business and you're much more peaceful.

The contentment helps that stillness.

And that contentment I'm asking you to maintain,

Guard,

Cherish for the whole of the meditation.

It's one of the great keys,

The great attitudes which go very,

Very deep into the mind.

You're so content,

Happy to be here,

You don't want anything in the whole world.

If you just by luck,

You rubbed a bottle and a genie came out and said,

According to the customer,

I give you three wishes,

What do you want?

And you'll say,

Nothing.

Go and ask somebody else.

You're so content that even a genie would not be able to get any excitement out of you.

That's called contentment.

So contentment,

All stages in the meditation,

You're sitting here,

Falling asleep.

Be content.

Because if you fight your sleepiness,

It will get worse.

Other people make noise.

Be content.

It's what people do.

Somebody bangs the door,

Which they always do every Saturday,

Because they have to leave early.

I don't know why,

But I hope they're happy.

So I'm just content.

If I'm not content when they bang the door,

This is usually what happens.

Has it ever happened to you?

You just get a nice and quiet bang,

They bang the door.

Say,

Who was that?

I'm going to find out who that is.

I'm going to tell Ajahn Brahm about that person.

I'm going to get them banned.

I'm going to put a photograph of them on every door so we can recognise them so they can't come in again.

We're going to shame them,

We're going to find them.

If they're a member of the Buddhist Society of Western Australia,

We're going to take away their membership.

And straight away,

The door has finished banging a long time ago.

But the banging going on in my head goes on for 5,

10 minutes.

That's a big noise,

The way we react and think about it.

So when we're content,

Bang,

It's gone.

It doesn't echo in our mind,

Which means we're peaceful.

So we learn how to be content no matter what happens.

Contentment is another word for opening the door of my heart no matter what happens.

And it coughs,

Wonderful,

They feel so much better now they've got that out of their throat.

Oh,

What joy that gives me.

So little by little,

We're so content,

Our mind becomes peaceful.

And it's the peace,

The stillness,

The fact you're not doing work with your brain.

The energy starts to arise.

Mindfulness increases in its power.

And with the increase in mindfulness,

You get an increase in happiness,

You get more joyful.

Powerful mindfulness,

Happiness always go together.

You wake up really aware,

Don't mean open your eyes,

But inside really get alive,

Happy and mindful.

That's a beautiful state in meditation,

Really alert,

See so much and so delightful because your mind is now powered up from contentment.

You carry on that contentment,

If you want to watch the breathing,

Which is part of it,

It's so easy.

Breathing in,

Breathing out,

Because it looks nice.

The reason it looks nice is because your mindfulness is strong.

When you've got strong mindfulness,

Whatever you look upon is delightful.

You've heard me say that before,

When I was in my meditation retreat,

Jhana Grove went to the toilet,

Did a number two and saw the piece of shit in the toilet bowl.

Wow,

So beautiful.

I told that story last Tuesday at the Cancer Support Association.

They really liked that because many of them,

When you've got cancer,

You've got sort of bowels which are out of control.

They're always looking at what comes out of their backside as being something disgusting and nasty.

So when I said,

Oh it's beautiful,

Oh that's a nice way of looking at it.

Just one less problem people with,

Undergoing chemotherapy have to deal with.

So,

But this is what happens when your mindfulness is really strong because you've been content.

Your energies are really strong.

Whatever you look at,

The breath is absolutely wonderful.

Breathing in,

Breathing out,

It's so nice.

You're getting into the meditation once you get to delightful breath.

What do you do?

Content.

Don't want anything.

Happy here.

It's amazing just how many people screw it up because they got a nice deep state of meditation and they want more.

Look,

Contentment is the whole path.

Happy to be here.

This is wonderful for me.

Just having a nice delightful breath.

Oh,

This is great.

I don't want anything more.

When you build up that contentment,

Not wanting,

Putting things down,

Your mind becomes even more still and that delight gets incredible.

That's when you see these beautiful nimittas come up in your mind.

The light.

I always have to be careful when I talk about these because straight away you get desire and craving.

Wow,

Nimittas,

Deep meditation.

I want that.

I'm as good as anybody else.

I've been coming here for six weeks now.

I don't want anybody on nimittas.

Oh my goodness,

They come from contentment,

Not wanting.

This is not the path of achieving something.

It's the path of letting go,

Of disappearing.

So you get very calm,

Content.

When you don't want it,

It comes.

When you crave it,

It's as far as the moon.

You cannot reach it.

So,

Shh,

Be content,

Happy.

And you're in here for a beautiful ride.

The more content you are,

The deeper you go.

And you find the path of meditation so different than everything else you do in your life.

In your life,

You strive,

You work hard,

You study,

Spend extra time,

Really put forth a lot of energy and effort to achieve.

In meditation,

That's a total waste of time.

You go the opposite direction.

Sitting here,

Being content,

Learning how to become still and just being a passenger,

Forever a driver on this beautiful path of meditation.

It's like the part of you which is most important,

The doer,

The controller,

The control freak,

That has to be let go of,

That has to vanish.

Which is why when I was in Sri Lanka just about ten days ago,

Teaching meditation to 120 monks and 30 nuns,

Taught a meditation retreat for Sangha.

And one of those monks was one of the most senior,

Six senior monks in Sri Lanka,

Mahanayakas,

Like a Sangha Raja,

Like a head monk,

Six head monks in Sri Lanka.

He was one of them.

And the last words I said to him was,

Get lost.

He understood,

He was laughing.

Get lost,

Disappear,

Vanish with all your cravings and desires.

Get lost.

So let's meditate now and get lost.

A great fun being a monk.

Is there any Sri Lankans here?

Yes,

They would understand.

Saying get lost with a Mahanayaka was just pushing my luck but he understood.

So,

Sitting down,

Close your eyes.

We're not content at the beginning,

We try to do a bit of contentment at the end.

So I'm going to just put a cushion under my backside.

I know many people say,

Well you've already got your own cushion on there,

You're so fat.

But I need another cushion.

So,

Eyes closed.

We start by feeling the body,

To encourage and establish our mindfulness on something which is important to us,

Which is our physical comfort.

We're going to sit meditation for forty minutes,

You better be comfortable at the beginning,

Otherwise it's going to hurt in the middle and in the end.

So you check out your body.

I usually begin by checking out my legs,

Making sure they're comfortably crossed.

I prefer sitting on the floor.

You like to sit on a chair,

Wonderful.

It's as good as sitting on the floor.

Once you've checked your legs,

You're mindful of them and you're kind,

Kind enough to move,

To adjust if it's going to make it more comfortable.

Awareness is the first thing because otherwise you don't know what's going on down there.

And then I go to my bottom,

My butt,

To check it's comfortable on top of the cushion.

It wasn't to begin with,

Now it is.

I can be aware of that.

And then your mindfulness goes to your back.

I like to stretch my back.

When I start meditating a good stretch feels really good.

Endorphins get released in the blood stream as soon as I stretch.

It's also,

It means that any tightness,

Tension in my back just starts to vanish.

People have back injuries so if you need to lean back,

Lean forward,

Lean against the wall,

Whatever makes you the most comfortable,

Please do so.

The only thing is we ask people not to lay down on a Saturday afternoon because they usually start snoring.

And then I check my arms and hands.

There are so many different positions for the hands.

In fact,

Anyone who wants to investigate that,

They're called mudras,

M-U-D-R-A-S.

And just anyone will do.

You can't say one is better than the other.

Like anything else that people have all this,

Please excuse me,

Bullshit about this one is better than that one.

Just what works for you.

So feel,

Feel your hands.

Are they comfortable?

Mindfulness will tell you.

You're aware.

And if you're not,

If you think maybe you can get them more comfortable,

Out of kindness to yourself,

Please adjust.

And then I always check my shoulders.

Shoulders get a lot of tightness and tension.

And that's where I imagine like strings,

All those little muscles in my shoulders,

Like strings,

And sometimes they're pulled tight.

So I imagine both ends of the muscle,

Letting go of both ends,

Which releases tension.

Nothing is being pulled.

So just that little visualization,

Imagination,

Connected to muscles,

Means that the shoulders relax.

Feels good.

Then go to my head.

Make sure not too far forward,

Not too far back,

Just feel it,

Know it,

Out of kindness,

Maintain good position for your head,

Position which feels the best.

And lastly,

Mindful of the muscles around the eyes and the mouth.

I feel those muscles.

Right now I can be aware of them so clearly.

Once I'm aware of those muscles,

I soon learn how to relax them.

If you're fearful,

Striving,

Struggling,

Those muscles tighten up.

To me they're a signal that I'm tense.

And it's so easy to relax.

So my eyes have just got no tension around them.

So my forehead,

Loose,

Tight,

Nothing being held,

Nothing being pulled or pushed or stretched.

Let go of everything.

And I feel this relaxation in my face.

Not only am I relaxing my body,

But I'm also doing this training,

Mindfulness for parts of my body together with kindness.

The thing which will develop deep meditation.

The kindness is also part of contentment.

And then I just look at my body,

There's always,

Maybe it's my age,

I don't know,

But there's always an ache or a pain somewhere.

And these are aches and pains which I can't do anything about by adjusting my posture.

They're inside.

Tummy ache,

A stretched muscle,

Knee not so good,

Back,

Something inside of you,

Headache.

So I focus on the most irritating feeling I can find in my body.

Quick scan,

Find something irritating and I zoom in on it.

Once I zoomed in on it,

I have mindfulness.

Then I let it be.

I let go.

If I do that properly,

Real letting go,

Real letting be,

I can be aware that the feeling eases.

The irritation gets less of a problem.

Even the pain softens.

Your mind does interact with your body.

And this is how you train your mind to interact with your body in such a way you can lessen,

Even go beyond inner pain.

Stomach aches,

Irritable bowel syndrome,

Any other pain,

Cancers,

Arthritis,

Even psoriasis,

All of these things.

You can't get rid of them by changing your posture.

But you can by being aware of them and relaxing,

Letting it be.

You feel it and it works.

Now once I relax my body,

It's really comfortable.

You can spend longer relaxing your body if you want.

But my body is pretty healthy today.

Then I go to my mind,

To my peace-ometer,

The thing which tells me how irritated or how peaceful I am.

Just look at that.

If you haven't done this before,

Give yourself a number,

1 to 10.

1 means you're very peaceful.

10 means you're really agitated.

You're usually somewhere in between.

It doesn't really matter what that number is.

What matters is that you've now found the peace-ometer.

You're aware of it.

Now see the attitude of your mind,

What you do to bring that needle down,

How you can be more peaceful.

You'll find contentment,

Happy to be here,

No arguing,

No going off into the past,

No planning of the future,

No arguing with noises.

Just being kind,

Opening the door of your heart to this moment as it is,

Not perfect but good enough,

Good enough,

Good enough.

You'll find your peace-ometer registers a lower and lower reading.

You're moving towards peace.

Not thought-finding,

But grateful,

Grateful to be here meditating,

Not going anywhere,

No stress or trying to achieve something.

Just being here.

When you're peaceful enough,

You can invite the breath in.

Just being aware of the breath as it comes in.

Just one breath at a time,

One part of the breath at a time,

And knowing it as it goes out.

Just something to sit down on,

To rest the mind on.

Something comfortable like you rest your bum on the cushion,

You rest your mind on the breath.

You want breathing in peace without let go.

Until the breath becomes delightful,

Because your mindfulness is now strong,

Because of contentment,

Stillness.

Be patient and soon the breath will be delightful.

In the nimittas these beautiful lights will come next,

But only,

Only if you don't want to.

I'm going to be quiet now until the end of the meditation.

Please all rise.

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Reviews

This has some of the best instructions I’ve heard from Ajahn Brahm

Isn't it just so good to have compassion for ourselves? And to just let go. Thank you again and again. ☮️💖🙏🕉️