Day 027/365: Guided Meditation | Ajahn Brahm

This track includes several tools to help strengthen your meditation practice.
* 15 minutes Dharma talk/meditation advice and inspiration.
* About 15 minutes of guided meditation.
* About 30 minutes of silent meditation practice.
* A Q&A session/closing thoughts after the meditation practice.

Transcript

Hello everybody and welcome to the ongoing meditation class.

For those of you who come to the Introduction to Meditation class,

Where you learn the art of meditation from the beginning,

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

So those who haven't meditated before or haven't meditated much,

You want to do the Introduction to Meditation class,

A series of four lessons which are starting today,

That is in the room to my right.

This is an ongoing class,

So here we meditate much longer,

Usually from 40 to 45 minutes,

Which is a very long time for people who haven't done much meditation before.

So if you are just coming for the first time,

Or the first couple of times,

Please,

The room in my right.

I don't want to torture you.

We're not into torture as Buddhists,

And sitting still for such a long time can be very difficult for you.

And of course,

When we sit here,

It's okay,

You can sit on a chair,

You can sit on the floor,

On the stools,

Cushions,

You can sit in the back with your back against the wall,

The feet up,

That's fine,

But please don't lay out,

Down somebody in the back there,

Please,

You can't lay down totally out,

So lean against the wall,

But at least your back should be up.

So at least you can actually sit,

Otherwise you fall asleep,

And then you start snoring.

And people never think that they're snoring.

I remember teaching many classes,

And one class I taught,

That somebody sort of opened their eyes and said,

Somebody's snoring,

And they said,

Yeah,

It was you.

Oh,

They never realized that they were snoring themselves.

And the classic case was when I was teaching in prison,

In top security jail,

And because it was a top security prison,

You had to have a prison officer with you,

Every time,

Even during my meditation class.

And as I was teaching my meditation class,

Sort of,

You know,

I heard somebody snoring,

And of course it was a prison officer,

And his good job he snored,

And I opened my eyes,

Because one of the prisoners,

His hand was almost on the keys.

So a bit of deep trouble,

True story.

He looked at that prison officer,

And why do we have to disturb him,

Spoil my fun.

So anyway,

So please,

Back straight,

Then you're not likely to fall asleep.

Okay,

So now for the meditation today,

It's nice,

It's nice and cool in here,

But we can never get it perfectly okay.

And we can never get it perfectly quiet either.

In meditation there will always be some distractions happen.

And the point is that yes,

The body may be hot or cold,

And it's amazing that when I come in here I'm always hot,

But I still see some people with blankets on,

And I think,

Goodness gracious.

But it's because some people are used to hot weather,

Some people are used to cold weather,

And it's just,

You know,

People's different metabolisms.

So,

You can't get it perfect for you,

So we stop complaining,

Which is the most important thing about learning how to be comfortable at whatever temperature.

Yes,

It could be hot,

But it gets even hotter when one starts thinking about it and complaining about it.

Yeah,

It may be cold,

But it gets even worse when you complain about it.

So instead,

You know,

For those of you who've been here a long time,

You know the Buddhist way of climate control.

When it's hot,

You keep a cool head.

When it's cold,

You have a warm heart.

In other words,

You don't worry about it too much.

And it's the same with noises.

Yeah,

We have so many people in this room,

It would be wonderful if everybody was absolutely quiet and peaceful.

However,

They won't be.

First of all,

You must turn off your mobile phones.

I know some people think that,

Oh,

I did turn it on,

I did turn it off,

So I did turn it off to begin with,

But it turned on by itself while I was meditating,

Because that seems to be the only excuse sometimes.

So please turn it off so there's not too much noise.

But there will always be somebody who comes in late or somebody decides they need to go to the toilet and they bang the doors.

At the very least,

Please understand that even low people,

I'm talking about burglars,

Even they can come into a house and out of a house without making any noise.

So if even burglars with very bad minds can come in and out of a room like this without banging the doors,

Surely,

Surely you're far more advanced than that.

So please,

If you need to go out,

Remember burglars don't bang doors,

So please don't you.

And any other noises,

We try and keep them away,

But we can never stop them totally.

So just the same way with the heat or the cold,

If it's too hot,

Don't worry about it,

Just relax,

It's warm.

If you complain about it,

It gets hotter.

If it's cold,

Just don't worry about it.

Just soon you won't be able to feel it when you go numb from the cold,

Just leave it alone,

Don't worry about it.

They make a noise,

They bang the door,

Or they do some other sort of noisy stuff,

Don't worry about it.

The sound of the door banging disappears after half a second.

But the thoughts which go on in your mind can continue for half an hour.

So where is the real noise?

The real noise is not outside,

The real noise is the way we react inside our mind.

So if you can be aware of that and know that,

Then outside things hardly disturb you at all.

But if there is a distraction,

Then we use a little metaphor,

A simile,

Which I call light focusing.

And it comes from the time when I was traveling and I had to watch the in-flight safety video.

And I noticed,

Because I'm a meditator,

That when I looked at that little screen on the back of the seat,

When I first looked at that,

When the safety video started,

I could see the upholstery on the back of the screen,

On the back of the seat,

And I could also see the plastic boundary of the screen.

But I noticed after a few seconds I could not see the upholstery anymore and I couldn't see even the edges of the screen.

My mind had fitted in to this screen,

So all I saw in my perception was a video of the safety demonstration and anything to the left or right,

Above and below,

Had vanished.

I had zoomed in onto the safety demonstration.

And that really taught me a lot on how to avoid distractions.

So whatever you're meditating on,

Here we start off with the body awareness to make sure our body is comfortable.

After the body awareness,

We just look inside our body,

Any areas which are tense,

Which are painful,

To relax those down.

And there we just go off into relaxing our mind.

Finally here to the breath,

If you want to go deeper,

Great,

Go for it.

But that's all I really need you in.

Whatever you're watching when you're meditating,

Keep that in the center of your screen,

Which means that you zoom in on your meditation object.

Any disturbance,

A bang,

A sound of someone deciding to check their motorbike next door,

The sound of an aircraft or the sound of a police car coming past on Morley Drive.

Whatever sound there is,

Don't put that in the center of your screen.

If you do,

If you focus on the disturbance,

Then your meditation object will fall off the screen and you'll be obsessing about the disturbance.

Keep the meditation object,

Say you're watching the breathing,

The breath is in the center,

You can hear the sound but it's over here somewhere.

The same with feelings in the body.

Try and make our body as comfortable as possible,

But after the body is made comfortable as possible,

There will always be aches and pains and itches and stuff which actually arise.

It's the nature of the body.

So if there are any aches and pains and itches,

For goodness sake,

Don't focus on them.

Keep your focus just on the breathing,

Say,

If you're on the breath.

Focus on the breath,

You can feel the pain or the ache and it's over here somewhere.

If the ache in your mind focuses and centers on the pain,

Then it obsesses with the pain.

And of course I'm sure you all know these stories that people when they are,

I've heard this never happened to me obviously,

But when people playing football,

They break their leg or they break their arm and they carry on playing because they're so focused on the game.

They're zeroing in on the game and the pain is over here somewhere,

They're not really aware of it until when the game finishes and then it hurts like hell.

But when they're there,

They're not even looking at it,

They're zooming in on something else.

And that shows you just how we can actually focus away from the pain,

The ache,

The heat or the tiredness,

Whatever is the obstacle there,

Keep your meditation object in the center.

And just like you zoom in on the meditation object and everything else falls off the screen,

Then it also means that you can zoom in and there's disturbances,

They just vanish.

You can't even hear them anymore,

You can't feel it anymore,

It's gone.

You're focused.

There's a wonderful way.

Now there's one more little thing with these disturbances.

One of the things which happens sometimes,

Especially when a person gets into deeper meditation,

You may be watching your breathing and maybe get a tiny bit excited,

Boom,

Boom,

Boom,

You start to focus on your heartbeat because it becomes prominent.

If you're focusing on your heartbeat,

That is a disturbance,

It's not recommended in meditation to watch your heartbeat.

Because we're trying to calm everything down.

If you calm your heartbeat down,

You're going to die.

It's going to stop.

So we don't focus on our heartbeat.

What we do,

We focus just on our breathing.

So if you've got the breath and you've got the heartbeat is there,

Use that screen simile,

Just center on the heart,

On the breathing.

Yeah,

You can hear the heartbeat,

It's over there somewhere.

It's over here,

Wherever you want it to put it,

But don't put it in the center.

Keep the breath in the center and then you'll find as you zoom in more on the breath,

The perception of the heartbeat also falls off the screen and you're free of that disturbance.

The heart just looks after itself and that way you can be free of disturbances.

So that's one of the best ways of any disturbance you have in meditation.

Here is a nice peaceful place.

You may be home,

There may be sort of cars driving past,

There may be aircraft overhead,

There may be people banging the doors,

Listening to the TV,

Doesn't matter.

You focus inside.

I remember once,

Years and years and years and years ago,

There was some sort of,

It wasn't,

It was a human rights demonstration over in Hay Street Mall in the old days.

Just opposite,

They asked me,

Can you please just come,

Just being peaceful,

Can you come and just meditate with us?

I don't have to say anything,

Don't have to go around with placards,

So no,

No,

Just sit down peaceful,

Say,

Okay,

I can do that.

Here's a nice test for me,

Two hours in Hay Street Mall,

Just sitting down quietly,

Sitting on the Wesley Church,

I think,

Just opposite.

And it was opposite,

They had these shops in those days,

Videos,

Game stores,

Like Time Zone,

Does that make sense?

Time Zone,

And all this music blaring out,

It was louder than the traffic.

But I knew how to meditate,

So you go in there,

You just focus in,

Until all that sound can vanish.

So you can actually meditate in Hay Street Mall for two hours,

Really peacefully,

When you know how to zoom in,

And all the other things on the edge,

They just vanish and disappear.

So this is how to do it,

How to deal with distractions,

Sound distractions and also physical distractions.

So next time you actually go travelling anywhere,

Just check that out.

You're watching a screen,

Or when you go home,

Watch a TV.

You see the screen and after a while your mind fits perfectly inside the screen.

You're not even aware of the edges.

All that which is not your focus of attention,

Falls off your area of perception.

That's actually how we deal with distractions.

Okay,

Very good.

So now we can start the meditation,

As I did warn everybody.

This is the ongoing class of meditation.

You can do 45 minutes,

So if you haven't meditated before,

You're gonna be in trouble.

Give it a try,

See what happens.

So get into a nice posture.

If you don't like sitting on the floor,

There's still some chairs available.

You don't get extra points by sitting on the floor.

Meditating on the chairs is fine.

The only reason I sit on the floor is because for the first seven years of my monk life,

There weren't any chairs.

I was in the jungles in Thailand,

Didn't have chairs.

Had no choice sitting on the floor.

I remember after seven years I sat in my first chair,

After seven years,

At the age of 30.

I sat in a chair when I was growing up,

But for seven years,

I sat in a chair,

I will never forget it,

In Philippine Airlines,

Flying from Bangkok to London.

Oh,

That was so torture,

Sitting in a chair.

I couldn't cross my legs.

Economy class in those low-cost airlines was just really small.

I asked if I could,

Please,

Can I sit meditation in the aisle?

No.

So anyway,

If you want to sit on a chair,

Please do so.

It's a bit late now,

So here we go.

So,

Closing your eyes.

With your eyes closed,

Now please check your physical posture.

How are you sitting?

And we just,

We just divide our body into areas,

So we can be a bit more careful and meticulous.

So,

Your legs.

Check out your legs first of all.

Are they comfortable?

Don't assume.

Check.

We keep them like this for 45 minutes,

So they better be right to begin with.

It's okay to move,

Because as you move,

You are practicing what we call mindfulness and the feedback from mindfulness,

Aware of the position in your legs,

So you can know whether this is the best or the other one was the best.

So if you just assume that this is the best and you haven't tried anything else,

Then you're just really just not being wise.

Once you check out your legs,

Then you check out your butt,

Your bottom.

Is it comfortable on the stool,

On the chair,

On the cushion?

Then you need to move.

The best physical posture for meditation is not found by looking at a book.

It's found by looking at your body with your eyes closed,

Feeling it.

Then you check your back.

Many people get sore backs because they're not aware of them.

So be mindful of any feeling sensation in your back,

Any tightness,

Any pain,

Is telling you that you're not in a good position,

So move if you possibly can.

If you're on a chair,

Sometimes it's best to lean back against the backrest.

Sometimes,

Not always,

It's better to just sit up straight,

Moving your back away.

Check it out,

Find out what is the best for you.

Yeah.

Okay.

Once the back feels good,

Check where you've put your hands.

You can put your hands on your knees if you want,

In your lap.

It does not matter which place as long as they are comfortable.

When you're aware of one part of the body,

You do get feedback.

You ask,

Are you comfortable,

And you get an answer.

Once your hands are comfortable,

Then you check your shoulders.

The reason why we do this is not just for physical comfort,

It's also because it is sharpening the tools of mindfulness and kindness which are necessary when we go deeper into meditation.

We're just getting mindfulness started by pointing it on our body first of all.

So check your shoulders,

Make sure everything is loose there.

As I said on last night,

You can imagine that your shoulders are made up of many strings and they're all pulled tight,

Tension.

Imagine those strings letting go of both ends.

That may be,

That is the imagination,

May be enough to relax the real muscles.

So nothing is being held tight in your shoulders.

You're not pulling at things.

And then lastly check your head,

Top of your neck.

Make sure it's not too far forward,

Not too far back,

Not too far to the left or the right.

I always like to finish off,

Not always but most times,

Just checking the muscles around my eyes and mouth.

If I'm relaxed,

Those muscles are loose.

If I'm tense,

They are screwed up tight.

So I'm aware of muscles,

Especially around my eyes.

Feel them,

The ache,

The tightness or the looseness.

Once I am mindful of that area,

It's pretty easy to learn by the feedback which mindfulness gives you,

Pretty easy to learn how to loosen those muscles around the eyes and the mouth,

How to loosen the muscles on the forehead.

So everything in your face is relaxed.

And once you've looked after your posture,

Part by part,

Now we do a special deep relaxation.

By choosing a part of your body,

Just one small section of your body,

Usually inside,

Which is aching or irritating or in pain,

Which is tight tense.

I advise this especially for people suffering from cancers.

Look at that,

Say for a female with breast cancer,

Feel that part of your body.

Anyone with just an irritable bowel syndrome or any other aches and pains,

Zoom in on that one part of your body which needs some attention.

You can feel it's unbalanced,

Aching,

Tight,

Tense or even in pain.

Let that be the object of your mindfulness.

And once you have awareness of that part of your body which is aching or painful or irritating,

You have the opportunity to see how the attitude of your mind can make that ache,

That pain,

That imbalance worse or can ease it off to relieve the pain,

The ache.

Now we have a feeling,

Just one part of the body,

Stay in that one part of the body,

Don't wander off and relax it,

Loosen it,

Bring it to peacefulness,

To comfort.

At first it's like trial and error but soon you can make that connection between attitudes of mind,

Especially things like letting it be,

Kindness,

Gentleness,

Those types of attitudes which you focus onto that aching,

Sick part of your body,

Relaxes it and you can feel it.

The mindfulness allows you to feel something happening,

It's relaxing,

It's easing,

It's getting peaceful.

With a little bit of training,

It's amazing just what you can do to your own body.

First by being mindful enough of it and then by connecting these very positive ways of observing,

Letting be,

Kindness,

Opening the door of your heart to these things rather than controlling and trying to get rid of them.

You can experience the problem dissipating,

Vanishing.

That's also important because you are strengthening every moment your awareness,

Your mindfulness.

And you're arousing this attitude of kindness,

Letting be,

Which is key to the deep meditations.

Once you have relaxed that part of the body,

Once the body is really peaceful,

I don't stop this until I can't find any stress in my body at all.

Every part is loose and relaxed.

Then I turn onto my mind,

I do the same,

Take away all the pressure,

All the wants and goals and striving and plans which make your mind tight.

I look at something I call the peace-pometer,

Not the best word but the only one I've got.

How peaceful am I or how agitated?

And I keep my awareness on that.

And that teaches me because I can feel the needle of my peace-pometer go further into quietness,

To stillness,

To peace.

What makes that happen is just letting go of past and future.

No plans,

Not needing to think,

Just to be and being kind.

Letting this moment be and giving myself permission to be free,

To be peaceful,

Not to go anywhere,

But just to stop,

Stop here and just be.

What makes my mind become more and more peaceful?

When I start thinking of all the things I've got to do later,

I can feel my peace-pometer,

The needle move towards agitation.

See it very clearly.

So I don't do that.

I need rest.

You need it even more.

You need peace.

So give peace priority over plans.

So just here being peaceful,

Seeing how peaceful you can get.

Your object of meditation is your peace-o-meter.

Always knowing how peaceful you are and how to make more peace.

And many other experiences with trans colored way of thinking are just Hanson being yours,

Striving for Party Product,

Even your mind being exaggeration something something that well stealing too much.

.

.

.

As your mind becomes more and more peaceful,

You may start to become aware of your breathing.

It's natural,

Some people just develop this over many years.

So if you want to be aware of your breath,

It does not matter where you are aware of the breathing.

Don't be aware of your nose or your belly,

Be aware of your breathing.

Just so you know the breath going in,

You know the breath going out.

That's your object,

The center of your screen.

And if you wish to make it more interesting at the beginning,

You don't need this after a while,

But at the beginning it helps.

As you breathe in,

You think breathing in peace.

Really imagine peace coming into your body and mind with every in-breath.

As you breathe out,

Breathe out,

Let go.

Any tightness,

Tension,

Sickness,

Problems,

Past,

Future,

Let that go out with every out-breath.

Breathing in peace,

Breathe out,

Let go.

Keep that in the center of your screen.

Any other thoughts,

Sound,

Feeling,

Don't center on that,

Keep that on the edges.

Center on your breathing and all those other distractions will eventually fall off.

Thoughts will continue if you put them in the center and give them priority.

When you give your breathing priority,

Those other things soon disappear.

I will now be quiet until the end of the meditation.

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How do you feel?

How much peace has been generated?

And why?

What is the cause of peace?

What is the cause of peace?

What is the cause of peace of mind?

And what disturbs the mind?

I will now ring the gong three times to end the meditation.

That was nice.

So the last fifteen minutes of this session,

I always reserve any questions.

Is there any questions about the meditation from people here,

Before we go to from overseas?

Yes?

Just a quick one.

Apparently meditation is pretty much for everyone,

Any ages.

Are there any sort of people that,

Or any sort of meditation that's not suitable for any type of people,

Especially people with mental illness or severe anxiety or depression?

What would they help?

You are asking about,

Is meditation suitable for everybody?

And especially those with mental illnesses.

For a long time I thought people with schizophrenia would have a lot of difficulties,

But it really depends upon the person.

Because I know one particular person,

A pinnacle schizophrenic,

Who does excellent on meditation.

This depends upon the power of their mindfulness so that they can distinguish between the fantasies and reality.

So yes,

It can be of help.

However,

You need to be a very skilled teacher to be able to teach people with some mental illnesses.

And of course,

You cannot just think meditation is going to be the magic silver bullet which cures things.

It has to be in conjunction with every other treatment which is available.

The same with people who have sometimes cancers,

Who have great results with meditation,

But it shouldn't be the expense of some of the other treatments,

Depression too.

So a lot of times we call these complementary therapies.

And it's the same with people who want to get deep into their liberation and freedom,

In enlightenment.

You can't just think it's meditation,

You must keep your precepts and do dhyana,

The whole works.

So it's a complementary therapy,

Even for enlightenment.

Need your precepts as well.

I heard there was a story about another tradition that they teach children,

Meditation.

It's one occasion that there was a child that actually went to sleep and they got trouble waking the child up,

You know,

They didn't even know what happened and they sort of got a little panic.

Could that happen?

It would be a wonderful thing to be able to teach your children to go to sleep.

But no,

Sometimes people aren't really knowledgeable about meditation.

Many people teach meditation these days,

But when you've been a monk for a long time,

You notice all the tricks and the blocks of meditation.

You can teach children meditation,

But of course it has to be adapted to children depending on their ages.

And of course you've heard me say before that I've used visualizations for children meditating.

It works very well.

And don't teach totally different the way I teach you.

And if a person,

Any person gets stuck in deep meditation,

Maybe they're just half asleep,

And if they are in some deep state,

Then you just use very kind words to draw them out through sound.

That usually draws people out,

But kind words,

You don't shout at them.

Time to come out,

And they come out anyway,

No problem.

Okay,

So let's have some of the questions from the internet now please.

Is there any questions over here?

And please excuse me today that I have another appointment.

I have to leave at 4.

30 sharp,

So I'm not going to be able to take many questions after the session's finished.

Okay,

From Germany,

California and India.

If you are really tired,

Is it better to get some sleep or to get up and meditate and sleep later?

It depends again on the context.

Sometimes that I get very tired,

Especially when I'm overseas teaching,

When I'm not here,

I'm overseas,

I'm not relaxing by the beach.

I really,

Really work hard,

And sometimes you do get tired.

And recently,

That was out all day,

And come to give a talk to doctors at Sumiti Weight Hospital in Bangkok.

Really tired,

Had about an hour,

So exhausted,

In a car most of the day.

And wasted time sleeping.

So that's the time,

Because I've been meditating a long time.

You know how to actually get tired?

No,

Meditate,

You can really get past that tiredness,

Get really into some really powerful meditation states.

Depends what you have to do.

If you have to perform,

No problem at all.

You can actually just get into a nice deep state and go beyond the sleep.

You have to catch up later on,

You're borrowing energy,

But it works.

But the best thing is actually just to take a rest,

If you possibly can.

And for many people to realize the reason why we're tired is that we don't use our brain efficiently,

Which is stupid the way we use our brain.

If we would spend money the way we spend the mind energy,

Brain energy,

We'd be just bankrupt years ago.

It's like,

If you spend money on useless things,

Of course you're not going to have any money to spend on the important things,

Like your rent or your mortgage repayments.

But we spend mental energy thinking about useless things.

So often,

No wonder our brain is bankrupt,

Otherwise meaning tired,

Exhausted.

So be more efficient the way you think.

Fantasies,

What a waste of time.

Past,

Finished.

Future,

Planning,

As I was talking last night,

We just waste so much energy planning,

It never happens.

So,

If you want to overcome tiredness,

Which is brain exhaustion,

Then use your brain more,

I think the word I remember is parsimony,

Parsimoniously.

In other words,

You don't spend brain energy too easily.

You keep it,

Then you have heaps of it whenever you want it.

One of the reasons we're tired,

We think too much,

We dwell too much on the past,

Worry too much about the future.

No wonder we're tired.

So,

Tiredness can be overcome by being a bit more aware,

Mindful,

And know exactly how to work.

Turn left,

Yes,

No don't turn left,

Just go straight ahead into the meditation.

But if you're,

Yeah,

Now you are tired,

It is nice to sleep.

This is meditating.

From California,

How can I stop fidgeting while meditating?

I know I can't let it go,

But in my case it feels easier said than done.

Please advise,

Thank you.

And again,

You have to have a degree of endurance to be able to meditate,

So you look after your body at the beginning,

That's paramount.

Make sure you're in a comfortable position and don't be proud and think,

No,

I sit on the floor,

I am not going to sit on a chair.

People like that,

Please excuse me,

Idiots.

Just,

If you need to sit on a chair,

Sit on a chair.

If you need an extra cushion,

Get an extra cushion.

So don't torture your body.

Work with your body rather than being a master of your body.

People actually think they own their body and tell it what to do and it rebels,

That's called fidgeting.

So work with your body.

So when you work with your body,

Get yourself a nice posture.

Then if you want to fidget afterwards,

A lot of that is not because the body is in trouble or is hurting,

It's mostly restlessness,

Boredom.

And actually what you're doing,

Quite literally,

Most times fidgeting,

Is looking for something to do.

So you're sitting here quite peacefully,

And you think,

No,

I'm not happy here.

So you say,

What's happening down in my legs?

How's my feet?

What are my hands doing?

You're looking for anything to actually,

Something to do.

Just in the same way that people go into the refrigerator,

They've had big lunch but they just want a snack.

And the refrigerator is full of stuff,

Nothing to eat.

They turn on the television.

Look,

The last time I used to watch TV there were two channels,

BBC ITV in England.

Now there's 36,

60,

120 channels.

What's the latest number?

I don't know but I know there's nothing on TV.

Oh,

Come on,

120 channels,

There must be something on there.

What it is is just boredom,

Restlessness,

Nothing satisfies you.

So actually you look for something to disturb yourself.

So the way to overcome that fidgeting from California is when you start meditating,

Develop more joy.

Happy to be here.

Just watching my peace on the top,

It's just so nice being peaceful.

Just so wonderful having nothing to do.

It's a long weekend here in Perth,

Western Australia.

Yay,

Nothing to do,

Oh weekend,

Ah.

So what have you got planned?

What are you doing when you leave here?

It's so busy,

You don't have to be.

And that busyness,

The cause for having to do so much this long weekend,

It's the same cause for fidgeting.

Not being content,

Happy to be here.

Yeah,

My body aches,

I'm getting old,

But it's good enough.

I don't look for perfection,

It's good enough.

So if it's good enough,

It gives rise to contentment.

So yeah,

Your body is a bit aching,

Is a bit hard,

But it's good enough.

Just forget about the causes for fidgeting.

And focus on your breathing,

Saying have a beautiful breath.

When you get some joy in the meditation,

Just watching the breath,

It's so nice.

You can't feel your body anymore,

It's totally falling off the screen.

So,

See if you can focus on the breath also,

And joyful breath.

So nice to breathe in and breathe out.

Nothing to do in the whole world,

No boss to tell you what to do,

No partner to argue with you,

No job you have to perform.

It's being with the breath,

Freedom,

Ah so nice.

At last,

When I watch my breath,

I don't have to give any talks.

Don't have to ask me questions about their marriage,

About their business,

About I don't know how many things they ask me questions about,

And I've been celibate for 42 years,

What do I know about marriage and work,

Finding a job,

You're asking the wrong guy.

But people do that,

But when I'm meditating I'm free,

I love it.

And then,

Okay,

You get an ache here,

Just let it go.

If you're enjoying freedom,

It's so easy to let go of what disturbs it.

If you don't enjoy it,

You're restless,

And of course you look for something to do.

Lastly,

My neck tends to bend towards one side when I'm meditating.

Should I put effort to keep it straight?

No,

Just let it bend.

What happens,

No seriously,

It can't happen to me,

Happen to many others,

It starts to bend at first,

I just forget about it.

And then it straightens up all by itself,

And you don't do it.

I've been very mindful when those sorts of things happen.

You know,

I remember I used to really slump when I started meditating.

And then I remember I straightened my back,

No,

No,

No,

Just,

Yeah,

Straighten your back.

You're supposed to make a good impression on all the people watching you,

Raja Ambarman,

It's on YouTube,

Ugh.

So I said,

No,

No,

Let it slump.

But mindful,

Really aware,

And then the first time it happens,

It's really amazing.

It straightens up by itself.

I was,

I never did anything,

I never chose to straighten up,

It did it automatically.

And from that moment on,

I really started to trust my body.

If it wants to straighten up,

It will straighten up.

If your head's on one side,

Then let it stay there,

It'll straighten up by itself.

You don't have to do anything,

Just keep watching your breath,

Whatever you're doing,

And let your neck fall off the screen.

In other words,

You're not really aware of it at all,

It just does what it wants to do.

It's not your problem anymore,

You're focusing just on the object of meditation.

That's how it works.

Okay,

Any more questions from the floor?

Those are three questions from overseas.

Going,

Going,

Gone.

Okay,

I'll be here again next week,

But if anyone has some really important questions,

Fine.

But I've only got about ten minutes before I have to leave.

Okay,

Thank you.

Okay,

Thank you.

Reviews

So good to just sit and let go. Plus so many good lessons too. Wonderful long quiet time to sink deeper. I have meditated a few times with a lot of noise around me and although challenging, it is totally doable. Many thanks. ☮️💖🙏🕉️