Day 034/365: Guided Meditation | Ajahn Brahm

This is a guided meditation with Ajahn Brahm. 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.

Produced by the Buddhist Society of Western Australia

Transcript

But anyway, There we learn how just whatever is here is important. Value it, No matter what it is. And then we care for it. Instead of curing it, Instead of trying to get rid of it, Instead of trying to develop it, Instead of trying to do something with it, When we care for it, Whatever's in this moment, Then it's like putting down the glass. It's like letting it go. With a bit of kindness and a bit of softness. That is really important. And so that becomes a very powerful, Very simple meditation method. So you're sitting here, Whatever comes up in your mind, Whatever it is, You give it importance, Not trying to get rid of it, And then you care for it. If you try and care for things, Then you find the things soften up. They get less of a problem. And eventually they just develop into something really, Really, Really beautiful. No matter what the object is, Which you start with. It's not as if that you're being negligent, But when you care for something, You stay with it, You tend to dive into it, You go inside of a thing. But if you're always trying to get rid of it, Develop it, You actually miss the opportunity of a still mind developing into insight, Seeing deeply inside of something. So this is a very simple way of meditating. So if you are tired, Like I'm still jet lagged, I arrived back from UK yesterday, And if you are sick, You've got hay fever, If you've got irritable bowel syndrome, Please, Those of you who've got irritable bowel syndrome, Please never follow your gut feeling. But those of you who've got a pain, Ache, You can't get rid of it, It's there. So what can you do with it? Give it importance. Stay with it, Care for it, Don't try and get rid of it, Care for it. It's in this moment, You've got something to focus on. And my goodness, Things start to change. The water becomes still all by itself. That's what my goal is, But I always thought I had to hold it, Do something to make it still. And I find now when I let it go, It becomes still. I always thought to cure things when they were wrong. Now I care for them and they get better all by themselves. This is a way of meditation. So don't think you can't meditate. Sometimes we don't meditate, But we always can. You have an object in front of you, Be with it, Care for it, And see what happens. Okay, So let's give it a go. So, Oh I should always say, Those of you who are here for the first time, Please, Whoo, Please, Those who are, Okay, Put them on, I don't care. So those of you who are here for the first time or second time and you want to go to the Introduction to Meditation course or classes, Those are the room to my right. This is for the advanced or the desperate, Those of you still not getting anywhere, But coming again and again and again, Year after year. So anyway, You're all welcome. So here we go. There's one other way to keep the water still, That's to drink it. Disappeared in the barnet. Hehehe. So, Closing the eyes. Usually when I close my eyes, Unless it's a noisy place, My body is the first thing which comes up by itself. You can feel all the tiredness, The jet lag, Aches, Pains, Getting old pains. As you experience them, You give them importance. It's quite a radical thing, Especially if it's an ache, A really bad ache or pain. Giving them importance is just not the sort of thing we're used to doing. Always try and get rid of them. Keep it important, It's in the moment, The only time you ever have this moment. And care for it. Opening the door of your heart to whatever you're feeling right now. With the body, If there is a bad part of your posture, Whether your legs aren't crossed properly or your bottom is not adjusted onto the cushion, Both of which apply to me right now, So I'm going to move. That's kindness. Being here, Being aware of whatever comes up in this moment, And just caring for it. Not trying to get rid of it, Not wanting something else, But letting go, Putting down this desire, This craving, This wanting, This not wanting. And just being with the body in this moment. Getting every moment importance, And caring for it enough to feel the body, Even maybe settling down, That's what usually happens. If you care for something, It might be a barking dog, It might be a lonely kitten, It might be the birds, The magpies which swoop. If you care for things, That you feel that you're not a threat, Then they calm down. And if there is a problem in the body and it comes up, Don't try and get rid of it, That causes a problem in the first place. Open the door for the heart, Care for it. It will come into your heart as it is, And after a while, Like everything, They come into your room and then they leave. Nothing stays forever. The body does relax. Because you're not moving or struggling, You do not need much oxygen. So naturally, You don't have to tell your body to do this, But naturally, The breath gets lighter, Smoother, As you calm down physically. And as the body calms down, So does the mind. This is the most important time now. We don't really worry about, Or even sometimes don't know, How many minutes are left. That's my job. The reality of our world is always in this moment. We don't measure time vanishes, Just being here. We don't measure time. We measure time. We measure time. We measure time. We measure time. We measure time. We measure time. We measure time. We measure time. We measure time. We measure time. We measure time. We measure time. We measure time. We measure time. We measure time. We measure time. We measure time. We measure time. We measure time. We measure time. We measure time. We measure time. We measure time. We measure time. We measure time. We measure time. We measure time. We measure time. 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We measure time. We measure time. We measure time. We measure time. We measure time. It's getting close to the end of the meditation. It travels by itself. We don't need to worry. Now is the most important time. What are you aware of right now? Are you giving importance all you can for it? How does it feel when you spend 45 minutes relaxing, Not choosing, Not getting rid of things, Not trying to keep things, Giving every moment, Whatever moment is here, Importance and care? How does it feel when you spend 45 minutes relaxing, Not trying to keep things, Not trying to keep things, Not trying to keep things, Not trying to keep things, Not trying to keep things, Not trying to keep things, Not trying to keep things, Not trying to keep things. Now I'm going to be in the gong three times. Please listen to every sound of the gong. And the last ringing of the gong will open your eyes. The gong is now open. The gong is now open. Here we go. So we have three questions from overseas. This is StreamLife. First of all from Thailand. Ask an old question, What is the mind? I could describe, Tell you, The history of the mind in Western culture is that it was part of Greek culture. Aristotle would always say there are six senses, Seeing, Hearing, Smelling, Tasting, Touching, And the mind was the sixth sense. He also called it a common sense. Because whatever you see, Hear, Smell, Taste, Touch, The mind will also know. And over those centuries, The Western world has lost its mind and lost its common sense. We've only got five senses left now, And the mind is not respected. So the mind is the lost sense in the Western world. And because it's really ridiculous, You can measure the mind. Not measuring the brain, But measuring the mind. And one thing you can have direct experience of is when your five senses vanish, When they've gone, What you're left with can only be the sixth sense of mind. Which is one of the things we do in meditation. It's a simile of the Buddha, Of refining gold. You get gold and there's many impurities in it. You take out those impurities until it's 100% pure gold, No other element. And then you can find out the nature of what pure gold is. That's what we do with meditation. All the other senses eventually stop. We're left, We're not unconscious, We're just fully conscious, More aware than we have been before, Just with the sixth sense of mind. Then we get to know it, What it's like, How it works, And how we purify this mind of the other five senses, Because they find its qualities. And for those of you who don't even go that far, Actually you'll all go that far, Every one will one day, They will suppress or restrain the five senses that eventually disappear, And that's called death, Near-death experience, Real dying. And then you find out that what's left is your mind. You're missing stuff. But if you don't want to die yet, Or you don't want to get into the deep meditation, Or you find it difficult to at the moment, Just always know that what is a garden? A garden is a place where there's trees and bushes and flies in Australia right now. There's all these animals, These plants. It's defined by what exists in it. So a mind is defined by what exists in it, Which is not of the physical world. There are things like love and kindness and peace, And it's opposite, Anger, Ill will, Frustration, Depression. All of those things wind the mind, So we can know what the mind is. So if any of you are ever depressed, One little trick is if you're depressed, Point to it. Where is it? Is it here? Is my head depressed? Is my heart depressed? Is it my earlobe is depressed? None of that, Because it doesn't exist in the body. It's got its own realm. If you're in love, Where does that live? If you find out where love, Depression, Fear lives, Then you've found the location of the mind. It doesn't live in space, It lives somewhere else. So that's what the mind is, And you can find out for yourself. And for goodness sake, Don't think that the mind is just an offshoot of the brain. That is just so against evidence. That is dogma, That is not evidence based. Thinking the mind doesn't exist. Anyway, Next question from Malaysia. Do you have any advice for one who can't sit for long? I jolted out of it after 20 minutes. There was awareness that the mind wanted to move. Okay, One possibility is using a straight jacket. They're very cheap, You can get them on eBay. Stop even moving. But no, That force is not going to really help. What does really help is just, If it's a habit, You always move after 20 minutes or so. Number one, Obviously make sure you're comfortable when you meditate. You don't have to sit full lotus on the floor. You can't sit on chairs. You can't just lean back. You can't put your feet out. Find a nice comfortable position for yourself. Which means you don't need to move because of pain. But sometimes you're just so happy, That's all. And if it's a habit, All you need to do is what we call the programming of mindfulness. At the beginning of your meditation, Say, At 20 minutes when I feel I need to come out of meditation, I'll just do another 20 minutes straight away. I won't come out. Just keep it much more simple than that. When I want to come out, I'll stay a bit longer. When I want to come out, I'll stay a bit longer. When I want to come out, I'll stay a bit longer. You have to do this with awareness. So don't just say these things and just don't really mean them. In your own words, Slowly, With as much awareness as possible, Really be mindful of what you're saying. And then it has an effect on you. It does actually get into your mind and the mind usually goes on another track. Instead of 20 minutes always comes out, It tries something else. It stays there. And lastly, From this here, When I do meditation, My body calms down. There's usually no emotions to calm down. Is it okay for me to watch my body during the whole meditation? You can watch the body for your whole meditation, But what happens after it calms down? There's nothing to watch, It disappears. So if it does disappear, Your body vanishes. Great! You're not unconscious, You're aware of something. So you ask yourself, What am I aware of? If you can't hear, You can't smell, You can't see, You can't taste and touch, You're still aware. What are you aware of? You're aware of something. And sometimes the nearest simile is when you're in some hut in the forest somewhere, And the lights are on inside your hut, And then you decide to go outside into the forest. At first you can't see, It's at night time. It takes a while for your eyes to adjust to the different level of light. Same with similes, Not quite the same, That when you go out from the five senses into the world of the mind, At first it takes a while for you to adjust to what you're experiencing. It's there, But it's much more subtle. But after a while you get used to it, You're not afraid of it, And you become incredibly aware of it. So this is what happens. Your body calms down, You don't usually know emotions to calm down. Make sure you're calming down past and future thinking. So thinking is what you're going to calm down. So there's no past, No future in the present moment. And you don't calm down emotions, You calm down the negative emotions, And you encourage the beautiful ones. That's such an amazing teaching when I first understood that. The meditation is not just sitting there like some zombie, You've just actually got incredible energy and happiness and joy and clarity coming up. You're actually more mindful aware than you've ever been before. And that good awareness, That strong awareness is always associated with joy. In the party it's called pitti sukha, Joy and happiness, And it gets immense, It's ecstasy, It's bliss in the end. So what happens is that yes, Your body is calming down, Calm down any negative emotions, Like I want something else. I don't want to be here, This sucks. Whatever it is, Or I'm no good, I can't do this. Those are the negative emotions, And even one which comes up later on, Fear. Ooh, A bit too much for me, Ooh. Those negative emotions also should be calmed down. But the nice ones, You're inspired, The inspiration. Never calm that down, Go for it. Ah, You're peaceful. Peace is not something which is bland and tasteless. Peace is just incredibly enjoyable, So I'd even say spicy and sweet and joyful. So peace, You feel it, And it's emotional peace. And essentially you get the real happiness of letting go. Freedom, Please do not calm them down, Encourage them. You calm down, Let go the negative emotions to cultivate the beautiful ones. So that's what we call meditation. Meditation should make you happier and happier and happier, No matter what you have to get up to. So there we go now. Any questions or comments from those who have come all this way and sitting on the floor now, Or against the wall? Yes, We have a question over there. So the mic, Who's the nearest one? You're the closest one, Some exercise, Faster, Faster, Faster, Faster, Faster, Faster. Yes, Thank you Ajahn Brahm. I just want to know what happens to your mind when you go to sleep? What happens in the mind when you go to sleep? It's just very low mindfulness. So sometimes you may have a dream, And in that dream, It's where you can sometimes remember it, Sometimes you can't remember it. But that's so much different, That when you are cultivating awareness, You're not sleeping. Maybe the difference just very sort of quickly, And it's not really accurate, But it gives you some idea. When you're asleep, You can be peaceful, But you're not really there to enjoy it. But when you're mindful, I want you to sort of in meditation, Yeah, You're peaceful and you really are aware. So what if you don't dream? If you don't, Drink. What do you mean, Drink what? Water? I'm on the bottle. You don't drink? No, Not drink, Dream. Dream you don't dream. Okay. One of the things is many people do dream, But they don't remember them. And sometimes people do have those vivid dreams. So those dreams vivid or you don't dream at all. It could be just peaceful, But most of the time you don't really remember what you dreamt. You know, Some years ago, I had one of those vivid dreams. This is not a joke, This is real. And I dreamt, Long after Ajahn Chah passed away, I dreamt that I went to him and he gave me this Dhamma teaching in my dream. And it was such a, I was vivid enough in a dream that I was really excited. And I would say, I made it to him, I'm going to remember this, I'm going to remember this, I'm going to remember this. Because you know, The teacher was deceased. And I was just, I have to remember this, It's a brilliant teaching, Really one of the best. And as soon as I woke up, It's gone, I couldn't remember a word. I was disappointed, But I laughed as well. He'd given me enough teachings in my life, So you know, Anything extra was gravy. So it wasn't really necessary. But sometimes you do have those vivid dreams. But you know, They're really worth very much. For those of you who don't know this story about how many of you, Because when I went on Arjvan this morning, Somebody said that it's a good day for the race. So I think it's Melbourne Cup season now. But anyway, There was this man here in Perth who had this really vivid dream of five angels. Five angels came to him in a dream. You know this one? Anyone doesn't know this one? A few, Okay. Five angels came to him in a dream. And the angels had five big pots of gold, Gold coins. So one by one they gave him these five big pots of gold, Five angels. And when he received the last pot of gold, That's when he woke up. Just like those vivid dreams, The first thing he did, He looked around, Here's his bedroom in the morning. There was no angels. He didn't mind about that. All he did, Really worry about, There's no pots of gold. It was just a dream, But very vivid. But when he went downstairs for breakfast, His wife had already gone to work, But she'd made him five pieces of toast and five boiled eggs. That was weird. And he looked at the newspaper. You know the date was 5th of May, The fifth day of the fifth month. It was like somebody was trying to tell him the importance of the number five. So what he did, Actually I saw your car this morning, It's 555, The number plate, Isn't it? Is that yours? Yeah, There we go. So the number five is important today. So 5th of May, Dreamt of five angels, Five pots of gold. Just, You know, He looked at the back of the newspaper, Actually the middle of the newspaper, The racing in Perth. And there's a race course, It's named after the English one, A-S-C-O-T, Ascot. Have you noticed? A-S-C-O-T, Five letters. So he decided to go to have a look out, See what horses were racing that afternoon in Ascot. And he couldn't believe his eyes when he just read, Horse number five in race number five was called five angels. He was running that day. So, Took the afternoon off work, You have to keep lucky numbers. Lucky number five, He took five thousand dollars out of the bank. Five thousand. And he put it on horse number five, Race number five, Five angels to win. And of course he knew the lucky number five could not be wrong. And it wasn't wrong, His horse came in fifth. That's the trouble with dreams. We don't understand their meaning until afterwards. So it's better not to dream, Then you don't lose any money. Any other? Okay, So we can actually now finish off for this afternoon. And we can now just. . . Oh, Sorry, Go on, Yeah. Here we go, Got to. . . The mind is actually a physical entity or a spiritual entity. Could you equate, Say the mind is like in Christianity, We have like Catholics that have a spirit. Could you equate that? Because I still have a bit of confusion, I'm understanding whether it's a physical thing or spiritual thing. Okay, The mind is called like a stream of consciousness. It's real, But to say that it's something which is always going to be there, Which is like a permanent thing. So instead of looking at it as a thing, Instead of saying it's no thing, Like in Buddhism it's like something in between. It's a middle way, This is straight from the Samyutta Nikaya. You'll find that, Maybe on a Sunday afternoon, I'm not sure where I was, Up to the word of the Buddha, But it's actually in there. Instead of saying a thing or a no thing, It's a process. Something which is not permanent, But which is not sort of nothing at all. A cause and effect process, Just like physical things, But not living in a physical world. So that process is something much different. We have become materialists in both senses of the word, In physical and also philosophical. And it's interesting to see why they both usually go together. Because people don't really put much attention or emphasis on the spiritual for want of another word, That which is outside of this world. In fact, A lot of people say it doesn't exist. But then they can't sort of measure and quantify things like love and kindness or hate or fear. And these are all stuff which drives our lives, But which we say are just some byproduct of the brain. Well, Please excuse me that sometimes people think, Oh, We can solve all these problems when that spiritual world becomes a bit unbalanced with some chemicals, The psychotropic drugs. And there's something much more than that. It's not materialist. So a long time ago, Most people did have, They called it duality at the time, The mind and the body being something different. But that has been just so suppressed. And some of my mates in the science fraternity did that. But there is a pushback, As you'd always know, When everything's going too far. There's always a pushback from top scientists. And of course you saw one of those, My old mate, Professor Bernard Carr, Close disciple of Stephen Hawking, Who came here for the conference we had a couple of years ago. And it's not just him. It's Brian Josephson, Nobel Prize winner. He's got huge amounts of flak for developing meditation, Mind-based things, And that's what he can do now because he's got his Nobel Prize, So no one can really say he's wacky. He did something which was quantum tunnel in solid state physics. Brilliant guy. But he was also on the forefront of bringing that sixth sense into materialism, The mind. Which is one of the reasons why you get a Buddhist country, Well, Countries aren't Buddhist, But with the majority of Buddhist population like Bhutan, Gross national happiness, Instead of gross national material product, Which is their wonderful little spin on so-called development, Not just your income, But just your quality of life. That is not materialism. It is looking after the mind world. So where does happiness and contentment live? You can't put it in space, You can't give it coordinates because it doesn't live in physical space. It's got its own area. And you all know that that final argument, Which is absolutely brilliant, I've yet to have any philosopher, Any scientist, Actually find any holes in that argument. Again from Bernard, Professor Bernard Carr, My common friend, Jeff, His daughter, First year at school, Teacher asked the question, What's the biggest thing in the world? And the other kids said, Elephants, Mountains, That sort of stuff. This girl said, My eye is the biggest thing in the world. What are you talking about? Said the teacher, No one understood her. And said, Well, My eye can see her daddy, You can see a mountain elephant, My eye can see so much, If all of that can fit into my eye, My eye must be the biggest thing in the world. Your eye can see so much, Everything can fit in. So, It was such a great answer. Became a, I think she was a graduate in, What's it, Not in biochemistry or something from Oxford, Got a PhD there, Brilliant girl. So, I said to my friend, 9 out of 10, Not 10 out of 10, Because the thing you call your mind, The mind can see everything your eye can see, Many things which you will never see in the real world. It can hear, It can smell, It can taste, It can touch, Real and imaginary phenomena, Like the old phantom limb phenomena. And it can also, It can know its own world, Everything, Everything you will ever know, Perceive, Could fit into the mind. Therefore the mind must be the biggest thing. And you know very carefully, I never said biggest thing in the world, Because the world can fit into the mind. It's another perspective, But a very useful perspective. So, That's why you can't locate the mind in this world. But you can locate the world in the mind. Different perspective. So anyway, We've gone for a long time with that. Sadhu, Sadhu. Okay, So now let's go and pay respects to the Buddha Masanga and then see what happens next.

Reviews

All about caring for the mind. Breath and body fall into place and peace abounds. Many thanks. ☮️💖🙏🕉️