Day 035/365: 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

For those of you who are coming for the Introduction to Meditation class,

A series of four classes where you get to learn the basics of meditation,

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

In this class,

It is the class for the experts,

For the advanced,

For the.

.

.

No,

It's a class for those where we meditate for one,

About 45 minutes usually,

And so it means that you've been doing some meditation before,

That you know how to sit comfortably for 45 minutes,

And you don't fall fast asleep.

I know that happened once when I was teaching meditation in prison,

In a high security jail,

And everyone was meditating.

And because of this high security,

You had to have a prison officer with you at all times.

And so when I was meditating,

The others were meditating,

I heard someone snoring,

So I had to open my eyes,

And it was the prison officer who was snoring.

And one of the prisoners,

His hand was already reaching over to the keys.

And if I had no.

.

.

As soon as I opened my eyes,

He looked to me,

Mmm,

Oh,

If Rajan Brahm hadn't opened his eyes,

He'd have had those keys.

Anyway,

But this is for people who have done some meditation before,

So don't be conceited and say,

Oh yeah,

I can meditate,

I can do 45 minutes,

Because it's tough at first to do 45 minutes,

You have to learn just what to do,

How to relax,

Basically just to know how to navigate the different obstacles which happen in meditation.

And so the introduction to meditation class is to my right.

This is the ongoing class where I keep speaking on and on and on and on,

That's why it's called ongoing,

But actually do be quiet once everybody has come in and settled down.

But anyway,

It's to navigate the different parts of meditation.

Somebody,

Sometimes people ask me,

Say,

What type of meditation do you teach?

Pasana,

Samatha,

Loving kindness,

And the answer for those of you who've been on my retreat is the story of this couple called Vai,

Her surname was Pasana,

And her partner Sam,

Ata,

Sam,

Ata,

And Vai,

Pasana.

And one day after lunch they decided to go and have a walk up Meditation Mountain,

And they took their two dogs with them,

Their two dogs.

One little dog was called Metta,

And the other one was called Anapanasati.

And so Sam,

Ata,

And Vai,

Pasana,

And their two dogs went up Meditation Mountain.

Sam went up there,

Because it was so peaceful,

He wanted some peace and quiet,

Some stillness,

Some calm,

And Vai,

She went up there because it was such a great view on top of Meditation Mountain,

She took her big Canon Insight camera to get some nice wisdom shots.

And what did Metta and Anapanasati,

The two dogs,

Dogs are just so wise,

They just go up there for fun.

They don't have these great goals,

You know,

I'm going to get enlightened,

I'm going to get jhanas,

They just go there because it feels good.

So Sam,

Vai,

And the two dogs went up Meditation Mountain,

When they only got halfway up,

It was so peaceful up there.

Sam was so happy,

Halfway up Meditation Mountain,

It was so calm.

Vai was so happy because even though it was only halfway up,

She got these amazing views of the countryside around,

So she took many Insight shots.

And Metta,

The dog,

Was getting so happy.

The further it got up the mountain,

The more it wagged its tail.

And Anapanasati,

When it got up Meditation Mountain,

It was really hard to find her,

She was disappearing.

And when they got to the top of Meditation Mountain,

There it was so peaceful,

So still,

Sam was just so happy.

And Vai,

You could see forever the whole universe spread out before you,

On the peak of Meditation Mountain.

And Vai was having all these incredible Insights,

Which she photoed on her camera.

And Metta was,

You know what it's like when dogs are really,

Really happy and ecstatic,

They run around,

And they wag their tail like it's going to fall off?

And as for Anapanasati,

Anapanasati,

The dog,

Couldn't find it,

It disappeared.

Because that's what happens on the top of Meditation Mountain.

Even Sam,

Yes,

He went up there for the stillness,

But he also enjoyed the view and incredible joy and love on the top of Meditation Mountain.

Even though Vai,

Pasana,

Went up there for the Insights and the Views,

It was still so still up there,

That she could experience the incredible perfect stillness as well as the joy.

And little Metta,

The dog,

Dogs have got eyes,

Dogs have got emotions.

Yeah,

Metta was just so full of the bliss of perfection,

But also could see forever and could enjoy the great peace on the top of Meditation Mountain.

Because the truth is,

On the top of Meditation Mountain,

Stillness,

Insight,

And loving-kindness,

Joy,

All live together on the top of Meditation Mountain.

And the reason I put Anapanasati up there,

The breath,

Is because the breath vanishes,

It disappears,

The deeper you go in meditation.

It is not that you're dying,

It is just you don't need the breath anymore.

Why do you need to actually consume the petrol in your car when it's just sitting in the garage,

Perfectly motionless?

Just like the body when it gets into deep meditation,

It hardly breathes at all,

And sometimes it doesn't breathe at all.

And you are perfectly safe.

You don't die,

You just get enlightened,

That's all.

So that is how,

What type of meditation we teach here.

We teach the whole caboodle.

In other words,

But one of the most important parts of this is,

Yeah,

They call,

You teach Samatha Kauripasana,

But the metta,

The loving-kindness,

The compassion,

That is also there,

And it also always has to be there.

You may not be focusing on the loving-kindness,

But if it's not actually coming as a support,

Then the meditation is not going to work.

If you say,

Right,

I'm going to be still,

This is it,

I am going to get into jhanas tonight or today,

And there's no kindness,

No compassion,

No softness,

No gentleness there,

And you'll find that hard approach to meditation,

That will just get you to the hard,

Painful body and a hard,

Painful mind.

That's why the people who try that hard approach,

Enlightenment and bust,

They don't only get a painful but,

But they're a pain in the butt to everyone else they'll meet afterwards as well.

A pain in the butt becomes contagious,

It starts with their own butt and they pass it on to others.

But that is not the path,

Not the path which I was taught,

And which I know is a path of kindness.

How can kindness give you insight?

How can kindness lead to peacefulness?

Obvious,

You're kind to your own body,

First of all.

Aware of it,

Feel it,

Understand what it's like,

How is my body now?

And when you feel it,

You get to know it and understand it,

And you're kind to it,

You settle all the problems.

This kindness settles the differences in the world.

Care,

Not cure,

As I keep on saying.

You care for this body and then you find out it just gets really nice,

And it tends to cure itself.

Problems disappear with that compassion.

So look at my body,

Get it nice and how you're feeling now,

And try and get it just the right temperature.

You're no lucky today,

Supposed to be really hot today,

But somehow or other the heavenly beings have been very kind today,

And they've made it a little bit of rain so it's nice and cool.

At least it's much cooler than was expected.

So you're kind.

So if you do feel a bit too hot,

Then I don't know,

You can actually get your own little personal fan.

In Thailand sometimes we have an attendant monk,

You know what his job was,

Venon Vibhuto,

If I get too hot you get a fan and keep fanning me.

Is that a good idea?

The trouble was that because there was one novice,

He was fanning I think Venon Sahibhuta,

And he got so fed up he hit the teeter with the fan.

So ever since then I decided maybe that's not such a good idea.

That's also one of the reasons why we don't allow people to wear shoes in the Buddhist temple.

You know why?

So that you've got nothing to throw at me in case I do a bad joke,

Because that's quite common in Asia,

Through shoes that George W Bush and George W Bush.

.

.

But anyway,

Going back to the kindness compassion,

That with compassion you find it softens things.

Real compassion like opening the door of your heart,

It's a beautiful little metaphor there.

You open the door of your heart unconditionally.

Whatever is happening in the body you just relax it.

You find when you put conditions you want to change it,

You want to cure it,

You want to get rid of this pain,

You want to.

.

.

Stupid body,

Come on,

Get out of here,

I want to go to the deep stuff.

All of that aggressive stuff is totally opposite of the kindness and the care,

The letting it be.

This beautiful caring,

Kind,

Motherly attitude.

And if you can do that you find your body relaxes so well.

My body feels,

Ah,

That feels really good.

I always say that people even last night,

A bit tired last night but nevertheless,

When people have anxiety problems,

They feel the tightness in their body.

How do you deal with that?

Just care for it,

Take your hand and massage it.

It's there,

Poor anxiety.

And after a while it vanishes.

The kindness cures it,

Mindfulness and kindness.

That's why kindness is a really important part of the meditation.

So you sit there,

You're kind to your body,

Really looking after it.

And if you need to cough,

You're kind enough to the body to cough.

It's important,

It's nature,

Just let it happen.

Thank you,

Good disciple.

And if somebody needs to leave,

They leave,

They come in,

They come in,

Just be kind.

Sometimes if somebody sort of goes away just after about 10 minutes of meditation,

They say,

Wonderful,

They've done 10 minutes,

That's wonderful,

I'm so happy,

Maybe tomorrow they do 12 minutes.

Instead of thinking they're blowing,

They should know better than this,

We should lock the doors,

We should make sure that no one is allowed to leave in half an hour,

We should actually have these big,

No,

We've got the security guards on a Friday,

We should put them outside there to actually make sure that everybody doesn't move during the meditation.

And nobody coughs during Ajahn Brahm's jokes.

And everyone must laugh,

Just like in Kim Jong-un in North Korea.

That'd be terrible,

Wouldn't it?

That's not how we get people to be peaceful and calm.

We have that beautiful kindness there,

Which means that we can just allow things to be.

We're so soft,

I gave this simile a long time ago,

By developing a mind like a padded cell.

So something hits your mind,

A sound,

An ache,

A pain,

Even a thought,

And it doesn't bounce back,

It goes thud into the padding of the wall,

And it doesn't bounce,

Like events don't bounce around in your mind during the meditation.

That's what kindness does.

An ache,

A pain,

It doesn't bounce,

It goes down and stops right there.

So it gets absorbed into the kindness,

So it doesn't rebound,

Which means you have lots of peace and stillness.

So you look at your body,

It gets nice and peaceful,

Then you look at your mind,

It's nice and peaceful.

That little story about this.

.

.

If she's here,

She could identify herself on the videos.

It'd be wonderful to actually say who you are,

Because it's such a long time since you told me the story that you had this little six or seven year old kid,

Somewhere here in Perth,

And the kid had a tantrum.

That's what kids do,

They got so fed up,

They said,

Mummy,

I don't love you anymore,

I'm leaving home.

That's what the kid said to the mummy,

And the mummy said,

No,

She came here,

So really smart person,

And she said,

Okay darling,

I'll help you pack.

And so,

Went into the little bedroom and packed the little six year old son or daughter,

I forget which I think was the son,

Packed a little suitcase with all the important things necessary for life.

Just like the Spiderman suit and the lucky underpants,

And then a teddy bear,

Whatever else,

It's really important.

Packed the bag and said to the kid,

Before you go son,

Let me make you a sandwich,

Because it's a long journey in life,

And so they made the kid's favourite sandwich,

Put it in a brown paper bag,

And there at the door of their little house,

They waved their child away,

Bye bye darling,

Have a wonderful life.

And there the six year old with a suitcase in one hand,

And with a brown paper bag with a favourite sandwich in the other,

Walked off into its life at six years of age,

The first time it left home.

It went along the path,

Opened the garden gate and turned left.

It got about maybe 50 metres,

100 metres before it felt terribly homesick,

Turned around and came back,

All by itself.

Came through the garden gate,

Went back to the door and the mother hadn't moved,

Welcome home darling.

That was called emotional intelligence.

That is how kindness brings our mind back home.

Stays in this moment,

Doesn't wander off all over the place.

Why?

Because if it wants to,

Off you go mind,

Have a nice time.

So if your mind wants to go off somewhere,

While you're sitting here,

Don't forget to pack its bags and give it its favourite sandwich and say bye bye,

Because then that kindness,

It will always come back to you again.

That's how we develop stillness,

Not through force,

Because you're happy to be here.

Why would you want to go anywhere else?

And that is the secret of samadhi stillness.

So kind,

So beautiful here,

That it wants to leave.

Not force,

But the delight into somebody which is relaxed and the mind which is happy here.

It's going to have that happiness.

That's why we always take metta the dog with us when we do our meditation.

And we take metta the dog up,

It goes way up to the top of meditation mountain,

Just enjoying,

Enjoying the wonderful being free,

Free of my body,

Ah wonderful,

Free of all the past and the future,

Oh my goodness,

All the stuff which I'm supposed to do tomorrow,

All the stuff which happened yesterday,

Oh it will drive you crazy.

You think monks don't live in the real world,

Oh,

We have more of a world we live in than you.

Because actually you come and dump your worlds on me.

I have so many worlds I'm supposed to deal with.

But who cares,

I let them go.

And you know what happens,

You've got a lot of trust,

The opposite of peace is fear.

Fear,

If I don't answer my mobile phone,

Something terrible will go wrong.

If I don't be aware of my body,

If I let my breath disappear,

Who knows,

I might end up in the coffin.

Who knows what will happen if I don't sort of keep my ears open?

Who knows,

Somebody might be coming behind me to steal something.

That fear is what stops us letting go.

The kindness is what allows letting go to happen.

So we just sit here,

Past goes,

Fear goes,

All that.

And fear means the future goes as well,

We don't need to plan anything.

In fact,

When you don't plan anything,

Things are less likely to go wrong.

When you plan things,

Sometimes fear is making what you fear the most actually come about.

So when we're in the present moment,

With kindness,

Such a beautiful place to hang out,

We stay there.

Then what do we do?

Oh my goodness,

Don't do anything.

This is rest time.

Just,

What does metta the dog do?

What's it trying to aim for?

Just does it,

That's all.

Just let loving kindness drive your car,

Your vehicle,

Your meditation.

Just stop and see what happens.

Always go in and in and in.

Never on to the next stage.

In and in and in.

See how much you can go in.

That's why it's called insight meditation.

So not insight,

It's inside meditation.

People just pronounce it wrong,

Inside meditation.

Anyway,

So that's enough talking.

Now let us actually do something for a change,

Or rather not do anything.

So if you would like to please make sure that you're sitting down comfortably,

Make sure that Sam and I are there together,

And that you have metta the dog as you go for your journey up meditation mountain.

Okay,

Here we stop.

We're going to say here we go,

But no,

No.

Usually people stop at the end of a journey,

But in meditation we stop at the beginning of a journey.

So stopping here,

We check.

Okay,

How is my body?

Poor old body.

Always busy doing stuff for others,

Now I'm looking after you.

This is quality time between you and your own bodily frame.

Look down at my legs.

How you going down there,

Legs?

Sometimes asking questions is a skillful means of becoming mindful.

When I ask my legs,

How are you,

My awareness goes down there,

And I see things,

You feel things,

Because you're paying attention.

I find actually my legs are pretty good.

Just checking them there,

You okay down there?

And they say,

Yep,

We're fine.

I go to my butt,

That's pretty good too.

But my waist needs a bit of adjusting there.

So you go up your body,

Stage by stage,

Checking,

Not assuming.

Not thinking,

Oh this is my posture,

It should be okay.

No,

Just checking it's just as good as you can get.

It's kindness,

Just like you tuck yourself in.

Just now you see the dogs when they go to sleep,

They've got their little basket wherever they sleep,

And they just go round and round and round.

I don't know why they do that.

Round and round and round until they find the most comfortable position,

And then they sit down,

Or rather lie down.

Just relaxing,

You just check out your back,

How you're doing back.

You need to stretch,

I'm doing a bit of a stretch,

Beginning of meditation.

You need to be leaned back,

Lean forward to the side,

To the back,

Are you too tight?

Back,

How can I help you?

Just an attitude of caring,

Of being attentive to the needs of your own posture,

Instead of telling the body what it should be doing.

Just being sensitive to your body,

And just acting accordingly.

My body needs to be moved,

I'll move it.

I'm checking my hands,

Because where my hands are,

That obviously controls where my arms are.

I'll check my hands,

Make sure they're really comfortable.

I feel my hands are just really nice,

I can stay like that for a while.

I can check my shoulders,

Make sure they're really nice and relaxed.

Just paying attention,

Caring,

TLC.

All that really means is you're aware,

You're kind,

And things relax.

It's not only pragmatic,

Useful for your own ability to sit for long periods of time.

It's also useful,

You realize how you can relax with a little bit of exercise,

Repetitive,

Finding out how to relax your own body,

Try a narrow mindfulness.

All of that,

You learn how to relax the body,

But it's also the qualities you require to get into deep meditation,

The awareness and the kindness,

The ability to let go.

Pay attention,

Care,

And so shoulders really relax.

Your neck,

And my head.

Muscles around your eyes and mouth,

Nice and relaxed.

It's like sometimes you feel things being pulled apart,

Being stretched,

And just using even imagery,

Things being pulled and stretched or squashed.

I take off all those forces,

All those pullings and pushings and squashings,

And allow things just to expand.

All of these will take their natural shape to be free.

Think of freedom for my muscles.

You can be free just to be rather me making you stretch like this or squash like that.

May all my muscles be free and happy and well.

You feel relaxation happening.

And it's at this point that loving kindness is always joyful.

Feel my body just,

A beautiful tingle which I keep pointing out to you.

The tingling,

The delight of a relaxed body.

It's not totally relaxed but most of it is.

It's important to associate relaxation with joy.

It makes you trust relaxation,

And you relax deeper.

Beautiful,

Peaceful relaxation.

Just linger there as long as you want.

If you want to just look at your old peace-ometer,

That's samatha stuff.

Stillness,

Understanding what peace feels like.

What is stillness?

Peace.

Don't theorize about it,

Just know it,

Feel it,

Experience it.

Don't be afraid of deep peace.

If you try and control and force it,

It will just rebel and run away.

So I make this present moment which is where my peace-ometer tends to point me.

I make this a joyful,

Happy place.

Always have my little dog,

Metta,

In the present moment.

I can feel my peace-ometer.

The amount of calm,

Stillness you have,

You feel in your mind.

You can always experiment,

You try thinking of the future,

All the nice things you're going to do and all the fearful things,

And see that peace-ometer that just gets so agitated.

Just being in this moment,

Being kind,

Having some trust,

And you find the peace-ometer starts going down.

Understanding you learn more from the present moment,

This is where you learn now,

Never from the past,

And the future is being made right now.

It just gives more importance,

More value to this moment.

Don't try and figure it out,

Name it.

Just experience it in the silence.

And your thinking is like talking,

Talking back to the world.

When you're silent,

You're listening to her wisdom.

Soon the breath will come up,

If it wants to,

When it does,

Just welcome it.

Treat it like a friend,

Never like a slave.

Then your friend will stay with you,

Will hang out with you for hours.

Her breath and I,

And her partner Sati,

The dog,

Comes right up to you,

Stays by your side.

I'm going to be quiet now.

And I start speaking again,

All be it,

Towards the end of the meditation.

One more.

Oh,

Gosh.

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Reviews

Meditation mountain analogy, great comments before and after

Really nice intro talk about the dogs Metta and Anapanasati

So wonderful. Humourous and kind. Thank you ☮️💖🙏🕉️