Okay,
The big clock over there is at three,
So I can now begin with the usual announcement.
I remember this from last year or three months ago when I lasted a Saturday afternoon class.
But welcome to the ongoing meditation class at Dhammaloka every Saturday afternoon.
This is the class for those who have meditated before,
Or those who are coming to the Introduction to Meditation class being held by Peter Smith next door.
That is in the room to my right.
And here we meditate for a little bit longer than they do next door.
We usually meditate here for about 40 minutes,
Maybe 45,
So it's a bit long for some people.
So if you feel that that's a bit too much for you when you begin,
We can start in the beginners class,
This is for the experts.
So welcome to the experts class on meditation,
Or thereabouts.
So,
Still people coming in but never mind.
So during this class every Saturday afternoon,
One of the monks or nuns,
We talk a little bit deeper about meditation and some of the problems which come up.
So there is a lot in meditation about how to relax the body,
Relax the mind,
It's very good for both of those,
But we also can take it that little bit deeper.
You're really understanding just how your mind works and apply that to your daily life.
Because meditation is not something which you just do as a religious activity or a health activity,
Which is just what you do when you go to a temple or you go to like a spa or something.
This is something which you do,
Which affects your daily life,
Because how you can relax and cope with the difficulties of life is usually just how you get deep meditation,
The two support one another.
And it's one of the reasons why that you try even as a monk not to separate out,
Just the way of meditating and the way of living.
So we want to live a peaceful life but also a productive life.
And so you can have them together.
So one of the reasons why I say that is just even a few days ago,
Going to give a talk somewhere,
Came up with the same old simile which I developed a long time ago.
And people say,
What,
Sometimes I just don't have time to meditate.
And it reminded me of an anecdote of one old friend a long time ago,
Who said that he meditates one hour every day,
Except when he's busy.
And when he's busy,
He meditates two hours every day.
It was one of those counterintuitive statements which is one of the reasons why it stands out,
Why it's easy to remember.
If he's busy and he's got lots of things to do and lots of things to perform and produce,
Then he does two hours a day to make his mind more efficient and more obviously productive.
It's one of those cases that,
And I don't know why people don't understand this,
Because they've had this experience so many times.
So many times you're working,
Writing a letter,
Doing an email,
Trying to fix a problem,
Trying to make a solution to something,
And what happens?
You just,
You know,
There's a block there.
You just cannot find the right word,
You cannot put these sentences together,
You can't find a solution to the problem.
And a lot of times it's because you are,
You're not quite brain dead,
But your brain has very tired and sluggish.
It's been working too hard.
Just like a person who's been walking or running,
After a while they're going to take a break.
They can't just keep running at that place all the time.
You can't use your brain at that rate continuously.
And I always remember that was why,
I was a school teacher for one year,
That's why in education psychology,
Why you had to have a recess in the morning and in the afternoon and also one at lunch time,
And the break times.
As I mentioned to a group last Thursday,
That is one of the reasons why the British,
My ancestors,
They used to have a very powerful empire,
Because they knew some meditation from a long time ago.
It was called tea break,
Morning tea break and afternoon tea break.
And they had to have 10 or 15 minutes in the morning just to relax.
10 or 15 minutes in the afternoon to relax.
When I first came to Australia,
I called a smoker,
But he's not supposed to smoke anymore so he doesn't have any break at all.
So in order to just relax the brain,
To calm it down,
To re-energize it,
It's great to have those breaks during the day.
Trouble is if you do have a break,
Hardly anyone knows how to use it.
They go and talk to somebody,
They catch up on some other business,
They just have a cup of coffee and just yak yak yak.
But what a wonderful thing it is if we could have those moments when we do feel tired,
To fully relax.
Of course that simile,
Here it comes again,
How heavy is the glass of water?
I demonstrate this simile so often,
You get some interesting experience.
I did this once to a Buddhist group in the Imperial College in London,
A group of engineers.
And as soon as I said,
How heavy is this glass of water?
Some smarty pants said about 225 grams.
That's not what I was looking for,
Answering,
Probably right.
But it's not measuring it,
It's just how heavy does it feel?
And of course the answer is you probably all know,
That is the longer you hold it,
The heavier it gets.
And after many minutes it feels so heavy you're in pain,
You can't hold it comfortably.
And that's a simile of when you're working too hard,
When you don't give yourself a break,
You hold your responsibilities and duties so long,
That you're tired,
Your brain just doesn't work properly,
You don't produce anything.
So when the glass of water is too heavy to hold comfortably,
You put it down.
You put it down,
Relax and rest,
Just for 10 minutes,
15 minutes.
And when you pick it up again afterwards,
The water is light.
It feels like just because your muscles have recovered.
That's how your brain works.
If you keep pushing,
Trying to find a solution,
Trying to get things done,
Trying to tick things off your list in your box,
Or your list of lists,
You find out that after a while you just can't produce anything at all.
You are wasting time.
So generally how to meditate,
To relax,
To really let go,
Is a way of creating more time,
Being more productive.
So,
Problem is,
People don't know how to put things down,
How to relax.
They can't rest at night,
They can't just enjoy the sunshine,
Or just watch the trees.
They're always busy doing something,
Wearing out their brain.
So Harvard Business School calls it an investment of time,
Giving yourself a break.
It has to be a real break.
So here in meditation we learn how to make the best use of those moments where we can take a break,
Not to worry about things.
Because it's okay,
You can close your eyes and sit there and you think about so many different things.
What a waste of an opportunity that is.
So in order for a person to actually to make that transition from what you have to do in this world,
What I have to do in this world,
And then to make a transition to a place of peace and stillness inside,
Is one of the reasons why,
One of the first practices of meditation,
This is even recommended in the old sutras by the Buddha,
Was to do body awareness first of all.
Start with your body and then you work into your mind to relax that.
So to start on your body,
It's not that hard.
How does your body feel right now?
How is it?
Aches,
Pains,
Are you hot?
Are you cold?
You got indigestion?
You're energized?
Are you tired?
How do you feel?
Simple thing like that.
But because it's so simple,
Many people think,
No,
Just what's the real meditation?
Come on,
Watch the breath or watch sort of great lights in the mind.
Now start with what is very easy.
Then later on,
You can work up into something which is very refined.
So it's one of the reasons why sitting down on the ground,
On the chair,
On a cushion,
On a stool,
Leaning back against the wall,
How are you?
Now sometimes people say,
Oh yeah,
I'm sort of okay.
That's not good enough.
Can you make yourself more comfortable?
Now that's without lying down and falling asleep and being in your bed and your duvet to the Saturday afternoon class.
But how can you make your body feel a little bit more comfortable?
So that's one of the reasons why we sort of have these cushions,
These stools,
These chairs,
So you can find what is best for you at this time,
At this place.
It's not always the same.
So once you have got some idea of your body,
Then we take it to the next level of doing what we call the sweeping of the body,
Part by part.
There is many different sweeping of the body meditations.
Some people just use that and use that alone to get into some deep meditation.
But what is useful for everyone at the beginning is to make sure as you go part by part through your body,
Just like somebody like an airline pilot has all these different sort of things they have to check before they take off.
They've got the fuel,
They've got the passengers,
They've got,
I don't know what else,
But they can check everything.
And this is what you do with your body,
To make sure your body,
Everything is just in optimum position.
Of course I'll go through this when we do the guided meditation.
And when you check it's in the right position,
Sometimes it's not in the right position.
Sometimes your legs are in that position,
Last time it tended to work,
But today,
No,
You need a different position.
So you check and you move them.
It's amazing how people think that,
Oh,
Once you close your eyes,
You shouldn't move,
You shouldn't fidget,
You shouldn't cough,
You shouldn't scratch,
You shouldn't do anything.
That's not real meditation.
And sometimes,
Where's the kindness and the wisdom?
So if you need to adjust the posture,
Adjust it.
Sometimes you just don't get it right the first time.
You adjust it and you feel,
How does that feel?
Little by little,
You are caring for every part of your body,
Bit by bit,
As you move up the body.
And when you move it,
It can relax,
It feels better.
That is one of the great things with mindfulness,
It gives you feedback.
In other words,
You just know if you're more relaxed or you're more tense.
You can feel that.
And with practice of mindfulness,
If you're looking at the right place,
Not where you want to get to,
That's looking over into the future somewhere,
But looking where you are,
How is this,
Is that more comfortable than before?
Little by little,
You get to know your body.
And you get to know how to relax this body of yours.
Because you find that sometimes I'm sitting like this,
And sometimes I know how to relax it.
You can feel just the tightness in your stomach just to get released.
Sometimes you've got an ache in your knee.
And sometimes moving it doesn't help,
But sometimes you can just almost relax the tightness there,
Which is often some fear,
Makes you tense up.
You can feel it,
You can imagine even.
Why sometimes do we imagine?
That something is squashed,
There's pressure on it.
I imagine just the pressure being taken off.
I imagine sometimes like a sponge has been wrung and it's really twisted and compressed.
And then just taking that pressure off it and untwisting it so it becomes all light and fluff,
It comes back to its natural,
Untense,
Unstrained state.
Other times,
Sometimes I feel a part of my body is being pulled.
I'm being pulled on both ends.
Sometimes I do that with my shoulders.
I imagine,
Because some time ago I think I saw these muscles,
Shoulder muscles,
And just,
They're almost like little strings.
I imagine they're just being pulled apart.
I imagine them just letting go of both ends.
So the muscle strings,
They just relax.
They lose the tightness,
The tension.
I do that with my body.
It takes a lot of mindfulness and also some skill,
Because what I'm doing there,
I'm letting go.
You already probably got the point there.
If you squash something,
You're pressurizing it.
Trying to put it into a shape,
Into a size which is not its natural shape.
You let go and things become their natural shape.
Strings,
So tight,
And if it's so tight you can feel that tension.
So imagine just letting go of both ends and then there's no tension on it.
To have stress and tension and pain has to be some pulling and pushing somewhere.
Some of that is you can't avoid it,
But some of it you can listen by being aware and learning how to let go.
And the learning how to let go is where we try this or try that until we find what works.
We get the feedback,
Our body relaxes.
And as you learn that more and more,
You're learning the awareness and this wonderful ability which you've heard so many times,
Let go.
You're actually doing it.
You know it by its results.
You're getting feedback,
If it's tight,
That's not letting go.
That's demanding tightness.
If you relax,
You just let go of something,
Well done.
It's the same with in the moment afterwards,
We go to our mind and we let go of our mind.
In other words,
Let go of the past and the future.
How do we let go of the past and the future?
Same way,
We're aware what troubles us.
Present moment is here.
It's the future which is away.
It's the past which is a burden.
Right now,
It's always peaceful.
So,
Little by little we learn how to relax and how to let go.
As far as the thoughts are concerned in the mind,
What's the problem with the thoughts?
It's only because we are agitated.
Sometimes people try and stop the thoughts,
Makes them more agitated.
They come and complain,
Ajahn Brahm,
I can't stop thinking,
I'm going crazy,
I can't let go.
So we teach you how to let go.
And you know it by its effect.
The water,
The lake,
Of which the waves on the surface of the lake are the thoughts.
As long as the water is moving,
There will always be thoughts.
But if you calm down the water,
Your mind,
Let it be.
Then the waves get less and less and less.
Your mind becomes still.
And the thoughts,
They go,
They don't exist.
We have a still,
Beautiful,
Calm lake.
Letting go is not that hard.
So,
We will now prove that.
So,
That's the introduction.
So those of you who are already stiff,
Then you can actually move,
Have a stretch,
Have a cough,
Have a sneeze.
And then in a few moments,
We can start the meditation.
We'll go for about 45 minutes.
I will leave the first 20 minutes,
Half an hour,
And then leave you to your still,
Peaceful lake of a mind.
Okay,
So here we go.
So with your eyes closed,
The reason why we close our eyes is because it's one less sense channel to disturb us.
We've only got really four senses to be concerned about,
Plus our mind.
So we just do a gross relaxation,
A coarse relaxation first of all,
Just making sure your body is reasonably comfortable.
If you're on a chair or on a cushion,
Make sure the cushion is not too far forward,
Not too far back.
Mine is too far back,
So I'm going to adjust it.
If you're wearing a robe,
Make sure it's not falling off,
Like mine was a moment ago.
And just do it as a general relaxation and then we can get more specific.
How are your feet now?
I think it's simple,
People don't really spend so much time being aware of their feet.
So see if you can relax them.
They may be sort of in an uncomfortable position,
So move.
When you do move,
You check afterwards,
Does that make it better?
Doing mindfulness,
Feedback,
Kindness.
Do you find the best position for your feet?
Again,
Go up your feet to your legs,
Especially your knees.
People do have lots of knee problems in life.
So right now see if you can get your knees into the best posture.
If you're sitting on a chair,
Make sure that the knees or other legs aren't too tucked in,
Aren't too far forward.
So the knees aren't put under stress or too much pressure.
And up the thighs,
Making sure that those huge muscles are just nicely relaxed.
Sometimes you can get like a stitch in those muscles or a throbbing pain because you've had a bruise there or something.
Sometimes you just pause and be with that bruise or that pain and relax it.
How do you relax it?
Try this,
Try that.
Imagination,
Visualization,
See if it works.
See if that ache,
That throb gets less or whether it increases.
If it's increasing,
Go in the wrong direction.
Turn around and go the other way.
It takes a lot of trial and error,
Experiment,
But as long as you're mindful of how it changes things then it's never wasted.
You learn.
You learn a wonderful skill about how you use meditation to relax and heal your own body.
Then you go to your butt,
Making sure if you need to fidget,
Fidget now.
Otherwise you find you're uncomfortable and it's disturbing you.
Go up to your waist.
I had to loosen my belt because it was a bit too tight earlier and I know if I don't act early it will become tight and disturb me later on.
Lightness will lead into my comfort.
Then up my back,
I like to stretch my back at this point.
You learn this from animals,
I like to do a big stretch and then let go.
Check my hands,
It doesn't really matter where they are as long as they're comfortable.
So sometimes I do move them at this point just to get them as relaxed as possible.
But I don't really agree when people say,
Oh they have to be connected this way or that way to keep the energy inside.
I think that's a lot of you know what.
I just keep my hands comfortable.
Then I go up to my shoulders.
I said that often imagine them like a bunch of strings on either side of the spine.
Sometimes you feel them,
They're very tight,
Intense,
They're pulling.
So imagine these two invisible beings on either side,
Stretching these strings,
Called my muscles.
Imagine them letting go.
When I imagine that word let go,
I often can be aware of the muscles actually relaxing.
I'm not holding things tight anymore.
Moving up to my neck,
Making sure that the head is balanced on top of the neck,
Otherwise you get muscle pains.
Making sure inside the throat there's no itches,
If there is an irritation,
An inflammation.
Sometimes what would you do for other inflammations on the outside of your body?
Just be kind to it,
Don't sort of annoy it.
A lot of times irritation,
Lessons.
Sometimes just a little bit of kindness and care,
Compassion.
Actually look at some of my muscles,
Like individual beings,
I'm kind to them.
It's amazing they respond from kindness to relaxation.
Into my head,
Starting with the eyes and the mouth.
Imagine I can feel the muscles around those,
That part of my mouth.
I've learned how to let them go.
So what was once tight and screwed up is now open and free.
Feel the muscles being loosened.
My whole face now,
At peace.
Just to continue this,
I just go a couple of inches behind my eyes to where I imagine the centre of my brain is.
Like many of you,
We have to do so much thinking,
Arranging,
Administration,
Talking.
Sometimes my brain feels tired,
It's not supposed to have any sensations at all.
I just imagine my brain and I relax it.
Take away any tightness and tension.
Take away any demands on it,
To produce,
To fulfil,
To achieve.
My brain can relax now.
I imagine my whole body sitting here,
From the feet up to the head,
Including the brain,
Relaxed to the max.
At this point,
I invite you,
If it's possible,
To see if you can notice the joy,
The delight of a relaxed body.
Similar to what I imagine,
People go to a spa and have a deep massage,
Or just lounge in the pool,
Not cold,
Not hot,
So the whole body loosens.
It does feel delightful,
Waking up in the morning,
In your bed,
Not having to get up,
Cosy,
Relaxed.
Cos the delight of relaxation is often underestimated,
Unnoticed in meditation.
It's an important factor which if you notice,
Can enhance,
Empower your meditation and your health.
So I just linger with the delight of a relaxed body.
You'll realize something about okay,
Science.
.
Then we go to our mind,
The peace-o-meter,
How peaceful are you or how agitated?
It's like looking at the surface of a lake,
How many waves are there,
How fast are they flowing,
How high?
Or are they just ripples?
They're usually somewhere in between.
Once you know,
You're actually looking at what I call the peace-o-meter,
Checking on how you feel in your mind.
Just like learning how to relax your body,
Now you learn from trial and error and from the feedback of mindfulness,
How to relax your own mind,
What makes you agitated,
What makes you peaceful.
Experiment.
.
You can try present moment awareness,
Being here.
Now is where your future is being made.
The past is a dream,
You only choose certain parts of it and put it together and often get the memory wrong.
The future being made here,
The past uncertain,
But how you remember it is what actually happened.
Present moment is the only thing we can rely on.
It creates a deep sense of peace inside our mind.
And at this stage it often happens,
You become aware of the breath,
But don't force it.
If you decide to start following the breath,
Check how that affects your peace-o-meter.
See if you can watch the breath,
Still keeping the peace-o-meter at a low value,
So you retain your peace.
Just breathing in,
Breathing out,
Breathing in peace,
Breathing out let go.
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