Day 053/365: 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.

Transcript

And it just grows and grows and grows until you get some very powerful states of mind. That's for another lecture on meditation. Now we're just going to do some meditation for about 40-45 minutes. Because the mike wasn't working at the beginning, Always have to make the announcement, Two announcements. First of all, Turn off your mobile phones, And then you think which goes beep. And then also, Please, Those who are coming for the introduction to meditation class, Which is a series of four lectures on meditation for those who haven't meditated before. That class is in the room to my right. So those who haven't meditated before, This is a class for those who have been meditating for quite some time. So it might be a bit too much for you. So those, The introduction to meditation class, The room to my right. Okay, So those who are remaining here, If you'd like to just again to adjust your posture, Get comfortable, And then I will start the guided meditation of about 15 minutes and that will be followed just by some silence until I ring the gong at the very end. So we close our eyes. The reason for that is so that we have more of our brain available, Actually to feel our body and to listen to the sounds. It's like we've closed off one telephone line. The way that sight comes and disturbs us. With our eyes closed, We start to be aware of our posture, The way we are sitting. And it's fine to sit on a chair or just on stools, Cushions, Leaning against the wall or the backrest or leaning forward. You find out what is the best for you today. It won't be the same every meditation. So the first job, Task is to learn how to be comfortable. Don't ever think that this is the only way that you are comfortable. It works some days, It doesn't work other days. You learn from experience and you are willing to explore and change. And then we get to be a little bit more meticulous, A bit more careful by going through our body piece by piece, Part by part, Starting with your feet. Can you be aware of your feet now? You don't need to open your eyes. If you can't find your feet, Just wiggle your toes. You learn to be aware, To make a connection between your brain and that furthest part of your body, Your feet. How do they feel? Are they comfortable? It's just like you asking somebody, A friend, How are you today? Are you comfortable? Is there anything I can do for you? When you connect with a part of your body and you care for it, You get some very interesting, Sometimes surprising answers. Maybe your feet aren't comfortable. Maybe they need to be moved, Spread apart, Come together. Maybe if you have your legs crossed, Sometimes the feet can be squashed. So be aware and see if a little bit of movement or a little bit of winning those feet to relax can make them feel more at ease. Can you move up to your ankles and your calves? How are they? Very unlikely to be any great feelings in your calves but nevertheless, Sometimes you can feel a tingling feeling. Just so you know that you can be sensitive to a part of your body which is not in great trouble. You still know how they feel. And as you know how they feel, Just wish them well. You do find that they can relax. The mindfulness gives you the opportunity for feedback. You learn just how those knees or those calves or whatever get more relaxed or more tense. You go up to your knees. A lot of times people just have injuries and pain in their knees. Feel whatever sensation there is there. You feel it, You get that connection between your mind and the knees. And you can ease any tightness or tension there. You might be thinking it's just placebo, Psychosomatic or whatever but it doesn't matter if it relieves pain. It's worth learning. You go up to my thighs, Making sure they're comfortable, Aware, Relaxing. You go up to my butt, Making sure the cushion is well placed under my butt. Otherwise it gets sore and I fidget. You go on a chair, Make sure your bottom is as comfortable as you can find it. Then you go up to your back. So it depends on just age, Injuries, All sorts of things you have to deal with. You find your best position, For some people it is as I said just leaning back, Others leaning forward, Others straight up. You find what you need for comfort. Sometimes even the fact that you care for part of the body, Just like it may be a friend or a relative, You just give them a call, No particular reason, Just that you care for them. It reassures them they can relax more. The same happens with your body. If you pay no attention, All sorts of things may go wrong. You give it some attention, Some kindness. You find your body can be at ease. If you don't find any part which is tight or tense, You just feel at the moment under the left shoulder blade, It's a bit tight so I move and then I just give it some kindness, Relax it. I have the feeling and I know what makes it worse, What makes it better. Sometimes it's an attitude of mind. Sometimes it's a movement. Sometimes it's realizing, Look my world too tight, Simple things. And go to my hands, Because where my hands are defined the position of the rest of my arms, Making sure they're comfy. And back up to my shoulders. So I'm just zooming in, Focusing on the shoulders. Just being with them. I know from experience, From feedback, What makes those shoulders get looser, Relaxed, Be more at peace. And what, What makes those muscles get more painful? I focus and learn. Lady in Poland managed to overcome her arthritis this way, Focusing, Relaxing, Learning, Relaxing some more, And the inflammation lessened and lessened and lessened till she was free. Awareness, Kindness, Learning, Freedom. And I go up to my neck, Making sure those muscles are not too tight, Both inside my throat and outside those muscles. Being willing just to move the head around to stretch, Make sure everything is just okay. Further up to the face, Ensuring the facial muscles are relaxed as well. Then to which is behind the eyes. Between the ears is your brain, Which gets overwhelmed, I'm tired. Just imagine your brain, Turning on, Disconnecting. Taking out and just put to bed, Taking a rest. Just like you take any other tired person and give them a little break. Rest time. This is the image I put in my brain, Into a nice little, On a cushion, Tucking it in, Keeping it quiet. It needs rest. And I'm aware of my whole body. Joining everything together, Sitting here, Having relaxed every part, Bit by bit. Being aware of it, Being kind to it, It relaxes even more. And be aware of how peaceful it feels, And becomes present, Delightful. And the feeling when you've had a good sleep at night, Resting in bed, Comfortable, Not wanting to go anywhere, Bodily contentment. And I'm aware of that, That's the focus of my attention, Bodily tranquility. Because it's delightful, It's easy to stay with. I don't need to force my mind, I don't need to concentrate, The delightful feeling is just there. And then I go to my mind. First of all, As I was saying last night, To be aware of, For want of a better word, The dis-o-m-a-t-e, How peaceful are you? One sign of how peaceful you are, Is sometimes when there's a sound, A noise, Even birds like just a few moments ago, How much do you react, How much do you tense up? That's a sign that you are inherently a little bit prone to disturbance. Sometimes you relax more and more and more, Nothing disturbs you. You are like a string which is so loose, Like a drum skin which hasn't been tightened, Something hits it and it doesn't make a sound. How peaceful are you? How agitated? It's not for judging that one is good, One is bad, It's for learning. What makes you more relaxed and peaceful in your mind? What makes you more agitated? See when I open the door of my heart to this moment, There's some kindness, There's some softness, No judging, Nothing kindness. I become peaceful. This may not be the best moment, But it's all I have and I value it. Good. . Once the mind has been relaxed, Then it's the time, It usually happens naturally, You become aware of your breathing. Or, You just invite the breath in. As you breathe in, You know how you breathe in, How long, How short, How deep. Doesn't matter. Just know the breath is coming into your body and bringing health, Energy. And as you breathe out, Let's go. Let it sink, But it's negative in your body or mind. As you breathe in, Imagine, Feel peace, Energy, Health coming into your body and mind. Breathing in peace. Breathe out, Let go. Breathing in peace. Feel the peace, Feel the delight in health, Energy, Pure energy coming into your body, Peace coming into your mind. And breathe out any pain, Any disturbance, Any negativity. Breathing in peace, Feel it. Breathe out, Let go. Breathing in peace. Breathe out, Let go. Breathing in peace. Breathe out, Let go. Feel how important this is, Being peace into your heart, Into your mind, Into your life. To let go of all these burdens, These unnecessary weights which we carry. Now, In this moment, Breathing in peace and breathing out, Let go. Relaxed, Feeling safe, Just natural. Breathing in peace, Silence, Stillness, Let go. Let go. In this moment, There's no need for thoughts, For plans. Negativity gets breathed out with each out-breath. Silence comes in with each in-breath. Let go of all these burdens, Feel how peaceful this moment is naturally when you're delighting in this moment. At peace with the peace. At peace with contentment. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. We will now be quiet until about five minutes before the meditation ends. Getting close to the end of the meditation, How peaceful are you? And can you explore the delights of a peaceful mind? Sometimes there's no thought so at all. You just are. Sometimes those thoughts go a long way away. What you're aware of is a divine, A joy, Peace. The ability to put aside unimportant things, The importance of peace. Be aware of your body. See how relaxed it can be. It's not disturbing you. Sitting down, Quite at ease, Comfortable, Relaxed. Just breathing in peace and breathing out that calm. Now I'm going to ring the gong three times. Please listen to each chime from the gong. When the last ringing vanishes, Let it carry you out from inside, Out of your meditation, Back into the world. GONG There we are. Thank you for coming to the rescue. Okay. So we have a couple of questions from Canada, From USA and just from Deborah. First of all from Canada, Even though I enjoy meditating, I'm having difficulty maintaining my daily practice. Do you have any techniques to maintain consistency or meet with resistance? One thing is to remember that if you really enjoy the meditation, It's very easy to actually to have the consistency. And when my teacher was asked, How long should you meditate, How often, His answer is a very, Very quick one, But it was also very meaningful. It was how often do you eat? Why do you eat? We eat because we know we enjoy eating and also it's because we feel better for it, We feel energized. If you fast for too long, You get very weak. If you can look at meditating as food for the heart, What keeps your spiritual energies strong. And you will notice if you don't keep up a regular practice, You find it's like not eating regular, You get weak. You don't get the sicknesses of the body like flus and other diseases. You don't get the diseases of the mind like irritability, Sort of negativity, Being grumpy, All because of the mind is just showing you that it's lacking of energy. So to reflect on the consequences of not meditating and what happens when you do meditating. And the other thing is it does create time when you meditate. This is one of those amazing things that if you learn how to meditate, It's what Harvard Business School used to call an investment of time. It's just putting a language which the people could understand. It invests time. So it's not as if you haven't got any time, It's probably best summed up by the person who once said that they would meditate one hour every day except when they were very busy. And when they were very, Very busy, They would meditate for two hours every day. In other words, It's not the art you expected, When they were busy they would meditate more. Of course the reason was because they needed to have more awareness, More peace, More clarity to get more things done in a shorter period of time. So that's how one maintains consistency. But just pushing, Trying to push, As they say, I've got to meditate more and more and more, It does not work. Even recently somebody showed an article in some psychology magazine, For discipline, It doesn't come through will power, Through force, It comes through wisdom power. You want to do this, You feel the benefit from it, Not because you have to, Because you're a Buddhist or because you've been meditating, Trying to live up to your peer pressure. No, You do this because you find the benefit, You love doing it. That's how you maintain the consistency. And from the USA, Do things get worse before they get better on the journey to enlightenment? I find myself struggling with new sensations and feelings. All the new sensations and feelings, But it doesn't matter really what the sensations and feelings are, It's all about how we relate to these things. It's the way that we deal with whatever comes up in our life. It's as if that little saying, All we need to do is to make peace, Be kind and be gentle. It doesn't matter with any sensation, A beautiful sensation, A painful sensation, Success in your life or disappointment or frustration when things don't go well, It's how do you relate to that? We do make peace, Be kind, Be gentle. You know this will too will pass, The wonderful moments of life, They won't last. When you ask, Sometimes you mess around, Tell jokes, You say, How are you feeling? They say, Oh very good, Somebody says, And I say, It won't last. I'm not being negative, It's just, When you're sick it doesn't last. You have good times, Bad times. The most important thing is just how you relate. Life is a relationship, The relationship you have with just what comes your way. And so you do have difficult times. That relationship is learning. It's your dog poo from the mango tree, Stinky, But really really good fertilizer. And other times it's you eating the mangoes. It's only dog poo transformed. So what's the difference between the mango and the dog poo? It's just how it's been transformed. So that's why get better, Get worse on the journey to enlightenment. I just have interesting stuff, Difficulties which we face, Things which challenge us, Maybe a simile is that when you go to school you study some academic subject, The exams get harder and harder and harder and harder every year. All they're doing is they're testing you. They're just probing deeper into reality, Into nature. And sometimes we welcome those tests. We don't feel like to be a failure. We just say, Oh, We need a bit more work so I can get deeper into this and then I can pass. As soon as you pass you get a deeper, More interesting challenge. Especially that's what happens with meditation. The amount of letting go you need, The skill in being able to let go in the beginning stages is quite coarse. When you get to the deep stages of like nimittas, Beautiful lights in the mind, To be able to let go, That's really subtle. And lastly, As humanity, Would we have enough reason to be living after we reach our full mind states and fulfilled our life missions? Would the world end? Maybe if you're lucky the world might end for you. But the other people will take your place. It's as if that when people have fulfilled a role, They've graduated from the universities and they go and teach others how to graduate. And then as people become teachers, Teach other people how to graduate, Instead of looking at the world to be something linear, A line, Circular is much more meaningful. You go round and round, Few people they go off that wheel and other people take their place. It's like a school, It's like a university, It's a learning, But not learning knowledge, Learning wisdom, Learning just how to be kind, To be free, Learning how to disappear. Anyway, There's some answers there. Any questions from the floor? You never know what question is going to come up, All sorts of questions. Yeah, Hi. Thank you Ajahn, That was wonderful as per usual. Thank you very much and also for the answers for the questions. Thank you. Ajahn, When I'm meditating I really enjoy what I'm doing and what have you, But my mind just has a field day. I would like to be able to slow it down more. Yes, I enjoy it, Yes, I do plenty of time. I'm wondering if you can give me some ideas please. If you can slow the mind down, You can talk to it like this. Why do we do things fast? Because we have an idea that this is the way that we can reach the end and get things done by running fast. But sometimes life is like the athletes in a competition, Olympic games. I used to notice they go round and round and round. And they run and they train and they run so fast but they end up at the finish line, The starting line, A few seconds ago. I was mentioning to some of the monks that the school I went to was in Hammersmith, It was next to Shepherd's Bush. I really was a boy from the bush. And it was actually on the River Thames. So we used to go on cross country running, It wasn't cross country, It was cross the bridge and then along the tow path to the next bridge, Up the Thames, Cross that bridge and then up the tow path back to the school. So just round the river. And so, I said, What are you doing that for? We're ending up where we started. So a few smart kids, They just put on their runners and they jogged off and now maybe a few hundred meters down the road, They stopped. They went to a coffee shop or something and then they joined the group from the other side. Until the teachers soon caught on, These people, They weren't getting very fit, There's no sweat on them because they hadn't run at all. They just pretended to run and it's just ending up where you started. And so one of the teachers would get in their car and go to the furthest bridge to actually tick the names off. So then what the kids did, They had all the bus timetables, They'd run over the bridge, Get the bus to the next bridge and then just run over the bridge and get the bus back to the school. So they never needed to do much running at all. But anyway, What happened is just in life, You go round and round and round. So take it slowly your life. Take it slowly your thoughts. If you have some fantasies or plans, Slow it down, See what happens. So even walking meditation is good. If ever you have an opportunity to do the walking meditation, There you quite automatically go slowly. What was it that was a time many many years ago that the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh, He would go on these demonstrations like walks for peace in his country in Vietnam. And sometimes on a big procession of people, Sometimes people getting very excited, They would start sort of shouting and he would notice when they started getting angry, They would start walking fast. So because he was well known, He was in the front, That he would deliberately walk slowly and get everyone else to walk slowly. And because he was leading and everyone else had to follow, They wanted to walk fast but they couldn't because he was in the front, Which slowed everybody down. It wasn't just slowing down the march, It was also slowing down their emotions. And they calmed down. It's one of those ways if ever you are in a situation where people are getting excited or angry, Even at home with your loved ones, Sometimes one of the great skillful means is to start speaking slowly. It really frustrates people but it calms people down. In the same way it calms your mind down and if you listen around at a thousand miles an hour, It slows down. Unless it slows down, You get these wonderful moments of peace. You give yourself the moments of peace. You deserve them. I think I said that in one of the retreats recently. If it's your birthday or if it's a special day, Then get a little box. Any old box will do. And put in it something, You can actually write a word, Say peace. Write it very nicely, Put it in the box, Wrap it up, Put a nice little bow on it, A little gift card and just say to me, With love for me, And to yourself. And then you put it down, Oh, There's a box there. Play, Get into the role, And then you open it up, Wonder what's inside, And you say, Peace. You're giving yourself a gift of peace. And just say to give yourself a gift of peace, Even breathing in peace, Breathe out, Let go, Doing something, Doing a little ceremony, Put it in a little box and give it to you. That's a wonderful little way of calming yourself down. Okay, Anyone else? Okay, Put anything in that box, Put love, You can put forgiveness, Whatever. It's a nice thing to do in little boxes. Thanks for that today. At the start of the session you said in Buddhism, We don't really concentrate on concentration, We don't focus on concentration, We focus on letting go. But when you do techniques such as breath-based meditation, When you're focusing on the breath coming in and out of the nose, Isn't that concentrating on that? No, That's something, It's a very good question, Thank you for that. But that is not how I learned meditation, Not how I teach meditation. And you know, Just you go into, I know my Pali, I know my texts, That is not how even the Buddha taught meditation, The Buddha's intention was, It's not concentration. There was this, Had to be technical here, That word was samadhi and it means stillness, Not concentration. And that has caused a lot of problems for people. Here is, In brief, The idea is having a still mind, Peaceful mind. I'm now going to hold this glass of water perfectly still. So has it stopped moving yet? Obviously no, Because I'm not even paying any attention. I'll now be mindful. Has it stopped moving yet? No. I will now concentrate. Every time, I'm not faking this, I'm really trying to concentrate mindfully. I cannot hold this glass of water still through concentration. However, I was taught, And I've been practicing for years, And I teach others, A very easy way to get this water perfectly still. Let it go. Concentration is not letting go, It's doing something, Focusing, It's holding. It's discipline. And discipline doesn't work. You can maintain it for a while, But you need something else. You need to be, Want it to happen, Be able to let it go, Enjoy it. When there's joy there and happiness, Where there is some fulfillment, Then it gets still all by itself. It is letting go. I understand, But say with the Vipassana technique, When you're doing the body scan, Would that just be letting go as well and not concentrating on that? It has to be letting go. It's also just letting the process develop, And just letting everything just take its natural course without controlling it. Thank you. Excellent, Thank you for that. So is there any, Are we over time now? So we should actually finish off now, And we pay our respects to the Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha, And then afterwards you can do whatever you need to do. Thank you.

Reviews

A very good sitting. Tks Ajhan B.

Once again I offer my immense gratitude for these practices. ☮️💖🙏🕉️

Such great answers to the questions. It’s now my favorite session. Thank you Ajan Bhram 🙏
I appreciate you Ilan for making this available 🙏❤️