Day 057/365: Guided Meditation | Ajahn Brahm
by Ilan
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
Very good,
Welcome to the ongoing meditation class.
For those of you who have come to the introduction to meditation class,
For those learning meditation for the first time,
That class is being held in the room to my right.
So those who have come for the first time,
If you'd like to move to the room on the right,
This is the ongoing class where people have to remain still for at least about 40-45 minutes when we do the meditation.
And if you're not used to that,
That is called prolonged stress position which they use in Guantanamo Bay.
And if you do that here,
I'll get into big trouble with the Human Rights Commission.
So please,
If you are new to meditation,
Can't sit still for 45 minutes,
Please go to the room to my right.
This is for those experts who can sit a long period of time.
And always thinking what to talk about.
There's one problem I always,
People come across on this type of weather when it's very hot that people tend to get sleepy.
It's sometimes with the hot weather,
There's something in the brain that says,
Okay,
This is time to really go to sleep.
So one of the things,
I always remember this because in Thailand it was always really,
Really hot.
And one day we managed to,
Well,
When we were doing our visas,
We managed to stay in this temple,
A big rich temple in the middle of Bangkok which had one room,
Only one room which was air conditioned.
Now we managed to get permission to use that at 3 o'clock in the morning because surprise,
Surprise,
No one else was using it at that time.
So we turned the air con on and have her meditate and that was the place all my sleepiness disappeared just because it was nice and cool.
So that's one thing which you can always understand that when it's a bit hot,
You have to try maybe a few different techniques just to keep yourself awake because sometimes the brain seems to think that heat means you go to sleep.
And so those sorts of little different techniques,
It just takes a little bit more energy,
A little bit more energy into the meditation rather than just the ordinary sitting or watching your breath or getting in the present moment.
A little bit more energy in there actually helps.
And energy always comes when you do things slightly differently.
So those of you who are really sleepy and are sitting on the floor,
Sit on a chair because you're not used to that position.
You find you won't tend to go to sleep while you're sitting on the chair,
Sit down on the ground.
And then you'll find it's a little bit uncomfortable,
A little bit different.
That's enough just to keep you awake.
And the last thing to do is to lay down because if you lay down,
That is really telling the body it's sleepy time.
So please don't lay down in the hot weather if you want to keep awake.
And it's not just your physical position,
Even putting your hands in a different position than you've done usually.
Because that might also just stop the mind just going to the lowest common denominator,
As it says,
The lowest level of not really having to do any work,
Not having to sort of be awake and just going off into the sleepiness.
You have to put a little bit of interest and energy just doing things slightly different.
Sometimes it's all that's necessary.
Hands in a different position.
Instead of the right leg over the left leg,
The left leg over the right leg.
Sometimes that's all it needs,
Just to keep that little bit more interest,
Be a bit more awake.
What it really is doing is just giving a little bit more energy and power to this thing we call mindfulness.
The mindfulness is the awareness,
One of the central parts of meditation,
Which is what actually sees and hears and feels and knows.
It's the awareness in your mind.
And of course,
The nature of our brain,
You're only aware if you have to be or if it's fun.
And that's one of the reasons in these Zen monasteries,
When I went to Korea,
I was mentioning this last week,
I always wondered why they had to go around with this big stick because it was so cold,
No one could go to sleep.
Until I found in Korea,
Yeah,
When I was there two,
Three weeks ago,
It was minus 10 degrees outside.
And they have all of their rooms so hot,
Inside the average temperature was about 26 degrees.
I had a little clock,
We had to have a temperature on it.
And these were the ordinary,
They had underfloor heating and it was always far too hot.
So now I understand why they had to go around with this stick,
It was so hot.
That is the way to keep people awake.
Because if you're afraid of somebody,
Especially creeping behind you with a big stick and you fall asleep,
That overcomes sleepiness.
I like telling the story that I went to a Zen monastery in UK when I was a young man.
And I never got hit by that stick,
They came with this bamboo stick and if you start nodding,
They whack you on the back.
I never got hit.
But it was early one morning,
Sunday morning,
I was meditating,
I always had very good karma,
I was always a very lucky monk.
A young man sitting next to me,
He was more forward than I was.
He was a tiny bit more sleepy than I was.
So he got hit first.
And as soon as I started sitting next to him,
He started whacking on his back.
It's amazing.
All my sleepiness totally disappeared.
My back was perfectly straight.
I didn't have any dullness left at all,
Just fear.
Because that is not a good way to overcome the sleepiness.
But it just shows you that you can be alert if you really want to and if you really have to,
If it really,
Really is important.
And that is an interesting aspect of overcoming the dullness.
Is it really important for you to be aware?
You don't have to use fear.
You don't have to do what some monks did,
Sitting on the edge of precipices or go and sit in caves where there were tigers or snakes.
You didn't need to do that.
You just need to give importance to what you are doing.
And I know that because sometimes when I've got an important event or I'm sick or you know,
You really have to get your act together very quickly.
If it really is important,
It's amazing,
You can actually cultivate a little bit of mindfulness and you don't get into dullness.
So give this meditation the importance it deserves.
And people who have sicknesses,
You know,
They have the cancers,
They have some other disabilities and they're here because they know that meditation can actually cure these things and they do.
If you have a sickness then it's much easier to meditate simply because it's really important.
Now this is not just some recreation,
It's very necessary just to prolong your life.
So give it this meditation importance,
Giving it great value is one of the great ways to overcome the dullness in the mind.
And it is a very powerful thing that you are doing,
The meditation to find peace of mind for goodness sake.
People spend their whole lives trying to find peace of mind,
Trying to find meaning,
Trying to find stillness inside of themselves.
And some people in ancient times,
You had to climb to the top of the mountain to see some ancient holy man to actually be able to do that.
And these days you don't need to go and climb up the mountains in the Himalayas,
You just need to come to the Nodarmara Centre,
You can even get a taxi here,
It's so convenient and a cup of tea before you come in.
You know,
Things have much changed since the old days.
But what it does mean is that,
Yeah,
It's easy,
It's very accessible,
But it means people don't give it the great importance it deserves.
And because you don't give it importance,
It's just too easy just to be dull.
Remember what this is like.
If this was your last breath,
This is one breath you're taking now,
My goodness you would be aware.
And sometimes people would say,
To breathe every breath,
Like the Buddha would say,
Like it is,
Your last breath.
This moment is important.
How many days have passed by since something like the New Year?
It's already in the middle of February.
And just how quickly it's gone.
How old are you,
They always say,
The more you are over the hill,
The faster you go to the bottom.
You know,
It's like a ball or a cart going downhill.
The further you are over the hump,
The faster you go.
So that's what it's like to many of us.
So it's really important to give value to every moment.
So every moment you are really alive.
And if you can do that in this meditation,
Imagine what you can do in life.
How much of life do we just go through as if it's not really important and our brain becomes lazy and we miss so much of life.
Just giving this importance,
This energy to the moment,
To every moment,
This is an important part to overcome,
This dullness in a hot day.
And you know there is that story which now comes to mind.
It's one of the stories I've used many,
Many times.
But sometimes I don't use it enough in this meditation class.
It's the Empress Re-question story.
When is the most important time?
Now.
Who is the most important person,
The one in front of you?
What's the most important thing to do to care?
That's another story,
Find that in opening the door of your heart and you can apply that to so many things in your life.
But you can apply it to meditation as well.
In this moment,
This present moment right now,
Whatever you're experiencing,
Where you feel hot,
There's a pain,
There's an itch in your nose and you want to sneeze,
There's a sound outside which you're aware of,
That is the most important thing in the world to you.
Give it importance.
Because you know in life when we don't give people importance,
Oh,
It's just my husband,
Oh,
It's just the cat,
Oh,
It's just these are important moments we miss so much in life and we also mess up our relationship so much by taking people for granted as you have been taken for granted many times.
You see somebody,
Maybe at some shop,
You ring up somebody,
Your call is very important to us.
No,
It's not.
If it really was important,
You have a real person answering it.
And you get this terrible feeling of you're not important,
Things aren't important in life and that's where we dull out.
So imagine that every moment of your life,
This is your moment right now,
This is important.
The moment in front of you is the most important moment in the world.
When you give it that importance,
That value,
The sleepiness doesn't happen.
And you find you've got this great energy of aliveness.
Every moment is important,
Is valuable,
Is precious.
Sometimes people think,
No,
No,
If I do that,
I'll get tired,
I'll get exhausted,
I've got to conserve my energy.
But energy doesn't work like that,
Especially mental energy.
Just the more you're in the moment,
The more energy you give to this moment,
The more energy you've got to the next moment.
This is just what the Buddha says,
You generate this mental energy.
You get it going by giving importance.
This is different to striving,
For striving is looking for something into the future.
Trying to get something in the next few moments,
That's striving.
This is putting energy into the moment right now by making it important,
Making it valuable,
Making this very moment one of the best.
To give you some of my personal experiences,
You know when I was a young man,
You still got your ego and you're still worried about what other people are doing.
If I heard someone else had got a good meditation when I was a young man,
Someone said,
I had a really good meditation,
I'd go,
Yeah,
That's not fair.
So I go here.
And the meditation was really important for my ego.
So I'd have a good meditation then.
And I wonder,
Why do I have to do that?
It's because it was important for me to prove myself.
When you give importance,
You can actually put more energy into the moment and you do feel more awake,
More alert.
If for example,
I was going to give a $500 prize today for the best meditator,
I could do with 500 bucks and then you got a bit more energy into it.
Now you don't want to do that,
You know,
To make it sort of a corrupt spiritual path.
But you can see the point behind it.
When it's important for you,
Then you put more little energy into this moment and because you're putting more energy into this moment,
It does actually mean you're not striving,
It's not stress,
Stress is again wanting to be somewhere,
It's this moment you're putting energy into.
And it means you just become more awake,
More alive,
More mindful.
And that just carries on through your whole day and it enhances your life.
You're not in a dullness anymore,
Not in a mist.
You're alert,
Awake,
Alive,
Enjoying life,
Aware of life,
Being here.
Not just being here but being here with gusto.
So if you can remember that,
That is a great way to overcome the tendency,
Hot weather,
It's a bit sort of close and oppressive,
Not just going to escape through dullness,
No.
Meditation is far more important than that.
And if it is important,
You will be fully awake and have a great time.
So that's a little bit of instruction for this afternoon.
Now we can give it a try.
So if you'd like to get into your meditation posture and if you do feel a bit dull,
Sit in a different way than you sat before.
Do something different.
Put your hands instead of in your lap on your head.
And away you go.
You try that though and you find out you do wake up because it's different,
It's not normal.
Close your eyes.
And with your eyes closed,
You bring your awareness to your body first of all.
And experience how it feels like a potato in the oven being baked.
This is a story someone told me at the last retreat.
Two eggs in a frying pan,
One said to the other,
It's hot in here and the first one said,
Aaah,
An egg,
Who can talk?
Okay,
That's a bad joke.
That's what I feel like,
An egg in a frying pan right now.
For this moment it's important,
This is your meditation,
This is your life.
You just cannot afford to wish away 45 minutes of your life.
This is the cold face of your existence right now.
So,
When you're aware of the body,
It is important.
You relax your body as a matter of urgency.
How are your legs?
They really need to be relaxed,
Putting the position where there's no aches or pains.
And your body,
Your bottom,
It's really important that you don't sit with increased clothing cutting into your flesh.
Your back feels just right,
Strong,
But comfortable.
Wherever you put your hands,
They feel at ease.
There's no small thing.
It's as if you are sitting for a prize in meditation posture.
Make it important.
And your shoulders relaxed,
Your head well balanced on the neck,
Your face all relaxed,
And feel your whole body.
It's important you feel your whole body.
The body is the most important thing in the world to you right now.
Not the past,
Not the future,
Not your finances,
But this body which you live,
It's precious,
So make sure it is well set up.
Be attentive to details.
Don't take anything for granted,
Don't gloss over the slightest irritation in your body.
If you can,
Do something about it.
This meticulous carefulness is arousing the energy of mindfulness.
And when your body is relaxed,
You've really done a good job,
You can put it aside and look at this mental world,
A mind which might want to go to sleep,
But no,
No,
Life is too important to go to sleep.
You can catch up on sleep,
As I often say,
When you're in your coffin.
Right now is the time to be awake.
And in this moment called now,
Don't take it for granted.
What are you aware of right now?
How does it feel?
Is it pleasant,
Unpleasant?
Is it a sound,
Is it a feeling in the body,
Is it a thought in your mind?
What are you aware of?
It's important to know and be caring of it.
This is your life,
This is who you are right now.
This is your end to the moment.
And I know the past and the future may be more exciting and more stimulating,
Certainly.
After a little while,
Giving importance to the present moment,
You'll find how profound and deep this moment is,
How satisfying and how pregnant with insight and understanding.
This is where life happens.
This is where you unlock the secrets of your life.
This is where you find health,
Right now,
In the place your future is being made,
Right now.
This is where you find purpose,
Not in where you want to be.
You find purpose in where you are.
This incredible magic moment,
You're alive,
You're here.
What is it like to be alive?
To experience a human being,
Not a human going,
A human being.
If you give this moment importance,
Value,
This is the most important moment in your life.
It will always be the most important moment.
That moment we call now.
And you will have huge energy for all your future moments too.
So give everything you've got to this moment.
If you're someone who does the best meditation,
You breathe in,
Breathe out,
You breathe in,
Maybe this breath is your last.
It's important.
One day that will happen.
Giving all your energy to this moment.
Becoming alive in the moment.
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It's getting close to the end of the meditation now.
What's going on inside of you?
How do you feel?
How still is the mind?
How peaceful?
How centered in this moment?
This is meditation.
How it works.
The beautiful,
Incomparable peace of mind.
And this is how it comes about.
I shall ring the gong now three times.
Please listen to every sound from the gong when the last ringing vanishes.
Come out from your meditation.
GONG There we go.
So,
Ah,
This was streamed today?
It was.
So,
We have,
As usual,
On a Saturday when the thing is working,
We have first of all questions on meditation from overseas.
There's people log in and they hear these teachings live.
And then we have one from Singapore,
One from United States and one from Australia.
Question one,
Tan from Singapore,
And Gong Sifar Choy to you,
Tan.
How do you extend or maintain the meditation,
Calm,
And mindfulness into the day-to-day activities?
Very simple.
Just like that little store of the Empress free questions mentioned earlier.
Now is the most important time.
The one in front of you,
Or the job in front of you,
Or the traffic in front of you when you're going backwards and forwards to work.
That is the most important thing in the world,
The most important thing to do,
To care.
So as I apply that into meditation,
The same thing which engages you with this moment is peaceful and energized and happy.
It's the same thing which makes your life out in the world,
Peaceful,
Energized and happy.
Just being here.
One of the other things I love telling people,
I gave a whole talk on that many months ago,
Which I recognize most of your day-to-day activities are spent in in-between moments.
Having left one place,
Going somewhere else,
On the way to work,
On the way to the toilet,
Finish one job,
About to do another.
And so much of our life is wasted in the in-between moments of life.
And really,
If you contemplate,
Just most of your life is spent in-between things.
On the way,
Going somewhere,
Having left but not yet arrived.
That is like life.
And if you know how to remember those in-between moments,
To respect them and give them importance,
Then you don't wish away so much of your life.
You do become more alive,
More aware and more kind.
And you find what you learn here in meditation enhances your life enormously.
It's not just the side effects of meditation of a peaceful strong mind,
Overcoming depression,
Getting rid of cancers,
Getting rid of high blood pressure,
Which all those things do.
It's just changing the whole attitude to what you do in life.
Being more in the moment and less worried about the past or the future.
Here you learn how to let go of the past and the future just for a few moments,
45 minutes.
Which means that when you go back out there in the world,
You have some terrible thing which happened to you,
You can let it go.
Because you've trained the letting go muscle in meditation.
People can be so anxious about the future and worry themselves silly about whether they're going to lose their job,
Whether that biopsy is going to come out negative,
Whether their kids are going to survive,
Whether their relationship is going to survive,
Whether the world is going to survive.
I read in the newspaper this morning,
I think it's the next Tuesday or Wednesday,
There's a meteor coming close to planet Earth.
It's coming close to the closest lump of rock which has come past the Earth in 100 years.
The scientists,
They say that their calculations mean it's going to miss.
But scientists sometimes get it wrong.
This could be the end of the world,
Is it Tuesday or Wednesday,
I forget.
It's next week anyway.
This could be the last meditation instruction ever in Nulamahara Centre.
Who knows?
People really get into that.
But here we forget all anxiety and all fear.
I know there's one Thai man,
He's been coming here and he thinks he's going home to Thailand on Thursday.
There may not be any Thailand left after Wednesday.
No birth either.
But this is anxiety.
In meditation we learn how to let go of anxiety so that we can be a person who lives in this moment and is not worried about anything in the future.
That's what you learn here.
This is the gym of the mind.
You go to these gyms to exercise,
To get strong muscles,
You come to this meditation class to strengthen these abilities of the mind,
To let go,
To be peaceful,
To engage in this moment,
To be happy.
That's how it translates into the world.
Question 2,
Josh from United States.
I feel inspired and have better meditation from Ajahn Brahm's guided meditations.
How can I have the same inspiration when I embark all by myself with no guidance?
Easy,
The guidance here is called brainwashing.
And people do this,
They tell me this,
That sometimes they're meditating and they hear this sound.
Even in my voice,
There are our present moment,
Let go of the past,
Let go of the.
.
.
It actually comes up into your mind,
I don't know if that's happened to you.
But Josh,
You keep tuning into this sooner or later,
I'm already half in your brain and I get fully into your brain if you can watch this as I'm weaving my fingers up and down like a magician.
And the guidance is like a training,
In the same way like a tennis player,
You know,
Roger Federer or somebody,
Who's the champion now?
Djokovic,
Isn't it?
Djokovic,
He trains and he's got to train him and a coach.
But the coach is not there when he plays the matches,
He can't hear the coach or see them,
They're concentrated on the match.
But all that training which Djokovic gets with his coach,
That is what counts when he's playing the big matches.
The same with you,
When you're by yourself,
Josh.
That's really close,
Josh Djokovic,
I wonder if it is Djokovic?
Because when people ask these questions from overseas,
They don't give their real names.
Maybe that is Djokovic,
The famous tennis player who tunes in every Saturday afternoon and that's one of the reasons why he's so good.
He sort of tunes into the meditation class here on a Saturday afternoon.
Well,
Who cares,
It's okay to fantasize every now and again and have fun.
So this is what you do when you're by yourself.
The training you get here carries on when you're by yourself in the same way a tennis player learns from the coach but plays the matches by themselves.
And last,
Rick from Australia.
When I was a Christian,
The Bible says,
Love others as you love yourself,
I tried but couldn't.
Which was the trouble,
Loving yourself or loving others?
Probably both.
I found in meditation that deep down I hated myself.
Yes,
So common but so crazy.
Look,
It's bad enough hating other people.
If you hate someone else,
You can move away from them.
You can divorce your wife,
Run away from your kids,
Move to another state.
But even you can kill yourself and move to another life.
You can run away from other people.
Even if you kill yourself,
That's why Buddhists don't agree with suicide because you're still there afterwards.
You can get rid of other people but the one person you can't get rid of by committing suicide is yourself.
After you die,
You're still there.
That really sucks,
That disappoints you,
No end.
So don't do it.
And that's the biggest problem,
Yourself.
So biggest problem in life is learning how to be at peace with yourself.
You can do that,
Love yourself,
You can love the whole world.
So anyway,
Carry on here.
Deep down I hated myself,
I was conditioned to feel this way.
Exactly,
Just conditioning.
When we're growing up,
We're never praised enough,
You're never good enough.
Even if you get top marks at school,
You can do better.
And all the time,
I used to get top marks at school but you can do better.
You can get mega top marks.
Okay,
You get all the way to Cambridge,
You can do better.
It really sucks,
Isn't it?
I'm trying hard,
Doing my best,
Aren't you satisfied?
No,
You've got to be Nobel Prize,
Maybe Nobel Prize,
Maybe then you're okay.
You have to be mega rich,
Mega beautiful.
What else do you need to do to succeed in this life?
A lot of people try that,
You know,
They get really so.
.
.
No,
In Buddhism we really learn how to love ourselves,
That's where we are.
I was conditioned to feel this way,
Exactly,
So I'm trying to recondition you guys.
I covertly hated others too,
Yeah.
After a period of loving kindness from myself,
I began to accept myself,
Sadhu,
And found that at a subtle level I'm more accepting of others,
Exactly.
I learned to completely in that condition accept myself,
This will be projected onto others.
What do you think Ajahn Brahm?
I don't think you think very much at all,
But what I do think,
I think that's wonderful advice.
Exactly,
Love yourself,
First of all,
Open the door of your heart to yourself,
No matter who you are or what has ever happened to you in your life.
I say this again and again but it's so important.
I don't know how many people I've counselled who've gone through hell and survived,
Victims of violent rape,
Torture.
What do you say to them?
I say the biggest problem is not the torture or the rape,
It's the guilt,
It's the feeling that something's fundamentally wrong.
And to be able to get that huge step of love can only come through inspiration because it makes totally no logical rational sense.
To open the door of your heart to that incredible pain you've experienced.
Maybe that's not you here but I don't know how many women have had abortions and feel still so guilty and they try and hide it,
Push it away,
It didn't happen.
No,
It happened,
That's part of you.
Open the door of your heart to that,
Let it come in.
And this is a very wonderful metaphor for what the problem is.
It's outside,
It's hidden,
It's rejected,
That's the problem.
When you open the door of your heart to everything which has ever happened to you,
Sexual abuse,
Physical abuse,
What you've done or what others have done to you too,
Fully open the door of your heart to yourself.
As my father said,
No matter what you ever do in your life son,
No matter what you ever do,
And he meant that,
You're my son,
I will always love you.
The door of my heart will always be open to you.
No matter what you ever do,
Your heart opens to yourself,
Whatever you've done,
Whatever has happened to you.
And I've seen it's amazing what happens.
They accept that,
They literally accept the intolerable,
What was intolerable,
They bring it inside and then it's transformed or rather transcended.
The attitude,
Rejection,
The negativity,
I'm not good enough,
Something's wrong with me,
It shouldn't have happened,
Why did it happen?
When it's allowed in,
Transformed,
At last you are whole and that's the most important part of the transformation.
When you are whole,
The therapy's ended,
You're at peace now.
You never forget that,
The scars will always be there,
But they're beautiful scars.
So that's called unconditional acceptance.
And what's really inspiring in life is to see things which I've had a very soft and easy life,
I have to admit that,
Well maybe I've had some problems and difficulties but nothing like other people,
But to see these heroes of life unconditionally love what for many of us would be impossible to do,
Shows us hope it can be done.
To accept the pain,
The failure,
The disappointment,
The abuse,
Allow it in and then it will never happen again.
Keep it out and it's an unchained,
Untamed tiger going around killing you and killing others,
Bring it inside and it becomes tame.
So it's true for yourself.
Okay,
You may say it's easy to love yourself if you had a pretty good time and a good life,
But the hard thing is to love your enemies.
So love others who love yourself,
If they're nice people it's easy to love,
But to love your enemies as you love yourself,
What does that mean?
I'm not talking about the enemies that hurt you,
It's that part of you,
The enemy to yourself,
That past you were ashamed of,
The past which is so hard to even think about,
Which we hide deep inside of ourselves.
That is your enemy,
The part of you you don't like.
Love that and you'll find peace at last.
How do you do that?
You come to this joint on a Saturday afternoon or log in,
You get the encouragement,
The inspiration and the means,
You make peace with every moment.
The most important time is now,
The most important thing to do is to care,
Not to cure.
Like I said that last night,
The doctor's similarly,
A doctor doesn't cure,
Who cares?
You don't cure yourself,
You don't try and get these deep psychological wounds and try and cure them so they just vanish and disappear,
So you look at that part of your heart and there's no scar there at all.
No,
That's not the way,
That's called curing,
Hating,
Trying to get rid of.
It's caring.
It's a totally different ball game.
You care for your past,
Not trying to get rid of it.
Care for what has ever happened to you,
Care for who you are,
Not trying to change yourself,
Changing yourself is called curing.
Curing is acceptance,
To care,
Not to cure,
To love,
Not to get rid of.
Try that with your partner,
Care for him or her,
Don't try curing them.
It's impossible.
You may have only been with your partner for two or three years.
I've known women and men that have been married for 40 years.
Forty years have been trying to change their partner,
But they haven't succeeded yet after 40 years,
You are not going to succeed at all after two or three years.
So give up,
Instead of curing them,
Care for them and then you understand the meaning of life,
Not changing but caring for it.
Then you have a wonderful time.
You can care for yourself without trying to change yourself,
Care for others without trying to change them,
Care for your past without trying to dismiss it and hide it,
Care for everything.
So thank you Rick in Australia,
This is what we do.
Perfectly correct,
Everyone has been like you,
Many still are hating themselves,
Hating others,
Not really knowing how to accept because there are faults in you and there are faults in others,
That's real,
You can't hide them.
This beautiful path,
You accept those faults,
That's part of who you are,
Part of who they are and you care for them instead of trying to cure them.
And then that's when the transformation happens.
What was once ugly,
Intolerable,
Really shit,
Becomes in that old story a beautiful juicy manga.
So sweet.
Okay,
There we go,
Thank you Rick and thank you Josh and thank you Tam.
Any questions from Noramara in Perth?
No?
I am sure as usual as soon as I ring the bell to finish off,
There will be a whole line of people with their questions but that's par for the course.
Very good,
So thank you all for listening today.
For those of you interested,
There is a sutta class at 3pm tomorrow afternoon and the sutta,
I am going to last moving away from the middle-length sayings and doing something from the Samyutta Nikaya,
The big fat book which hopefully some of you got some time ago.
It will be from the 12th Samyutta called Nidhana Samyutta.
But it doesn't matter,
I have already printed out 40 copies of what I am going to read out tomorrow.
So if you have got your big blue book Samyutta Nikaya,
That is coming tomorrow at 3pm.
Da da da.
Okay,
So let's pay respects to the Buddha Dhammasan.
5.0 (26)
Recent Reviews
McKesh
April 22, 2022
Appreciate the ideas for dullness and ways to change and become awake. Thank you!
Katie
March 18, 2021
Good tips on changing your usual posture to be more alert and mindful. All I did was hold my hands a little differently and it certainly helped be more aware. Thank you. ☮️💖🙏🕉️
Mary
March 2, 2021
This session speaks so much for me today - we here to Care, mot to Cure. I have totally accepted myself even someone didn’t accept me today. I made peace in my heart because I accept who that person is, and I do mot intend to change her perception, assumption or opinion of the world or of me. I’m committed to my path to True Happiness. Thank you again for making this available dear Ilan 🙏☮️💝