Day 065/365: 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

Ok,

That's the signal for 3 o'clock.

No,

It's not,

But it's 3 o'clock anyway now.

So the opportunity to start this afternoon's meditation session,

3 to 4.

15 every Saturday,

The ongoing class.

Those who come to the Introduction to Meditation class,

That is on the room to my right,

Taken by Dennis.

So on this class,

As usual,

We teach some new aspect of meditation to enhance one's practice.

This is mostly for those who meditated before.

To be able to understand just where some of the blockages of meditation and how to overcome those so you can go deeper,

More peaceful,

More alert and more delightful type of meditation.

I was mentioning to the monks last Wednesday,

A simile which I developed called the Simile of the Snake.

It was because when I was a monk in Thailand,

It really was very very poor,

Just the villagers were self-sufficient,

So even the monks didn't really have much.

So a lot of the time,

Living in the jungle,

We didn't even have any sandals,

We had to go barefooted.

Which you may think is fine,

But when you know that there's so many snakes and centipedes and scorpions who slithered on that jungle floor,

Especially at night time,

And that your flashlight had no batteries in it,

It was really dull,

You had to go backwards and forwards through the moonlight.

This is not exaggerating.

That's what it was like.

So it was very dangerous.

But even though I spent 9 years in those forests and jungles,

Especially the first years were very poor,

I never stepped on,

I did step on a snake once,

But it jumped one way,

I jumped the other way,

It's very lucky we didn't jump the same way.

But I never got bitten.

And one of the reasons was,

Especially at night time,

After we'd done an evening meeting in the monastery hall,

And I walked back to my hut in the jungle,

I was always on the lookout for snakes especially.

If I saw a dark shape across the path,

I didn't have enough light to know whether it was a real snake or not,

Or just a twig,

Or a branch,

Or a shadow,

If there was any possibility that could be a snake,

I would turn around and go another path or jump over it.

Because I was always on the lookout for those snakes,

I never mindlessly trod on one.

And I use that simile for meditation.

Each one of you has your own problems in meditation,

Sometimes it works,

Sometimes it doesn't,

Sometimes you get deep,

Sometimes you don't get so deep.

It could be the problem of excessive thinking,

It could be the problem of just sloth and torpor,

Being tired and dull,

It could be the problem of always getting worried and excited or whatever those problems are.

Whatever is your main problem in meditation,

You can call that your snake.

And what it means is that you program your mindfulness,

You set up your awareness to be on the lookout for those problems in meditation.

And if you set up your mind at the beginning of the meditation to look out,

Say,

For sleepiness,

It means that before sleepiness catches you,

Before it bites you using the simile of a snake,

You can see it and you can avoid it by going on another path.

But when you don't set up the mind to look out for the problems in meditation,

It means that by the time that you notice the snake,

It's already bitten you,

By the time that you notice you're tired or dull,

You're already,

It's too late.

I always notice that before a train leaves the station,

Or just as it's leaving,

It's very easy to stop,

But once a train is travelling down the tracks at 120 or 130 kilometres an hour,

You put on the brakes,

It takes a kilometre to stop because of the momentum is so great.

Or just like picking out a small weed from the forest,

You can pick it out very easily when it's small,

But if you leave it for too long,

The weeds grow and it's a lot of work taking out those weeds from your property.

If you catch things very early,

It's very easy to stop.

That is why if you set up the mindfulness,

Whether it's too much thinking or whether it's sleepiness,

Take whichever one is your biggest problem,

Call out your snake at the beginning of meditation and then you are telling your mindfulness,

This quality of the mind which is aware of what's going on,

You're telling it to focus on that particular obstacle or danger in your meditation,

Which means that you will see it early and by the time you've seen it,

It's early enough,

You can actually stop it.

You can stop the dullness,

You can go a different way,

You can brighten up your mind.

When you start to get into a train of thought,

You can catch it before it's caught you,

Which means you can just say,

No,

I don't want to waste my time in this meditation by working out the answers to all my problems.

I've been there,

Done that,

It doesn't work,

It's a waste of time.

Now is the time for peace,

For stillness.

You can catch these things really early.

Because you catch them early,

It's so easy to avoid.

Any sort of,

You may be obsessed with something in your life,

Have a really,

Really big problem in life,

But you realize that no,

You want to have 40 minutes or 45 minutes of peace in a Saturday afternoon meditation.

And you start meditating,

Things are going very well and then the thought comes up,

The obsessive thought comes up.

If you can catch it very quickly,

It's very easy to say no to.

Once it's got you,

It will not let you go.

It is why catching it early is the trick.

And to be able to catch it early,

You've got to set up your mind at the very beginning to be on the lookout,

To be wary of these problems so you catch them so,

So quickly.

Mindfulness is this great quality which can see what's going on inside your mind.

It needs to be focused.

If you just say,

I'll just be mindful,

Mindful of what,

There's so many things to be mindful of.

If you tell your mindfulness,

Be careful of this,

This is my big problem,

This is the obstacle,

This is the hindrance which has been battling in meditation for a long time,

Be on the lookout for it.

Then you'll find you'll see it early and you can overcome it which means you can go much deeper in the meditation and enjoy meditation which hasn't got all these obsessive thoughts and meditation which isn't just dull,

So as if like you're sleeping,

A meditation which is clear,

Aware and joyful.

And I've said many times in the other descriptions of meditation,

It's not just peace of mind,

Peace of mind is where there's nothing much going on in your mind,

It's also the great joy of that peace,

We appreciate it and you like it so much,

It's a type of pleasure which you experience in the mind which is why people love meditating.

They get such a sense of happiness and joy from it.

Once you get past those obstacles of meditation,

Meditation becomes a very,

Very wonderful way of spending half an hour for 40 minutes.

It's joyful when you're doing it and you feel great afterwards as long as you get past the obstacles in the beginning.

And of course the reason why is because it's just the nature of the mind.

When it's still,

It gets energised.

Keep it still long enough and the energy goes into the mind,

It brightens up,

You can see more clearly,

Feel more thoroughly,

Everything you do is like washed,

Brightened up,

Sparkling and beautiful.

That is just the nature.

Stillness gives the mind a boost of energy and that energy gives happiness to whatever you do and see in life.

Which is why when you really get into meditation,

You always get into a much nicer mood,

Happier,

Brighter,

More energised.

It's one of the reasons why I as a teacher can tell a person's meditation not just for how still they sit,

For the happiness,

The smile,

The joy on their face once they come out of meditation.

That is a sign that they've been still enough to give their mind a boost of energy and that manifests as happiness and being easy going.

When you're down with energy,

You get grumpy and depressed and you get very fault-finding with so many things.

When you boost your mind with energy,

That fault-finding disappears,

You give people the benefit of their doubt,

Everything you look at is bright and cheerful,

Including you.

That's just the nature of the mind which is still and peaceful,

Which gives rise to happiness.

Just getting to that stage first of all which is important.

And today the simile of the snake,

Beginning of your meditation,

What is your obstacle,

What is the thing which has always been bothering you every time?

That's the snake for you.

Remind yourself,

Be on the lookout for this.

So you see it coming and can take remedial action and avoid it before it gets you.

Okay,

So now we can actually do some meditation.

This has been my habit over the last few weeks.

Just to make sure that everybody is at ease in their body,

I'm going to stand up and stretch and ask you to maybe do the same.

A little bit of kindness to your body at the beginning actually helps.

When you're stretching,

Sit down.

And when you're ready,

You close your eyes.

By closing your eyes,

You can become more aware of your body.

Not immediately.

The other simile I like to bring up is that of being in a lit room and going out into the garden into the darkness.

You go out from a lit room into the darkness outside the house,

It does take a few seconds for your eyes to adjust so you can see the more subtle features in the darkness.

Your pupils in the eyes get bigger and you can start to see again.

It takes a minute or so and then you can be aware of the things to be able to be seen in the darkness.

Like closing your eyes,

It takes a minute or two for the brain to adjust to the more subtle input of data from the physical sense of touch.

You start to become more sensitive to the sensations in your body.

First of all,

To the gross sensations of a body which is not positioned all that well,

Which is why please fidget to the beginning of a meditation.

Adjust your body.

At least one minute after your eyes have closed,

Only then can you really feel whether you are in a good position or not.

You will start to understand that your information is limited.

And always be prepared to move the body.

Just an adjustment at the beginning can save a lot of distractions in the middle or the end of the meditation when aches and pains start to disturb your peace.

Get the body right now,

You can avoid that problem.

It is also developing the ability to keep your attention on one thing and not rush on to something new.

Just hold the attention on your body.

Don't go fast,

Stay.

And be with your body.

If you are mindful,

Aware of your body,

You find you have the ability to relax it or rather relax parts of it at will.

If there is a part of your body,

Maybe your stomach or your legs which have got some injury or illness and it's aching,

Just by focusing on that area,

Sending it kindness,

Compassion,

Being kind to it,

You find it relaxes.

So many tightnesses and tensions and pains in the body are just because of fear.

When we focus on that part of the body,

Because of running away from it,

We are overcoming that fear,

Allowing us just to relax a part of the body at will,

Just imagining it,

Expanding,

Loosening,

Softening,

All of these words which allow the body to be and to heal and be healthy.

And it also means you are developing something you will later apply to the mind,

Awareness and kindness joined together,

What I call kindfulness.

Kindfulness on your own body.

If you truly are kindful on your body,

The body will feel very relaxed and the relaxed feeling of the body is pleasurable.

So if you have that pleasurable feeling of relaxation in the body,

Stay with it and enjoy it.

It is the subtle pleasures of meditation which when we get into,

Create a great joy and happiness,

Even ecstasy of a healthy,

Relaxed body and later of a mind that is similarly free.

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Staying with your body,

The field is deeply relaxed,

Not a tight place anywhere to be found.

And when the body is very relaxed with kindfulness,

Only then can we let it go,

Let it disappear as we focus on our mental world.

You don't have to know what the mental world is,

You know a garden by the flowers,

The trees,

The bushes,

The lawns which define a garden.

The mental world is a world of your past and future,

Your thoughts and emotions,

The nice ones like joy,

Kindness,

And the not so nice ones like fear,

Anger,

Anxiety.

We are going to relax our mental world until all the past vanishes so we can be here,

Arrived in the present moment.

The past you cannot change and never imagine you can learn that you can learn from the past.

You don't learn from the past when you think about it,

You get imprisoned by it.

The human being learns from the present moment.

That is a place where wisdom and freedom reside,

Not in the past but in the present.

As for your future,

We all think we should be responsible for our future.

We really believe we should plan to be responsible but soon you will understand that now is where your future is being made.

And if you want to be responsible for your future,

Be responsible for the places being made right now.

And you ensure this moment is as kind,

As mindful,

As peaceful as you possibly can.

And you will understand that is the very,

Very best you can do for your happiness,

Your health,

Your kindness in the future.

By putting all of your attention in the place these qualities are being built up,

Right now.

At first you may be ill-at-tease being in the present moment.

It may be a bit strange for you.

Stay here.

Soon you recognize,

Become familiar with this present moment and then it becomes like a second home for you.

You can relax just in the here and now,

Just being.

No past,

No future,

Relaxing your mental world.

Like it's got no burdens anymore.

Two heavy suitcases have been put down.

Heavy weights are no longer dragging down the energy and happiness of your mind.

In this moment you can be free.

You can be free.

You can be free.

You can be free.

You can be free.

You can be free.

In order to give your mind something to focus on,

If you wish to invite the breath into your mind,

Just ask yourself,

Am I breathing in or am I breathing out?

How do I know?

And the answer is the feeling,

The feeling which may be different for every human being,

But your feeling which tells you what the breath is doing.

Don't locate that feeling on your body,

You just know that's enough.

The breath is going in or the breath is going out.

And if that's not enough to settle your mind,

You can have your mantra along with the breath,

Breathing in peace,

Breath out,

Let go.

When you breathe in peace,

Imagine peace to be coming into your body and mind.

Imagine it filling up your body and mind with this beautiful,

Delectable,

Subtle sense of peace.

There is no disturbances,

No obstacles.

You breathe out,

Let go.

And all any physical discomfort or sickness just goes with your breathing.

You can imagine any disease you may have flowing out with your breath.

Any anxiety,

Any guilt or anger,

Breathing out,

Let go.

You can imagine it going out from your body and out from your mind.

Breathing in peace to replace any negative emotion you may have built up over the week.

Imagine that.

And the picture of it,

So for you it becomes psychologically potent.

The pain does go and into your mind with every in-breath,

Beautiful peace and freedom and lightness.

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So just getting very close to the end of the meditation now.

It's a time to reflect on how you feel,

What worked and what didn't work.

And how much peace you have nevertheless.

I should ring the gong three times now.

When the gong finishes sounding for the third time,

You may open your eyes to end the meditation and the third ringing of the gong disappears.

There we go.

Ok,

So for those of you who wish to ask questions,

Sometimes there's questions in the box,

Sometimes there isn't.

Ok the ones from home first of all.

Can meditation be helpful during the time of personal crisis and uncertainty?

Absolutely helpful when there's crisis or personal crisis and uncertainty.

It's a simile which I developed a long time ago,

The simile of a hand.

How big is a hand?

My hand is now so big I can't see anybody.

I can't see anything in the whole universe,

Only my hand.

It's not my hand's fault,

It's just I'm holding it too close.

When I put my hand where it belongs,

At the end of my arm,

I can see you but I can also see my hand,

It's perspective.

And that's actually what meditation does.

When you meditate,

The personal crisis is put in perspective.

You let it go,

You put it down,

You become peaceful,

And when you go back to it at the end of the meditation,

You have a fresh perspective,

You can see it and you find it's not that big anymore.

I'm always intrigued just how far these teachings you hear on a Saturday and a Friday night go.

Last June,

July,

Sorry,

In Singapore,

I was attending a conference,

And at that conference,

Many of you have seen me use a simile of a hand before,

At the conference,

The latest psychology advance in therapy,

This fellow from Sydney,

He was saying,

The two hands,

The problem with life is you put your two hands up here and you can't see anything.

You put your two hands where they belong at the end of your arm and you can see other things.

And that's my simile.

I invented that and this guy over Sydney is making a fortune out of it.

You know interestingly,

Just on the same subject,

Last Sunday I went to the Thai Loy Krathorn Festival just to give a blessing at the very beginning.

And at the Loy Krathorn Festival,

Had all the politicians were there,

And many of you will recognise this,

They had the new member for Perth,

Eleni Evangeli,

Whatever her name is,

She is a local member for Perth.

And she gave her little speech and she said,

She heard from a wise person that the only reason you have stress in life is because it's like you're holding a cup at arm's length and you don't know how to put it down.

Now many of you have seen me do that for the last 10 years.

So it's getting to these people as well.

So these are actually psychology techniques which you hear first of all,

Are actually going around the world.

So yes,

Meditation is hugely helpful in personal crises.

You just put it down for a while.

When you take up the crisis again,

It's not that big,

It's easier to carry.

But it works 100%.

However,

If you have your personal crisis first,

And then you learn how to meditate,

It's a bit late.

You learn meditation first of all,

So it gives you the ability of being able to put things down.

You know how it works,

Which means that when the crisis still comes in your life,

Ah,

They're just small things,

It's not a big deal anymore.

How can you use meditation during a time of bereavement for a close family member to hear and overcome grief as well as other very emotional feelings?

Again,

It's the same thing.

It gives you some freedom from an obsession.

Grief is a cultural addition to loss.

It's one of those strange things in life we take grief for granted.

Somebody dies and we think,

Oh you poor thing.

What do you mean poor thing?

I've just inherited a lot of money.

That's just being cynical.

But no,

If somebody has died,

Then the grief you have,

It is just our culture has added that onto our way of dealing with life.

We're expected to grieve where we don't need to.

And when I was in Thailand,

North East Thailand for 9 years,

This was a culture which had never been penetrated by the West.

None like Sub-Burma or Sri Lanka,

The Westerners had been there for years.

The North East of Thailand,

Thailand was never colonised.

Especially the North East of Thailand,

It was way,

Way,

Way out of the reach of Western culture.

So there you saw a real indigenous,

Untouched Buddhist culture.

And the monastery where I stayed was a local cremation ground,

People being cremated there once or twice a week.

Never once did I see people cry over 9 years when it was a death.

It was taken for granted,

People die.

Another important thing,

Important yes,

But not just the way we deal with it over here.

We have imposed a culture of grief on dying where other cultures,

There is a culture of accepting and moving on.

It's interesting.

So when you use some meditation,

You can actually do things in a different way.

What does grief add to when a close family member dies?

As I keep on saying,

You never cry for the person who has died,

You are only crying for yourself.

When you actually examine it,

It's just totally irrational,

It's not meaningful,

And it's just looking at things in one way,

Putting your hand right up here,

If you put it out the end of your arm where it belongs,

You can see that yes,

You are crying for what's been taken away and you are totally not paying any attention to what you've had.

When you remember what we've had,

Those wonderful years with a person,

The great times we've shared,

You've been blessed,

You've been so fortunate.

When you remember what you've had,

You don't cry.

When you focus on what's been taken away,

Then you get tears.

It's an amazing thing with grief and loss,

But meditation 100% helps enormously.

You recondition your mind to see things in a different way,

And you find you don't need to feel sad anymore.

Brilliant.

Anyway,

Actually we have three questions here from a really nice spread,

From USA,

Singapore and Romania.

See just how important these classes are,

They're streamed all over the world,

And people in so many countries listen in.

Okay,

Recently I heard one of Ajahn Sujato's talks on near-death experiences,

Saying that jet pilots under high G-force have experienced the nimitta-like experiences,

And he also said that maybe even meditation is nothing more than oxygen deprivation of the brain.

This has been bothering me as we have seen a few of the monks,

Including Ajahn Chah,

Who's now ending up with some sort of mental illnesses.

Could it be related to too much meditation?

Could you please comment?

Ajahn Chah did not have a mental illness.

He had basically working too hard,

And this is my teacher,

He had liquid on the brain,

Which was stress-related,

Because never rested,

He gave too much.

And lastly that that caused a brain degeneration.

It was totally 100% physical,

Totally not mental.

And for the oxygen deprivation of the brain,

Nimitta-like experiences occur in NDEs when the brain is not functional at all.

I refer to the brilliant piece of research done by Professor Pim Van Lommel,

L-O-M-E-L.

So John from the United States,

Please Google in Pim,

P-I-M-V-A-N-L for London,

O-M-E-L,

And you will find brilliant research when these nimitta experiences and the near death experiences which happened before only occur when the brain is not functioning at all.

The jet pilots under high G-forces have experienced nimitta-like experience.

Like is an important word,

That it's not the real thing.

They are still conscious.

NDEs,

You are unconscious.

I wouldn't like to have anybody piloting the jet in which I'm flying who is just having an NDE.

I'd be dead with everybody else.

I'd have an NDE,

It's not an NDE,

A real death experience,

An RDE.

So sometimes it's sceptics,

And this is really bad science,

I remember this one person,

They put some sort of piece of metal into a person's brain,

They put a little electrical discharge,

And they had some sort of flash in their mind.

And they said,

Ah,

This explains near death experiences,

It doesn't,

That's really bad science.

You have to explain everything to a near death experience,

Such as the fact that the brain is not functioning at the time,

Nothing is happening.

As one of the researchers who was in,

I think,

Colorado Springs,

When he was researching a near death experience on a woman who had an aneurysm,

He had so many gizmos on this person's brain as they took it out of the skull,

He said on BBC that if one neuron fired in that brain,

He would have seen it on his machines.

Incredibly sensitive machines,

And no one neuron froze during this operation,

Not one neuron fired during this operation.

And this woman had a very classic NDE,

Near death experience.

So I think that Ajahn Sujato's talks on NDE,

Jet pilots under high G-forces have experienced an immature like experience,

No.

Something remotely the same,

But totally different.

Number one,

They were not unconscious.

And in from Singapore,

My leg always gets numb halfway during meditation,

And I usually have to stop to massage it as it is too distracting.

What can I do to prevent the numbness from happening?

I like to meditate on the floor so I can get into it easier,

Whereas sitting on a chair,

So are my numbness,

But I can't seem to get into a good meditation.

You can go halfway and use a stool.

It's not a chair,

It's not on the floor,

It's halfway.

There's end stools.

If that doesn't work,

Just do what I did when I started meditating,

I got numbness in my leg,

And I would always have to move as well.

And one day I got fed up with it.

And I said,

Okay,

You can be numb,

I'm going to carry on meditating.

And basically I just overcome my fear of numbness in the leg when I was meditating.

And after a few minutes,

I didn't move at all and the numbness vanished all by itself and the circulation came back again into the surface of the skin which is what the numbness is all about.

Basically just overcome your fear,

Just carry on meditating.

Your legs get numb.

Look,

There's many,

Many people,

You're in Singapore,

Many people in Singapore can watch the soccer,

They like soccer,

EPL in Singapore,

I've been there many times.

If you want to watch the soccer,

Your husband or your wife,

Well,

Wife's watching movies,

They can sit for a couple of hours watching a movie and their legs go numb and they don't even move.

And they don't have to be taken to Singapore General Hospital afterwards.

They are fine.

So just sit there and just let the numbness vanish by itself.

That's what happens,

It is an echos,

It's impermanent,

It disappears by itself.

I've done that,

You don't have to worry about it.

And lastly,

From Romania,

Is it useless to continue to meditate if I don't have any deep meditation in blissonimatus,

I still have a lot of thoughts arising in my mind.

But meditation is one of those skills which you take your whole lifetime to learn but many of the other skills which you learn whether it's playing the piano or playing chess or something,

When you get to a certain age you can't do that anymore.

But meditation is what you do to the very last minute of your life.

And so it is a skill which you will use when all the other skills you've learnt in your life are just beyond your powers.

Meditation is a skill par excellence which will take with you forever.

All these other skills are just temporary.

Now all the effort I used to learn physics at university,

You forgot a lot of that now.

What a waste of time that was.

But my meditation is something which I learnt and it keeps on growing and gets better every time which is one of the most wonderful uses of my time I've ever done.

It's there forever.

And also the benefits of this are way,

Way better than anything else you could have done in your life.

So it's worthwhile,

Neelu,

From Romain,

Carrying on meditating.

Learn,

You haven't just managed to get past those thoughts in the mind.

It's one of those big problems for people,

The thoughts in the mind.

If you keep following these instructions,

After a while you get it,

It works.

And you can meditate with hardly a thought in your mind and you get so peaceful,

So blissful,

Nimittas come later on.

But just get to the state where you can just watch the breathing for hours and have this beautiful,

What we call delightful breathing.

Watching the breath go in,

Watching the breath go out without a care in the world.

No past,

No future.

So Neelu,

When you're just starting the meditation,

So carry on until you can get to that stage.

It's worth putting the investment of time in.

Because everything else you do,

You invest your time in in life,

Whether it's your money,

Whether it's your family,

Please excuse me,

But the family will leave you,

Eventually,

Whether it's your,

Even your health will depart,

Your mental health,

The meditation,

That will be with you for the last moment of your life and beyond.

That's why it's incredibly important to put the time into developing that.

It's only a matter of time,

People get it eventually.

It's just training,

That's all.

When you do train your mind,

You find you can have a very peaceful mind with so many benefits.

So carry on,

It's well worth the time,

The effort,

Even the frustration.

But don't just use what I call willpower,

Use wisdom power,

Neelu.

Listen to all the talks,

Listen to the instructions,

There's some fine instructions,

I've been teaching meditation for years and many people,

I get invited all over the world to teach this stuff,

And the books are best sellers.

So I know what I'm talking about.

So listen carefully,

Follow the teachings,

Follow the instructions and it works.

You have a wonderful time.

Okay,

Any other questions from the floor before we finish off for the afternoon?

It's really true,

You know all the other stuff you do in your life,

You forget most of it.

All the stuff which you learn at school disappears from you.

But your ability to meditate,

To find stillness,

To find peace of mind in any place,

Any situation,

Any time,

That is really awesome.

And of course it's also,

I like this,

When you're really sick,

The ability to meditate away,

Pain,

To take away just the connection between the mind and the body,

So when the body is really sick,

The mind is just totally at peace and really happy.

That's a really beautiful skill to develop.

And how do you do it?

Keep coming here every Saturday afternoon until you can do that.

And when you can do that,

You don't need to come ever again.

Thank you for listening.

Reviews

I am hearing the word kindfulness more. Good way to treat yourself and others. Much gratitude and thanks. ☮️💖🙏🕉️