Day 068/365: 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

Welcome everybody to this afternoon's meditation session.

And as I always have to say,

This is the class for those who have meditated before.

If you come for the introduction to meditation class,

The introduction class is to be held in the room to my right.

Here we're going to be sitting for about 45 minutes.

So if you're coming for the first time that might be a bit tough.

So if you're coming for the first or second time,

I invite you to the room on my right.

However if you've come many times before and you can sit meditation for 45 minutes,

Again you're most welcome here.

In this class every week we focus on a different aspect of the path of meditation to increase your skills in the way of peace and stillness.

What I want to focus on today was just the motivation we have to meditate.

Sometimes the person can sit down and the whole mind can just drift off into all sorts of areas.

The mind wanders around even falling asleep or fantasizing.

And after the 45 minutes you haven't gone anywhere.

And how can we remedy that?

Hopefully you want to remedy it.

And it's the wanting to remedy it,

The motivation is perhaps the first thing you want to look at.

When you're meditating,

What are you trying to get?

What's your motivation?

What's your goal?

Because if we just meditate without some direction,

Without some motivation,

Then of course without any steerage we just go around in circles.

So it's sometimes helpful as you begin the meditation,

What am I doing this for?

I know in my own life that sometimes I've read some article on meditation which has been really off the ball.

Because meditation is very popular now and all sorts of people are getting on the bandwagon.

It's only a matter of weeks before Madonna starts meditation instead of Kabala.

And whenever that happens,

We have all sorts of stuff coming about about what meditation is and how to meditate.

Sometimes already I read some of that stuff,

Wow you can't say this.

And sometimes I sat down,

I'm going to show you,

And sometimes I get some really nice meditations with that attitude.

Okay,

It's not all that wholesome or skillful or whatever,

But certainly it shows me that when you say,

I'm going to do something,

Or I'm going to go to that particular stillness,

Then you can do it.

Motivation is sometimes very important.

Which is why we can look at this 45 minutes,

Say we're going to be here anyway,

We're stuck in this room,

Let's make the most of it,

Let's make it a very beautiful meditation.

So that motivation,

What it does,

It increases one's awareness.

It sort of sharpens the mind.

It makes one more alert.

And in that greater awareness and greater sharpness,

There's a more chance you will remember the instructions you've heard many times before.

So with that motivation,

The increase in mindfulness,

Alertness,

So you're more alert when you're overlooking the whole process of meditation.

Then you also remember what you're supposed to be doing.

That's all it really needs,

Just understanding and remembering what's happening.

So those two parts of the,

What we call in Buddhism the gatekeeper,

What I sometimes call the supervisor.

The supervisor of any operation has to be really alert and also know exactly what the rules are.

Just like the umpire who is umpiring a cricket match,

Have to know what the rules are and also be really alert.

Some of these people are professional sports people,

So they know all the tricks.

The umpire or the referee has to be a supervisor,

Always alert but also knowing the rules.

If you have that same sort of mind state,

Built up from motivation to be really alert and you know what the rules are,

You've heard the teachings of meditation long enough,

Then you have a really great chance of having a wonderful meditation.

You have a drive to get into some stillness and also you have the awareness,

The alertness.

There's been many occasions of one of these monasteries which unfortunately was destroyed about 30 years ago during the Vietnam war in Laos.

The abbot of this monastery would actually take his young meditating disciples for a walk through the jungle all day.

And even if you are a local born in that place,

Just walking all day through hot steaming jungles tires anyone out because you're hot and sticky.

And he'd always try and come to a place in the jungle,

Just late afternoon.

And there's these huge old trees and on the top of the trees they built platforms.

And the platforms were just about the size of these mats which you see the monks on the side sit on.

And those platforms were high up on the end of a branch.

And there's a ladder going up and the poor monks had to go all the way up that ladder,

Sit on that platform without any safety rails and then they take the ladder away and the abbot said,

Come back tomorrow if you're still alive.

These monks had to sit up on these small platforms just enough to sit on,

No way you can lie down all night having been so tired.

And it's amazing what type of motivation they had that night.

Of course they could go sleeping because if they did they would fall off and they'd kill themselves.

So they were so highly motivated that many of them got into very very deep meditations.

At least that's what was said by the ones who survived.

Now the moral of that story is that if you really want to,

It's amazing what you can do.

So sometimes we have to try and motivate ourselves in meditation.

Of course motivating through fear is not the right way.

But still we can motivate ourselves not through the stick but through the carrot,

Knowing that this is really worthwhile.

You're going to spend 45 minutes here anyway,

You might as well do it properly.

That motivation brings up the supervisor inside of you.

And you all know what we should be doing.

Once you're motivated,

Yes this is what I'm going to do,

I'm going to try and become still,

Alert,

Mindful.

How do we do that?

We have all these stages on the path,

Present moment awareness,

Silence,

Watching the breath,

Being aware of the breath,

First of all just an in-breath,

Out-breath,

In-breath,

Out-breath,

Engaging that awareness until the experience of the breath fills every in-breath and every out-breath.

You see the breath in the beginning of an in-breath,

Right to the end of an in-breath,

See it from the beginning of an out-breath to the end of the out-breath.

Everything else in the mind sort of is almost like satellites orbiting the main thing called the breath.

So you can be aware of the sounds and the feelings in the body but out there,

The central focus of you is with the breath going in and going out.

And little by little you relax until that breath becomes just so peaceful,

So beautiful,

So delightful and you've got sort of the full breath there so you don't need to use any more force,

It's just attractive by itself.

When you get to that beautiful breath stage,

You let go even more and then you get to the interesting parts of meditation where the breath starts to disappear,

You get all these other amazing nimittas comes in,

These beautiful visions in the mind,

Eventually the beautiful light which comes up which really makes you very,

Very peaceful and very still and very lots of energy,

Stabilising that light which means more focusing until you can actually merge into that and get into Ajahn.

These are the path which I've taught many,

Many times,

There's heaps of CDs,

Even a book on that now,

The Mindfulness Bliss Beyond which I wrote.

So you know all the instructions but now we need to keep them in mind.

The gatekeeper,

The umpire,

The referee,

The supervisor has been well taught and now it needs to wake up and do its job.

The motivation wakes up that supervisor and makes sure that it does what it's supposed to do.

And the supervisor also knows that too much effort makes you too tense,

You don't get the joy.

And the supervisor knows that that stage of the delightful breath,

When you're just washing the breath,

It feels so nice,

You're happy to meditate,

Sort of state that after 45 minutes if you're in and are reading the breath,

You say,

Oh no,

I'm just really enjoying my meditation.

That's the key,

The crucial tipping point of meditation because from there you don't need to put any effort anymore.

The mind has its own sense of joy and it pulls you to it.

You just want to meditate because you're enjoying it.

So once you get to those stages of meditation,

The supervisor is enjoying what it's doing.

When it's enjoying what it does,

It does it much much better.

The more fun you have with what you're doing,

The better the job becomes,

The better the outcome.

So this is what we do in our meditation.

So we have to motivate ourselves somewhere or other.

Whatever you motivate yourself in,

Obviously the carrots are the best.

For those of you who had nice meditations before,

You realise that was a beautiful meditation,

So amazing.

Let's get there again.

When you motivate yourself by past meditation successes,

Always remember,

You're not,

Be wise.

You don't just say,

I want that back,

I want that back,

I want that back.

You think,

What were the causes,

How did that happen?

And the supervisor knows,

If I want to get to that place,

This is where I go.

This stage,

That stage,

The next stage,

The next stage.

How do these stages are achieved?

You know the path,

You know the obstacles,

So you can skirt around the obstacles.

So present moment awareness,

Right in the moment,

No past and no future.

Just really let that go.

So you can dwell in the present moment,

Enjoy it.

It's a wonderful place to be.

You're free.

You've got no burdens,

No worries.

It's not silence when you stop this terrible thinking inside of you.

It's not beyond your ability to do that.

Many of you have done that.

You've just got these moments when there's no descriptions of reality going through your mind.

Instead,

You've got the reality itself.

Usually you have one of the two.

You've got the description of reality or the bare reality.

And the two are very different.

The thought the dog was barking and the barking itself are different.

See?

Thank you dog,

You can stop now.

Now when you understand how the mind works,

Reality and its description,

You understand why silence is so important and you value that silence.

So the silence stays.

It's almost like sacred silence.

A holy place which you respect so much,

You will not disturb.

And a beautiful breath as it starts to come in and go out.

You create the causes.

So your motivation is there.

You know if you do it according to the instructions and if you wake up that supervisor and make sure it's always watching over you,

Your inner mindfulness,

That supervisor is always watching over you,

You know that this path is going to work.

Just a matter of doing it.

Following the instructions,

Waking up the supervisor,

Being motivated and that way you don't go around in circles.

You go deep and deep and deep into the meditation.

If that doesn't work today,

Maybe next week we might build a couple of platforms up in the trees.

And those of you who volunteer and sign the legally binding contract,

You will not sue the Buddhist Society in the event of your death,

Which will probably be likely.

You can walk up there.

Okay,

So that's the motivational talk to begin.

Are there any questions about that this morning?

It's afternoon,

Sorry.

Okay let's give it a try then.

So for those of you who have been sitting here a long time,

Want to stretch your legs,

You are most welcome to stretch your legs.

And get the body just nice.

Close your eyes.

First thing you should do is be kind to your body.

How is your body sitting now?

It's time to adjust the body if you need to.

I wish everyone had the right toou hit the bell button now.

.

Don't leave the body too soon.

It does take a few moments to develop the sort of awareness where you really understand what's happening in your body.

Just to check each part methodically,

Your legs,

Your bottom,

Back,

Arms and hands,

Even the neck.

Is your body well positioned for meditation?

Doesn't matter if you're on a chair,

On a cushion or a stool or whatever,

But it's just how you have your body on those supports.

Until you know your own posture,

One which works best for you.

When the body is best you can manage it.

You turn your attention away from the body,

And turn it to motivating yourself.

What are you doing here and why?

What's the purpose of this 45 minutes?

Make an aspiration,

An inclination of the mind.

Repeat that inclination or aspiration a couple of times.

So it will not just last for a couple of seconds,

But it will persist throughout the 45 minutes.

Remind yourself what you're supposed to be doing,

Where you're supposed to be going.

And then begin the journey.

Begin the journey always with present moment awareness.

Making the whole purpose of this stage to be able to let go of all the past so it doesn't infect the present moment.

To keep the mind from running off into the future with hopes,

Expectations or plans.

So we focus without judgement,

Without complaint on the present moment.

Embracing this moment called now until we can settle on it comfortably.

It's only when you value this moment more than the past and the future that you'll stay here.

So don't just know the moment called now.

Remember its purpose and value.

How important it is to be now.

And allow yourself many minutes to settle in the now.

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Where the present moment is stable,

You can aspire to go deeper into that moment,

Like focusing it more sharply to go to the inner silence.

Where there is no opportunity for commentary.

So you're holding the mind still in this moment,

Not needing to say anything,

Knowing reality before the words come to describe it.

Silent present moment awareness.

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45 minutes,

Almost gone.

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Reviews

A very good guided session. Tks Ajhan B.

Simply just make the commitment to sit and focus on body and breath. Not simple but is simple. Thank you. ☮️💖🙏🕉️