Day 090/365: Guided Meditation | Ajahn Brahm

This track includes several tools to help strengthen your meditation practice. About 15 minutes Dharma talk/meditation advice and inspiration; about 15 minutes of guided meditation; about 30 minutes of silent meditation practice; and a Q&A session/closing thoughts after the meditation practice.

Transcript

Welcome everybody to this meditation class.

And as usual,

This is the ongoing meditation class.

Those who come to the introduction to meditation class,

That class is being held in the room to my right.

That's the introduction class.

For those who haven't meditated all that long,

This is the one for those who have meditated long enough to know the very basics.

And here we just say something which will help you deepen your practice of meditation.

And I just returned from Melbourne teaching a couple of one day retreats.

There's one of the questions which you always ask about the connection between meditation and one of the famous sutras in Buddhism,

The Satipatthana Sutta.

Because in that teaching of the Buddha,

He called the practice of mindfulness so important,

He called it ekāyana magga,

Which is a Pali term,

Means,

It's a very controversial term,

And some people call it the only way to enlightenment.

But even later people realized that's not an accurate translation and so the tentative translation for some time was a direct way.

But this recent work done by a couple of friends who are monks and they were pointing out that actually there's a lot of support for saying it means the path which leads to ekā,

Being short for ekāgata,

For the oneness,

For samadhi,

For stillness.

And that comes from the Chinese versions of the Buddha's teachings.

And it's a wonderful little insight which comes from the research of modern monk scholars,

Especially,

I have to acknowledge the Venerable Analia,

A good friend,

A German monk who's teaching in Hamburg University,

Who sort of saw this and gave it a lot of prominence.

Because what that really means is this practice of developing mindfulness,

Even as described in the Satipatthana Sutta,

Had its purpose of developing the stillness of the mind,

What we call samadhi.

Understanding that whenever you are meditating,

It seems to be almost,

Well not almost,

But absolutely necessary to develop a strong degree of mindfulness before you can even hope to still the mind.

In other words,

If you're going on a journey,

You have to have a flashlight if it's in the middle of the night,

Otherwise you can't see where you're going.

That flashlight is the mindfulness,

The ability to see clearly what's going on.

And in talks which I gave here on a Friday night a couple of weeks ago,

The trouble is how do we develop that mindfulness?

How can we get our awareness strong enough so that we can see our body,

We can understand our mind clearly enough,

Brightly enough,

So we know how to relax it and bring it to stillness.

And it does seem to be that the stillness and the mindfulness support one another.

Yes,

You do need to have mindfulness to be still,

But you also have to have stillness to be mindful because it's the stillness of the mind,

The fact it's not moving and doing very much which releases the energy of the mind to create strong awareness.

To give you some examples,

When you're tired,

Your mindfulness is very weak.

Basically you don't understand what people say to you because you haven't got enough space in the brain.

You are dull,

You don't see things very clearly,

You don't feel things very clearly.

Whenever you're tired,

Dull,

You just have low mindfulness.

And when your mindfulness is very strong,

You have lots of energy.

So one can understand that the lack of energy,

Especially mental energy,

Is related to having low mindfulness.

So it is the case,

Certainly in my experience and the way I've been teaching for many years,

That somehow or other we've got to create as much stillness as we can,

To create as much mindfulness which can create more stillness.

More stillness increases the mindfulness which means you can create even more stillness.

The two of them work together to deepen this experience we call meditation.

But at the very beginning,

We don't expect to have too much mindfulness.

So don't think that suddenly you can just turn the switch,

Now I'm going to be mindful.

Unfortunately,

It does not work that way.

Which is one of the reasons why when people start meditating,

The first thing you experience is tiredness and dullness.

You tend to fall asleep or think you're falling asleep.

Number one,

Please don't be concerned about that.

That is nothing to worry about at all.

A common story which I tell on meditation retreats,

Just to give this teaching some authority,

The Buddha was walking with his attendant,

Ananda,

And they saw a monk sitting with perfect posture,

Full lotus,

Straight back,

Cheek tucked in with a perfect posture.

And the Buddha looked at Ananda and said,

I'm worried about that monk.

And sure enough,

A little while later he disrobed.

And then he saw another monk deep in the forest who had his head down,

Was nodding,

Was half asleep and the Buddha smiled and told his attendant,

I'm not worried about him.

And soon that monk became enlightened with all the psychic powers.

And when of course I heard that,

That was counterintuitive.

How can that be?

Surely the monk with the straight posture,

That was the one who was going to get enlightened,

The one who was sloppy all over the place,

How can he ever become enlightened?

Until later on in my years as a monk,

I came across one such monk who would always sit perfectly straight even though he didn't sleep at night.

We always used to do that once a week,

Go without sleep and meditate all night.

And he would never be nodding at all.

And after three years when he left,

We were all surprised including me,

How come you're disrobing?

He had such great meditation.

He said,

No I didn't.

I was controlling myself so much,

It was so tense inside.

After three years I couldn't stand it any longer.

He said sometimes he'd open his eyes and look at a monk like me who was half asleep in the early morning and he was jealous.

If only I could do that,

He said.

And I understood the reason why the Buddha was concerned about that first monk.

He was a control freak.

He could hold his body tight but only through willpower.

The other monk was letting go.

He was being still,

It was only a matter of time when the dullness disappeared and the mindfulness increased.

Remember from stillness you get mindfulness.

So he's being still,

He'd had hardly any mindfulness.

He was still,

The mindfulness would increase.

You are tight,

You fight,

The mindfulness gets less.

So this monk who was nodding,

At least he was letting go,

He wasn't controlling,

He was becoming still.

It was only a matter of time before the tiredness vanished.

And that has been my experience.

For those of you who don't know,

Even last week I was in,

Where was I last week,

Melbourne.

Next week I'll be in Kuala Lumpur.

I travel around the world,

I teach a lot,

I work very hard,

Physically I shouldn't be doing these things,

I'm over 60 now.

But nevertheless,

You know how to get your energy back just by being still,

Allow yourself to be sleepy.

Just make peace with it,

Don't control it.

When you're aware of this and you're still with it,

The sleepiness disappears little by little.

You literally wake up.

When you wake up,

You have enough mindfulness,

You can be even more still so you don't allow thoughts of the past and the future to come into your mind.

It's easy to say let go of the past and the future.

But if you haven't got an alert guard on your mind,

The past and the future can sneak in.

Just like you may have a guard on your house but very smart burglars,

They can find a way in to bypass all your security and your locked doors or whatever.

Because they're sneaky.

This past and future is simply sneaky.

Sometimes can sneak in the back door and before you know it,

You're thinking what you're going to do next,

This weekend,

Instead of being here right now,

Being in the moment.

It's very easy,

You're meditating in the present moment and before you know it,

You're thinking about what happened last week.

Basically you've lost it.

How did that happen?

It's because you weren't aware enough,

The mindfulness wasn't strong enough.

Once the mindfulness does get very strong,

You can see exactly what's going on.

And you can see just the reason why people don't stay in the present moment is because you don't like being in the present moment.

You get bored with it,

You don't give it enough interest,

You don't give it enough curiosity,

You don't give it enough value.

That's all it really means.

So after a while the mindfulness sees all of this,

It gets its own wisdom and you can stay in the present moment.

That means you're even more still,

The mindfulness increases even more.

So you can see this thing thinking what it is and why it is and where all these thoughts come from.

You know that I used to think like everybody else and especially I was of the opinion that sometimes thoughts just come into the mind from nowhere.

I was very,

Very still,

This thought came,

I don't know where it came from,

That was because my mindfulness wasn't strong enough.

When my mindfulness gets very,

Very strong,

I see very clearly where that thought came from.

I was bored,

I went out to try and find a thought and I brought it in.

They don't come uninvited.

The thought comes in,

You don't see yourself do this,

You go and bring one in.

That's the truth of it.

So when the mindfulness is very,

Very strong,

Increases to the next level,

You're very,

Very clear,

You'll find that you don't need to bring in thoughts from outside.

The thoughts just don't come in.

They stop and you get very beautiful,

Peaceful states of mind,

You're getting even more still.

Remember in meditation,

The thoughts are no more than ripples and waves on your mind.

They've got no real meaning,

They're not going to tell you the truth,

No more than waves on the surface of a lake can perfectly reflect the moon and the stars above.

If there's a wave there,

The image is distorted.

In meditation,

That's what thinking does,

It distorts the truth,

It's not the real truth,

It's just what you think it is.

It's been bent,

Distorted,

It's not clear.

But when that lake is perfectly smooth,

Just like a sheet of glass,

Then it perfectly reflects the moon and the stars above,

Like a mirror.

That's a mind which is still,

Without thoughts.

So all the thoughts are agitations of the mirror,

Stopping you seeing the truth.

So when you understand that through your mindfulness,

It's very easy to value that silence.

And when you're to that degree of stillness,

That even thoughts don't come in your mind,

Your mindfulness gets even stronger.

And as your mindfulness gets stronger and stronger,

It allows you to be even more still.

You don't even start to worry about all these things going on in your body,

You can let the body totally vanish.

And as the body vanishes,

You become even more still,

Less things disturbing you,

No it is,

No aches,

Even sounds vanish.

And then when you go into the realm of the mind incredibly still,

That means the mindfulness can get even stronger.

And as the mindfulness gets stronger,

You can even see some of the smaller agitations of the mind.

What are the agitations of the mind?

Again,

Wanting,

Controlling,

Expecting,

Sometimes being afraid,

When you go to places you've never been before,

All those agitations of the mind,

If you want to know what they are called in the sutras,

They are called the Upakilesa,

These are really fine defilements,

The fine wobbles of the mind before you get into incredibly really powerful deep states of meditation.

And those Upakilesa,

The word which the Buddha used for them,

Those are the very refined agitations,

Not of the body but of your mind,

Which stops the stillness.

You can't even see those with an ordinary state of mind.

The mindfulness is nowhere near bright enough to see it.

No more can you see the dirt on the carpet unless the lights are very very sharp,

Very bright.

So as you get more still,

The mindfulness increases and it gets to very very strong states,

Which is why I think what the Bhikkhu,

The monk Haliya said and discovered from studying the ancient Chinese versions of the early Buddhist sutras was very accurate.

This mindfulness does lead to stillness.

It's the path which leads to Eka,

The oneness,

The stillness of the mind and also stillness leads to mindfulness.

The two work together and you can't have one without the other.

So practically speaking,

If any of you are tired,

Please just stay with the tiredness,

Be still and the tiredness disappears.

And be encouraged,

Just like that monk who was sleeping when the Buddha saw him meditating,

He soon became fully enlightened with all the psychic powers.

So if you are sleepy today,

Who knows,

That might happen to you,

Fully enlightened with all the powers.

So give it a try,

Who knows.

So that's just a little introduction on mindfulness and stillness,

How they all work together.

But in the meantime,

It's now time to start our meditation for 40-45 minutes.

So again I have to make the announcement in case anyone has just come in,

Those of you who come for the introduction to meditation class,

A series of four talks to get you started,

That is in the room to my right.

Now we are going to do the meditation for 40-45 minutes.

If you haven't meditated that long before,

It will be similar to what they do to prisons in Guantanamo Bay,

Prolong stress positions and that's torture and we don't want to do that here otherwise occupational health and safety will give us a black mark and probably send me to jail.

So please if you can't sit comfortably,

Then try and arrange your posture so you can,

Get it here,

Be not against the wall or something or just learn the basics first before you come into this class.

Okay,

So if anyone wants to stay here,

Fine,

So here we go,

40 minutes meditation.

So please get yourself in your posture,

If you want to stretch something or cough or scratch,

Please do it now.

And here we go,

So close your eyes.

And remember you don't have to sit on the floor.

Many great monks meditate on chairs,

Even greater nuns meditate on chairs,

So don't think that you are gaining by torturing your bottom and legs.

Sit comfortably.

So if you want to stay here,

Then you have to stay here.

With your eyes closed,

You will find that you can become more mindful of your physical body.

This is not just because of stillness,

It's because you have literally freed up much of the area of your brain,

Usually taken up with sensory objects.

That area of the brain can now relate to the feelings in your body.

You become aware of bodily sensations.

It's not just being aware,

It's reacting appropriately at the beginning.

If you find there is an ache in the leg,

Then move it,

Adjust it.

Don't open your eyes but feel the best position you can put your legs in.

You can notice the sensation of your bottom against the cushion or chair.

Again it's amazing how many people fit at their bottom because they didn't put their bottom in the best position.

Just because it's called bottom doesn't mean you don't give it top priority.

Then you experience any sensations in your back and shoulders,

Making sure they are really relaxed.

Wherever you put your hands,

It's unimportant.

There aren't some positions which are magical which makes energy flow any better than other positions.

So you just find out where your hands and fingers feel the most comfortable.

Pay attention to them,

Be caring of them.

Don't take them for granted.

Then you'll find the best position.

The same with your neck and head.

Especially I ask meditators to be aware of sensations in their face because that's a great indicator of whether they are tense or they are trying,

Whether they are afraid or whether they are at peace.

People who grit their teeth are trying far too hard.

The muscles around the eyes are tense,

Again,

It's too much effort.

So be aware of those sensations around your eyes and mouth in particular.

See what you can do to relax them all,

To bring them to a deeper state of ease.

So you can relax them all.

So you can relax them all.

So you can relax them all.

So you can relax them all.

When your body is as relaxed as you possibly can make it,

Let it go.

By carving the body,

Already you've created a degree of stillness which increased your mindfulness.

You're more aware than when you began.

Now focus that awareness on your mental world.

Sometimes the mental world is tired,

It's dull,

It's been working too hard.

Try to make peace with your mental world,

With your condition.

Don't fight anything.

Fighting and violence have nothing to do with Buddhism.

Be calm,

Be kind,

Be gentle.

And to calm the mind,

Imagine it like a lake.

It has waves and disturbances.

See what you have to do to let go of those disturbances.

So your mind becomes more and more smooth.

Don't be afraid of tiredness.

Tiredness,

The dullness will go by itself.

Your job is not to do battle,

But to make peace.

So you can relax them all.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Being still enough that mindfulness can know the world without thoughts,

The world between the thoughts,

The world of silence.

Where there's ripples on your mind called thoughts,

All being calmed down.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Now I'm going to ring the gong three times.

Please listen to every sound of the gong.

When the last ringing vanishes,

That's the signal to come out from your meditation.

.

I'm not sure if this was live streamed this time.

So it doesn't matter if there's any questions from overseas.

So,

Just to sum up what we did today,

Was to learn how by calming the mind,

Just focusing on how mindfulness leads to stillness,

Stillness supports mindfulness,

And focusing the meditation on those,

And how those two work together.

But during the course of the meditation,

Not just focusing on how they work together,

The one thing which I missed out,

Which I'm going to say now,

Is how when you do get the mind calm and the mindfulness increases,

You also get the happiness coming up in meditation.

So this beautiful sense of joy,

This delight which comes along when the mindfulness gets to a certain level of strength.

That's a very pleasant thing to be able to arouse in what's meditation.

When that delight comes up,

You're just having a wonderful time.

Not only does it give you a sense of fulfilment in your meditation,

It's a very pleasant thing to do.

But it also just shows you just what meditation can do and how it can take you further.

Because once the light starts to arise in the mind,

The mind quite naturally becomes pretty still and focused.

It's focused because you're delighting in what you're doing.

You love it,

It's enjoyable.

So once the mind starts to get joy,

Whatever it's watching,

There's no need for any effort at all.

You just can't take your mind away from what you're watching because it's so beautiful and wonderful.

And that delight also stops many of the thoughts.

You're just having too good a time to think.

I recall the times years ago when I used to listen to especially classical music.

I wondered why that was enjoyable.

A lot of the times when you listen to a long piece of classical music,

There's just no thoughts going on in your mind.

You're so delightful with the music,

So delighted with the music,

The thoughts just can't come in.

Often notice that the delight in the meditation is what finally makes it very easy to let go of all of the thinking which goes in the mind.

You're just delightfully at peace.

Effortless because you're enjoying yourself.

That's a lot of time how it works.

Delighting which comes from the mindfulness getting quite strong.

So anyway,

Unless there are no questions from overseas because no one's actually managed to get that going today,

Are there any questions from here about the meditation today?

About the mindfulness and the stillness working together?

A lot of time you are questioned out because people from overseas make all the questions.

Any time?

Any questions from over here?

About your meditation?

Hopefully,

Did it work okay today?

Because I must always change it a little bit.

Dania,

Thank you so much.

Ah,

Okay.

How to let go of sound when that comes into the mind.

Again,

I love telling the story of a couple of people who come here,

Most Friday nights,

A couple and they told me one day that they were watching a movie in their house.

And once the movie finished,

They got out one to go to the toilet,

The other one to make a cup of tea.

And when they got out from the sofa,

Their house looked different.

There were many things missing even in the shelves right behind the sofa.

Of course,

You know what happened,

A burglar had been in their house while they were watching the movie and this cheeky burglar had stolen things from right behind them while they were watching the movie.

And of course,

The burglars aren't totally silent but they were so absorbed in the movie,

Having such a wonderful time that they couldn't hear those sounds.

That's one of the ways to overcome being disturbed by sounds.

You're enjoying what you're doing so much,

You just can't hear them.

You may not have had the burglar experience but I'm sure that you may have had that experience as a recipient or the other person in this little simile when maybe your partner is watching some sport on the TV and the telephone rings,

Actually they just can't hear it.

There's a great fully match on,

Darling,

No,

The telephone's ringing,

They just can't hear you because they're so focused on a football match.

If only we could be that focused on our meditation,

Then the sounds would never ever enter our consciousness.

That's how to deal with sounds.

But if you haven't got to that stage,

You've got such a delightful mind that the sounds even can't enter you,

At least you don't make more of a problem of sounds.

There are two parts to sound,

Is what you hear and the echo in your brain afterwards.

Why was that person snoring?

They shouldn't snore,

We shouldn't allow people to snore.

We should have like a snoring policeman in the Buddhist meditation,

Someone who doesn't meditate but goes around and if anyone starts snoring,

They pick them out and throw them out of the room.

We should have another policeman or guard who goes around the neighbourhood and quietens all the dogs who bark.

We should get rid of all the birds squeaking around.

We should get rid of everybody else,

Anyone who talks.

We get the person who goes around with masking tape to put it around people's mouths to start talking next door.

Now you see there was just a small sound and already you created all this noise between your ears about what you're going to do to these people who make all that sound.

The sound finished a long time ago but the echoes can go on all day.

Now once you understand the difference between the sound and the echo,

You understand the sound is not really the problem.

The dog barks and it's finished just like that.

Someone snores and it's gone after a minute or so or somebody bangs the door.

It's only a second of bang but what happens in our brain afterwards,

The echo.

Why did they bang the door?

Can't people be more sensitive?

Don't they know we're meditating?

And you can see that's many seconds of noise generated in your brain.

That is the problem.

So how to deal with sound is the sound comes and it's gone.

And when the sound disappears,

The echoes in your brain should also disappear.

So once it's gone,

You don't even remember it.

Then you have a very,

Very peaceful mind.

The problem is we always argue,

We always linger,

We try and solve the problems of the past.

That is a problem.

I don't know if you saw the,

I get a newspaper,

West Australian,

Every Saturday morning.

And this morning is a classic Calvin and Hobbes cartoon.

I recommend meditators to read it because in that cartoon,

Calvin and his mate Hobbes,

They are,

They're philosophical cartoons.

He's saying that ignorance is bliss as he's careering down in his car in a dangerous way.

So if you have wisdom,

You know things and you see so many problems in the world.

Once you see a problem,

It needs to be fixed and that takes away your enjoyment of life.

You might want to be blissfully ignorant and furry to all the problems in the world.

That's really a fascinating piece of argument there.

Eventually they crash and then I think the tiger says,

I'm not sure if I can take so much bliss.

And Calvin's response is,

Shut up,

We don't want to learn anything from this experience.

It's very clever and very insightful.

So sometimes,

You know,

When we make these,

When we have meditation,

Yes,

Be sort of blissfully ignorant of why people are making those sounds.

You don't have to find out all of the causes and who it was who snored and who makes all the noise and where that sound came from and who banged the doors and who started the lawnmower because that creates more problems in the mind.

So maybe out there in life,

Yeah,

But if you want to have a bit of rest,

A bit of peace,

Remember,

Ignorance is bliss.

So don't worry who caused it and where it came from.

Just don't investigate the cause of the sound outside.

Investigate the reaction of you inside.

In other words,

Ignore the distractions and then you know that such ignorance is bliss.

Interesting.

All coming from our Jan Calvin and our Jan Hobbes,

My great masters and gurus.

Okay,

Yes,

Go.

There might be times when there is something happening to somebody like getting into difficulties,

They make a noise,

Then maybe you do have to take action.

Yeah,

That did happen once here.

But in all the years I've been here,

I think it's only once it's ever happened there was somebody who wasn't taking their medication for blood pressure.

And when you do meditation,

Your blood pressure goes down.

And he had difficulty breathing and he made an awful sound,

So we call the ambulance.

I think that's the only time we've stopped someone early.

We stopped meditation early here.

It was about 25 years now.

So it's only once that happens.

Twice,

There's another one.

Two years ago,

Yeah,

When that happened.

But that's really,

Really,

Really,

Really,

Really,

Really rare.

And anyway,

I think sometimes I wonder whether we should have stopped him because now he has to suffer all the problems of old age.

He remember he could have died while he was meditating,

Such a peaceful place,

Wow,

That would be such a great reincarnation when you sort of meditate in that space.

We stopped him,

Oh,

I think we shouldn't have done that.

Come on,

Look on the bright side,

No matter what happens.

What about you?

Do you want to spend all your life in dementia,

When you're 96,

98,

99,

90,

100?

Of course not,

No.

So,

Anyway,

Next time you're very peaceful and meditating and you stop breathing,

Fine,

It's a wonderful way to go.

So please don't disturb anybody.

Oh,

Please no,

Otherwise I have to come back next Saturday and give another class.

Okay,

Thanks very much for listening,

It was a funny game.

So let's now,

Any more questions?

Going,

Going,

Going,

Thank you.

So now I'll pay this press to put it down for a second.

If you've got a question,

Come up and ask.

Just a bit of bowing.

For those of you who don't know about the bowing,

It's just a way of paying respects but make it useful.

So I've been teaching people a long time now.

When you bow first of all,

You bow to virtue.

Because virtue of goodness is really important.

The second time you bow to peace,

Because peace is very important in your life,

Both peace inside and peace in the community,

And it allows you to compassion,

To kindness,

Because kindness is also something very easy to worship.

So when you bow three times,

You can practice what I practice,

Bowing to virtue,

Peace and compassion.

It makes it very easy to do because that's what we respect and worship.

And every time you do that,

It means those qualities grow inside of you as you keep remembering their importance.

Anyway,

Please have a cup of tea now.

Reviews

Truly a blessing to find such peace and mindfulness. Thank you. Sadhu. ☮️💖🙏🕉️