Day 102/365: 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

When you let this moment be,

You let it be for long enough for the stillness to build and build and build,

For the peace to go very deep inside.

So that's actually the way that we meditate.

Stillness is something you can do when you're very old and sick,

Because it doesn't need energy.

It just needs this courage to let things be,

And for you not to interfere,

Not to be a backseat driver.

I remember just saying in more detail at a meditation retreat some years ago that try to be a passenger at this stage of meditation,

Never a driver.

And this lady said that,

She had an interview one morning,

She said she had this really profound dream the night before,

She had to tell me.

She said she was driving the car and I was in the passenger seat,

And the car had lost complete control,

And it was hurtling at really fast speed to a cliff.

You could see the danger,

We're going to go over the cliff.

She said quite honestly that she was scared of killing herself,

But even more scared of the bad karma of killing Ajahn Brahm in the passenger seat next to her.

So she was terrified.

And what did I say to her?

Take your hands off the steering wheel,

Feet off the pedals,

Let go.

But she couldn't,

She's going over the cliff.

You have to take your feet off the pedals,

Hands off the steering wheel,

Let go.

And she did.

We went over the cliff.

I went over the cliff,

There was a big cliff going a long way down,

And at the very bottom of the cliff she saw there was a road there,

And we were heading straight towards the road but at just way too fast a speed,

And we hit the road,

Stabilized,

We were fine,

But then there was a big sharp right turn.

Take your hands off the steering wheel,

Feet off the pedals.

And she did,

She let go,

And the car all by itself turned the corner perfectly,

And then slowed down as we just came to the right speed for a car.

We survived,

She was so proud of herself for that,

She said,

Yay,

I did it,

Let go,

Let it be a trust.

Now please don't do that if you're travelling down the Mitchell Freeway or the Kwinana Freeway,

Taking me back to Monastery,

But at all other times metaphorically in your meditation,

Imagine that you're scared it's all going to go wrong.

Hands off the steering wheel,

Feet off the pedals,

Let it be.

And you find everything's stabilized,

It's in meditation all by itself.

Okay?

Okay,

Well let's give it a try.

So again for those of you who come for the,

Because a few people came in at the end,

Who have come for the beginners meditation class,

That is in the room to my right.

This is the ongoing class,

I should say in-going class,

Much better.

Anyway,

So this is the,

For those who have meditated many times before.

So as usual I will deliver about 45 minutes,

I'd say maybe about half an hour,

About 20 minutes or so,

Keeps getting less and less.

20 minutes of guided meditation,

Then afterwards I'll be quiet and we just carry on meditating when I'm speaking,

And afterwards it'll be just before the meditation finishes at 4 o'clock.

And then we have an opportunity for some Q&A.

So,

So sitting down,

Closing your eyes,

Putting your attention inwards instead of looking out,

Looking in,

Feeling what it's like in your body right now,

This afternoon,

In this place.

This is not just to get a comfortable posture,

It's also to build up the power of mindfulness and kindness.

So mindfulness is learning how to be aware of parts of your body to begin with.

So I ask my legs,

As if they were an individual being,

How are you?

Seems at first to be a stupid question but because we're so busy we think of so many other things,

Especially our legs which are usually a long way from our head.

Ask me then,

How are you?

That starts up what we call mindfulness,

I'm aware of my legs.

They give me an answer.

My legs are not telling me they can be adjusted,

So out of kindness I will do so.

Once my legs feel good,

Then I ask my butt,

My buttocks,

How do you feel?

It's a time to adjust that,

Those,

Called fitati,

The adjustment I do now,

The beginning,

Rather than later,

Makes life much easier.

That's much better.

And once my legs and buttocks are comfortable,

I've got to sit like this for a long time so I make sure that they're at ease.

I become aware of my back,

Usually give it a stretch,

Just scouring up and down,

Make sure there's no places there which could cause pain during the meditation.

Then up to my shoulders,

Loosening them up,

Sometimes in different exercises,

Lifting them up and down until my shoulders feel really loose.

Adjust my mugs from over the shoulders so it's not too tight.

When I go down my arms,

My hands,

Checking them,

Adjusting them.

Your hands have so many nerve endings in your fingers,

Pretty easy to feel your hands,

It's pretty easy to get discomforts.

So I put a little bit of extra time,

Not just assuming my hands are comfortable,

But just feeling them,

Making sure.

Once those hands are at ease,

I go up to my neck,

Making sure the head is well balanced on top of the neck,

And also paying some attention to the throat.

Is that a irritation there?

Be aware of it,

Be kind to it,

Ease it.

It's amazing what you can do.

We're still practiced with some experience,

Just take any part of the body,

In the small part like your throat and just wish it well,

Wish it ease,

No fear.

You can notice the sensations in your throat get less intense,

It relaxes.

It's not that hard to do.

You're calming your body down,

Using attention and kindness.

Even after all this kindness,

It's just like I'm cradling a baby,

Or just stroking a cat.

I'm soothing my own throat.

And then I go to my facial muscles,

Around my eyes,

In my mouth,

Areas which can express my emotions,

Especially the negative emotions of fear or anger.

So relax all those muscles,

I feel those muscles now,

I'm loosening them.

Not pulling them,

Not squashing them.

A few muscles around the mouth,

And the eyes,

Relax to the legs.

I see yellow circles.

Do you feel the body all relaxed?

I look upon it as one unit.

Just one body,

All joined together,

Relaxed,

Relaxed.

It's at ease,

It's comfortable.

But soon that feeling of ease turns to delight.

The delight of the relaxed body.

I got to know that delight so well.

It makes meditation enjoyable even at this stage.

And also my relaxation on every ghost people.

Now when it's time to let go of the body,

I turn to my what I call my peace-o-manta.

That thing inside which I know tells me how peaceful I am,

Or how agitated.

Giving it a number from one to ten.

I learn how to relax my body.

Not reacting to what I hear,

What I feel.

But being kind,

Opening the door of my heart to this moment.

Letting this moment be.

Knowing how valuable it is to be back.

The note back,

The note back-age with the past that carried on my back.

Being more natural,

More like the birds or the animals you see in the bush,

Carrying nothing with them.

Minds are free in this moment.

I'm very vain in the present moment,

Inside.

I usually come away from my breathing quite naturally.

I work on my breath.

Sometimes if I'm not that peaceful,

I tell my breath breathing in peace,

Breathing out to the peace inside.

Breathe out,

Let go of any tiredness on the hand.

Or anything else which is a hindrance,

A weight on your mind.

Breathing in peace helps.

I'm going to be quiet now.

Just before the end of meditation,

When I start speaking again.

I'm going to be quiet now.

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How relaxed is your mind?

How relaxed is your body?

And why?

What works for you?

This is where we learn what meditation is and how it works.

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

Please wait until the gong finishes sounding and then open your eyes.

I'm going to ring the gong three times.

I'm going to ring the gong three times.

So after the meditations I announce that we do have some questions from overseas.

Also just to let you be reminded there is a suited class on tomorrow afternoon between 3 p.

M.

And 4 p.

M.

Just continuing on from the word of the Buddha.

So first of all from Toronto and another one from Canada.

First of all from Toronto.

I have been meditating two to four hours daily.

Lately I notice that I'm not enjoying social events in normal daily life.

I want to be alone mostly.

Is this normal?

It is normal because sometimes you like to be with your own quiet mind.

However,

If that's causing a problem for others,

Then what to do is to develop some loving kindness meditation.

This is where you use the energy of your own mind to wish happiness and well-being for all others.

And that actually engages you with other people as it's your duty to do so.

So it's okay to be a little bit socially disengaged.

But if you get too socially disengaged it gets too much problems for you.

People expect you to do this and expect you to do that.

And even if it's like going to events,

Parties or stuff,

You can just go there.

And I remember what I used to do because I didn't want to drink.

This was when I was still a lay meditator meditating a lot.

I would hold a glass and I would never drink it.

So there was something in there,

I didn't know what it was.

And just hold it there and hold it there and hold it there.

I told a few people and put it down and disappear and go back home.

And these I showed my face.

But of course afterwards sometimes you didn't need to basically look after others.

Now sometimes,

I'm quite honest with you,

That when I meditate sometimes when it gets to four o'clock or whatever,

I don't want to open my eyes.

I'd be quite happy just to carry on meditating here.

But of course I have to.

I'm very happy to do that because you develop this wonderful sense of loving kindness.

Last night I did give a talk on zero ego.

And as I mentioned in passing,

When you let go of your own self,

Your own sense of ego,

It's much easier to serve other people,

To help others,

To talk,

To be a good friend.

Because you have nothing to protect inside yourself.

So you're out there giving to others.

So do some more loving kindness meditation.

And you find that you still have that wonderful inclination to be around.

But you're also happy to look after others and be with others.

And care for other people.

And the second question,

Also from Canada,

Why should we enter deep meditation like Jhana?

It's not really even a why,

It's just what happens.

Because these are just things which are just deeper stages of letting go of disappearance.

The more you disappear,

The more your body vanishes.

The more your body vanishes,

Just the more that all this past and future,

And all these words and thoughts,

They tend to settle down and get very still.

And the more still you get,

It's weird,

This is not dullness,

This is totally opposite,

Full energy,

High energy states.

There's energy which is focused,

Which is not all over the place.

And so it's beautiful energy places,

And it just happens quite naturally and you get huge energy.

I did,

I mentioned a couple of times in these afternoon talks,

But not that much about these lights which come up in the mind called nimittas.

If you want to know more about those,

You can read about them in that book which I wrote,

The Mindfulness,

Breath and Beyond,

The Mindfulness,

Bliss and Beyond.

It's available in the library there somewhere.

And they mention in detail about how the mind just goes from the body to these beautiful nimittas and from the nimittas into the jhana.

It happens naturally,

You can't stop there.

So why should you enter the meditation like a jhana?

If you ever had a jhana,

You never ask a question like that.

They're beautiful states,

They're rifle,

Blissful,

And also they have huge amounts of positive results afterwards,

Healing of sicknesses.

I've seen that too many times,

I'm afraid.

It's like your body gets a big boost of energy and it can heal itself.

And not only that,

But great insights,

Your mind is empowered,

Really empowered.

So you're blissed out within a jhana,

You come out afterwards and your mind is just so powerful,

So free,

So joyful.

So in the right is an experience of your jhana,

Why should you?

Why not?

It's available,

It's got no bad parts to it,

Why not indeed?

People have wonderful times in there,

Not just monks,

Lay people as well.

So that's why not.

Or this also is part of the path is concerned,

The only way you can get into those deep meditations is by really letting go,

Really letting go,

So you're not moving,

You're not driving the car at all.

Your feet is mainly miles away from the pebbles,

And the wheel of the car is a long distance away,

So you're totally letting go,

Totally at peace,

That high energy peace,

War.

So anyway,

Any questions from the floor about that?

Yes?

Yes?

Nothing?

It's great,

Yes,

Sure,

That's one especially good question,

We're straight from letting go,

Because if you come to,

I'm not quite sure where I am at the word of the Buddha,

But there you have the thing called right effort.

And I've been years trying to find some very good substitution,

Alternative for effort.

And these days I'm really leaning very heavily towards the right restraint,

The state is saying,

No,

I'm not going to go there,

I'm not going to do that.

And sometimes in meditation you do have the mind is like an old habit,

Just pulling you around,

Looking at this,

Thinking of that,

Doing something,

You say,

No,

I'm not going to do that,

This meditation.

No,

It's not really very disturbing.

It's yes,

And then you have,

Those will disturb you.

But no,

It's just the silence,

It's the peace.

So yeah,

That's what restraint is.

You see things and then try to pull you out in your meditation.

Isn't that very interesting?

That's a nice question,

Thank you.

Does that answer the question?

Yes,

It does.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah,

He's happy to say that.

Yeah,

So like I told that story over in,

When I was in Indonesia,

It's a beautiful story,

The story of the novice,

Maybe 12,

13,

14 years of age,

But they are very small,

Only in the monastery because nowhere else to go.

And he ended up,

I don't know why in Ajahn Chah's monastery.

And Ajahn Chah was giving a long talk,

It was really boring,

It was a later night.

And this poor little novice,

It's okay for the monks to go without sleep,

But he needed his sleep,

So he started thinking in his mind,

When is Ajahn Chah going to stop?

When is he going to stop?

When is he going to stop?

And it became a repeated question until the poet came,

This little novice,

He just thought things around differently,

Turned it around,

Turned it backwards.

He said to himself,

He thought to himself,

When am I going to stop?

It's a beautiful story because about four or five hours later,

He came out of his meditation.

And in the morning,

When everyone had gone,

He'd been meditating for hours.

A lovely little meditation,

Pissed out of his head,

Having a wonderful time.

He stopped.

He got into one of these jhanas,

Had a wonderful time.

And never heard all the monks doing the chanting at the end of the talk,

Never heard them doing the bowing,

Getting all their things together,

All the noise which happens and the endings of things.

And he just was totally happy just being inside his mind.

And it was dawn,

I think he missed his arms around,

He missed his one meal of the day,

But he didn't mind at all.

So happy.

And it was all because he just said,

When am I going to stop?

And he stopped.

He said,

No,

Not doing anything.

A lovely little story.

And because I'm Ajahn Brahm,

I always want to finish off on happy places.

I always say that that's whenever I go in a car,

Every time I come to a crossroads and I see that beautiful sign,

Stop.

I always remember that story.

It's amazing how much Buddhist meditation instructions there are in Perth,

In every crossroads.

Stop.

Okay,

Is there any other English people need to want?

Okay,

So we can now bow a few times as we usually do.

And then afterwards,

There's a word here last night,

When we bow,

I was teaching this to the principle of Christ Church Grandma,

A devout Christian.

Once he understood this,

He started bowing to the Buddha.

My first bow is to virtue,

Goodness.

Second bow is to peace,

Stillness.

And the third bow is to virtue,

Happiness.

Reviews

When am I going to stop? Lovely story and practice as always. My hide thanks to you and Ajahn Brahm! ☮️💖🙏🕉️