Day 104/365: 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

So it's three o'clock now,

Are we ready to go?

Good.

So hello from Western Australia,

From Nulamara,

Dhammaloka Centre,

Dhammaloka,

The light of the Dhamma,

To be able to teach,

Serve and help make a better world and especially through meditation.

So today the meditation is live streamed in an empty hall to keep all of the regulations which are necessary and it doesn't really matter too much for me anyway because when I close my eyes it's like there's nobody here.

And we're also trained over many years of meditation to learn how to adapt to the different situations which one finds oneself in,

In life.

And that ability to adapt to different circumstances means that you can meditate in a noisy place,

You can meditate in a time when you're sick,

You can meditate in a time when you're very exhausted.

There's so many different occasions where I've just challenged myself,

My body and the situation I'm in in order to see whether all these so-called theories are true or not.

And I found out they are true.

That I've meditated when I've been in a fever with typhus fever,

Really really weak,

I meditated in the middle of the CBD opposite a video store blaring out very loud music and meditated when I'm exhausted.

So many times you've been able to sit down and just be quiet because you know the essence of meditation.

And in particular the essence of meditation is to learn this beautiful art of contentment,

Inner contentment,

Where you don't want anything in the whole world,

Instead just to be here.

It's abandoning that search for something else and realise what you already have is more than enough to be very peaceful and very content.

And of course for those of you who've listened to me teach before,

I'm referring to what in Buddhism we call the five hindrances,

Because those five hindrances are what not only stop the mind being peaceful,

But it also stops you being wise,

It stops you seeing things as they truly are.

And those five hindrances are headed by wanting something.

In other words,

Instead of looking at what you have,

Of where you are,

What's happening now,

Instead gazing somewhere into the future,

Some other place,

Some other time where you think that there I might find some meaning,

Some freedom,

Some fulfilment,

And realising every time you do that,

You're just more of the same,

More work,

More discontent,

More problems,

More things to solve in the world.

And sometimes you wonder,

Is that the path?

But fortunately there are some very wise meditation teachers.

I had a very great one with someone like Ajahn Chah,

But also there's many other teachers,

Many other great monks and nuns which I met on the journey,

And those also were saying that why you have to keep going here and going there looking for truth.

Instead of going out there,

Instead of going over there,

Instead of going inside,

Go into this body,

Into this mind,

Into this moment,

Into the silence and see what's there.

And of course that sounds profound,

But it's a very difficult thing to do.

If you want to go into the silence,

That wanting is just going into the wrong place.

So somehow we have to learn,

Sometimes a bit of trial and error,

To be able to let go of all wanting and just to be here.

And to be able to do that there is,

If you let go of all the wanting,

When the wanting is gone so is the wanting not to have something or want to get rid of things,

The second hindrance.

When the wanting disappears you're not wasting your mental energy,

Which means the tiredness,

The dullness disappears.

When you don't want anything,

You're not restless,

Going over here,

Going over there,

Always looking for something,

Which is the fourth hindrance.

When you're not wanting anything,

You don't have any doubts,

You don't want to know,

You're just knowing.

It stops this whole journey of the mind,

Trying to find peace,

Meaning,

Stillness somewhere else,

Other than here.

So in the meditation we start by just looking at our body and our body is important for us,

Even right now.

The reason why I'm teaching meditation in an empty hall is because of our concern for our bodies,

COVID-19.

But there's so much more to life than just a body.

You've got to care for it,

There's much more to care for.

And so we just relax our body,

Relaxing our body.

It may sound simple to you to relax your body.

Sometimes people relax by going for a run or they relax just by surfing in the sea.

That is not,

Sorry,

Surfing on the sea.

If you don't surf well,

You go in the sea.

But real going inside,

Real relaxing is learning how to feel every part of your body,

To really get to know it,

To get to know it so thoroughly that you can care for it.

This is where the path to relaxation,

The path to letting go,

The path to going inwards,

Always is with caring.

This beautiful loving kindness,

But not just kindness,

The awareness as well,

Focused in the right place,

The kindfulness.

So for years I've practiced the kindfulness on my own body,

So kind to it,

You can look at any part of it and just relax it.

Relax it so thoroughly that it disappears.

When you can relax something,

You tend to go inside.

And this is the old simile which I've given many times in meditation retreats of the thousand petal lotus.

And a lotus is closed at night time,

But in the early morning when the light of the sun and the warmth of the sun hit the outermost sheath of the lotus,

Slowly in its own time it opens up,

Layer after layer after layer.

One layer of petals is open,

The one inside is still closed.

It means the warmth and the light of the sun can reach that inner layer,

So it too can open up.

He does this in the beautiful natural process,

Always going in,

Deeper and deeper inside.

And you can see that when that lotus starts to open up,

What you're doing,

What you're doing is avoiding the five hindrances.

If you want something,

Your lotus closes.

You're not looking right here because the warmth and the light of the sun,

I should have said,

The warmth of the sun is kindness and the light of the sun is mindfulness.

The mindfulness and kindfulness coming together produces the opening.

You go inwards,

Go deeper in to where you are because you're just aware and you're kind to what you're aware of.

That kindness is important addition to mindfulness because it's what connects you and keeps you connected to this moment.

I often mentioned for so many years ago,

So many years ago when my mind was restless and I would be told to just go and take that mind and bring it back and it would wander off again,

Just go after it and bring it back again,

But don't be harsh to it,

Don't be cruel,

Don't be violent to your own mind and body.

Every time it wandered off,

It was an endless always bringing it back again until one day I thought,

Well,

Why does my mind wander off?

Why can't it stay put in this moment?

And I realized it was because it was running away from me,

Because I wasn't kind to my mind.

It was afraid of me.

I had maltreated it.

Why would you run away from anyone if they're kind to you and respectful and gentle?

So it didn't really matter what I was experiencing,

I decided to change my attitude from controlling it and wanting it to be in this moment,

Just to making peace with whatever happened,

Being kind and being gentle,

That's all.

It's the second factor of the Noble Eightfold Path and when I apply that,

My mind didn't want to go anywhere.

My mind was happy with me.

It was happy to stick with a dear old friend.

We spent many hours,

Many hours at peace together,

I realized the kindness and the mindfulness together,

It's what keeps you in this moment.

But keeping you in this moment is not a sort of static,

Dull state.

The longer you stay in this moment,

The deeper you go in.

When you don't do anything,

That's when things happen.

And so what happens is you're watching your body,

Relaxing every part of it and as you're relaxing it with kindness and awareness,

Soon your body vanishes.

You can't feel your hands,

You can't feel your legs,

Can't feel your back,

Your head.

And that was so wonderful in places like Northeast Thailand,

There was no air conditioners,

It's so hot sometimes.

When there was mosquitoes buzzing around all over the place,

When you sat still,

The feelings in your body were sometimes very unpleasant.

But you knew how just to stay there until your body vanished.

You couldn't feel the mosquitoes anymore,

You couldn't feel the heat or the cold.

You could sit,

Let's say in a CBD,

So noisy,

For two hours on the pavement,

So quiet inside,

While so noisy outside,

Until you couldn't hear the noise anymore,

You went inside.

And that ability just to be still,

Not to fight the world,

As Ajahn Chah would often teach us.

It's not that the sound disturbs you,

You disturb the sound,

You stop disturbing the sound and the sound disappears.

You go inside.

And of course those of you who have participated in these guided meditations on a Saturday afternoon,

Know that this is how I'm going to lead you in the meditation,

To actually to scan the body with kindness,

Relaxing it,

Making it at ease.

It doesn't have to be totally pain free,

It just needs to be at ease,

So it can totally vanish.

And then go into the mind,

Because the body is just the outer layer of petals,

Go into the mind,

The emotional world.

Instead of looking for something in the future or the past,

But the mind goes off into the future,

It's usually wanting something.

That's what propels the mind away from this present moment.

Wanting takes it off into the future.

Ill will is remembering something from the past.

By letting go of the past and the future,

Those first two hindrances are just gone.

They just,

They've got no place.

Like two birds,

They've got no place to roost.

Past and future,

They're nesting places.

You take those two away and they just don't exist anymore.

And because from that,

The dullness,

I always thought the dullness needed a big cup of coffee to overcome dullness.

Why you got to put some energy in,

But that was more wanting.

But over years and years of practice,

You realize the more still you are,

The more you don't do things.

The more you give up wanting,

The more your energy gets stronger and stronger and stronger.

You don't fight dullness,

You make peace with it.

Make peace,

Be kind,

Be gentle.

And you find that slowly but irresistibly,

The dullness disappears and your mindfulness gets empowered.

And that's one part of meditation,

I don't know why I don't hear other people teaching about it enough,

I don't hear it in books,

Read it in books,

Sorry.

The powerful mindfulness and the super power mindfulnesses,

Those are what make meditation just so gorgeous.

Just waiting,

It's just so still.

And after the meditation,

You open your eyes and every leaf on the bushes outside are just doubly green,

More deep,

More intense color than you've ever seen before.

And the feeling of the wind on your face,

It's just so gorgeous.

And even if you have a cup of tea or something to eat,

Everything is like enhanced,

It's more and more and more delightful.

That is the sign that mindfulness is getting powerful.

And that powerful mindfulness is never restless,

It's got this great energy that stays with something.

That time when after a very lovely retreat,

Sorry,

In the middle of a retreat,

One of my first retreats,

I think it actually was my first retreat when I was still a layperson,

Having the opportunity to go for a walk for one hour every morning.

And my walk didn't last more than five minutes.

And I saw my beautiful cup of bamboo and I just stared at it.

It was gorgeous.

I didn't move.

The delight,

Because my hindrances were so suppressed,

I could just look at something and see its deep beauty gave rise to the stillness.

The ability just to hold the perception,

Not really hold it,

The perception held me.

And just be there,

Enjoying every moment of this.

That's where the restlessness disappears.

And of course the doubt is working.

There's something inside of you,

Even if you're not much experienced in meditation,

You can feel that this is real,

This is authentic,

That something magical is happening.

Call it magical,

Just means it's something which is unusual.

You're peaceful,

You're still,

You're happy,

You have some power,

It's not coming from you.

You're disappearing,

You're vanishing,

All the doing is stopping and instead there's nothing.

And that is just so powerful.

And of course you go into the centre of the present moment,

Time vanishes and these words they vanish too.

All of the descriptions,

The descriptions are just so imperfect to describe what you're experiencing.

The words just don't catch it.

Every now and again I used to read poetry when I was a student and sometimes the poets could capture reality,

At least get close to it.

But that was a great poet.

In all of the things which they wrote,

There's only a few passages which really inspired and brought tears to my eyes because they'd captured something real.

But words are just so hard to capture reality.

So that's why we go into the silent mind.

In the silent mind,

Then the body really starts to vanish.

Much of what you think about,

What you know your world disappears.

You feel your breath,

Only thing moving.

It becomes delightful.

Your mindfulness is increasing,

Just like a bamboo tree can look so beautiful.

Your breath just going in and out,

It's gorgeous.

No two breaths are ever the same.

You see that deeply,

The whole breath.

And this is not something you aim for,

That's just losing the present moment.

All aiming,

Aspiring means the future.

You just hear and this is just what you feel,

What you know,

Just what happens.

You're a passenger,

You're on a journey,

You're not the driver,

You're not the pilot,

You're not in charge.

If you start to be in charge,

The whole thing just falls apart.

You just let go,

Just be and disappear.

And of course when the breath vanishes,

Beautiful what we call nimittas,

Images in your mind.

They're not out there in the world,

They're inside.

And the more that your five senses of seeing,

Hearing,

Smelling,

Tasting,

Touching vanish,

The more these beautiful lights,

That's what most people experience them as,

Just appear.

But please,

If you want to achieve those lights,

You're wasting your time.

This is just a result of doing nothing,

Of letting go,

Of just renouncing.

This is what happens.

And as those lights come in,

You really go so deep in the meditation.

And you go deeper into the bliss of those lights,

Into jhanas.

Just like the Buddha said,

You can't feel the body.

There's no thoughts in the mind,

The mind doesn't move,

Powerful,

Not like anything which experiences in the world.

They're real,

They're attainable,

In the sense that you can experience them.

Mark none,

Layman laywoman.

You can do it.

This is the path to do that.

Sometimes it can be quite frightening when you stop to think.

If you let go of all that thinking and just enjoy the feelings,

Just have that emotional confidence.

This is the path which the Buddha taught,

We've practiced for so many centuries and it works.

So overcoming those hindrances,

Getting into deep states of meditation and understanding so much more,

So much insight,

In sight,

Into just who you are,

Or rather who you're not.

Now we're going to find out.

So,

If you'd like to just adjust your posture again.

Sorry for going on a bit long,

It's just my habit.

So close your eyes.

Ooh.

With your eyes closed,

I usually do it very quick,

So make sure just roughly my body is comfortable.

A rough check of my body,

Now a more particular check of the body.

I usually start with my legs,

From my toes,

Feet,

Ankles,

All the way up,

My calves and shins,

The knees and thighs,

Just checking on everything.

Sometimes you go reasonably fast but you don't miss out any part.

And if I find that,

Say,

A foot is not properly positioned on top of,

Like my left foot is on top of my right shin,

If that's not comfortable,

I'm going to adjust it,

But actually it's pretty good,

Just adjust it a tiny bit.

I get a feedback pretty much the same as I suspected.

Because this mindfulness does give you feedback.

It's adjusting at the very beginning,

It's just getting you into a good position.

Once my legs are really good,

Then I check my butt,

Sitting on a cushion.

Sometimes when people come and talk to me before I start meditating,

I don't have time to really adjust my cushion properly.

But today I came in here a few minutes earlier and it's an empty hall,

I had time to really adjust the cushion,

So it just feels really great.

And then my back,

Starting with the waist,

Give my back a good stretch,

Oh that's nice.

Once I stretch it,

It's doing something,

But then I let go.

My body relaxes to a deeper position,

A deeper state of contentment than it was before.

Just move my shoulders around just to make sure they're really good.

And of course my shoulder muscles.

Because I wear robes I've got to make sure that the roll which is over my left shoulder is just right,

It's just a little bit too loose,

It's a bit falling off,

I'm just going to adjust it.

That's great.

And then just listen,

I like to be aware of a few parts of my body which if I don't really pay them enough attention they get tight and cause me aches and pains.

Those shoulders are one part of me which I learn to feel thoroughly.

Really get to know my shoulders.

My left shoulder is a little bit tighter than my right shoulder.

So I did a few movements.

Now I just use the mind.

The mind to see if I can relax those muscles in my shoulders.

Sometimes I do visualisations,

Sometimes I do suggestions.

I try so many things until you find what works for you.

Because when your awareness is on your shoulders you can feel when they tighten up,

You can feel when they get loose.

You can know when they become so comfortable,

Really really really relaxed.

And the shoulders I go down my arms,

To the elbows,

The forearms,

The wrists and the hands.

And I look at my hands,

They're not in such a good position so I'm going to adjust them.

Today I'm doing my right hand over the left hand,

The thumb slightly touching.

There's a posture which I was taught when I was young.

Don't always follow it,

Don't always need to but today it feels good.

I stay experiencing the feelings,

The sensations in my hands.

There's an underlying wish for them to be well and happy.

Just like if ever I visit someone who's sick,

I wish them happiness and well being,

A little smile,

Maybe a Buddhist chant for them if they want it,

If that's what they would relate to.

For them to be at peace and happy.

Do the same thing to my hands.

And they respond,

So much as if they say,

Thank you Ajahn Brahm for thinking of us,

For wishing us well.

My hands get all loose and happy and relaxed.

So now's the time to go back up to my shoulders and my neck,

Making sure my head is well balanced on top of the neck.

And then making sure I give a bit of attention to my throat.

There's always something flowering this time of year,

Always something giving some sort of allergy or just only a slight irritation but I can feel that little irritation in my throat.

I care for it.

I don't try and get rid of it.

I don't cure it,

I care for it.

Such a powerful little insight.

If you try and cure that's ill will.

If he's caring for it,

It's in this moment.

And the caring works.

Curing is a small problem.

When I care for my throat as it is,

It relaxes.

I don't do this in order to relax my throat.

I do this and the throat responds.

And then the last part to my face.

You can be aware of all these years and I still haven't really got a good word for the feeling around my eyes and my mouth.

I know exactly what it is.

I relax it,

Feeling those muscles and through trial and error knowing how to loosen the tension in the muscles around my eyes and the tightness in the muscles around my mouth.

I feel them just go all soft,

Leave a little smile.

This one's a natural one.

Relaxing other parts of the body if you need to.

When I've gone through my whole body,

Toes to head,

I just am with my body,

Relaxed to the max and I get this wonderful delightful feeling.

Like you've just gone to a massage or a hot bath.

So my body says thank you for looking after me.

So you're back,

You're welcome.

So don't try and never escape from my body,

Just care for it.

This beautiful feeling of delight,

The friendship of care and my body relaxes even more.

I also just love that experience of watching my body get even more relaxed all by itself.

Because my main meditation object is the delight of relaxation,

A bodily ease.

And I stay there a little while.

And it's time to go inwards,

It does it by itself.

Start to go inside.

My body is not a problem anymore.

I go inside to my peace-ometer.

How peaceful am I this afternoon?

How agitated?

And I never blame myself or anybody.

Sometimes I have many things to do.

Sometimes it's disturbances,

Physical or work.

I just know.

I also know that when I don't blame anybody or anything on myself,

I just look and care.

The reading on my peace-ometer goes down.

I calm my mind.

Just coming into this moment,

This moment is beautiful,

It's good,

It's delightful.

There's a little trick of gaining delight in relaxed body.

Means you come into this moment quite naturally.

You don't concentrate or focus on it,

It just comes to you,

It's where you are.

I know my past and my future are just vanished,

Just now,

Just here.

It's peaceful.

If I want to I conduct this first and second hindrances of wanting or ill will.

They're asleep,

They're knocked out,

They're not here.

I just stay.

Try not to give things a name.

Sometimes you're deeper in,

Deeper into this.

Sometimes if you give things a name it starts a high intellectual,

Logical argument or discourse or theory or something.

It takes you away from this.

Speech never drives you to the centre,

It just orbits around things,

Never landing on what it's trying to describe.

And the silent mind is peaceful,

It's very attractive.

So I never need to force myself onto it,

Rather to let it happen.

And that's when you experience your breath.

Just noticing the breath as it comes in,

Noticing as it goes out,

Not forced,

Not chosen,

Just happens.

In the moment,

Silent,

Not wanting anything in the world,

Not trying to attain anything or get something,

Just trying to let go more and more.

At this point I'm going to be silent.

When I start speaking again,

Just towards the end of the meditation,

This is silence for your happiness and peace,

For you to go inside.

All right.

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Reviews

Love this one as with all of Brahms's practices. Thank you again. Such a gift. ☮️💖🙏🕉️