Day 129/365: 30-Minute Meditation | Ajahn Brahm

Enjoy a 30-minute meditation with Ajahn Brahm. Ajahn Brahm is a popular Buddhist teacher to a growing international audience of people keen to learn meditation and develop a deeper spiritual understanding. He is also the founding father of an emergent Australian forest tradition of Buddhism.

Transcript

Okay, So that's the funds for our retreat centre. And the retreat centre is all about meditation, All about learning to let go and be at peace and being still and not thinking about anything in the whole world. And that's what we're going to do now. So if you like to, You're actually all sitting down now, Ready? Close your eyes and prepare yourself to take off into inner space. Remember that meditation is learning how to relax. For those of you who are Buddhist who know your teachings of the Buddha, You should know that the second factor of the Eightfold Path, The right intention, Is intentions of letting go, Kindness and gentleness. So that's how we should meditate, Just letting go, Seeing what we can abandon, Get rid of so it doesn't bother us. And just beautiful kindness, Not fighting for it with things, But being so open and embracing and warm to whatever we experience. And this beautiful non-violence of gentleness, So we're not violent to our body, We're not violent to our mind. And to encourage that gentleness, We just look at our body with our eyes closed. This whole body of ours, Sometimes we are quite forceful to. And now we're going to be so gentle with it, To treat it as if it was some precious flower, So fragile yet so beautiful. We want to keep it, Nurture it, Protect it. So look at your body with your eyes closed, Feel it, Experience it, With a mind of gentleness and warmth, And see what you can do for your body to make it more comfortable, To show you truly care for the body in which you live, Make sure the legs are comfortable, The bottom is okay, The back is nicely arched, Whatever posture you have, As long as it feels nice, There's no tension in the shoulders, The arms and the hands are in a good position. There is no magic perfect posture in meditation. Some people like putting their hands on their knees, On their laps, It's up to you, You find your position which is the best. And just spend time with your body. Spending time again shows you care, Here caring for your body. Thank you. When the body is comfortable, You can let go of the body and start focusing on the mind by beginning with present moment awareness, Deliberately being unconcerned with anything outside the here and now, All the past, All your history, Don't deal with it now. File it away in a filing cabinet and lock the door. In the future as well, Whatever is going to happen, Leave it till later. Knowing the best way that we can care about the future is by looking after the present. So put all our attention in here now. Your job is to make sure you don't go back to the past, Not rush to the future. It takes a while, But when you recognize the present moment, Become familiar, Then you can stay there comfortably. Keep bringing the mind back and enjoying being here, Being free from the worry of the past and the future. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. When the present moment is established, For three or four minutes, Go deeper into the silence of the moment. We pay specific attention to not giving things name and not starting a conversation as if you are listening with the ears of the mind and not speaking with the mind, With the mouth of the mind. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. After developing enough silence, You can move to your breath. Just knowing the breath as it goes in, Knowing the breath as it goes out. Just being with the breath, Not forcing the breath to be fast or short, But just observing, Observing with the eyes of the mind, Feeling it, Knowing it, Experience its touch. So you know when you are breathing in and you know when you are breathing out. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Just being with the breath. As you go deeper, See if you can notice the beginning of every in-breath. See all the feelings in the beginning when in-breath as it reaches its peak and then fades away. The beginning of an out-breath until it too fades away, Focusing on all the experience of breath. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So how do you feel now? It's close to another end of a meditation period. And as you've heard me speak before, Know that I like to encourage you to experience the result of meditation by just focusing on the inner feelings in the last two or three minutes. How much peace, Freedom, Happiness can you feel? What are those things? Peace, Happiness, Freedom. It's here in this time of meditation, One may even be able to understand what these things can be. What real peace is. What inner freedom means. And how all that comes together in this beautiful spiritual happiness of a calm meditator. Now it's time to ring the gong. As usual I'll ring the gong three times. Only at the end of the third resonance from the gong, Only then open your eyes to come out from your meditation. Gong.