Day 325/365: Guided Meditation | Ajahn Brahm

Fifteen minutes of meditation advice/inspiration followed by 45 minutes of semi-guided meditation. There are some useful questions and answers at the end of the meditation practice. Ajahn Brahm gives advice on dealing with pain by being mindful.

Transcript

Welcome everybody to the ongoing meditation class.

So in this class we are going to be meditating for about 40-45 minutes.

So if you come for the Introduction to Meditation class,

The series of four lessons to begin meditation,

To learn the basics,

Then that class is being held by Bianca in the room to my right.

So you've got one last chance to escape before we do the 45 minute meditation.

But before we do the 45 minute meditation,

I always like to give some little advice about meditating.

And the basic advice which I give every week is just learning just how to really calm your mind down.

And to calm the mind down we start by calming the body down.

And to be able to calm the body down we do need a little bit of relaxation and a nice easy-going mind,

Which is one of the reasons we keep it light and easy to begin with.

Over there in the hall,

Just telling a few funny stories,

A few jokes,

Because that's very important to get the right frame of mind where one is light-hearted rather than heavy-hearted.

Because you find if you're very heavy and bothered about all the problems and difficulties in life,

Straight away that tightness,

That heaviness and also that tightness makes it a bit more difficult to meditate.

So one little piece of advice for everyone.

If you come here on a Saturday afternoon to do some meditation,

Just even before you start to sit down,

Just prepare your mind,

Have a cup of tea,

Just listen to some soft music or speak with your friends and try not to get any heavy stuff into your mind before you meditate.

Just relax a little bit.

Sometimes it's nice just to do a little bit of walking outside before you start meditating.

That's why we do this walking meditation which you sometimes see.

We haven't really got the space here to do walking meditation,

But even just from your car where you park or from the corner if you come on a bus,

Just to walk very,

Very slowly and calmly to this hall just to get yourself into the right mood.

Because this is not a place,

It's not like going to the dentist,

It's not like hard work at the office or where you work to get your money to live.

This is actually a place of relaxation and peace.

And you all know that the last thing you need for peace is to be forced and have to do stuff that just again makes you too stressed out.

So in this meditation the goal is peace which means really it's no goal at all.

Because every time you have a goal,

Something you want to achieve,

Something you want to reach,

That again creates too much stress for you.

Just another job you have to complete,

Another test which you have to,

You have to meet and succeed at.

And we don't want more of that stress.

So here in the meditation we learn just how to be instead of learn how to go places,

Learn how to achieve things.

We don't do that,

We learn how to be.

So in brief,

One of the great teachings of my master,

He said,

We meditate to let go,

We don't meditate to get more things,

More attainments,

Just to let go of all this striving and trying to get stuff.

In other words we relax,

You've done your job,

You've been working very hard,

Now you're here,

This is a time for peace and relaxation.

But it sounds very easy but it's a difficult thing to do because a lot of times that we have lost the art in our modern society of just doing nothing,

Of relaxing.

And because of that we have to have these instructions on how to relax.

It's a weird thing but we,

One of the great skills of life we've forgotten how to do,

How just to sit there and relax.

You look at a cat in the house,

They know how to relax,

Even dogs know how to relax,

Human beings,

We're nearly always tense.

So because of that there is all these really bad jokes which I'm going to begin with to start out.

One of my worst jokes which comes up right now is about the man who went to the psychiatrist and the psychiatrist said,

What's your problem?

He said,

Well sometimes I think I'm a marquee and the other times I think I'm a wigwam,

You know like the indigenous Indians,

United States you still live in.

And he said,

That's really weird,

I've never heard that before.

Sometimes you think you're a marquee and sometimes you think you're a wigwam.

And then a light went on in the psychologist's mind,

I've got it,

I know your problem,

You're too tense.

And all you people think that's a terrible joke,

You're going to go and tell your friends this evening.

Now,

That's the problem with people,

They're so tense these days,

So we're going to learn how to relax a little bit.

So in order to do that we use this thing,

Say this every week,

Mindfulness.

You actually start to become aware of your body.

Because how can you relax your body when you don't know what it's doing?

So we learn how to feel our body,

Feel what's going on in there.

And don't ever imagine you know everything about your body,

There's so many muscles you don't even aware of because you don't have to be aware of them.

But in this meditation,

You're starting to be aware of all sorts of stuff that's going on in your body.

And especially any parts of your body which is imbalanced,

Which is tense,

Which is in pain or aching,

You can actually feel,

I'm sure there must be something,

Somewhere in your body which is aching,

Which is stressed,

Which is irritating.

Very good,

Like the throat,

Very irritating.

So when you feel something like that,

You put all your mindfulness on it,

You put it like zooming in,

You focus in on it,

Like you're focusing in on a movie,

On the TV,

So you can't see anything to the left or the right,

You're just focusing in on this feeling in the body.

Really getting to know it first of all.

Once you get to know that feeling in the body,

It's amazing just how much power you can have over it.

First of all,

You know,

Does it start to change?

It gets worse,

It gets better.

Then why?

Why does that irritation sometimes just start to disappear?

Why does it sometimes get more irritating,

More tight?

Why does the pain really sort of start to increase?

Sometimes it just vanishes,

Why?

And you will begin to notice this attitude of mind,

How you look at that irritation or pain.

That creates a huge impact on the intensity.

So what you're actually doing,

You're learning by mindfulness what relaxes your body,

How to open up tight places in your body,

How to relax muscles,

You can actually feel them being stretched and now they become really,

Really loose and free.

You can feel like some parts are just being squashed and you expand them so they become nice and loose and fluffy.

Pain is not a board anymore.

Sometimes someone told me this little technique many,

Many,

Many years ago.

It's very powerful.

If you have a pain in the body which is almost unendurable,

Just go in the direction which no people would ever think of.

Imagine a little box around that pain and expanding it,

Expanding the pain.

Oh no,

That means my whole body will be in pain.

It doesn't work that way.

When you expand something,

It gets dilute,

It gets less dense.

Yeah,

The irritation,

The feeling starts to spread but it actually lessens in intensity until you can spread the pain over the whole universe and you can't feel it at all.

Just like a ice cube,

Sort of melting,

Then the water evaporating and just spreads and it's not there anymore.

That's what we do with expanding feelings rather than contracting them and squashing them,

Trying to avoid them.

So that type of attitude,

You find your body really,

Really relaxes.

Now the reason we do that is twofold.

First of all,

It's great to have a relaxed,

Healthy body which is nice and at ease.

They don't have too many health problems.

But number two is what you're doing.

It's actually your learning.

How this you're aware of something and you're aware what makes that problem less intense,

What relaxes.

First of all,

The body and next,

Your mind,

Your emotional world.

You've all got problems.

You've all got irritation and pain,

Not just in the body but in the emotional world.

All the stuff which has happened to you,

They're like wounds and scars on your body but these are wounds and scars in your mind.

You've got all these fears about the future and they just tend to stretch and give incredible tension to your mental world.

Just like in the body,

But in the body,

We're more used to feeling those aches and pains.

We're more used to that.

We can feel the body being very tense or we know what it's like when it relaxes.

Now we're going to do the same with our mind,

Our mental world.

Feeling it,

Understanding the emotional world.

Now first thing people say,

Well what do we actually watch in the mind?

How do you mean watch the mind?

Please help Ajahn Brahm.

So just developing just the means so you can actually focus on the correct thing and then you can see it get more intense or less intense,

More relaxed.

So how you can relax your inner world,

Don't just look at the particulars.

Look at the general underlying piece of your mind or the amount of restlessness you have.

So again,

Because it's our world,

We measure everything.

So I ask you in this meditation to give a number for one to ten of how peaceful you are.

And don't have to be accurate,

Just how peaceful.

Because sometimes you know you're just absolutely not peaceful.

I'm one or I'm minus ten.

That's how agitated I am.

Sometimes you're really peaceful and that's about a seven or an eight.

You don't have to be accurate but what it does,

It gives you some measure,

Some awareness,

Some mindfulness of how peaceful you are or how agitated you are.

And once you see that thing which you've just given a number for,

Then you have,

Looking at the right thing,

You've got your finger on the right dial.

And then you just watch.

Does that number increase?

It's gone up to an eight now,

Wow.

Or it's going down,

Six,

Five,

Four,

Three,

I'm really getting restless.

You can notice this peace or agitation change.

And as you notice it changing,

You will find just the same way your body relaxes,

Letting go,

Releasing the tension,

Expanding things rather than always trying to control things.

In brief,

Just letting things be.

That will create a higher level,

A higher number for your peace indicator.

If you try to get something,

I'm really going to try and get peaceful now,

You'll find the number goes way down.

You're trying,

That stresses the mind.

If you try and judge yourself,

I'm hopeless,

I'm terrible,

It goes down.

Kindness,

Respect,

Gratitude,

Letting things be,

That is what creates the peace.

So little by little,

You learn.

Trial and error at first,

Until you get very skilled like anything else on how to look at your mind and bring it to deeper and deeper states of peacefulness.

Just a general underlying,

So you can get up to tens or even beyond.

You can feel that peace,

You get to know it.

Now of course sometimes people say,

I just watched a breezy,

Watched lights in the mind,

Little mantras,

Yeah those are good but the underlying reason,

Why are you meditating for?

For peace of mind,

For deep peace.

Because that peace goes incredibly,

Much further than you'd ever imagined.

That's the main thing you're doing here,

For peace.

So if you forget about enlightenment,

Forget about powers,

Forget about anything else,

It's a peace which is the cause for all of those things.

So go for the motherlode as they say.

The peace.

And if you can start developing some peace in your mind.

After a while you become so skilled at noticing what peace is.

It's something which you've been watching for years and you know it so well.

Other people might not recognise it but you've been observing it,

Getting to know it,

Becoming familiar with it,

And you know all about it and how to create that peace in your mind.

And again with skill,

Just like you can relax your body really quickly when you really need to.

That's what I've learned to do.

Any aches and pains,

I've got to be out in the public giving talks in front of cameras too much.

And so if ever I want to really get my body relaxed,

Really need to,

I can do it pretty quickly.

And as I was saying to people,

One of the last times was last February.

In Korea,

Being in front of the cameras most of the day,

On national TV,

And in the morning woke up with a cold,

Sneezing,

And I saw this gut coming out from my nose.

And that's not very nice to have snot coming out of your nose on national TV.

So,

I don't like taking medication and stuff.

So instead I just had about half an hour,

Sit meditation,

Just feel them,

I felt my nose so fully,

Totally focused on it.

Not sort of thinking about anything or worrying about what's going to happen half an hour.

Just focusing on it,

Really feeling it,

And knowing just how that nose,

Those feelings got less sneezy or less coldy.

And little by little,

You work with your nose and your sinuses,

Easing off,

Lessening the problem,

Lessening the feeling,

Lessening the irritation,

Half an hour it's all gone.

So I could just do my stuff during the day and just needed any cold treatments or anything,

And just fully fit and healthy.

And I've done that many times when you really have to.

So it's a great skill to be able to use and the same with your mind.

You all have problems and troubles and difficulties and stresses in your life.

If you really want to find peace of mind really quickly,

If you know what that peace is,

Look at the mind,

Look at the problem.

When I had a cold it was my nose.

Most of the time it's our mind.

You know exactly where to look,

How to look,

And soon you know how to just let go.

Your mind becomes so peaceful,

You feel it,

And you make it more peaceful.

You really feel that too.

With a relaxed body it actually feels pleasant.

Sickness sucks.

It's irritating,

It's painful,

It doesn't give you any freedom.

Sometimes if you've got a really sick body you can't hardly do anything.

Just the sickness takes over 90% of your time and attention.

You can't read a book because you're sneezing all the time.

You can't focus,

You've got no energy to listen to something on the TV,

You feel awful.

It takes away all your time.

So to have that free time,

The problems in the mind take away so much of your time.

To have some peace in the mind gives you this great freedom and huge amounts of time,

Which we're poor at because we're too busy.

So here we're learning how to find some peace inside of ourselves,

With the body,

With the mind.

Same process,

Just on different things.

And then you find it gets incredibly peaceful and it feels so pleasant.

Just like you've had these aches and pains,

People can sometimes go to a hot bath.

Sometimes you've been walking a long distance,

Sometimes you soak your feet.

Or,

You know,

You've been playing some sport,

Which I never do,

But I can remember the times,

And you go into a bath and you soak away all your aches and pains.

Everything starts to relax,

You start to feel good.

And that's like the bath for the mind,

Meditation.

Your mind gets so relaxed and peaceful and at ease,

And it feels so beautiful.

So that's what we're doing here.

Very simple,

All the other stuff which comes afterwards,

You can read in my books.

But right now we're just doing the essential stuff,

Learning how to find deep peace of mind.

Easy.

So,

Here we go.

So if you like to get yourself nice and comfortable,

Cushions are free.

We've got a special offer today,

Three for the price of one.

Very good.

So it's going to be about 40 minute meditation.

So,

Sitting down,

Get your posture really good first of all.

I usually wiggle my bottom all the time,

Every time I meditate I just fidget first of all.

It's become not a bad habit but a good habit.

Because every time I move I'm aware,

And every time I move I'm aware,

But did the comfort improve,

Am I more comfortable?

If I'm not,

I wiggle back again.

Wiggle my bottom,

Check my legs,

My legs nice and crossed in the right place.

It's different every time.

Find out what's good for me on this particular day,

This particular time.

It's like stretching my back.

If you're sitting on a chair,

It's quite okay to lean back if you feel comfortable like that.

If you don't feel comfortable leaning back,

You can just sit straight up,

It's really up to you.

What you find most comfortable.

However,

If you tend during meditation to slump forward,

It's actually quite helpful to lean back.

Because if you lean back you can't slump forward.

So if you lean back against the backrest of the chair,

Then that usually overcomes the slumping problem.

And then I get my hands in the right position.

I like them just,

You know,

One over the other,

With my thumbs slightly touching.

That's just how I was trained,

It's comfortable like that.

Not always,

Sometimes I put them in a different posture.

What I do do though is I make sure I'm aware of how my arms and hands are positioned.

So they are the most comfortable.

And lastly,

Just check my head.

If there's some concerns which I've had to deal with,

Sometimes you can feel like the forehead tense,

Been thinking too much.

I do have to work,

Have to do admin and sort out problems.

Sometimes I can feel the muscles around my eyes,

Screwing my eyes up,

Same around my mouth.

So I always like to be aware of those muscles.

It's very easy to be mindful of the feeling in those muscles,

Around the eyes especially.

And I relax those muscles,

I loosen them,

I take away the tightness,

The tension.

I've learned how to do that.

All you do is you're aware,

Experiment,

See what tightens the muscles,

See what loosens them.

And there it is again,

The same old letting be.

Let go because it was me who was squashing them.

It was me as I often say,

Just pulling,

Pulling at the end of a rope,

Stretching it,

Causing it to be tense.

Now I let the rope go.

Stop stretching anything.

I feel the muscles around my eyes loosen.

Loosen even more.

Same around my mouth.

Whole face of relaxing it,

Relaxing all these muscles.

And having done a quick scan through my body,

Moving what needs to be moved,

If you need to cough,

Please cough,

If you need to sneeze or scratch,

Please do so.

Then having eased my body as much as I can through physical movement,

It's still not totally comfortable.

There's always an ache or a pain somewhere.

I too have an irritation in my throat.

Slight ache in the lower part of my digestive tract.

So I'm going to start with the irritation in my throat.

Focus on it totally.

Zoom in on it.

As aware as I possibly can of that feeling,

I notice how it changes,

I can make it more irritating if I want to.

I can make it less irritating.

Usually to make it more irritating,

I'm afraid of it,

Scared of it,

Try to control it,

Worried about it,

It really makes it irritating.

Can I just let it be when I open the door of my heart to it?

When I make peace with it rather than make war with it.

There's a small thing like an irritation gets less.

I notice how my mind controls that irritation.

If I can let it be,

The irritation gets less.

So now I'm lessening that irritation,

Relaxing it,

Easing it,

Still focusing on it.

That's the object of my awareness right now,

Just an irritation.

You can use some other pain or ache somewhere in the body.

So little by little it gets less.

I know if I didn't have to speak in a few minutes it would totally disappear.

Your mind is powerful.

Your attitude affects so much in your body.

Now I'm getting into the root,

The center of the irritation.

The tightness there,

Now I'm relaxing it.

It's almost like massaging with my mind,

Soothing,

Calming down.

Let's go ahead.

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Once one part of the body has been dealt with,

Try to find another part which needs some relaxation.

My knees are a bit tense,

I'm going to focus on those.

You focus on your part of the body,

Still going with body awareness,

Still going with this letting be.

Because also the body awareness stops you thinking.

It don't go off into your plans and memories,

Because you're concerned with just relaxing and being in peace and health to your own body.

When you do get some relaxation in your body,

It feels so pleasant,

It's a nice place to hang out as they say.

Just be with your body,

Comfortable at ease in the present moment,

Not going off into dreams and fantasies.

Just being here,

Being here with your body,

Relaxing it.

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Once my body is relaxed,

When I look to my emotional,

Mental world,

You may ask yourself how peaceful are you?

How agitated,

A number out of ten,

Six,

Four,

One.

It helps you be mindful of the right thing.

Now what do you do,

What do you need to do to make your mind more peaceful,

To get that number higher?

When you're mindful,

You're looking how things change,

You soon understand attitude of mind can make your mind so much more peaceful when you let things be.

You let the sound of the rain be,

Let this moment be,

As you let go of all the future and the past.

You start thinking of the future,

Your peace indicator,

The number goes down.

If you allow the past to come in,

It goes way down.

You're keeping your mind at peace,

See how peaceful you can reach with letting be.

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If you find your mind starts to wander,

It might be time to start watching your breathing.

Am I breathing or am I breathing out?

And use that as a focus,

As an anchor so your meditation boat doesn't drift too far.

And I like advising,

If you're breathing in,

Breathe in peace.

Imagine breathing in from the universe.

Breathe out,

Let go,

Whatever problems,

Difficulties,

Health issues you have,

Breathe that out with every out-breath.

Breathe in peace,

Breathe out,

Let go.

And always keep a mindful eye on how peaceful you are,

Making sure you can increase the most important thing.

I'm not going to be quiet until the end of the meditation.

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After the third sound from the gong you may come out from your meditation.

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Okay,

Very good.

Okay,

So this Saturday afternoon is stream live and this afternoon we got one question from Norway,

One question from Lebanon and one from Germany.

So first of all from Norway,

How do I meditate in a noisy place?

I live in a city where trams,

Cars,

Sirens and people make noises constantly outside my apartment.

Is there a mind practice?

One thing you can do,

A very simple thing,

Because I remember when I was a young monk,

I was just really tired and I asked another senior monk,

Can you give me some meditation to get more energy up?

And he looked at me and said,

Eat more rice.

Because I wasn't having enough physical gas in my engine,

That's why I was feeling tired.

So sometimes we look at the,

How we miss the simple solutions.

And if it's too noisy,

A very simple solution which I use if I am going on aircraft,

If I'm going in noisy places and I can use these any place,

Is just nice ear plugs.

And nowadays somebody turned me on to these ear plugs which are molded to your ear cavity.

You go to these audiologists they're called and they squirt this stuff in both ears and they wait for it to set for a minute,

They take it out and there you have your mold and in a week or two you get these ear plugs back in the post and they fit perfectly in your ear,

So perfect.

The first time I tried to use these was on an aircraft and I can't use you meditate on an aircraft,

It's just too noisy.

There's always a kid screaming like I said last night.

And so I put them in and instead of meditating,

I fell asleep,

I admitted.

And when I woke up,

I was great,

I could sleep on an aircraft.

And I went to the toilet and I was so surprised.

I've never been in a quiet aircraft before like this and I suddenly realized,

Oh I've got my ear plugs still in.

They were so comfortable I didn't realize they were there because the ordinary ear plugs which you have to squash and put in your ear holes is so uncomfortable.

So from Norway,

Simple solution,

Go to what they're called audiologists,

Do hearing aids and all sorts of other stuff.

But this one is actually to put some little plastic things in your ear hole and it means that you can cut out an incredible amount of sound.

So that's a practical thing to start off with.

That's what I use when I go to noisy places like Bangkok or other places where you stay for a while and meditate on an aircraft.

And number two,

You can get off most of the noise but even so with ear plugs,

There's still a little bit of residual noise which will always be there but the worst part of it is gone.

And then the other thing is always remember that you can be in your apartment from Norway and you can be watching a movie and you can't hear the sound when you're watching a movie but when the movie is finished you can hear all the sounds because it's called focusing.

You focus on something which is enjoyable and everything else tends to drop away from you,

Fall off the screen,

Just get off the radar,

Simply because if you're meditating and it's becoming enjoyable,

Peaceful,

You're enjoying it so much,

Yes you can hear the sound but the sound is on the edge sometimes so far away that it falls off.

You can't hear it anymore.

So number two,

Get those ear plugs number one.

Remember to really get into some nice joyful meditation and that joy will pull you in and you'll be surprised,

You just can't hear the sound anymore.

So those are the two things which you can do.

And a fellow from Lebanon,

He's called himself the Dalai.

I wonder if this is the Dalai Lama visiting Lebanon.

I've got a meditation question from the Dalai Lama.

Wow!

Nothing is properly asked him.

He's called himself asked the Dalai Lama.

It's actually that story.

I told the monks,

I read this in a magazine.

It's strange over in Western countries especially,

If you're a celebrity,

You know people think you're automatically wise about all things in life.

So you get these film stars and these pop stars and their followers,

They ask them all sorts of questions about their relationships,

About the meaning of life and apparently this little article was from the country and western singer Dolly Parton.

She was complaining that most,

Many of her followers,

They keep asking her questions about their life and relationships and sicknesses.

And she had to keep telling them,

Look I'm only a singer.

I'm Dolly Parton,

I'm not the Dalai Parton.

Or no,

No,

He said not the Dalai Lama,

That's right what she said.

I'm the Dolly Parton,

Not the Dalai Lama.

But anyway,

That's what they do anyway.

Is it effective to repeat the sound om during meditation?

You can start doing that,

Again you can do it with your breathing,

Just as a way of focusing so the mind doesn't wander off to other things.

And so in other words,

It's the beginning part of the meditation.

Obviously if there's people in your room,

They'll start getting really upset at you,

Going om all the time.

So it's okay to start with just to make the transition from a very busy life to a more quiet period of meditation,

Just do it at the very beginning.

And sometimes in order to take that peace even deeper,

I have sometimes asked people to do the whole,

Om mani padme hum,

Chart inside of your mind.

And I use this to try and overcome thinking.

If you're really obsessed with the thought,

It's very hard to stop it.

The Buddha called it substitution,

Instead of thinking about all sorts of stupid stuff,

You just keep repeating to yourself om mani padme hum,

Om mani padme hum,

Om mani padme hum,

Because it just blocks it out.

But if that's all you do,

It's just going to get so tiring.

So once you've blocked most of the thoughts out,

Then you do the great trick of putting spaces between the words,

Om,

Space,

Mani,

Padme,

Hum,

Om.

And in those spaces,

You are silent.

And after about a minute or two of doing om mani padme hum with spaces in,

Then you extend the spaces,

Om,

Mani,

Padme.

And little by little you extend the spaces,

You stretch out the silence.

If a thought comes up,

Close up those spaces,

Go back to om mani padme hum,

Until very gradually you extend the spaces between those words,

Which means that you get more silence.

If a word comes up,

A thought comes up,

Close it up.

Little by little you stretch out those spaces,

And the silence is just so gorgeous.

Just like that.

Nothing's happening,

Quiet.

But soon the mind enjoys the silence so much,

You don't need any more oms or manis anymore.

It's done its job.

So every time you do an om or an om mani padme hum,

It's just a little device,

A little skillful means,

Which you use for a while,

Until it's done its purpose,

And then you have the silence,

So you don't have to say anything.

And lastly from Germany,

When you meditate and become calm and peaceful,

Does that also bear fruits in daily life,

Or is it just for the time of meditation itself?

Oh,

Just go on the internet and just see so many examples of how meditation doesn't just make you calm and peaceful when you're sitting down,

It also bears huge amounts of fruits.

Incredible health benefits.

Someone sent me a new one a couple of days ago,

Saying that people do walking meditation,

Not just exercise walking,

But this walking meditation.

It actually helps with type 2 diabetes,

Lowering your glycemic index or something.

They sent me a paper on this,

It's amazing,

Someone was doing research on this,

It's much better than just going for a walk in the forest,

Doing mindful walking.

And so there's so many of these things,

Because you're being aware of your body,

Really calming down.

If you're walking in the forest,

You're getting physical exercise,

But often your mind is still very,

Very active.

But here you're actually calming the mind down as well as exercising the body by doing this walking meditation business.

And that's great for anyone with type 2 diabetes,

It actually tends to lessen the bad effects from it.

And there's so much other research about the benefits,

But that's only health physical benefits.

You ask the people you live with,

And they will tell you the incredible benefits when you meditate.

Because you're meditating now,

Because they stress out in daily lives,

They get so tired and grumpy and they take that out on the people they love,

They live with.

They get grumpy and nasty,

Say bad things,

Simply because they're exhausted,

They're tired,

They're stressed,

They can't take anymore.

And that causes you to have this terrible,

Terrible relationship problems.

So the benefits are you tend not to get so upset in your life.

And,

Just to finish off with one of my favourite stories,

To show you how economic benefits it gets you when you become calm and fruits in daily life.

This is my good old friend Julie,

I saw her husband,

I haven't seen her for years,

But I saw her husband the other day when I was in Sydney.

And she was this young woman,

Really good Buddhist,

Whole family.

And she had a little child,

3 or 4 years old,

Called Holly,

I gave it the party name Surya.

And she had a fashion business in Sydney.

And just a small business,

But she was really good at her job and she got this offer to actually send her stuff to London.

One of the fashion capitals of the world,

This was big time.

And so many,

Many negotiations over phones and emails.

And finally it came,

Come to London,

We want to sign the contract.

And this was going to make her business,

This was the break which she needed.

So she got the first plane she could possibly get,

So Heathrow,

Left her little baby,

Only 3 or 4 years old with her husband,

Really good father.

And,

Soon as she arrived in Heathrow,

Check in the hotel,

Quick shower and change,

And straight to the board room to see the CEO.

And,

As soon as she went into the board room,

All the other directors had already assembled,

The CEO was late,

The managing director,

Whatever you call those things,

I'm a monk,

I don't know the jargon,

But anyway,

The boss.

And they saw her,

Who are you?

She said,

I'm Julie from Sydney.

Oh yeah,

You,

You wasted your time.

Get on the next plane and go back home.

There's no way that our boss is going to sign your contract.

He's in such a bad,

Filthy mood today.

He's been swearing and aggressive to everybody.

You've wasted your time.

And of course,

If you've gone all that way from Sydney all the way to London,

You're not going to follow that advice.

She said,

At least I'm going to see the guy coming all this way.

Suit yourself,

But you're wasting your time,

Said the directors.

So,

Because she had meditated.

Now,

Some time to kill.

So she sat down in a corner,

Crossed her legs and started meditating.

And her meditation,

A great meditation,

Was the loving kindness one.

She was doing the loving kindness,

May all beings be happy and well,

When the boss came in.

Who the hell is that?

Did I scare you?

I was trying my best.

Okay,

You're just too soft.

I don't,

I tell people,

When I tell this story,

Because I don't have the opportunity to get angry,

Because monks aren't allowed to get angry.

So the only time I can do things like this is actually acting out and pretending.

Who the hell is that?

Who does she think she is?

Sitting like that in my boardroom,

Tell her to get out.

He was really angry.

And she just,

Because you're meditating,

You just,

You can't respond.

That's actually why you didn't respond,

Because you'd be meditating,

Nice and peaceful,

Very good disciples,

Well done.

But she just opened her eyes and stood up and walked towards this boss,

Who looked like some dragon man about to eat her up.

And she just went up to her,

She was so peaceful and she was glaring at her,

With so much anger.

And when she told me the story,

I always remember this part,

She said,

The words tumbled out of my mouth by themselves.

I never thought of it,

They just came out.

Because she was looking at this boss's big angry eyes and said to the boss,

Who just shouted there and told her to get out,

He said,

You've got such beautiful blue eyes,

They remind me of my baby Holly back in Sydney.

And that's not what he expected,

To be told how beautiful his eyes were from someone he just shouted out,

Told to get out.

And she said it was amazing,

He just,

You know,

The only description you can give was like short circuits in his brain,

He didn't know what to do with this,

You know,

And somebody called him beautiful blue eyes when he was getting angry at somebody.

And trying to figure out what to do next,

This boss just was silent for about a minute or two.

And in that time his whole face just relaxed and he smiled and said,

Really,

Is that so?

And he had his contract,

She had her contract signed at the next minute.

She totally softened her,

And really lucrative contract.

And having got her contract signed,

What she came all that way for,

She went to leave to go to her hotel,

Have a rest and then get the plane back to her family,

She already missed her kid.

But the directors would not let her.

They surrounded her,

She said,

In a circle.

So we're not letting you go until you teach us what you've just done.

We want to be able to do this like you've done.

And that's just a concrete example of how meditation made her get the contract,

Huge contract,

Simply because when you meditate you're so peaceful and calm.

You don't respond to anger,

You're just so soft,

Just goes right over you.

And also you can look at somebody and instead of,

They've just really hit you,

Instead of hitting them back,

You say,

Wow,

You've got such beautiful blue eyes,

You've got a wonderful smile.

It's incredible how good that is for business.

So that's just a worldly example of how this works.

So yeah,

You have huge benefits from Germany.

If you meditate,

Become calmer,

And you'll find those out,

Many more than I've just said.

Okay,

So is there any questions from our audience here?

Yes.

Are we going to get the microphone?

So because this does go overseas and your questions are available.

You just mentioned that monks don't get angry and shout,

Which is really good.

I listened to a fascinating recording of you in 2004,

Admonishing the monks at the monastery for wasting their time and wasting the opportunity and stuffing around.

And I just about fell off the chair laughing because without raising your voice or saying anything nasty,

You probably made them feel about one centimetre tall and they crawled out out of the front.

Hahahaha,

And it didn't work.

But you don't have to shout.

Because if you get angry,

I often tell people,

If you're angry with a person,

All a person actually sees or hears is the anger.

They don't actually really contemplate what you're getting angry about.

They don't actually see the problem,

They don't hear the problem.

So the boss was really angry today.

Why?

Well,

That's some stupid stuff,

Which is one of the reasons why the whole idea of admonishment is actually to point some thoughts out in people.

And they don't hear the thoughts,

They just hear the anger.

So it's good.

And sometimes people say,

I can't control my anger.

Control was a problem in the first place.

You don't control anger,

You let it go.

It's a totally different ball game.

Okay,

Thank you for that.

I've got to be very careful.

Everything I say is recorded.

So I'm glad that I didn't get angry on tape.

Okay,

I've got a question.

And one more question.

Those who need to go quickly can,

But yes.

Thank you.

My question is how to manage visual agitation during meditation.

A lot of clouds,

Purple,

Grey.

It gets a little bit better,

But doesn't really totally subside.

Okay,

One trick which I've used is when you get all this stuff coming in on a visual agitation,

Look for the most beautiful part.

When we say purple cloud,

You mentioned purple clouds.

Look for the part of that purple cloud which is the most purple,

The most beautiful purple.

What happens is you tend to focus in on it,

Like zooming in.

Then you get sort of a simpler purple and go for the most beautiful part of that purple.

And keep on going into the most beautiful part.

And soon that makes the mind very peaceful and stable because it doesn't want to move anywhere.

It's just enjoying itself.

So try that trick.

Okay,

People are leaving now,

So we better leave as well.

So now I'm just going to pay respects to the Buddha,

Dhamma,

Sangha,

Do three bows and then we can,

Those who really want to leave,

Can leave.

But let's do it properly.

Okay.

Reviews

Witty, funny and insightful as always. Great stories, great instructions, very peaceful and happy! 😊

Hope you are no longer two tents. Haha. I love the jokes, I love the Metta and overall kindfulness from these talks and practices. Many many thanks. ☮️💖🙏🖖