Day 329/365: Guided Meditation | Ajahn Brahm

Fifteen minutes of dharma talk/inspiration followed by 45 minutes of semi-guided meditation. There are some useful questions and answers at the end of the meditation practice. Ajahn talks about how the mind energizes with meditation practice.

Transcript

Today afternoon meditation class.

And this is the ongoing class for those who are meditated enough so they know the basic instructions.

And on a Saturday afternoon we usually say something about the deeper aspects of meditation.

And the aspect today I wanted to just talk about is energy.

I know this very much because I've just returned from a quite a gruelling talk,

A talk show,

A talk show,

A talk show in Indonesia,

Many frights,

Much hard work,

Late nights,

Early mornings.

And sometimes when you run out of energy and you feel really really tired,

One of the greatest ways of getting that energy back is by just learning how to be very very still.

Because the more still you are,

The more energy comes into your mind.

It is an insight which came up in my meditation many years ago and you always think that you discover these insights but later on you look in the ancient meditation texts and see that many people have been there before you and discover that when the mind is very very still it does build up a huge boost of energy.

The trouble is trying to keep it still,

That's a difficulty.

If you train yourself to be still,

It's very easy to arouse that energy.

What is actually happening is that the mind has two parts to it,

The active mind which is always thinking,

Doing,

Making things work,

Whatever,

That active mind consumes so much energy.

And if you could just block that wastage of energy,

That wastage into thinking,

Planning,

Remembering,

Doing,

Thinking,

If you can just block that off and stop that for a little while,

Then all the energy goes into the mind's knowing.

It gives it energy,

It gives it power.

You can come out of meditation afterwards feeling like a different person,

Tired before but really awake and sharp afterwards.

And that's something which I use very often in a very busy lifestyle which I live these days.

And it's something which you can do because so many people do have that innate tiredness.

Maybe not on a Saturday,

From Monday to Friday you work hard,

On the weekends you have all other duties which you tend to have to perform.

And sometimes we feel inside us this tiredness inside of us.

I remember first discovering that in that sim in which I gave about doing my final exams at university,

Sitting down during the lunch hour meditating and just realizing after doing a three hour examination in the morning,

Just meditating,

How tired my brain was.

No juice left at all,

It was just worn out,

It was just tired.

I realized when you had a look at that type of brain,

Just how it can't perform very well.

But I had enough insight even at that time to learn how to keep the mind absolutely still,

Especially to stop that internal commentary,

Which goes on all the time,

The inner speech,

To stop that,

To stop all the worry,

To stop all the fear to keep the mind perfectly still for a few minutes.

And to notice that's all it took,

Just a few minutes of stillness,

And that tiredness after having completed a three hour exam in the morning,

That whole tiredness vanished.

In the afternoon you were bright and fresh.

And since that time I've used this technique very often to give yourself a boost of energy when you have to perform and you're very tired.

It also taught me that so many physical,

Emotional,

Social problems arise in our life because we are tired.

Because we work so hard and some other person gives us another task,

Another problem,

And then we blow up in frustration and anger.

Sometimes at other people,

Sometimes at ourselves.

It gives us a lot of very hard stress in our lives.

It's not a very wonderful thing for you to do.

It is a wonderful thing to learn how to deal with that by learning just the skill of stillness.

The skill of stillness so you can just stop whenever you want and allow the mind to regenerate its energy.

That's all.

Not solving the problems,

But just giving your mind this power to see through and past the problems.

You don't take the problem and work out the solution.

It's just more thinking,

It ties you out.

Just stop,

Be still,

Put everything aside and let the mind energize until it gets so strong the problems are very easy to find a way around.

That is what meditation does.

The skill is learning how to be still.

Learning how to be still,

That word stillness,

I often give the simile of like a lake.

If you move the lake,

In other words,

It ripples in,

I say I've got to keep this lake still.

I've got to get rid of the waves and the ripples.

So you put your hand in and try and pat down the waves or try and smooth out the ripples.

What happens if you just make more waves?

The skill of stillness is learning to take your hands away,

Take your hands off the steering wheel of your life,

Take your feet off the pedals,

To let go,

To do nothing and to keep this mind perfectly inactive.

Now you can do that with your body.

I remember even at primary school,

Remember the time in primary school,

Grade 1 or grade 2,

The teacher said,

Pretend you're a tree and everybody froze.

Now the wind is blowing and then you can wave your arms around.

But you can actually do that with your body and keep the body still.

And you can use exactly the same sort of technique,

A bit of imagination,

A bit of decision,

But focused on the mind,

To keep it still,

To freeze it like a statue,

Like a tree,

Like a rock.

When you feel that stillness,

You find energy starts to build up but also it becomes very profound,

It's a very beautiful feeling,

Stillness,

Peace.

It's very much like that experience which you probably have,

That somebody's mowing the lawn,

Sort of just next to your room and you want to meditate,

You want some peace and there's a dog barking or there's a party going on on Saturday night and you can't go to sleep.

And it drives you crazy and then suddenly the party stops and they turn the amplifiers down and it's peaceful again.

Ahh,

What joy,

Quiet,

Stillness at last.

Now that's the sort of joy which you can get from this ghetto blaster of a mind which you have inside,

Always thinking,

Always doing things,

Always never shutting up,

Like that lawnmower in your neighbour's property or the dog always barking.

And that dog between your ears stops barking and at last becomes still.

Wow,

That's beautiful,

That's incredible,

That's lovely.

So once the mind stops,

You have to sort of imagine it as being freezing first of all.

But once it does stop,

It feels so wonderful,

So delightful,

That the delight will mean you don't have to try to keep it still.

Because you're delighting in the stillness,

Because it feels beautiful,

You just want to carry on being still.

And that's the delight in the stillness will mean it will last much longer than you could ever hold it.

So start off with holding the stillness and then the delight means you don't have to hold it anymore.

You just rest there simply because it's delightful.

And the longer you can stay in that delightful stillness,

The more the energy of the mind builds up.

And actually the delight increases with the energy.

As the mind sort of re-energises itself,

The happiness,

The joy increases,

The mind becomes clear,

It becomes powerful again.

So you find that after those meditations you can think clearly.

You can do things without making mistakes.

And you're not just on the edge of getting angry with the people you love.

Because you relax,

You're soft again.

When the mind is tired,

It's brittle,

The slightest crack,

Slightest hit will crack it.

When the mind is very energised,

It's like soft,

It's just like a rubber ball,

It's just bouncy.

When you drop it,

It doesn't break like a plate.

It bounces,

It's unbreakable,

No one can upset it.

That's why mind would be still and energised.

And just learning how to use that stillness of meditation in your everyday life,

You do fine.

You're a much easier person to live with.

You don't respond with anger,

You're not so on edge all the time.

But most importantly,

It's much easier to live with yourself.

You're more at peace with yourself,

You're more soft,

You haven't got so many sharp edges anymore.

Because the stillness has softened everything.

So if you think stillness,

Just hold everything still.

Don't try and make stillness by,

As I said,

Putting your hand on the leg and try to smooth out the ripples.

Just stop.

Imagine stillness,

Imagine the statue.

Imagine a lake which is glassy smooth.

Imagine,

I'm really getting into my imagination now.

I would never forget one time when I was visiting our new monastery in England,

Must have been 30,

Over 30 years ago now,

I can't remember.

This was in south of England during the winter time,

During January.

There was a really heavy snowfall that winter.

It was about minus 30 degrees.

And I remember just going out early in the morning.

As they say,

Only mad dogs and monks go out in the early morning snow.

And I went out in the early morning snow and no one else was around.

No animals were flying in the air,

No animals were scurrying on the ground.

There was no wind.

It was perfectly still.

For some people call it like dead,

Like a grave.

But for me it was incredibly beautiful and powerful.

When I stopped walking,

There was no more crunch of boots on snow.

Everything stopped.

Nothing moved in the forest in the winter and the early morning.

And to me that was magic.

It was so powerful and delightful.

It was only the freezing cold made me come back and have some breakfast.

But no,

The magic.

It was a quiet early morning in the snow.

So still,

Nothing moved,

There was no noise.

That was amazing.

I love that stillness.

It energises,

It delights and you go back full of energy.

Thinking and working,

And I'm not talking physical work,

I'm talking all that mental work that tires you out and depresses you sometimes.

But the stillness,

Imagine that type of stillness and the mind delights in it.

The stillness grows and you get incredible energy.

So that's how to energise the mind.

Okay,

So that's just a little bit of intro to the meditation.

Again,

I always have to say as anyone who's coming here for the Introduction to Meditation class,

That is being held in the room on my right,

Isn't it?

Here today?

Actually it's the last,

Oh no,

This is a joint one today.

Next week,

So this is a joint,

This is everybody.

Oh,

Okay,

Great.

Okay.

Anyway,

You're here now,

So welcome.

So we're now going to start the meditation.

So if you'd like to get yourselves ready,

If you want to stretch something and wiggle your bottom or whatever,

Please do so and we can start the meditation now.

So the meditation usually goes on for about 45 minutes.

So those of you who came for an introductory class,

Because it's the fifth Saturday of the month,

So there's no introductory meditation class,

Please you can join in if you feel you need to move,

Just after 15 or 20 minutes,

Just quietly move the body and just get into another position and carry on again.

So for those of you who are experts,

Well not experts,

Who cares?

So sit down,

Close your eyes,

And when your eyes are closed,

Bring the attention onto your body,

To know how the body feels.

So it's not making plans for dinner this evening,

It's not remembering all the things which went wrong this morning or early in the week.

It's putting the attention on your body right now.

How does it feel?

And when you are aware of your body,

You will doubtless find that some parts of your body need adjusting.

The bottom might not be perfectly positioned on the chair or cushion.

So please fidget,

Move to make the body more comfortable,

And even experiment,

Move my bottom a little bit,

Is this better?

Actually,

Yeah it is.

Move the legs,

So your legs are just as comfortable as possible.

Because in meditation we have to keep this position for quite a long time.

So if we take care in getting it right at the beginning,

It's much easier to sit for long periods of time.

Even though I have been meditating for such a long time,

Still I always spend 5 or 10 minutes with my body at the beginning.

And then,

Once the external body is well adjusted,

There is usually some discomfort inside.

You know today I have got a bit of a tummy ache.

So I put all my attention on that feeling,

Not trying to get rid of it,

Not trying to escape from it.

So going deep inside that feeling,

And then just willing it to relax with this beautiful kindness.

If you use the combination of awareness and kindness,

I mean real kindness 100%,

Compassion and acceptance,

You will usually find those inner feelings will ease off.

The awareness gives you feedback.

In my internal tummy ache,

The feeling is often changing.

When I use kindness,

I can see it change to being more at ease,

Less sore.

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Now when the body is nice and relaxed,

Any internal feelings are also expanded,

Loosened,

Softened,

You feel you're ready to start the relaxing of the inner world,

And let go of the body,

And put your attention and your focus on the mental world,

The world of thoughts and emotions,

All that which you associate with the inner world.

That mental world is very tired,

You've been doing a lot,

Thinking a lot,

Having to respond to many difficulties and problems.

Now pull all those difficulties and problems aside,

Time to rest.

To do that you recognize that most of the difficulties and problems,

Most of the work in the mental world concerns the past or the future.

So we make a deliberate intention and effort to keep the mind still in the present moment.

No matter what happened in the past,

It can't be changed,

It's gone,

It's not a good place to visit.

We move on,

And as for the future,

Who knows what might happen.

In fact,

As I always say,

The only time you can do anything for your future is right now.

In this moment which you're experiencing,

This is the place your future is being made.

So focus on this present moment,

You make it still,

Peaceful,

Beautiful.

That's the best we can do for planning our future,

Making the mind peaceful in the present.

So come home,

Come from the journey of the future,

Come from all the memories of the past,

And come home into the present.

Number one,

Be a friend to this present moment.

Don't try and control it.

This moment is not in your power.

We believe the future is in our power,

But the present moment has already come,

Is here as it is.

So don't try and control this moment,

Just be at one with it as a friend.

And then the present moment will stay.

The mind will lose its interest in mulling over the past.

It will lose its addiction to worrying about the future.

It will rest in this moment.

The first level of stillness,

A stillness in time.

We believe the future is living in our protounty's.

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Once the mind has stayed long enough in the present moment to focus on freezing that inner commentary so there is no noise between the ears the inner commentary stops.

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If you wish to start watching your breathing just to know the breath,

Just to know it as it comes in without controlling us at all just to be aware of the breath as it goes out allowing the mind to travel with your breathing the mind,

The awareness,

Holding hands with the breath is a way of focusing in stillness.

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It's not all their questions get answered but all their questions disappear they just fade away and vanish and everything is nice and peaceful and still that's how it used to happen to me I made all these appointments with all these great masters sometimes I say masters,

Now we have nuns you can't say you're a master anymore so the nuns,

They're mistresses that's just like in university when you get your second degree you're a master of education a master of arts,

A master of science but when a woman gets it she's a mistress of arts she's a scientist I'm only joking but you ask one of the great experts and I made appointments in my young life to meet these people and as soon as you got in their presence all your questions vanished,

They disappeared as you're placed with stillness because stillness is the answer to all the questions when the mind becomes peaceful and still what more do you want?

And just to get a feeling and experience of what stillness is just like I remember reading all these articles about peace of mind and stuff like that and these were all philosophical articles people thinking about peace but never really experiencing it it's the experience which is more important than anything else which is why I used to give the old simile of the professor and the restaurant you don't know that simile because sometimes I only do it on a Friday night not on a Saturday afternoon,

It's two different clientele the one who was a professor a professor of philosophy at our local university and he heard there was a new five star restaurant opened up in Perth so he decided to make a reservation and it was such an elite restaurant he had to wait two months before he could get his reservation and when the two months came up and it was a night for his reservation he dressed in a very good suit because he had a dress code in his great restaurants he turned up and the maitre d asked for his identification and so yes he had a reservation that night so led him to his table this beautiful jar of table with no silver candlesticks the whole works and a waiter dressed in tails came and gave him the menu the menu was just,

I don't know what you get in McDonalds but printed on a thick card in this gold calligraphy even the menu was a work of art so the professor said thank you for the menu and when the waiter left the professor ate the menu and paid and left because the professor never knew the difference between the menu and the food if you understand that simile you understand why all the questions and all the words and all the philosophy and all the arguments and all this talking that's the menu and the food is what happens when the mind becomes still you're not looking at the menu anymore you're eating the food peace of mind yeah we can write PhDs on peace of mind and become a professor of peace but we still don't understand what peace is so in meditation the mind becomes still we don't even need to say the word peace because as soon as you say the word peace the peace is gone you're just there being still experiencing peace immersing yourself in peace what a beautiful thing that is not to understand peace of mind but to experience it to be in it that's what meditation does and the longer you're in that peace of mind please don't disturb it too often what happens in meditation people get into nice deep states and they disturb it by trying to discuss it with themselves what is this?

What's happening?

How is this?

So when you're experiencing peace of mind don't disturb it by saying something you got into a beautiful peaceful state enjoy,

Just rest in it,

Leave it alone that's why one of the most common questions which people ask themselves they get peaceful and they ask themselves,

I think that's a thought what should I do next?

That's the most stupid thought which comes up in meditation it means you've lost the first stage of present moment awareness there is no next there's only the now so if ever that question comes up in you in your meditation whatever you're experiencing,

What should I do next?

A little alarm bell should ring,

A red flag should come up wrong question,

You're missing the point but it's not what you're doing next it's what's happening now and what's happening now,

There's no words to describe it it's just here,

The mind becomes silent becomes still and you experience what peace of mind is and the nice thing about peace of mind it has all different levels first of all you think the mind is so peaceful and then it goes into a deeper level of peace and then a more peace then it gets into ultimate peace and then it gets into a peace even more than ultimate peace it just keeps blowing the boundaries of what you think peace could be and that's when the meditation really gets interesting more peace you can ever imagine that's why no philosopher could understand peace peace cannot be written on a menu it's much more profound than that so little by little in your meditation as the mind becomes still as the mind shuts up and stops saying things it gets deeper and deeper more and more still and that's so much fun and afterwards,

After enjoying yourself to the max you come out afterwards and your mind is energised and whatever duty you have to do in this world whether to give a talk about meditation whether to go and drive a car or paint a masterpiece you can do it your mind has got power empowered by stillness that's why I just come back from Indonesia many of my books have been translated into Bahasa Bahasa Indonesia and the meditation book,

Mindfulness Bliss and Beyond they changed the title of that to Super Power Mindfulness that's the title of that that same book but translated into Indonesian Super Power Mindfulness is a great title because that's exactly what we create with stillness perfectly aware but not just ordinary awareness you feel it's got power to it it's like you've been walking through life in the dark with a flashlight whose batteries no need replacing now I've got many flashlights like that I should get a new battery but as a monk we try to use everything so it really runs out so we don't want to waste things but then you get new batteries and if that's so powerful is the beam you can see everything and that's just like the mind through stillness now the batteries in the mind which are almost worn down to zero they're recharged so whatever you look at whatever you contemplate,

Even the sounds you hear you can hear so much more you can feel sometimes you feel things after meditation you can actually feel texture just the body is alive,

Electric and what you see outside it's just like the whole world has been polished the darkness has been taken off and everything is shining just like you've just cleaned your house,

It's sparkling as if you've just cleaned your mind through stillness and everything glistens like the raindrops in the sun that's what happens when the mind becomes powered super power mindfulness so there we go ad libbing again when there's no questions on the screen so if you've got any questions which you might like to ask or is your mind just happy being still?

Yes,

My good friend Ajahn,

Once you said that you could use present moment awareness as an object of meditation I find that when I can go into the present moment my energy levels pick up I know that you've said it as part of a sequence to go into deeper places in meditation you've also said that when you're in deep places in meditation you start to drift off,

Go back to the present moment awareness can you say something about using it as a formal object of meditation?

Yes,

Sometimes in meditation we have the usual objects the usual suspects of the breath or the body or loving kindness but actually just to get to know what the present moment really means today I was talking about to get to know what peace of mind means to use peace as the object of meditation so all these other objects whether it's metta or loving kindness or the breath or whatever they are vehicles to get to a destination the destination is peace,

Stillness so you can use present moment awareness and get to know what it means to be in the present not to be able to describe it to anybody that's why sometimes you experience these states of meditation and as a teacher you've got to describe it and that's just so hard,

You know it you've been there so many times you can recognise it but to describe it takes the skill of someone who has a great vocabulary but to take as an object of meditation just being here right now and I think you mentioned at the beginning that sometimes the mind wanders off at first it's tired,

It's beautiful,

Wonderful because it takes a time to settle into these things give yourself that time my talk last night was like allowing yourself to make mistakes don't try and be so perfect even in meditation if you try to be perfect and perfect in the present moment perfect in this you'll find that you're just creating more stress more tightness more force which means you can't really stay in the present moment,

So get to know it and the trick which I found to be one of the most effective is look at these meditation objects as your friends the present moment is not something I should try and grab hold of and capture like a hunter captures the lion it's something I befriend so the lion walks beside me without any force Ajahn,

When you,

Or when I go into that space and I'm more successful rather than less successful in staying in the present moment what disappears is me and it would seem to me that it's very similar to the edge of jhana if you're right up on the leading edge of it am I correct in my assumptions there?

The most important thing you said is that you disappear and that is the most important thing there's a very old Buddhist meditation manual called the Visuddhimagga and it's written about 1500 years ago about meditation some of it is a bit sort of wacky but there is one of the favourite poems in that which I often quote and it said,

The path is but no traveller on it is seen it's a beautiful little quote there so meditation exists,

It's a path but if you,

The traveller,

Exist in meditation it's so difficult but if you disappear,

There's no traveller there's no self doing the meditation then the path is so easy,

Meditation happens Is that one of the signs that you are actually well,

I say succeeding,

That it implies that I'm succeeding but is that one of the signs of success?

In really getting into the present moment that the amount of effort that you use is decreasing more and more and more and the sense of yourself is evaporating as well Indeed,

You'll begin to notice you know,

You're a psychologist when you do something that enhances the sense of a self it makes it more solid but when you really let go and the self disappears there's no effort left because there's no one left to do the effort you vanish,

You're gone and it's not the total of you it's that controlling part of you has disappeared the awareness is left you're perfectly aware there's no control,

There's no the part of the self which you're most used to the one who makes all the decisions the one who's responsible and in charge of your life and areas of responsibility around you that disappears that's that part of you which we most identify with and which gives us the most trouble always having to react and take responsibility and take charge and fix things that's why I often give those little stories that when people do nothing things actually get much better when the traffic lights don't work they don't control the traffic the traffic flows a little bit better the story of in Jerusalem when the doctors went on strike for two weeks I think it was actually three weeks I read the article about a month ago again the doctors went on strike for three weeks and the death rate declined in the hospitals so when you stop doing things when you stop trying to fix up your meditation your meditation gets so peaceful that's a joke because I'm a well-known meditation teacher now that's a joke but it's a profound joke and some of the jokes are not just for making people laugh there's a deep meaning behind it I say Ajahn Brahm I hold my hand up I confess I can't meditate Ajahn Brahm's a hopeless meditator I have to get out of the way Ajahn Brahm has to vanish and disappear and then meditation is so easy so Chris you're a hopeless meditator you always will be but when you disappear Chris the meditation drives you so easy indeed and you know what I mean okay thank you for that question it's a nice interesting one to end the session with so now we can pay respects to Buddha,

Dharma and Sangha and then we can go and do whatever we need to do you

Reviews

Thank you for the simple clarity of your teaching.