Day 330/365: Guided Meditation | Ajahn Brahm

15 minutes of dharma talk/meditation 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 treating the mind like a good friend to emphasize the importance of kindness in the meditation practice.

Transcript

Welcome to the ongoing meditation class at the Buddha Society here in Nollamara.

This is the class for those who have meditated before.

If you have come to the introduction to meditation class,

That will be held in the room to my right.

This is the ongoing class.

And at this ongoing class,

We mention something about meditation every week to enhance people's understanding of the meditation path.

So what we say here on a Saturday afternoon is not supposed to be covering the whole area of meditation but focusing on one aspect of it to improve your abilities to make the mind peaceful,

Calm,

Happy and wise.

I just came back from giving some teachings in Melbourne.

There's one of the assemblies which I've used.

I only usually use this on meditation retreats.

It's a very powerful way to look at meditation.

And it also means that we have a means,

A way of understanding what we should be doing and why we should be doing it.

And that's a simile which I've given on retreats called the Opening the Lotus.

Many of you know a lotus,

That it closes its leaves at night time and when the sun comes up in the morning,

It heats up,

Lights up the outermost petal of the lotus and that lotus opens up to reveal the layer of petals inside.

So that can receive the warmth and the light of the sun.

That opens up to reveal the next layer of petals.

And layer after layer,

They open up one after the other.

And each time,

The sun can warm up that petal to open up and reveal the layer of petals inside.

And in that simile,

The body,

The mind,

That is the lotus,

That's you.

And the sun,

The sun's light stands for mindfulness,

Its warmth stands for kindness.

And as long as the mindfulness and the kindness keep warming up something,

You'll find the meditation opens up to go into the deeper and deeper levels of meditation.

In other words,

You start with this body and mind,

You,

And you just shine the light of mindfulness,

The warmth of kindness onto whatever you're experiencing right now in this moment.

And you'll find that first of all,

So the body opens up in the sense that you get beyond all the feelings and the sensations in the body which we spend too much time worrying about and being concerned about.

And as you get older,

Those are much more hard to ignore.

But we hope we can sit in a position where those feelings and sensations can sort of disappear.

And when they do,

Inside the meditation,

One comes to the mental world,

That's inside the body.

When one gets into that mental world of many thoughts,

Of many ideas,

You go into the centre of that just with mindfulness and kindness and you'll find that in the centre of that is what we call the present moment,

The now.

That's in the centre of time.

And if you go and just stay with the present moment,

You don't do anything,

You keep mindful of it.

In other words,

You know what's happening and you're being kind to it.

That opens up to another layer which is usually the silence.

This is where there's no words going on in the mind,

There's no running commentary.

You're aware without giving things a name or you're seeing things much more clearly.

You're not seeing their labels,

You're seeing what they are.

This is what we call the silent awareness of the present moment.

And of course this just lives inside the present moment.

So you're just in the present moment,

Just be kind,

Be mindful.

It just happens by itself in due course.

And when you're just watching this silence,

Just being mindful,

Being kind to the silence,

That opens up and inside that you find this natural breath,

Which I've been teaching many people to do the last few years.

And when that natural experience of the breath comes up,

It's always very soft and easy to watch.

It's come up in the right time.

You just watch that breath with mindfulness,

With kindness,

Not doing anything.

Just your job like the sun is to apply mindfulness and kindness,

Like the sun applies its light and warmth.

And then after a while,

That layer of petals opens up and you get into what we call the beautiful breath.

The beautiful breath,

That opens up into these beautiful nimitta states,

Which I like to talk about,

Especially on retreats.

And if you really want to go deep,

You just stay with mindfulness and kindness on this nimitta,

Not doing anything,

Just being kind,

Being mindful.

And that usually opens up into the jhanas.

Now that particular simile has a lot of advantages.

One of its advantages is to know that you can go into any pond,

Even here in Australia,

In Perth,

You see these lotuses all closed up and they look so unlikely.

You think,

My goodness,

That outermost petal is rough,

It's dirty,

It's aerated,

It's got no scent.

You think if you didn't know what a lotus was,

That there's no hope to find anything beautiful or subtle inside of it.

It's just harsh.

The same way that many people when they start meditation,

They think,

My goodness,

Maybe these monks and these nuns can do all these amazing things,

But me,

How can I get into these amazing,

Deep,

Peaceful,

Blissful states of meditation?

I just can't do it.

That is not correct.

Inside each one of you,

If you just can go deeper and deeper and deeper inside,

Then you'll find these amazing states.

So number one,

It shows you this,

You can do it,

It's inside of you,

You just have to somehow open up this thing called your body and mind to find a way inside.

Number two,

It shows you the way to get inside,

Which is not trying,

Not putting forth effort,

Not peeling back the petals of the lotus,

But just maintaining this wonderful,

Powerful combination of mindfulness and kindness.

The mindfulness just observes what's happening right now,

So it just receives,

It's a passive conscious awareness of what's happening.

The kindness,

Or the warmth of the sun,

Which is also important,

Is just allowing it to be,

Being a friend to this moment,

Not regarding this body or this mind or any part of your mind as your slave.

Because it is just the way we've been brought up,

Our conditioning,

The way we look at things.

Yeah,

Maybe the people around us,

We can't boss around,

But my own body,

My own mind,

That's mine,

That belongs to me,

I can boss it around.

Which is sometimes why we just really force our body to do things it just doesn't like doing,

Which is why we get sick,

We treat our body like a slave,

Not like a friend,

And sometimes the way we treat our mind too.

We dominate it,

We tell it what to do,

And that's why sometimes our mind rebels,

And we get either anxious,

Depression,

Or any other psychological diseases.

In the same way that our body gets sick because of physical stress,

Our mind gets sick because of mental stress.

We're ordering it around,

We're bossing it around.

And you all know that a bit of kindness,

A bit of softness,

Is a beautiful way to ease or even heal the physical sicknesses in the body just by being kind to whatever's happening in your body.

That helps if not actually cures the diseases and other problems.

But it also works in the mind as well,

A bit of TLC on your mind.

In other words,

Whatever you experience,

Be kind to it.

Treat your mind like a friend.

A friend might be going through some hard times,

But don't tell your friend,

You're being stupid,

Come on,

Get your act together,

You shouldn't feel depressed.

Now don't feel anxious,

You should be much better than that.

That's not the way you treat a friend.

You treat a friend just with a bit of sympathy,

With a bit of empathy,

Giving them space,

Giving them time,

Encouraging them.

That's how we treat our mind,

With kindness.

I know that somebody asked me,

When I was in Melbourne,

How can you be kind,

Say to this thing like the present moment?

And there was a,

They needed to make that jump.

It's easy,

Or maybe you know how to be kind to a person.

Maybe you know how to be kind to like an animal,

Like a cat or a dog.

Can you make that jump to apply that same compassion and kindness to an inanimate thing,

To even like a mental object,

Like your breath?

Can you be kind,

Compassionate to your breath?

We have the ability as human beings to do this thing called to anthropomorphize.

In other words,

We see an object,

We can give it a name,

We can treat it like a person.

Sometimes people give their cars,

No human names.

And because we can anthropomorphize,

We can give a name to a machine,

It means we can also give kindness to these things like the breath.

We can give kindness to the present moment even.

What do I mean by kindness?

We open the door of our heart to this moment.

We allow it to be with a sense of warmth and respect and value in the same way that you're kind to your best friend,

If you go out for coffee with them,

You don't order them around.

You're kind to say the breath or to the present moment,

Whatever stage you're aware of right now,

You're kind to it.

And that kindness gives that right attitude towards this moment which actually stabilizes that experience.

If you're kind to say the breath,

The breath sticks with you.

If you're cruel to it,

It runs away.

If you're kind to the silence,

The silence stays.

If you try and order it around,

Manipulate it,

Control it,

The silence vanishes.

So it's a kindness which maintains that object and also allows it after a time just to open up to see what's deeper inside of it.

So that means that you don't actually do anything.

You don't aim for anything.

You don't sort of expect anything.

You just stay with whatever you're experiencing,

Whatever that is right now,

And you just apply mindfulness and kindness.

And if you understand that,

That is a fast way into deep meditation.

It means that you just sit here.

Your job is nothing more than to observe,

Be mindful,

And to be kind to whatever you're experiencing.

And you'll find that then you understand that simile of the lotus.

You're just watching first of all,

Sometimes I'm very tired because I work hard and travel around all over the place.

And sometimes you're tired.

And I just watch that tiredness in the body.

I'm kind to it.

I don't try and get rid of it.

I'm just with it.

And then after a little while,

I find it vanishes.

I'm just going inside of it.

And as you go inside of it,

Then you may be aware of this,

This mind,

In this present moment.

As you're aware of the present moment,

You may have some mental dullness.

I don't do anything with it.

I'm kind to that mental dullness.

It's as if it was something which is a being which deserves to exist.

It's come about because of causes and conditions.

It's part of nature.

I don't try and control it and get rid of it.

I let it be with kindness.

And with that softness,

It soon vanishes.

My mind is clear in the present moment.

And the present moment stays because it's a good friend.

I'm kind to it.

I'm aware of it,

Kind to it.

That's all I've managed to do.

Be mindful and have an attitude of compassion and kindness and acceptance and value.

Then it stays.

And after a while,

In its own time,

The silence deepens,

Sorry,

The present moment deepens and it's a sign of present moment awareness.

I just discover that there is no commentary going on at all.

There is no train of thought taking me away into all sorts of weird,

Fancy universes of past or future.

All that thinking,

Fantasizing,

Dreaming,

All that naming,

All that philosophizing just vanishes.

Because if you really go into the center of the present moment,

There's no more commentary anymore.

In that silence,

I don't do anything.

I'm just kind with it,

Aware of what silence means as an experience.

I know it very well now.

I'm just kind to it.

I let it be.

I value it.

And after a while,

And it's usually not that long,

It's as if I'm aware of the breathing.

Because that's what's in the center of the silence.

The petal,

The layer of petals called silence opens up.

And inside is this beautiful breath.

And I shouldn't say beautiful breath yet.

The delightful breath comes next.

After a while,

You're just aware of the breathing,

Kind to it,

Mindful of it,

Not doing anything with it.

And you'll notice because you're kind to the breath,

It softens.

It gets easy.

You're not controlling it.

It balances and becomes soft and flows freely.

And after a while,

It becomes very delightful.

Once it becomes very delightful,

You get to the stage,

Which I call the delightful breath.

And just watching it,

You're not doing anything.

You're not expecting anything.

You're not trying to get into a deeper stage of meditation.

You're just being where you are.

Not sure where you are.

Just mindful in the moment,

Being kind.

Then just you'll find that the delightful breath vanishes and see these beautiful lights coming up in your mind called the nimittas.

They just come because they're right inside everything.

And for anybody who wants to know what to do next,

Just carry on the same attitude,

Just being aware of what's happening and being kind to it.

Just allowing it to evolve if that's what's going to happen.

And if you are mindful,

If you are kind,

And you don't try and control things,

This kindness is the opposite of trying to control.

You're just kind to people.

And then you'll find the nimitta will open up and you get into these very deep meditations of jhanas.

It's a natural process.

And it doesn't work because you get involved when you stop your mindfulness,

Or you stop,

More likely you stop your kindness and you try and control and make things happen.

When you try and get rid of things,

Or you try and hurry things along.

That's the only reason why it doesn't work.

So actually that's a little teaching today,

A deeper teaching,

But I just want people to get a bit more experience in meditation.

So it's a very simple teaching.

And you can visualize the lotus and understand how it opens up.

And the deeper you go into the lotus,

The more beautiful and the more fragrant are the petals.

The same way the deeper you go in meditation,

The more fun and the more subtle it is.

So that's a little teaching about the simile of the lotus and how it opens up.

With mindfulness and kindness coupled together.

Like the light and the warmth of the sun in the early morning.

Okay,

So now we can actually do some meditation.

For those who came in late,

Just in case,

This is the ongoing class in meditation.

If you come for the introduction to meditation class,

For those who haven't meditated before,

That is being held in the room to my right with Kanchena.

So this is the ongoing class.

And I mention that because we're now going to be sitting meditation for about 40 minutes,

Maybe a bit longer,

See what happens.

And so if you don't know how to sit for long periods of time,

It might be a bit difficult for you.

But if you know what you're doing,

40 minute meditation,

Here we go.

Sitting down.

First of all,

Just get yourself comfortable.

Just put attention to your posture,

To how you're sitting,

To your body.

Just to make sure that you're in reasonable comfort.

You can't get it perfect.

But you can usually get it pretty good.

Don't think the first 30 seconds or one minute,

You can do very much.

With your eyes closed,

It takes that time for your awareness to build up.

So you're sensitive to bodily feelings.

When all that area of the brain is not taken up with sight,

It is freed so you can explore the world of physical feeling.

You just got more space to know how you feel when your eyes are closed.

So now just how are you feeling physically,

Bodily?

Can you adjust the way you're sitting?

If so,

Do so to make your body more comfortable.

Just keep on being kind to your body.

If there is some pain or irritation inside of your body,

That could be bodily stress.

Even if it's an infection or sickness,

Still there is some squashing,

Some pulling,

Some inflammation,

Some irritation,

Which can be ameliorated just through putting your mindfulness in the centre of that irritation or pain and spreading out compassion,

Kindness from its centre.

Be kind.

Thank you.

When the body is relaxed,

Relax as you can.

See if you can just let the body go.

Maybe it's already gone because with mindfulness and kindness,

Soon the body vanishes and you go to your mental world with its thoughts,

Its anxieties and fears.

Now just be with this mind,

No matter what it is,

No judging,

Being compassionate,

Being kind and mindful.

Soon you'll notice your attention goes inside this moment,

The past and the future just vanish.

You go to present moment awareness.

It can happen naturally just by being kind and being aware.

The compassion treats this moment like a friend,

Not controlling it like it's your slave.

Being with,

With kindness.

And your job is not to try and go anywhere.

You are the sun and you're just shining light and warmth onto your mind.

That's all.

Being compassionate,

Being aware.

And naturally you go within.

The stages of meditation are not what you aim for.

It's just what happens.

Happy meditating.

I'm going to be quiet now till the end.

Okay.

Thank you.

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