Day 332/365: 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 Brahm talks about four ways to stop thinking during meditation practice.

Transcript

I just come back from Hong Kong,

Malaysia,

Teaching meditation retreats and seminars and goodness knows what else.

And you're not surprised to hear that the biggest problem people have in Hong Kong,

In Malaysia,

Just like here in Australia,

They can't stop thinking.

So I gave some more advice on how to meditate without thinking about anything.

The first of all is to get a hammer and bong yourself on the head,

But that's.

.

.

I can't get away with that here in Australia because that's illegal.

They'll stop you thinking but you might be a bit unconscious at the same time.

So there's much easier ways of stopping thinking and I gave four ways,

If I can remember them,

Of stopping thinking.

First of all,

Take away the value of thinking because we assume that by thinking through our problems we might be able to get an answer.

And so we think,

Think,

Think.

Use your experience,

The wisdom based on experience.

How many times have you thought,

Thought,

Thought and really got a decent answer to the problems of your life,

Whether small or big?

And you will find a lot of times you sort of get an answer but it's not all that good.

And most of the time the thinking leads to more questions and more work to be done.

So when you take away the value of thoughts,

That helps stop the thinking.

I'd say it doesn't actually stop it but it helps.

It weakens its hold over you.

So first of all,

Take away its value.

And I remember that from a simile of the Buddha in the ancient Sutras.

And there the Buddha was very,

Very direct.

He said to the monks,

If you start thinking when you are meditating,

It's just the same as a young man or a young woman going out at night,

These days we say going out to North-beast or a night club or to a party,

And they are dressed in really nice clothes and they find that somehow or other they've got a necklace of dead dog carcasses around their neck.

And they will be disgusted,

They will be ashamed going out to a night club with a necklace of dead dogs around your neck.

And he said that is just the same as the thoughts around our beautiful mind.

Just like dead dog carcasses around your body,

Especially when it's dressed and ready to go out for the night.

That was really quite a strong comment.

It's nice,

What it really meant was please take away the importance and the value of your thinking process,

Especially when you are meditating.

If you really want to find wisdom,

If you want to find the answer to the problems,

You will find that when your mind gets stilled and peaceful,

That then the answers come up by themselves and they are the really good answers.

Wisdom,

Insight,

Comes from stillness.

I'm a calm mind,

Not a thinking mind.

One of the similes is the simile of the lake.

If you go at night,

Especially around this time to a lake and at night time,

You may be able to see the image,

The reflection of the full moon.

It was full moon night yesterday.

So you may be able to see the image of the full moon reflected in the lake only when that lake has got no waves on it,

Only when it's still.

Even the slightest ripples distort the reflection of the lake,

Which means that if you want to see a true reflection of the moon,

You have to find the lake when it's perfectly still.

There's no ripples on it.

In exactly the same way,

If you want to understand the truth,

To find solutions to problems,

You have to have that truth reflected in a still mind without any thoughts.

The thoughts are the waves,

The ripples on the lake surface.

It distorts the truth.

It doesn't reflect the truth.

So that little simile hopefully will reinforce the idea that if you want to find the answers to problems,

Not through thinking please,

Just through silence,

Then the answers just pop up by themselves.

So number one,

Take away the value from thinking.

Number two is to notice that the thinking is nothing to do with you.

It's not your business.

You take away this personal ownership of thinking.

Because whenever we own things,

We just will not let them go.

Even if they're unpleasant things,

We think,

Well,

They're my things,

So you keep your hands off them.

So we won't let them go when we possess them with the sense of they're my thoughts.

So the second way is to remember,

These are my thoughts.

What I teach people these days is when you have a thought,

To interrupt the thought by saying,

None of my business.

Okay,

That's another thought,

But it's a thought-stopping thought,

Not a thought-generating thought.

So to say,

None of my business,

None of my business,

None of my business.

So all these thoughts is just like somebody else's mobile phone going off.

You know,

You don't answer it.

It's not your phone.

You don't listen to the conversation.

It's not your business.

When somebody's talking and you're behind,

You don't listen to them.

That's rude.

So remember the thoughts in your mind.

They're none of my business.

They're not my thoughts.

If they were my thoughts,

I'd be very embarrassed,

Because I have some stupid thoughts sometimes.

That means if I had stupid thoughts and they're my thoughts,

That means I'm stupid.

So remember,

They are not my business.

So you're weakening the hold on them already.

And the third way of letting go of those thoughts is what we call like seeing the spaces between the thoughts.

Once you've weakened the hold on the thoughts,

You'll be able to notice that they are not continuous.

Yeah,

They might appear continuous,

But if you look closely,

When one thought finishes before another thought begins,

There is a space.

Just like when one word of mine finishes before the next one begins,

There is a space.

It's watching the space between the thoughts.

Just like then you watch the space between my words,

I hope.

I spoke in a weird way.

So that you could see the spaces.

Now what happens when you see the spaces between your thoughts?

One thought finishes,

Another one hasn't yet begun.

You'll notice there,

There is a thing called the silent mind.

You recognize it.

What happens when you recognize these places of silence,

Like when you recognize any place which is delightful?

Then you go back there again.

Just like you might find a really nice restaurant or little cafe somewhere in Perth.

When you discover it for the first time,

It's really delicious food,

Really nice coffee.

You discovered a new place.

And of course,

If it's really a great place,

You'll go back there.

And when you go back there many times,

Even the restaurant owner recognizes you and gives you your favorite table.

Just like now.

I don't go to restaurants very often,

But I sure visit Perth Airport very often.

And too many people know me in that airport now.

They keep on asking me,

Ajahn Brahm,

Hi again,

Where are you going this time?

Because I've always traveled.

I've just come back from Hong Kong and Malaysia.

So when you're familiar with the place and you recognize it,

You tend to stay more time there.

So once you recognize the space between your own thoughts,

Then you tend to hang out there longer and longer and longer.

You tend to get familiar with silence.

And that silent mind is like your favorite seat in the restaurant.

So you hang out there for a long time.

So at first you only notice small spaces between your thoughts.

But once you've seen the crack between thinking,

Then that crack widens and the spaces become longer and longer.

And you find more and more silence in the mind.

And lastly,

The fourth way of stopping the thinking mind is to what we usually say,

Like do a mantra.

And I was asking many people in this temple in Hong Kong,

Because they come from all the different traditions,

What's your favorite mantra?

And because they're exposed to all sorts of Buddhist traditions,

They said to me,

The Om Mani Padme Hum mantra.

I said,

Okay,

Great,

That's your mantra.

You recite it to yourself.

But most importantly,

Put spaces between the words.

Recite to yourself the Om and Wait.

Mani Padme Hum.

When you start putting spaces between the words,

You'll find that those spaces naturally get longer and longer and longer.

Because what you're doing here,

By reciting something simple to yourself,

It does not need to be Om Mani Padme Hum.

It can be any mantra you like.

It can be,

I don't know what your favorite mantra is.

It may be,

Oh,

May I be quiet.

So you start to say,

Oh,

May I be quiet.

So what are you doing there?

Every syllable of your mantra,

You pause at the end of the word or the thought,

And you wait for a little while,

Deliberately at first,

Forcing the mind not to continue the next syllable until a second or two.

And then you say the next syllable,

Then you pause,

Then you say the next syllable,

Then you pause.

Because then you're forcing yourself to be able to see these spaces between the words.

And that actually works quite effectively.

There's some good results teaching that over in Hong Kong.

The Om Mani Padme Hum mantra with spaces in between.

Because what people experience,

It was something they knew,

They were familiar with,

It wasn't really that much effort to recite it to themselves silently.

And first of all,

It stopped all the thinking because you had to just put this mantra in,

It blocked out all the other thinking.

But at the same time,

It wasn't just putting one thought in the space of the original thought,

It was putting a thought which would lead to silence,

Because you put the spaces between the words.

And as you put those spaces between the words,

Or even spaces between the syllables was better,

It was naturally the spaces grew.

Because the silence is something which the mind recognises as valuable,

A place of rest,

Like a beautiful holiday resort,

A place where you really want to hang out.

Once it recognises the happiness,

The peace,

The joy of the silence,

Then you're home.

The silence grows on you and grows on you and grows on you,

Until it becomes almost like a second home for you.

A place where you're not doing anything else,

You can go to the silence and have a very,

Very peaceful time.

And that's great for people,

There's so many people who are insomniacs,

Or they're sort of,

Maybe now and again,

Something happens at home or happens at work,

You sort of worry about it so much,

You go to bed and you just can't stop thinking about it and thinking you can't go to sleep,

And it tires you,

You get grumpy and angry at your kids and all sorts of other stuff,

Which is so antisocial and unfair.

Your kids never did anything,

But sometimes whoever it is around you,

You take it out on,

Sometimes it's the poor dog you kick,

And the dog has done nothing except lie there and you kick it because you're angry.

Now,

By being able to stop those thinking,

Through these methods,

You find you can have much more peace in your life,

Much more happiness,

You get better sleep at night and everything improves.

And it's great to be able to take your meditation deeper after the silence by watching something like the breath and allowing the breath to take you away from the body into the mind,

As I've described many times,

But the silence is established first.

And basically,

Once you have a silent mind,

Then the meditation is so easy,

You're going to get still,

You're going to get peaceful.

So it's like the platform,

You dig a good garden,

You put lots of fertilizer in it,

Then whatever you grow in there grows well.

So once you have the ground of mindfulness and silence,

You're away and have a great meditation.

So that's the teaching today,

Four ways of overcoming the thinking mind and having a little bit of peace between your ears.

Remember those four ways?

Number one,

Taking away its importance.

Number two,

Not owning your thoughts,

They're not my business.

Number three,

Was seeing the spaces between the thoughts and number four was an extension of number three,

Doing a little mantra,

But when you do the mantra,

Put spaces between the syllables.

And then you'll be a person who has a silent meditation.

Easy.

Any questions?

Good.

Let's go forward.

You can ask questions afterwards.

So if you want to get yourselves comfortable,

As best you can in this hot weather.

I was getting used to the heat before I went to Hong Kong and that was really cold in Hong Kong.

Now I'm suffering because it's too hot.

Sorry?

Oh,

That would be lovely.

You're such a kind person.

May the merit of your action cooling down the monks cool your mind,

Sri Nibbana.

That's actually one of the metaphors.

They have all these descriptions of someone who's become enlightened.

One of them is called Sitya Buddha,

Which means gone to coolness.

So I'm now going to go to coolness,

I hope.

Okay.

So get yourself in a meditation posture,

One that is good for you.

Just to remind everybody,

This is the ongoing meditation class for those who have meditated before.

For those who are with the introduction to meditation class,

That's the room on my right.

So this is the ongoing class here.

So if you're coming for the first or second,

Third time,

That's the room on my right over there.

This is the ongoing one.

We're about to sit for 45 minutes.

Closing down,

Closing the eyes.

Once the eyes are closed,

Your brain has more space to focus on the body.

When you're seeing things,

Most of your brain is taken up with visual objects.

Now all of that capacity is released to feel the body,

Which is why you can feel the body much more accurately and deeply once your eyes are closed.

Once your eyes are closed,

You bring up the feelings in the body.

You can do an exercise like,

What is my most prominent feeling?

What sensation stands out above all others?

That's usually a problem or at least a problem in the making.

So once you notice the most prominent feeling,

Please do something about it.

Adjust the body,

Scratch,

Cough,

Whatever.

Because once we have awareness,

The next thing we establish is kindness.

Being kind to our body,

To relax it,

Free it,

Loosen it.

Because any tightness or tension now might seem insignificant to you.

But later on that will turn to an ache or pain which is going to disturb you greatly.

The longer the time you intend to sit meditation,

The more careful you have to be at the beginning.

Stay with the body.

Don't run too fast into the deeper meditations.

Preparation is the key to success in all fields including meditation.

And if you find you have a tummy ache or a gut ache or an ache in your back or anywhere which you can't get to by scratching,

Which you can't alleviate through moving,

Then relax it through kindness.

Send your attention to the middle of it as if the seat of your awareness is right in the middle of that pain.

You put your mind in its centre and then you spread this beautiful compassion,

Kindness from within.

Compassion is a great healing force and at the very least it relaxes because it takes away the fear which causes the body to become tense.

So we use our compassion and kindness to take away the fear which keeps the tension tight in the body causing it to ache and be sick.

So we learn how to relax.

Relax not just the whole body but the inner parts of our body.

To relax your digestive system,

To relax the lungs,

To relax every part of you.

When the body is relaxed,

Come into the moment.

No past,

No future,

Just now.

The past are dead moments which cannot be changed.

Trying to work out their meaning or solve their problems is not the job of meditation.

Meditation is to let go of the past.

It's also to let go of the future through realising now is the place your future is being made.

By focusing and caring and cherishing the now,

You are cherishing the place where your future health,

Happiness and prosperity is being generated.

Care for the present and you that do the best for your future.

So bring your attention into the now.

And be kind to this present moment.

Add compassion to mindfulness.

Now Marshall,

Sister in law,

Friend be power,

Our creates presence within yourself as a pure.

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Reviews

Epic, what a teacher 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻