Day 335/365: Guided Meditation | Ajahn Brahm

Ajahn Brahm delivers 15 minutes of dharma talk/meditation advice and inspiration, followed by 45 minutes of semi-guided meditation (about 20 minutes guided meditation and about 25 silent meditation). At the end of the meditation practice, there are community questions and answers.

In this episode, Ajahn Brahm gives techniques to empower one's mindfulness and quiet the mind.

Transcript

Welcome once again to the meditation class.

The class here is often mentioned is the ongoing class.

So those who have come for the introduction to meditation class,

That class is being held in a room to my right.

In this class we sit for longer periods,

About 45 minutes.

So it is really helpful if you come to this class,

You've meditated before.

And one thing I found in my meditation,

One of the most important factors to develop in depth in meditation is the,

What might not just call it inspiration,

But just the inclination for the mind to actually develop stillness.

It seems that many people who know how to meditate and many of you have been meditating a long time,

It's sort of you know what to do but you just don't do it.

You know that you should be mindful and alert and restrain the mind which wanders off into past and future and to restrain the sinking mind.

But you just allow it to happen.

And sometimes we do need to be sort of inspired or inclined to want to make the mind still.

It's not as if the people who meditate a long time don't know how to do it,

But do you really want to do it?

And part of that job is like the teacher,

But really in western countries people don't listen too much to teachers.

What they really do listen to is the state of their mind,

The state of their life and if they really have to,

You find that you will.

And certainly I know that a few times I've been feeling a little bit sick or very tired and having to perform.

I know that if I really have to,

You can get into very deep states of meditation.

Or sometimes I must admit I've told this to some of my monks.

If I find or just read some other article about a person who speaks against meditation or says it's stupid or it's dull,

Sometimes I think they can't say that.

I'm going to show them.

And I always get great meditation after that.

It's as if you do need something to motivate yourself much more than just a natural inclination to peacefulness.

Something to set you on this path of making the mind still without messing around.

So it's not just knowing the path,

It's just that motivation to walk that path and to do it properly.

And that motivation in meditation,

It can't be a person with a stick behind you as they are having a Zen tradition.

This is places in the mind where sticks don't reach.

It has to be some other reason why you really want to make the mind still.

So some of those reasons might be that you really get fed up with this mind which is thinking all the time,

Worrying about so many things and driving you crazy.

It's that understanding of the suffering of the mind and just realizing just how often it's promised you the world is giving you more problems and more difficulties and more trouble.

And if you reflect upon that and really get into that,

This thinking mind of yours,

What's it really ever done for you?

What we're doing here is doing a preliminary reflection on what the Buddha called the reflection on suffering,

On dukkhasanya.

And these preliminary reflections can be very good and this one especially can motivate you to say,

Well look,

I don't want to have suffering.

I know that meditation,

If I do it properly,

Will give me some amazing peace and calm and tranquility and beauty and joy and depth of understanding.

I know if I'm just wasting my time being slack,

Thinking about all sorts of things,

That's what I do all the time.

So why don't I actually do something different and really get this mind still and peaceful?

So the reflection on the suffering nature of the mind,

When it starts thinking all over the place,

Will actually motivate you for the mindfulness to guide the journey,

The trajectory of your meditation in another direction.

And that trajectory of meditation,

You can see just how,

When you start meditating,

How the mind just flows into different pathways.

And hopefully that each one of you has experienced enough about meditation,

You know the pathway which develops these peaceful,

Blissful,

Aware,

Awake states.

And your job is to have the mindfulness and the motivation to guide the mind in that direction.

I'm saying the mindfulness and the motivation because we teach so much about meditation,

Teach so much about Buddhism,

And these books and these tapes,

And this generation is probably the most informed about Dhamma ever since the time of the Buddha.

In those days,

You'd have to find a great monk or the Buddha himself and travel for a long way and finally get a teaching from him.

Now you can actually just download them from the internet and a harmony,

You can put on an iPod and you can hear so much.

So the information is there.

Why is it that people can't get into the very deep meditations?

That is because mostly the motivation,

They're really wanting to do it,

Deliberately inclining the mind in the right direction.

And so once you have that motivation,

You say,

Yeah,

Okay,

We've got 45 minutes,

Let's really go for it.

Let's really sort of see how peaceful I can become,

How still the mind can be.

With that motivation,

That will empower your mindfulness because the mindfulness will be there.

I know some weeks ago I gave this simile of the snake,

Going back to the time when I was a monk in Thailand,

Walking through these jungles at night without shoes,

Without the sandal all broken,

Without a flashlight,

Just using the starlight or the sunlight so I could find my way.

Knowing there were snakes on the path,

And even though the snakes in Thailand weren't as deadly as the ones in Australia,

They were deadly enough and there were far,

Far,

Far more of them than you see in the forest here in Australia.

You see one once every couple of days at least.

And they were all around,

Crawling and slithering through the forest in which you lived.

At night time,

That's when they came out.

Walking back,

No shoes,

No protection at all,

No flashlight,

Just using the stars.

Would you be motivated to be mindful on such an occasion?

Of course you would.

I was very mindful when I walked back.

No way would I allow the mind to wander this way or that way.

I was really alert,

Looking at the path in front of me.

And that was what I mean by motivation.

Your mindfulness was very,

Very strong.

I remember just again in the monasteries in Thailand,

Because it was very,

Very hot and stuffy,

And we used to get up really early in the morning.

I remember once getting up about 2.

30 in the morning.

Usually I was really tired that morning.

But I saw a dark shape on my chest and it was a centipede.

The centipedes in Thailand,

They bite,

They are very aggressive.

The ones here in Australia,

They are wimps,

They never bite anybody.

The ones in Thailand,

They are very aggressive.

I remember this guy,

Christopher Titmuss,

Who was a monk in the early days.

He once told me that he once got bit by a centipede.

It was the worst day of his life.

He went to hospital,

The pain was just incredible.

And even the villagers said the pain of the centipedes in Thailand was much worse than snake bite.

People would experience it and there was one right on my chest.

I was very awake then.

Very carefully I took my lower robe off and looked again.

Actually the centipede had stuck to the lower robe rather than my chest so I could shoo him out of the hut.

I was that close to getting bitten.

I realised there would be another 24 hours of agony.

But I wasn't.

And what happened as a result of that,

That morning my meditation was so sharp.

There is nothing which will wake you up as well as having a centipede on your chest or a snake slithering under your robe.

So my meditation was really clear.

I was motivated.

It's much more effective than a cup of coffee or even two cups of coffee,

Believe you me.

But the point was I was motivated,

Alert and awake.

And because of that,

That's why we could meditate well.

So that is how the meditation got really really strong.

So if you can be motivated,

If I really could find from the zoo to get a snake here today and set him loose,

I'm sure your meditation would not be wondering,

Thinking about all sorts of different things.

If you got a centipede out or something else,

Some other scary thing,

Then you will be fully alert and awake.

You won't be able to think of all sorts of silly stuff which you normally think about on a Saturday afternoon between 3.

15 and 4 o'clock.

But,

I can't do that.

I won't do that.

I want you to find this idea of motivation,

Say,

Yes,

It's important.

I'm going to do this.

Let's go for it.

And that is not forcing the mind,

That is energising your mindfulness at the very beginning.

So the mindfulness,

It knows what it's supposed to do.

It's already been told and taught that so many times.

But now it is motivated to put those instructions into action.

So it's really alert.

Start with present moment awareness.

It knows what the past is,

It knows what the future is and it thinks,

Now I'm not going to get into these.

I stay in this moment,

In this present.

No past,

No future.

I dare not go into the past or the future.

I'm thinking,

Now,

Not now.

I'm poised,

My mind,

Fully alert,

Fully listening.

One thought is one thought too many.

You're poised,

Alert.

You start watching the breath.

You have to watch this breath,

No choice.

No random thoughts because if I just lose my awareness for a second,

That snake or that centipede will get me.

So you're fully alert and awake,

Watching your breath.

With that degree of motivation,

You very quickly get into the breath.

Every breath without exception.

And then something starts to happen.

What happens as soon as you get into that pivot point of meditation,

You're really there.

Your mindfulness is strong.

You can guide it very easily.

It's as if your windscreen of your car is clean.

Your eyes are wide open,

You're awake.

When you're awake,

You've got the power of that mindfulness.

You can go wherever you want.

And you're motivated to go deeper into stillness.

You can see what agitates the mind.

Instead you just focus on this breath.

The very beginning of an in-breath.

You see it just arise out of nothing.

You see it sort of grow and all the amazing feelings and sensations in just one breath.

You've noticed this incredible space between the breaths.

And then the birth of the next out-breath.

It grows to its maturity.

Grows into its old age and fades away.

Never fades away precisely but it fades away slowly like something disappearing and vanishing.

Then you have the second space between the out-breath and the in-breath.

You're so alert,

So aware.

Because you see so much and because you're so alert,

The energies of the mind start to rise.

And then the motivation becomes a self-inherent motivation.

This becomes powerful.

I know that word awesome has been hijacked by modern speech.

If anything truly deserves the word awesome,

There is a deep awareness in these states of meditation.

This is incredibly powerful,

Deep.

And even if you might not have the wisdom to understand these things,

You know it's meaningful.

It just resonates with importance.

These are powerful,

Still,

You might even call them sacred states of mind.

And that makes the mindfulness even stronger.

You know you're on holy ground.

You know the things which are really important,

Really sensitive.

You're right there,

Enjoying every moment.

And that enjoyment increases.

Powerful states of mind come up.

Amazing things happen inside.

Both amazing that these things can exist and also just the power and the brilliance and the beauty of the mind starts to manifest.

And that's really when you get going.

You get these beautiful bliss states.

It just grows.

It doesn't just happen at once.

It just grows in intensity,

Little after little after little.

And you're off in the deep meditations.

But how does this work?

Again,

It's starting out on the path.

It's the most important.

It's like getting on that road.

Soon as you're on the bus,

Then you're away.

It's getting on the bus is the hardest.

And it's wanting to get on the bus is the subject of this afternoon's beginning talk of meditation.

To motivate yourself,

To incline and inspire yourself.

Yeah,

I'm going to spend 45 minutes of my life,

To spend it wisely and not mess around or waste my time.

Okay,

This is it.

Last time the monks will be here before we leave for the rain retreat.

Last time to get enlightened.

Otherwise we have to wait another three months.

Who knows,

Some of you,

And as a good chance,

Might be dead before we come back again.

Okay,

So any comments or questions about that before we get going?

Okay,

Let's get going.

So,

Closing your eyes,

Becoming aware of your posture.

Being in comfort to your posture.

Because you need this body to be reasonably at ease.

If you have a chance,

If you want to have a chance of getting into a nice deep meditation.

It's like looking after your car before you take off on a long journey.

You give it extra attention,

Check all the stuff.

The last thing you need is a flat tyre,

Halfway on the road.

Not a rut out of oil,

Or any other mechanical problems on the journey.

Check your body carefully.

Take a look.

.

.

.

And now once the body is reasonably comfortable,

Make a resolution.

This is the time I put aside for meditation.

I will not waste it on anything else.

This period is devoted to the stillness of the mind.

To the strong mindfulness and the quelling of all thought.

Such if you set the agenda,

Program your mindfulness to stillness,

To watchfulness,

But to not agitating the mind.

And start to focus on the present moment.

The space between the past and the future.

The only place where you can truly be.

And like me walking through the jungle at night,

Full awareness so I would not be bitten by the snakes or the centipedes.

Your awareness is to make sure you are not caught and bitten by the past or the future.

Alert.

Mindfulness aroused.

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Getting close to the end of the meditation now.

45 minutes goes very quickly.

How have they gone?

How do you feel now?

Execution,

This is a demo,

This is a demo,

This is a demo,

This is a demo,

This is a demo,

This is a demo,

This is a demo,

This is a demo,

This is a demo,

This is a demo,

This is a demo,

This is a demo,

This is a demo,

What have you done to feel this way?

What have you done to feel this way?

What have you done to feel this way?

What have you done to feel this way?

I will now ring the gong three times to end the meditation.

Please listen to every sound from the gong.

Don't open your eyes yet.

Just open the eyes as the third sound from the gong fades away.

To go slowly from meditation back into the world.

Okay.

There's the meditation,

Hopefully giving it a bit more direction,

A bit more of by motivating the mind before you start giving directions.

If you try and motivate and direct during the middle of the meditation,

It just disturbs it.

But if when you start out,

You give yourself directions and motivation,

Then you find that that might empower the mindfulness,

Make it strong,

Make it directed so it does not wander around.

So has anyone got any comments or questions about the meditation today?

I have a question.

I have a question for you.

I have a question for you.

Yes,

Yes.

Saying that it's one of those natural side effects of meditation when the mind settles down and focuses and becomes still and peaceful.

It gives the opportunity for the brain to sort out the problems of one's life.

And sometimes solutions do come up.

And very amazing solutions where things which you wouldn't have been able to find just through your own power of thinking,

As often says in the Buddhist sutras,

The teachings of the Buddha,

The word of the Buddha,

To be found not by mere reasoning.

In other words,

That you experience reasoning and logic,

Although very wonderful,

They cannot take you to many places.

The places which you get to in meditation,

They're not illogical.

You can work back and see the reason behind it,

But you can't reach there to the vehicle of reason.

Which is why when you shut up and be quiet and still in meditation,

Sometimes amazing solutions arise.

However,

Maybe every now and again you can use that deep meditation to solve some of the problems in your life.

But even the word solving the problems,

They don't really solve the problems.

Just those problems that one gets solved,

Another one comes up.

It's just the simile in Greek mythology of the hydra,

This many headed being.

You cut one head off and another two heads grow.

And that's like the problems of life.

You solve one problem,

You get two more problems coming up next.

And so you notice the longer you live,

The more problems you have.

When I first started out at Bodhinyana Monastery,

There's only a few problems.

Even though we've got a great monastery,

Just the problems of the hydra,

All sorts of decisions to be made.

It gets more complicated the longer you live.

However,

What you can do is just not cut off the hydra's head,

But cut off its,

Cut out its heart.

It's only got one heart there,

The craving heart.

So instead of solving the problems,

I don't want problems.

Do them later on.

So you just go for broke.

Solution comes up,

Not now.

This is my meditation time.

I don't know,

Maybe because I spend too much time and interface stuff.

Last Thursday I was up at New Norcia Monastery of the Benedictine monks.

But there was a passage in the Christian gospels,

You know,

Jesus throwing out the moneylenders from the temple.

And of course,

You always look for allegories for that.

There's not obvious allegory there.

The moneylenders,

That's business,

Money,

Business,

Commerce.

And in the temple,

There's commerce,

Business.

Should that be located in the same place as the holy area?

Now let's call that temple not some sort of big edifice in Jerusalem somewhere.

The temple is your meditation,

The deep stillness of the heart.

Why are you doing business in this holy place?

And so the metaphor which I got from like Jesus throwing out the business people from the temple,

Is like in your mind,

In your meditation,

Throw out all the business stuff.

It doesn't belong there.

You spend so much time doing business to survive in this world.

Can't you have a holy area,

A place where the world just does not come?

A place of peace,

Stillness,

Purity.

And you find those problems which are out there in your life,

In your relationships,

In your business.

You know sometimes you don't do anything about them.

They don't get worse.

Quite often they even get better.

It's when you just ignore them.

You know there's a lot of wisdom in being irresponsible.

Maybe because of your upbringing,

The puritan,

Anglo-Saxon,

Be responsible upbringing.

You think,

Yeah I got a problem,

I got to do something about it.

I'm an abber,

What am I supposed to do something about it?

I'm a spiritual dictator of the Buddhist society.

I keep saying spiritual dictator,

Not just director but dictator sounds funnier.

I do something about it.

But no matter how much you work,

There's always more stuff to do.

So it's important to create those holy spaces in your life.

Those sanctuaries.

Sanctuary,

Sanctus,

You know where that word comes from?

You know you've got quite a few monks in the monastery,

Santidamma,

Santuti.

Santi means peace.

I always say that's the original meaning of the saint,

Peaceful one.

A sanctuary,

A peaceful place,

A silent place.

So the sanctuary which each one of you have,

When criminals ask for sanctuary,

So you will not be persecuted.

That's the sanctuary inside your mind,

In the deep stillness and peace in meditation.

You can make that a sanctuary,

A place where business is not allowed,

Where you can't be pursued and prosecuted,

Where you're completely free.

So it's giving such respect to the silence of the mind.

When the thought comes out,

Shh,

When in porn-pong you're going to save the world,

Shh.

Remember the story of the Buddha?

Or Bodhisattva,

Before he became enlightened.

According to the tale,

The story,

It was almost like a temptation.

Just like the temptation of a Christ,

This was 500 years earlier.

All the different resentations of the story of the Buddha's enlightenment,

Sort of Mara,

This tempter coming up and saying,

Look who you are,

You've got such power,

Such wisdom,

Such compassion.

You could be like this,

They used to call it this world turning monarch,

This great emperor,

You can do something for the world.

You can solve all the problems,

You've just got this power and this energy and this wisdom.

Don't be a monk,

Be a leader,

Someone who can solve the world and create prosperity and happiness for all people.

The Buddha saw through that,

No,

I'm not going to get sucked into that.

You'll be a Buddha instead.

If he was a great emperor,

He would never have helped the world as much as being a Buddha.

So some of those problems you solve,

They are the band aid solutions.

It's superficial,

Solve that problem,

Another one comes up afterwards.

Why not solve the big problem,

The problem of life?

You get sucked in,

Yeah.

What you're tolerating is put off that solution.

This is not the time I work,

This is time off.

I don't work during lunch,

I don't work at holidays,

I don't work,

I don't allow the work of my life to interfere with the sanctuary of meditation.

The world of,

You know the old idea of the sanctuary where a criminal wanted by the law went into,

Used to be a church or a monastery in Europe,

They were offered sanctuary.

The authorities couldn't go in there.

You know one of those places where the authority of the world,

The business of the world,

The judgements of the world,

They cannot go.

An alternate abiding inside.

If you respect that silence,

Those things won't come in.

You don't worry,

You're not being really irresponsible because you get so stood in peace afterwards,

Yeah you have seen so many solutions,

Even better solutions.

So put those temporary solutions aside and go for the bigger ones.

It's like one of those quiz shows I used to see as a kid.

Do you want to sort of cash in now for $10,

000 an hour and go for the big price?

Give me a few more questions.

So go for the big price instead of the medium ones.

Otherwise you'll always settle for something much less and never get much of anything.

One last question,

Give it to me beforehand.

It's not much as a meditation question but I'm going to turn it into one.

What is the relationship between the stream of mind moments and the manomaya kaya?

The manomaya kaya is the mind made body.

The mind made body is what happens when the stream of consciousness continues outside of the human body such as when people experience outer body experiences or near death experiences,

NDEs,

When you can hear and see,

But the brain,

Not one synapse is firing or the body is dead but the consciousness process is still continuing.

That's the manomaya kaya,

Said the Buddha.

When a person dies and becomes a ghost or a deva,

An angel,

That's the manomaya kaya.

The body is mind made.

Don't think the mind can't do such things.

The mind is far more powerful than most people imagine.

And the stream of consciousness,

That's consciousness with the power of will,

Craving and its inherent energy can create such things.

It's really weird that usually when you do see a ghost.

That ghost is the manomaya kaya,

It's the mind made body,

Creation of the mind and it creates an image which is almost like a photocopy of the last time that consciousness was in that body.

Sometimes it's the image of when you died,

Which is why you have a ghost with the head cut off if they had a violent death.

Sometimes the consciousness lingers and identifies with the corpse in the coffin which is sometimes why you see the ghost dressed up in their death clothes.

These are real experiences.

The manomaya kaya,

The mind creates a body and it addresses it in what's expected or what it's associated with at the moment of parting from its body.

So if a person died on the operating table,

The mind made body would actually have whatever gowns they wear when they go into the operating theatre.

They wouldn't have the ordinary clothes if they could observe themselves in that state.

The mind made body is a physical form and in those situations,

There is a great simile which came to mind that in a bush fire,

The fire is usually dependent upon the wood and the leaves,

To wash the fuel on the forest floor or in the trees.

Every now and again,

The wind blows fireballs through the air.

Maybe you've seen those fireballs in TV documentaries.

Like fire which is separated from its source,

Its fuel.

The hot gases twirling in a vortex,

So hot it can sustain itself for long periods of time.

The form of consciousness separated from its body can still vortex and sustain its existence for long periods of time.

Mind made body is the energy separated from its physical base,

But still being able to support itself.

And the fuel which supports itself is a self-generated fuel.

The air and heat and that fireball keeps the whole thing going.

In the same way,

Just the desires,

The cravings,

The ill will will keep that stream of consciousness going between births.

Which is why when you cut that craving,

You cut off that ill will,

The process can't sustain itself.

The connection between one life and the next is cut off.

The craving and the ill will,

The desire,

The wanting is the fire.

It's the heat which keeps the process going.

When that's gone,

When you're cool,

The fire stops.

Mind made body cannot be sustained.

Yes.

Yes?

Yeah.

Not really,

No,

Because the manamaikas in which separates and sometimes hasn't got an aura,

That's almost like a manifestation of a radiant mind.

This is another saying,

It's just a strong mind.

This is again,

Straight from the time of the Buddha,

This is not in the iconography of the pictures but in the texts.

To understand that this mind can get so energized,

It appears as radiant.

Like a huge brilliant sun.

Many of you have heard me talk about the nimittas in meditation.

Yes.

No,

Not manamaikas,

But there's a huge relationship between those and nimittas.

There's a nimitta which arises in the mind.

Some of you had nimittas,

Some strong nimittas,

But sometimes you get blinding nimittas.

It's not a light,

But that's how it appears,

That's how you perceive it.

It's a such intensity,

Sometimes that happens,

You think,

I'm going blind,

I can't stand this any longer,

It's just too intense.

It gets more intense than that.

You can see that sort of power of the mind,

How that will affect the area of space around it.

If someone was looking at you and they had a little bit of sensitivity,

You're going through one of these incredible deep meditations,

Or just afterwards,

That's probably what they'd see you.

Just this glowing being.

And that's the devas,

The manamaikas,

The ghosts don't glow.

But the higher devas,

Because their mind is so pure and energised,

Yeah,

Their manamaikas do glow,

But that's just the result of the.

.

.

Similar,

Yes,

The nimitta is a sign inside of the power of your mind.

When that is so powerful,

It appears like glowing to other people,

Your physical body,

Even if you're a human being,

Or if you're a deva,

That will sort of glow.

Which is why,

Again,

Going back to some Christian theology,

Moses going to the burning bush.

What's a burning bush?

It's just a deva appearing,

Huge light,

Brightening up everything.

So that is like a manamaikas,

A bright illuminated mind.

Yes,

A huge illuminated mind,

A hugely powerful illuminated mind,

Which now affects the manamaikas,

Incredibly brilliant and bright.

It's just even a Western iconography and anecdotes of mystical experiences.

No matter what tradition it is,

This deva always appears,

These angels,

Whatever,

Just incredibly brilliant,

Powerful light.

That's the usual sign.

It's just their mind is so strong.

Oh,

You know,

Just the auras.

We used to have an aura behind it,

A little gold,

I was in Ajahn Chakra's day.

You see that some of the Buddhist statues have an aura behind it.

Sometimes all around it,

Like the famous one in Pisano Roke,

The Buddha Chinnarath,

You see statues of that,

Or even in images which you see on temple walls.

And that seems to be copied from the early iconography of Christianity.

That seems to be copied by the early iconography of Christianity,

Putting halos around people.

Eventually it just became the doughnut.

I don't know where the doughnut came from.

But you know,

The ancient sort of iconography of saints always used to have an aura around the being,

Brilliant and bright.

So that's why sometimes people take digital photos of monks.

I say,

Look,

You don't need the flash,

We've got our own radiance.

At which point I will leave it.

Thank you for those questions.

It's now time for a cup of tea.

Those of you who want to stay for another half an hour,

We can have a flower puja,

Followed by a little talk between 5pm and 6pm.

And again,

The announcement,

This is the last time the monks will be here,

Or the nuns,

On a Saturday afternoon for 3 months.

Tomorrow we have our opening of the Rains Retreat Ceremony which will be held over in Bodhinyana Masri in the Serpentine.

Happy meditating for the next few months.

Reviews

Ajahn Brahm always makes it so motivating and peaceful to meditate. Glad we don't have poisonous centipedes here. Many blessings and Metta. Thank you. ☮💖🙏