Day 362/365: 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 minutes of silent meditation). After the meditation practice, there is a Q&A session and closing thoughts.

In this session, Ajahn Brahm talks about preparations that contribute to great meditation practices.

Transcript

So welcome to our Saturday afternoon meditation class.

And the ground is mostly the usual suspects,

The regulars.

But if it's anyone who's coming here for the first time,

This is the ongoing meditation class,

The beginners class,

Doing the introduction to meditation is in the room to my right.

And in this class we continue on the path of meditation with just a little bit of advice at the very beginning.

And one of the things which teaching all over the world,

Which I have emphasized,

Is that sometimes people read about meditation and they find good advice on meditation.

And that advice is basically from when you are able,

You've got enough quietness and peace,

So you can do things like watching your breathing with ease.

And the problem is that many people,

They start watching the breath and they go to the breath far too soon.

We do need preparation first of all,

Just like everything else in life.

Before you go on a journey,

You have to check there's enough petrol in your car,

There's enough air in the tires,

You've got some cash on you in case you need to fill up or something.

All the life that preparation is just so important,

And the same with meditation as well,

To be able to prepare especially your body before you meditate.

Preparing your body before you meditate,

One thing which is helpful is even when you come to a session like this,

When you come here maybe a little bit earlier and just relax,

And just don't just rush into the hall,

Stressed,

Struggling to get through the trafficking time,

And you come down here and you're already agitated,

And you can see if one can even do things slowly before one begins meditation.

And when one starts to meditate,

Sitting down,

To really look after one's body,

To make it comfortable,

Is something which I've emphasized whenever I do the teachings from the Pali,

From the original word of the Buddha,

That the first thing to do before one even starts to watch the breath in the famous Anupana Sati,

Mindfulness of the breath teaching,

Is to make mindfulness a priority,

Give it number one attention so that we can create that mindfulness before we even start watching the breath.

And I say that because many times people,

They come,

They try to do breath meditation,

It's a struggle.

They can maybe watch three or four breaths,

But the only way they can continue to keep awareness of the breath is through force,

And that doesn't give them any peace at all,

And it makes meditation quite unpleasant.

And one of the first times I noticed this was when I was teaching in a meditation retreat over in Sydney,

There the person who took me to the meditation place said he'd been to many other meditation retreats in that center,

And he started calling the meditation hall the torture chamber.

And I thought,

Calling meditation torture,

What have you been up to?

What have you been doing?

He said,

Well,

I have to sit really long periods of time,

I can't start until the bell goes,

And I can't get up until the bell goes,

And sometimes it's just so painful,

So unpleasant,

But I still got to keep sitting there.

There's something very wrong with that type of meditation.

So what we actually learn how to do,

We learn how to really relax our body,

And during even my meditation sessions here,

Yes,

We do use the bell,

If it's really painful,

You're very tired,

Please get up,

And just even take a little walk,

Open the door and go,

Because the last thing we want to do is to condition you to think that this is torture,

This is not torture,

This is nice and peaceful,

Calm.

In fact,

It was from that experience that I started calling the meditation centers Club Med,

Itation.

So calling it Club Med,

Yes,

It's a little bit of a joke,

But what it does mean is that you can learn how to be really peaceful.

Okay,

This is,

We're doing a meditation class here,

So if you come for the ongoing meditation class,

If you come for the introduction to meditation class,

Beginners,

That is in the room to my right over there,

Some more people coming.

So,

We call it Club Med to create the atmosphere,

This is very pleasant,

Very happy,

Because relaxation,

Is that pleasant?

People actually pay a lot of money,

Going to spas,

Going on holiday,

Or some beach in Bali somewhere,

We can just relax on a recliner in the sun,

With a sort of coconut juice right next to you,

I've seen that over there.

So really relaxed and happy,

That is important to start the meditation off,

Because when you're happy,

Relaxed,

The body doesn't cause you any trouble.

So that relaxation of the body is so important,

It also requires you to have your mindfulness,

Your wisdom,

And your compassion all working together.

Awareness means you know how you got your body situated.

Yeah,

You can actually see these great photos of these monks or nuns,

These meditators sitting perfectly straight,

With their spine nicely curved,

Sitting with one foot over the other foot,

In full lotus,

But sometimes what you're seeing is not a person,

But a statue.

The Buddha over there hasn't moved since we put him up there.

Can you do that?

Of course not.

So you're a human being,

So don't try and imitate some ideas which do not fit with your own personal reality.

It's why many people sit on chairs,

Well done,

They have these stools.

Could you just hold the stool up so people can see,

These are really comfortable,

We've got a few at the back over there which you can try out.

Any way where your body can really relax to the max.

And again,

That's not an indulgence,

That's a very important teaching.

So the body can be so at ease,

It can sit and be very peaceful for a long period of time.

When your body is relaxed,

It does take that awareness,

You know how you're sitting,

You know what you're doing with your own body,

And you're wise enough to know the difference between an ache which is just an irritation,

Just last a few moments,

And it will disappear by itself,

Or an ache or a pain which,

If you just adjust it this way,

If you give it a scratch,

That type of ache or pain will just disappear.

Examples of these are just,

I remember this time of the year,

Fly season.

It doesn't matter how hard we try and keep all the flies out of this room,

There's always one.

There's one who comes in here just to test you out.

And I remember once telling people about,

Oh,

The flies in Australia,

They don't carry any bugs,

They're not disease-ridden,

So you just leave them alone,

They just come to explore.

Sometimes they want to go up your nose just to find out what's up there.

They don't do any harm,

They're just irritating.

And so,

Having said that,

They're just flies,

Leave them alone.

Of course,

As soon as I said that,

Sitting up here,

A fly landed on my mouth.

And I couldn't just wash it away or something because I just told people.

So I had to be,

Actually,

And not be a hypocrite.

Of course I wanted to go,

Pfft,

Pfft,

Pfft,

Pfft.

I can't even do that these days because there's a blooming camera on me all the time.

But what I did,

I had to just let that fly be.

So it landed down here.

And I did insight meditation on the fly.

I got some great wisdom from that fly.

Number one,

It was a Buddhist fly,

I'll tell you why it was a Buddhist fly in a few moments.

It started going round my mouth.

It went round three times,

That's why I knew it was a Buddhist,

Because it was called circumambulation.

You come here on Waisak day,

When it's those holidays,

We always go around the shrine three times.

So it was a Buddhist fly.

And number two,

I discovered,

I always thought this was the most sensitive part,

But no,

It's just here on the edges.

So when it came round,

That really tickled over here.

That was really ticklish.

Once it got past there,

It was okay.

Until it got to here,

It really ticklish again.

So you learn a lot.

But what it was,

I was just learning how to just make it be,

Yeah,

It was irritating.

And one thing was,

You couldn't ignore it to go after something else.

A lot of times,

Our restlessness and our tension comes when we don't want this experience to be,

We want it to finish,

We want to go and do something else,

We want to go deeper,

Whatever it is,

We want to be somewhere else.

That is called tension.

That's not relaxing to the max.

So I just followed it,

It was the most prominent sensation,

And I watched it and I learned a lot about how my body works.

How just to relax,

Make it peaceful.

You learn about your body when you start meditating,

Gives you enormous insights into how your body works,

How to heal diseases,

Wounds,

Irritations.

It's amazing,

What I've seen in my life as a monk,

How meditation can overcome sicknesses,

Which a lot of times is overreaction of the body.

And you relax the body so it doesn't overreact.

So once you've relaxed the body,

Body feels good.

Now that is an important part of meditation,

Because when your body feels delightful,

Just like in a spa,

Just like on a beach in Bali,

Just like a hot bath if you go to a cold country.

I don't have hot baths,

It's a bit of an indulgence for being a monk,

But I did have a hot bath once.

Last time I had a hot bath,

I have showers,

I'm not dirty,

But last time I had a hot bath was in Bhutan after climbing up the Tiger's Nest.

That's,

You know,

Go to the Tiger's Nest monastery,

Some people don't make it to the top,

So I think I deserved a hot bath after that.

But anyway,

That's the last time,

Just to relax in a hot water.

That's really nice.

You can see all the muscles just ease off.

That's exactly what you do when you're meditating,

Relaxing every muscle in the body until it's totally at ease.

And when it's delightful,

That feeling of delightful relaxation,

At that point,

You notice an important part of meditation,

Which you will use later on.

When the body is delightful and you focus on the delight,

Then the body goes into a deeper state of relaxation.

It's like the delight takes you as a vehicle into a deeper state of physical relaxation.

Any pain or irritation makes you more tense.

The delight relaxes you.

So I stay with that delightful relaxation until my body is really very,

Very,

Very relaxed.

Next thing is you prepared the body,

Now you prepare your mind.

And to make it easy,

I introduce that peace-o-meter.

Peace-o-meters,

You get machines that tell you your blood pressure,

Your cholesterol level,

Your other levels,

But a wonderful machine called mindfulness,

So you can understand how peaceful you are.

Or it's opposite,

How agitated,

The peace-o-meter.

And with the peace-o-meter,

How peaceful are you?

1 to 10,

And then why?

What makes you more agitated,

More disturbed?

What makes you more relaxed?

You're learning how to relax your mind.

Once you have relaxed your mind enough,

Choose you by just being in this present moment,

Being kind,

Cos the things which disturb us,

All the anxiety and worries about the future,

All those problems just waiting for you to actually attack you and rob you outside,

To rob you of your peace and calm.

But all the stuff from the past which we haven't resolved yet,

You can't resolve it,

Let it go.

I'm not really good on computers but I did notice spam,

After 30 days it gets deleted automatically.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if our memories were like that?

After 30 days you just automatically delete.

So anyway,

I don't know if that's possible,

But when you learn how just to let go of the past,

At least for the time of meditation anyway,

And you find it doesn't get worse when you're irresponsible,

You're far too responsible,

That's our problems.

Be irresponsible for meditation time,

This is your time,

Peace time.

No past,

No future,

Just now,

Just being.

You can feel your peace-o-meter gets more and more peaceful,

More and more peaceful.

And that means that you can prepare your mind and if you are reasonably peaceful,

Then you find something happens which first of all might seem a bit strange to you.

Breath meditation which is the most common type of Buddhist meditation,

You don't even need to go looking for the breathing,

The breath comes to you.

You're still in there just relaxing and then you can feel the breath come,

The breath coming into your body and going out again.

When you're not concerned,

Obsessed,

Overburdened with these other things you have to deal with,

Then you have this freedom from bodily irritation,

From past and future,

Freedom from all of that to be able to watch the breathing.

The breathing is just there and you can focus on it.

You've actually cleared your desk of all this other work,

Got it all out of the way for a while so you can really observe the breath without these other thoughts intruding.

You should check your email,

Your mother might be needing you,

Check the stock market,

Your shares might be dropping.

No,

Check this,

Check that.

So sometimes we're just so obsessed with things,

We don't find any peace.

So once we've relaxed our body,

Relaxed our mind,

Then we are able to watch the breath easily.

At the same time,

Hopefully you'll be aware of the delight of just having a breath to watch and nothing else.

I don't know how many people have the experience,

They can go off to the cliffs and they can just sit down and watch the waves come in,

The waves go out.

It's a simple thing they're watching but it's so peaceful.

They can just go with a cup of tea or coffee to some quiet forest and just watch the trees grow,

Just nice and peaceful.

They can go out at night time on a clear night and just watch the stars.

The stars move slowly,

That's why it's so beautiful to watch them.

You can't do anything with them,

You're just watching,

Peaceful still.

It relaxes you,

It's delightful.

So if you start being aware of the delight of mental relaxation,

Of stillness and peace,

Peace of mind,

Then it sticks to you and stays.

And from there the meditation takes off,

Into deep,

Deep,

Deep states of mind.

You have to relax to the max first and then the meditation takes over.

So that's instructions for this afternoon.

So for those of you who've been sitting down a long time and you want to have a stretch or a scratch,

Please do so.

Then we can start the meditation in a few moments time.

Here we come.

Goodness,

You're cold.

So,

So we close our eyes so that we can turn off a lot of distracting sensory inputs from seeing stuff.

With our eyes closed we can feel more deeply our own body.

Sometimes so many parts of the human body which people just don't know about,

Because they're too busy doing other stuff.

And now I give my full attention,

Complete mindfulness on my legs.

And to establish awareness,

To begin it,

To get it started.

I ask my legs as if they're a separate being.

Legs,

How are you?

How are you both down there?

Because when I ask a question like that,

Like I ask a question of one of you,

I get an answer.

I can feel the legs.

I ask is there anything which I can do legs to make you more comfortable?

There's a little adjustment here,

I'll scratch there.

Are you sure you're okay?

Sometimes just even asking a question of a person,

Of another human being,

Of a friend,

Just showing that you care is sometimes all that's needed for a person to relax.

So with my legs,

Just checking in on them,

Showing that I care for them,

It's amazing just how they relax because of their attention.

But there is something I do,

I don't hesitate to adjust this,

Adjust that.

And then to my butt,

The butt is important,

It's why we sometimes,

Like sometimes I just sit flat on the mat,

Sometimes I put the zapha with a cushion underneath me.

Some of you have got your own special cushions or have a cushion under a knee.

Some people sit on chairs,

Some people on stools.

The importance of the butts is demonstrated by the different positions people put them on.

I ask my butt,

Are you okay?

Yes.

Then I check my back.

That's a very important part of the meditation posture.

Gotta make sure my back is in a strong position,

So it doesn't sort of flop all over the place.

But it's not so tight,

That holding it like that for too long will cause aches and pains.

I find this natural position of my back,

Curved,

Upright,

But not tight.

And after a while you can move it to the left,

To the right,

Forward and back,

Until you find that position.

You get to know your best postures.

Implorable because you don't use the same one every time.

By trial and error,

Using your mindfulness,

Your wisdom and your kindness onto your own back.

Then you feel the muscles in your shoulders,

Because it's very special attention there because people do get aches in their shoulders.

Make sure they're pretty relaxed.

So I feel them first of all,

With my mind.

I'm aware.

My awareness now is mostly focused on those two areas,

Either side of my spine,

Called my shoulder muscles.

The rest is on my mouth,

I'm describing what I'm doing.

Really feeling those muscles and learning how to relax them all.

By learning,

Sometimes I experiment,

Scrunching them,

Imagining their guitar strings and loosening both ends.

Whatever works,

Until I find my favorite methods of just relaxing those muscles,

At will.

Mindfulness,

Bit of courage to experiment,

Feedback from mindfulness,

See whether it works or not,

Is how you learn.

Down my arms,

Don't have much problem with my arms,

If you have some elbow aches or something,

Stop there.

See what you need to relax,

To ease off the pain,

The tension,

And bring a sense of contentment and ease to your elbows,

Maybe your wrists and hands.

Do you check through that part of your body until it's comfortable,

Ready for meditation?

It's not going to cause you any problems.

You've done your preparation down there,

So then you go up to your neck.

Sometimes people call it pain in the neck,

But it's not really because of a boss somewhere,

It's because a lot of time your head is not balanced on top properly,

Too far forward or leaning to the side.

I check the feelings in my throat and neck,

Sometimes move my head backwards and forwards until I find the optimum posture,

When my neck is relaxed.

Lastly,

I go to the face,

Facial muscles.

There,

There,

On your face are written your most dominant emotions of this moment.

If you're angry,

You can see it on your face.

If you're afraid,

It's a different configuration of the muscles.

If you're at peace,

You can do that at will,

By being aware of those muscles,

Especially around the eyes and the mouth,

And just learning how to relax them,

To loosen everything.

When my muscles loosen,

I can feel,

Yeah,

They've loosened.

It feels pleasant.

Relax in my face and thereby dealing with some emotions inside.

Then,

When the body has been treated with kindness and attention,

I look at the whole body,

Like putting everything together.

This body sitting here,

It's really relaxed.

I'll deal with every part one by one.

And I do notice that it is delightful,

Same sort of feeling after you come out of the hot bath,

Or when you're in bed early in the morning,

Comfortable,

You don't need to go to the toilet.

You just relax in your cozy covers.

If you can notice the delight of a relaxed body,

Please put your mindfulness on it,

Awareness on it,

And enjoy.

See if you can notice that being aware of delight takes you deeper into bodily relaxation.

Know how to relax the mind,

The emotional world.

Have a look at your peace-olitor.

You're not trying to prove anything to yourself or others,

Just be honest.

How peaceful are you,

How agitated?

What do you need right now to make yourself more peaceful?

Letting go of past and future.

Now is the place,

The only time,

Where your future is being made.

And be kind,

Happy to be here.

Maybe not the best,

But certainly not the worst.

This beautiful mindset of contentment with this moment.

See your peace-olitor reading.

Go down,

Down,

Down,

Closer to deep peace.

Just see if you can notice the delight of peace of mind,

The joy of it,

The special flavor of happiness.

That describes peace.

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And then you'll probably find,

Become aware of your breath almost naturally,

Without seeking it out.

If it happens,

Just enjoy the breathing.

It's part of peace.

But don't hold onto it tightly.

If you do watch your breathing as your main object,

Please regard it as a friend,

Not as a slave to order around.

Sometimes my breath is like my best friend,

Soon as we meet each other,

Hi,

How you been?

We just chill out together.

Just my mindfulness and my breath.

I will be quiet now until close to the end of the meditation.

Goodnight now.

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Reviews

I am a fan! Peace in mind to explore and experience