Now,
If you'd like to make sure that you're sitting comfortably for a meditation practice,
Settling yourself into a comfortable posture,
Either sitting on a cushion,
A meditation mat or perhaps sitting on a straight back chair.
If you're sitting cross-legged,
Then make sure both of your knees reach as far as the floor,
Perhaps supporting yourself with blankets or owls if your knees don't quite reach or setting both feet flat on the floor if you're sitting on a chair.
So start out with a stable tripod-like posture and in this way,
You can bring your spine up nice and tall in order to reenergize yourself.
You can let the lower lumbar region relax to its natural shape and allow your hands to rest palm upwards in your lap,
With the right hand over the left hand and the index finger of the right hand touching against the thumb of your left hand.
Close your eyes very gently,
Close your eyes gently or just cast your gaze softly downwards to the floor in front of you,
Allowing your eyes to defocus.
And then we do what's known as a body scan to relax all the muscles of our body.
So we invite a sense of softness to our face,
Allow our eyelids to soften,
Allowing that softness to flow down through our temples in a gentle wave,
Allowing our lips to touch only very lightly together as the mouth relaxes and letting our jawline soften.
We relax our neck and let our shoulders drop to their natural height,
Relaxing our arms,
Our forearms,
Our hands and fingers,
So that our hands rest only very lightly in our lap.
Continuing on down,
We relax all the muscles of our torso,
Chest,
Trunk and throughout our core before relaxing both legs all the way down to our feet and our toes.
Once again,
Making a check down through the whole of our body to make sure there are no remaining places with any stress or tension anymore.
If we do find places where tension still seems to linger on,
Then we do our best to relax them as far as possible until it feels as if our whole body has melted away into the atmosphere around us,
Leaving us with no further worries about our body anymore and allowing us to turn our attention inward instead.
So we let our attention gently peel away from the outside world,
This time allowing us to relax our state of mind by putting aside any worries or concerns about our everyday life,
Almost like a person with no past and no future,
Entirely focused in the present moment and on the task in hand,
So conjuring up a sense of well-being as if that well-being were made up of tiny particles of happiness and joy inside us,
Particles of happiness and joy that seem to fill up our body and mind,
Growing and spreading within us to the point that there's no space left inside us for any other sort of thought.
When we feel relaxed and refreshed,
Both in body and in mind,
Very gently and using no effort at all,
We can imagine that the whole of our body is nothing but an empty space or a hollow cavity with no organs or tissues,
No muscles or bones.
Or inside you,
You might imagine that your whole body has been transformed into a sort of transparent bubble with nothing on the inside.
And when you're ready,
Again very gently,
Using no effort at all,
You might cast your mind back again to that imaginary picture of a bright,
Shining sun,
Which we had a few moments ago,
Maybe yellow or golden in color,
White or red,
It doesn't really matter,
And not being put off if the actual picture is not as clear as you normally see it with your eyes,
Even if it's vague,
Accept it anyway.
And there may be some people who feel the warmth of the sun but don't actually see it.
Again,
You can use that tactile sense of warmth as the object for your meditation.
And in this case,
We allow that bright picture or that feeling of warmth to make its way gradually downwards inside the space of our body,
Almost as if we were gradually breathing it down inside us to the deepest point of our breath,
Or gently swallowing the object down to the very pit of our stomach.
Once the bright object or the sense of warmth reaches that point in our abdomen,
There's no need for us to move the object anywhere else anymore.
We gradually and gently maintain it,
With a feather-like touch,
At the very center of ourselves.
If we find our awareness wandering away onto other things,
Whether it be sounds or distractions around us,
Each time we realize we simply bring our attention back again,
To the center of the body as before.
If the inner object disappears,
Then we can conjure up a new one.
And we don't let it be a big deal.
When we're new to meditation,
We find our mind wanders quite often.
But each time we notice its absence,
We simply bring it back.
And it'll become a little bit easier to keep it in place the next time round.
Until before long,
We'll find that our awareness is spending more time centered than it does wandering,
At which point we'll start to have an intuitive feeling of the mind being able to stay at the center of the body,
Almost by second nature,
And to help create a space between yourself and your thoughts.
We can tap into the still small,
Silent spaces between the thoughts.
If thoughts return,
We do our best to ignore them.
But if ignoring the thoughts proves ineffective,
We can make use of that traditional mantra instead,
Using the words Samma Arahang,
Samma Arahang,
Samma Arahang,
Or any other affirmation of your own that you prefer to substitute in.
The more you repeat the mantra,
The deeper those words will lead you toward a sense of purity in the mind,
Helping you to free your mind of thought.
As those words resonate within your heart,
Within every cell,
Every fiber of your being,
The mind will become more settled within you.
So we continue in this way,
Lightly and gently,
Just for a few more moments now in silence,
Until we come to the appropriate time.
And we continue to keep our mind gently on track at the center of the body,
The whole of the time,
By means of our inner object,
Whether it's something we see or something we feel inside us.
We find our mind slipping away onto other things.
Each time we realize,
We just bring our attention back again to the center of our body as before.
If the inner object disappears,
We can conjure up a new one.
But if it changes,
Then we just follow it in its new form.
At the same time,
We try to keep the mind free of thought,
Either by ignoring any thoughts that arise,
Or by making use of the mantra as a way to run interference on those random thoughts.
Especially today,
As we find ourselves at the tail end of the annual celebration,
Coinciding with the full moon day of the 10th lunar month,
When we like to think back to the anniversary of the rediscovery of our meditation lineage back in 1916,
By a monk that many of you are familiar with,
From the big black and white photo displayed prominently around our temple branches.
So going back to the early 1900s,
Although the scriptures were still widely studied in Thailand,
But the practice of meditation had slipped into disuse and was poorly understood.
The meditation techniques that remained available to the Tungi people were in rather a fragmented condition,
Rather like a pile of random spare parts that no one could assemble into a functioning car anymore.
There were elements of the technique scattered around Thailand with some of the meditation masters of the time,
And these corresponded to a style of practice known as Boran Gammatan,
Or the Southern Esoteric Buddhism,
Sometimes equated with the Yoga Vajra School.
Going back to the 16th century,
And probably much,
Much earlier than that,
Pretty many places all over Southeast Asia,
This meditation technique had slipped from living memory,
Often because it had been actively suppressed by competing meditation schools that enjoyed royal patronage at the time,
So was left to the great abbot of Wappak Nlam,
Also known as Pratmongkon Thepmuni,
And more commonly known as Lungpo Sotthambasaro,
Put these elements back together again,
As the workable system of meditation that we would recognize today.
So it's said that this monk had been ordained for 11 years when he decided to sit down and really put all his knowledge of meditation to the test,
By sitting down without moving in the cross-legged position in his temple,
Initially first thing in the morning,
And it was a task which led him to a great deal of discomfort,
As if there were pains shooting through the whole of his body,
Just by maintaining his meditation posture,
Nonetheless he persevered with a technique mostly distinguished by his use of the mantra,
Sma Arahang,
Until suddenly at a certain point in his practice,
All the pain suddenly disappeared,
And the whole focus of his attention seemed to come together automatically at the center of himself,
And the strange thing was that there was a sphere of light that appeared there,
That looked rather like a crystal ball,
Which stayed with him no matter what he did,
Not only while he was meditating,
But even as he got up to do other things,
He realized that there must be more than just the crystal ball within himself,
And again that night he sat down to practice,
Pulling a meditational nighter,
Where one sits in meditation the whole night long until dawn,
Again with the crystal sphere at the center of himself,
Finding himself becoming more and more calm at the center of that sphere,
Finding a middle way at the center of the sphere,
Leading to deeper and deeper meditation experiences,
Until by the time the morning came he had attained what's known as the body of enlightenment within himself,
With an appearance rather like a living buddha statue made of crystal,
And the sense of peace and happiness arising from the attainment that he'd never experienced from practicing any other of the meditation techniques available to him,
Made him confident that this was a new path of meditation practice,
Previously unknown to his generation,
And as a result of this attainment he started to teach this inner pathway of practice more widely,
Often summarizing the technique with the words that stillness is the key to success,
Meaning that stillness of the mind,
When the mind has overcome all the movement caused by the thoughts,
It will allow the mind to go deeper at the center,
So the sense of stillness in the mind isn't something that you can force or manufacture,
It is something that arises naturally when the thoughts have gradually settled down into silence,
Leading to a sense of peace within,
That can reach out for peace in the world,
And since the great abbot was quite ambitious with his practice,
Meditating seriously,
And encouraging his students to do the same,
Reaching towards the subtle truths of the universe through the practice of what's known as meditation research,
In this connection he is famous for setting up a meditation workshop in his own temple of Wat Phra Dhammam,
Where there was perpetual meditation by dedicated teams,
24 hours a day,
A place where monks and nuns could gather together,
In order to research meditation in shifts,
Meditating as a team to unveil the mysteries of the universe,
As a result of these innovations by the great abbot,
He hoped not just personally to reach an end of suffering,
But to end suffering at its source,
For the benefit of all living beings,
By vanquishing what are known as maras,
Or the factors in the subconscious,
That create the suffering in the first place,
The great abbot was also known to be very forward-looking during his lifetime,
Being the first monk in Thailand to allow the ordination of non-Thais into the monastic community,
With a monk called Kapilavato from the United Kingdom,
Who ordained in 1954,
And who was later followed by a whole group of other western monks and nuns,
Joining the monastic community,
And eventually being sent back to teach meditation in western societies towards the end of the 1950s,
So reflecting on the roots of our own tradition in this way,
As we continue to apply our mind lightly and gently at the centre of the body,
We follow on with our own practice for a few more moments in silence,
Until we come to time for some loving-kindness meditation,
So we continue to keep our mind on track at the centre of the body,
The whole of the time,
Lightly,
Gently and continuously,
Always at the centre of whatever inner experience we've built up for ourselves as the result of the meditation so far today,
We allow all the positive energy accumulated from our meditation to expand outward from our centre,
Along with that peace energy,
Softly expanding outward as loving-kindness,
Initially toward ourselves,
With a sense of compassion for ourselves,
A sense of going easy on ourselves for a change,
Wishing ourselves to be free of suffering,
And to know only happiness,
Before expanding that sense of peace energy further beyond ourselves,
Outwards into the room around us,
Wider to the whole building,
The whole neighbourhood,
To all the living beings around us without exception,
Expanding peace energy outwards to all those living beings with the wish that they be well and happy,
Free from suffering,
Live together in peace and harmony,
And we extend a tide of loving-kindness further outwards to the whole of our city,
Cleansing away all negativity in its path,
Reaching out to the whole country,
And expanding further still until it reaches the whole of the world in all directions all around,
Outwards into the universe,
Extending that sense of positivity and peace energy to every place,
With the wish that all beings be well and happy,
Enjoy happiness,
Success,
Fulfilment of all their wholesome wishes,
To be free from harm or danger,
Suffering and disease,
To be free from conflict or negativity,
We can extend our loving-kindness toward particular loved ones or those who we know are going through difficult times,
By holding them dear at the centre of ourselves,
We might extend loving-kindness towards those for whom we feel a particular debt of gratitude,
To those still living,
Or even those who have already passed on,
We might even think back to the great Abbot of Wapak Naam who rediscovered our meditation technique,
With a sense of gratitude,
Extending positive energy as we continue to bring this meditation lineage to a new generation,
With the last few moments of our practice together.
