Day 005/365: Guided Meditation | Ajahn Brahm

We meditate for a little bit longer,

For about 40 minutes.

Don't be afraid.

So if after about 15-20 minutes,

If you start to feel a bit sore,

Then you can just,

If you're sitting down,

You can stand up and stretch your limbs quietly.

If you're sitting down,

You can very silently,

As best you can,

Just move,

And if it really is too much for you,

You can always walk out.

It's okay,

We will not be offended.

It's very hard to offend a monk.

People have tried and failed.

So you just take it easy,

Which is the general attitude of meditation.

This is not an army camp.

This is not Guantanamo Bay.

Because in Guantanamo Bay,

They use,

What is it,

Prolonged stress positions as a means of torture.

And so,

Please,

Do not put your body in full lotus,

Perfectly straight,

Even though it's killing you.

If you do that,

You haven't understood meditation at all.

Meditation is learning how to be kind to your body,

And kind to your mind.

Because with kindness to your body and kindness to your mind,

You'll be surprised at how still your mind can become.

And that is what we're doing here.

I've just come back from Korea,

Surprisingly teaching monks how to meditate.

And they've got plenty of teachers over there,

But still they don't quite get it.

And one of the little examples I gave,

Which I give here regularly,

Especially on retreats,

You have to put your hand up,

And I shake it about like this.

And this is Ajahn Chah's simile,

My teacher,

Passed away a long time ago.

He said,

This represents a leaf on a tree.

It's only moving because the wind is blowing.

If the wind stops,

Then the leaf starts moving less and less,

Until it becomes perfectly still all by itself.

Because the natural state of a leaf is to be still.

Just like the human mind,

Its natural state is to be perfectly still.

It only moves because the wind of wanting something,

When you want something,

Anything,

Even good things,

That is when the mind starts to move.

The more you want,

And sometimes want may be results of some difficulty,

Some trauma,

Some problem you have to solve,

Or even just something you want to do,

Say you want to go,

A place you want to be,

That makes your mind move.

And in meditation,

All we're trying to do is try and stop those winds of wanting,

And just watch,

Because you're stopping things,

That is why your mind gets perfectly still.

That's how meditation works.

Now one of the ways of letting go of wanting this or wanting that,

Is being kind.

Being so kind to the dog which sometimes barks on a Saturday afternoon,

He waits for us to get very quiet and then he starts barking.

One of the reasons that dogs bark is because they bark,

Or people cough because you've got sore throats,

You can't stop that.

But you have a choice of getting upset and wanting it to be different,

Or being kind and letting it be.

And hopefully you'll understand that kindness,

Compassion,

Is something which embraces a person,

An animal or this situation,

Which allows it just to remain and be.

Through kindness and compassion,

Is another word for letting things be,

Not wanting anything,

But appreciating a person or yourself,

Or the situation totally as it is.

And everyone who's been here more than a week will know the story of opening the door of your heart.

The book which I wrote,

The first book,

It is just learning how to love someone no matter what they are,

What they've done.

My father said to me once,

Those of you who know this so many times,

You probably can recite it even before I say it.

When he took me aside and said,

I want you to remember the door of my heart will always be open to you.

He said actually his house,

But he meant his heart.

The most important words were whatever you ever do,

However you turn out,

The door of my heart will always be open to you.

And that type of love,

Acceptance,

Kindness,

Is what allows you to make peace with the situation.

You're not trying to want,

He didn't want his son to be like this or like that,

He said,

That's secondary,

I love you no matter what.

That is a part of meditation which encourages everybody to try out.

Here you're not loving your son,

Your daughter,

Your husband,

Your wife,

Your partner or parents or whoever,

You're loving this moment.

This moment called now,

However you are,

Whatever you are doing,

However you feel,

The door of my heart is open to this moment,

Unconditionally.

Now that is where we can stop all of our wanting and because we stop all of our wanting,

It's beautiful acceptance and cherishing and valuing this moment.

I mentioned last night,

Somebody told me,

He said,

There's no saying that two snow drops are never the same.

Just like two moments are never the same.

And there's no crystals,

What are they called?

The crystals of a snowflake.

Every one of them is totally unique.

Even though there's billions of them,

Trillions of them fall in the cold countries.

But still not two of them are the same.

And that is just exactly like every moment of your life.

Every one of them is so unique,

It will never ever come again.

So cherish these moments.

Open the door of your heart to this moment.

If it is something which is unpleasant,

It's teaching you something.

From the unpleasant we learn,

From the pleasant we can relax and enjoy.

So whatever it is,

We open our hearts to every moment,

For wanting it to be different.

For those of you who meditated a lot,

And you wonder why it is that the mind sometimes has all these thoughts,

Sometimes wanders off or sometimes goes to thinking,

A lot of the time it's because it's how we escape.

We only escape from things we don't like.

When we have negativity,

When we want to be somewhere else.

We don't want to be here.

We want to get rid of the pain.

We want to get rid of the tiredness.

We want to get rid of even the restlessness.

Those are the wantings which keep the mind from being still.

So in loving kindness,

In compassion,

Open the door of your heart to however you happen to be right now.

Unconditionally,

Without a want in the whole world.

I'm not sure if you've had those moments of contentment in your life.

You've been in a place,

A situation,

It's usually in beautiful parts of nature,

Maybe with a lover,

With a best friend,

Or just by yourself.

You have those moments of contentment,

Where you may not actually think this,

But you know that the feeling was,

I don't want to be anywhere else in the whole world,

Even with the person sitting next to me,

In this situation at this time.

It was moments of perfection.

By moments of perfection we mean when you don't want to change anything.

You're totally content with the moment.

Those are moments of peace and freedom,

Liberation.

And this is where you can understand what meditation is.

You're totally at peace with where you are.

Having no wants in the whole world.

What happens to that type of peace in meditation?

It just goes deeper and deeper.

In a weird sense,

Such contentment isn't stable.

It doesn't disappear,

It just deepens and grows into incredible states of peace and stillness,

Which will blow you away.

Stillness deepens,

Intensifies and becomes a huge source of peace of mind,

Joy,

Even insight.

So that's what we're doing here in this meditation.

Learning how to be still by letting go of all wanting.

Of course it takes time.

Your mind will be moving a lot.

You've been working hard,

Doing many things this morning.

You have to wait.

Once the wind stops,

The leaf doesn't become still immediately.

Stillness is a gradual process.

More and more still until everything stops.

When the world stops and you're left,

Peace at last.

So that's a little introduction into meditation.

See if you can focus on this session,

Not wanting anything.

See how difficult that is to do.

But that becomes the key.

And one of the ways to achieve it is having a beautiful,

Compassionate mind.

Anyone makes a noise?

The dog barks,

Somebody starts their lawnmower,

Whatever it is.

Thank you,

Dog.

We're starting now.

There we go.

You can be totally kind and compassionate.

And then when you don't want it to be different,

You're at peace.

Okay,

Let's get started.

Okay,

Dog,

You made your point.

Sitting down,

You don't have to sit on the floor.

Sitting on a chair is more than good enough.

Stools,

Cushions,

Whatever you want to get.

Close your eyes.

With your eyes closed,

Start to become mindful of your body.

This vehicle in which you drive around all day,

Which you try and rest at night.

Be aware of your body.

And that is not something you achieve just by willpower.

You have to allow your awareness to linger on bodily feelings.

And the more you stay with your body,

The more you can experience of it.

And if at the beginning you start to experience an ache,

A pain,

A stiffness anywhere,

Don't just be aware of it.

Be kind enough to do something about it.

Move your body.

Scratch your nose.

Even if you've got an itch in your ear,

I always like to say,

The reason why we close our eyes when we meditate,

To allow you to scratch any part of your body,

No one is looking.

Do not be embarrassed.

Any tight pieces of clothing,

Loosen them.

This is the time to pamper your body by adjusting your position to this as comfortable as you can possibly get.

Once your body does start to become comfortable,

Don't stop.

See if you can get your body as comfortable as possible using awareness and kindness.

You will discover if there is a part of your body which is sore or aching,

Or even in quite severe pain,

By focusing on that part of the body with mindfulness and looking upon it with kindness,

As much compassion,

Open the door of your heart to that pain,

Say in pain,

The door of my heart is open to you,

You can come in,

No matter how painful you are.

Be able to be kind to something unconditionally.

And as you do become aware of your body,

Be inquisitive,

Just like you were when you were a child,

Being fascinated with the amazing world of bodily feelings,

No two feelings ever the same.

The sense of being alive in this very sensitive body,

And relaxing it deeper and deeper,

Releasing any tightnesses,

Expanding any knots,

Any tensions.

Even after a few minutes,

You can be aware your body is very relaxed.

And that relaxation has a certain type of pleasure associated with it,

The delight of a body at ease.

It's quite important to notice the pleasure,

Sheer joy of a relaxed body.

It may not be totally relaxed,

But it's probably more relaxed than most moments.

When the body is as relaxed as you are going to get it,

Then focus instead on your mental world.

There's a lot of similarity with the way that the body is not relaxed,

Where it's tense and tight and has knots of pain.

Like the mental world has knots of pain from the past,

Is being stretched into worry for the future.

See if you can let go of that dragging feeling which makes you always go back to past mistakes and past pain.

Let that go.

Relax.

Relax the mental world.

And all the fear and plans for the future.

Now is the place your future is being made.

The only time you can do anything for your future is now.

So to prepare for your future,

Have peace,

Have happiness,

And relaxation right now.

So we deliberately let go of all the past.

Deliberately not be concerned with whatever's going to happen next in your life.

The only thing we are concerned with is this moment called now.

This moment called now might not be so satisfying at first,

But it grows on you.

Open the door of your heart to this very moment.

Pleasant,

Unpleasant.

I'm opening the door of my heart to the now.

Making peace with whatever I'm hearing,

Whatever I'm feeling,

Whatever I am knowing.

Relaxing the mental world.

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And if the mind wanders away,

You may try and follow your feeling of the breathing.

And as you breathe in,

You may say to yourself,

Breathing in peace,

As you breathe out,

Breathe out,

Let go.

And when you say the word,

Feel it,

Feel peace coming into your mind.

When you say the word,

Let go,

Mean it,

Feel the letting go happening.

As you breathe in and out,

Breathing in peace,

Breathe out,

Let go.

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It's getting close to the end of the meditation now.

It's a time for you to reflect on how you feel.

How much peace and stillness have developed over this period of meditation.

What your body feels like.

It's important to know the change from when you began.

To see that this meditation actually does relax,

Free and give health and energy to the body and mind.

And then reflect on why.

What worked during this period of meditation.

What were mistakes which made the mind more agitated.

This is how we learn from the experience we've just had.

Relaxing the mental world.

Relaxing the mental world.

Relaxing the mental world.

I'm now going to ring the gong three times.

Please listen to the sound of the gong.

When it finishes come out from the meditation.

Gong Now the next ten minutes we use for any questions people have.

And most of the questions come from overseas because this is streamed live to many countries.

At the same time,

If anyone here has any questions and you feel a bit shy to bring them up,

You can always write them on a piece of paper,

Put them in the box in the back there and it will be answered for you.

But first of all the ones from overseas,

Christina?

We've got two questions,

One from Indonesia and one from Romania.

Number one,

I have a problem with the commenting mind.

Even though there's a nimitta,

This is a stage where light comes up into the mind,

There's still a little comment or instruction how to overcome this habit.

First of all,

You notice it is a habit.

So once you're aware of it,

Then the next thing you can do if you're in a deep state of meditation is to use a method I developed called programming your mindfulness,

Which is a very useful technique you can use to solve many problems in the deeper stages of meditation.

So here,

When there's a comment or giving instructions at a time when you should really be still,

At the very beginning of the meditation,

Just you sit down,

You get reasonably comfortable but you haven't really relaxed the body totally yet,

Just maybe after one or two minutes,

Then you give your mind instructions.

In this particular case,

The person from Indonesia,

I would suggest something like,

You put it in your own words,

But something like when a nimitta comes up,

I will make no comment.

When a nimitta comes up,

I will make no comment.

When a nimitta comes up,

I will make no comment.

You repeat the instructions to yourself three times and you pay as full attention as you possibly can to really listen to what your instructions you're giving.

And instructions have to be very simple.

Once you've given simple instructions,

You've paid a lot of attention to it,

Then you let it go.

You forget about it.

What happens is,

It's like a program you put into a computer,

Just an antivirus,

And it only kicks in when that problem starts to arise.

And what happens is,

When it starts to get enlightened,

You start this habit of commenting,

And then you'll find the habit stops.

You've taught yourself to stop it at an early stage.

It is like an antivirus,

That's the best simile which I can actually give to how it works.

But my goodness,

It does work.

The old habit of disturbing this process at that last stage of deep meditation,

That habit just stops,

You just take another path because you told your mindfulness to do so.

So that programming mindfulness,

I have taught that in my book,

Mindfulness Bliss and Beyond,

Otherwise known as Happiness through Meditation.

And you can find that there,

Programming mindfulness.

The next question comes from Romania in Europe.

When I sit in meditation,

Feelings of dukkha,

That suffering,

Certain regrets come up and I could not let them go.

I could not understand why conditions like life-long sickness and deformity can be seen as conditions for learning and not as punishments.

I'm not quite sure the person in Romania,

Whether they have got long sicknesses or problems with their body or whatever.

And to look at them as punishments,

The next thing you say,

Why am I being punished?

And if you heard the talk I gave last night,

That we just don't have punishments and revenge and guilt in Buddhism.

I never feel that,

As a Buddhist anyway,

That that's very helpful.

So whenever we have any problems in life,

We acknowledge them,

We forgive them.

Forgiving means no punishments,

No guilt,

And we learn from them.

It's another way of looking at the difficulties in life,

But that's actually how they work.

So if you have a life-long sickness or deformity,

I maybe suggest you have a look in the book which I wrote,

Opening the Door of Your Heart,

One of the chapters there is a poem.

And I got permission for putting that poem in my book from its author,

It was Jonathan Wilson Fuller,

On dealing with chronic pain.

And I cannot remember the poem word for word,

But it goes something like,

You know,

That pain has got a reason in life.

It was the pain which tells you to take your foot away from the thorn,

Your finger out of the fire,

Some pain you can understand its purpose.

He said there's other pains which seem to have no purpose at all,

The chronic pains which are there all the time,

Which are not protecting the body,

But a destroyer of happiness and even life itself.

And those pains,

The chronic pains,

Are the hardest to deal with.

They're not impossible to deal with,

Because in the battle,

In the fight,

Something wonderful can come out of it.

Just the understanding of life,

Joy in spite of the pain.

And it's a very personal battle and a very personal fulfilment of happiness in spite of the pain.

And it's an okay type of poem,

But what really hit me when I got to the person who wrote it,

Jonathan Wilson Fuller,

He wrote that I think when he was only 7 years of age.

He had a person who had this chronic pain allergic to everything in life.

And when it came to,

Was it 7 years?

I think it was 7 years of age.

Incredibly young age.

This person wrote a poem on how to deal with lifelong sickness and pain which has no purpose.

And that's inspiring,

That's why I asked and got permission to put that in that book.

So you can see even a 7 year old,

Okay,

He was an incredibly special,

Unique person,

He could actually understand the meaning.

His condition is for learning.

So if you haven't got that book,

It is published in Romanian edition,

Opening the Door of Your Heart by Ajahn Brahm,

So get a copy of that.

And what that does is,

Feelings of dukkha,

Sorrow and regrets,

Feelings of sorrow for yourself,

Having suffering,

You find that this is the way Buddha actually taught.

He said,

There are two parts to suffering,

To pain.

There is the physical part and the mental part.

He called it the two arrows which people get shocked by.

So the physical part you can't do much about.

Maybe try the doctors,

But some pain,

Some sicknesses,

The doctors just can't do much about.

But the mental part,

Your reaction to it,

You have total control over,

That you can do anything with.

And that is the amazing thing that as a monk I've done that before,

I've practiced that,

Found out it works.

One of the first times,

I did that on an acute pain,

Not a chronic pain.

It's much harder on a chronic pain,

But just to show it can be done.

My toothache story,

Really really bad toothache.

Okay,

Because it's only a toothache,

But I've read the literature,

Sometimes toothaches can drive people insane and they can infect the brain and actually kill them.

So it's not just a toothache,

It was a very very bad one.

In a jungle monastery in Thailand where there's no electricity,

No telephone,

No,

In the days before you couldn't ring up anybody,

No medicine in the medicine cabinet,

No aspirin or paracetamol,

Nothing.

And no dentist within 20 miles from you,

No way to get there.

So you had none of the usual resources which modern people can use to combat pain.

You were just with the pain by yourself in the jungle.

It was just driving me crazy,

No way could I sleep.

What I did,

After trying to combat it in all sorts of different ways,

Your back was against the wall metaphorically,

Nothing I knew worked and I could not stand that pain a moment longer,

It was just too gross.

So what I did was,

I remember these words my teachers had told me,

Let it go.

You've heard that word thousands of times,

But how many times have you actually done it?

Let it go.

That was one of the first times I really let go.

I did it.

The result was,

I can always visualize it now because it's such an important moment in my life as a monk.

The pain vanished immediately and it was replaced by bliss.

Weird.

One moment your jaw was exploding in the fire,

Pain and agony which you couldn't do anything with.

Not in ordinary,

I've had tooth aches since,

But this was a mega tooth ache and the whole jaw was on fire and then the next moment,

There was absolutely no pain at all.

Replaced by this delectable peace and bliss.

That was really cool.

And it was really because I had let go of the mental part of the pain.

Now again,

That's a hard thing for you to do.

But you will do it and sometimes the time that you will do it is when again,

You really really used all your resources,

You tried everything and nothing works and you just can't stand it a moment longer.

Please remember that word,

Just let it go.

And then somehow or other,

Because the mind has to,

It's got no choice,

Then you do it.

It would be much easier if you could just do it right now and enjoy the bliss any old time.

But sometimes you do need extreme situations to actually do it.

That's why that 7 year old boy could do it.

Extreme pain,

Extreme discomfort,

No choice,

Even as a 7 year old,

Could have peace,

Happiness,

In spite of the pain.

So that's,

It can be done.

So when you have meditation,

Feelings of dukkhasara and regrets,

Most of that is to do with your past.

That's why we let go of the past first of all.

And any dukkha which is like fear,

Anxiety for the future,

That has to be let go of too.

You don't have to worry for the future.

You don't have to keep carrying the burdens of the past.

As I often say,

The people who assume that you learn from the past,

I've been taught that so many times,

I've tried that.

You don't learn from the past,

You learn from the present.

You learn from life as it's happening,

Not from the past.

This is where you learn right now,

What's it like just to be.

And this is where you encourage people to be present,

To let go of the past and the future.

And with letting go of the past and the future from Romania,

Just at most 99% of the suffering,

Sorrow,

Regrets all vanish.

You feel you can be free.

You know one of people say,

Well how can I let go of all of this?

One of the first reasons why people can let go,

The first ingredients,

It's a simple thing,

And you might think this is just being superficial,

But it's actually,

This is powerful.

The first thing you need to do is have permission to let go,

To know it's okay to let go.

Because a lot of people say,

I can't let go,

It's not right to let go.

I shouldn't just let go of the bad things I've done,

I can't.

Just giving a person permission,

And then you giving yourself permission to let it go,

Is so powerful.

What?

You mean I don't have to keep feeling guilty?

There was one fellow actually,

I shouldn't say his name now because he was way over in the East,

But he's recently come to Perth,

And he is quite well known,

So I better not say who he is.

Anyone wants to know after,

I'll tell you personally afterwards,

But he's well known.

He said he grew up in Sydney,

And he was playing with his friend on a pier,

By the water side somewhere,

By some bay.

He's only about 6 or 7 years of age himself.

And for a joke,

Boys playing,

He pushed his friend into the water,

Ha ha ha.

His friend drowned.

He killed his mate.

And his friend,

The family lived next door.

So this 7 year old,

You know,

Was guilty of killing his best friend,

And seeing the family who lived next door,

Every day for the next few years of his life.

And he said that just hurt him so much.

He felt guilty.

He never did well at school,

You can understand why.

Had hard time with relationships,

Until he told me personally,

One time in his life,

He just woke up this morning,

And even though the parents of the kid who died said,

It's not your fault,

We miss our son greatly,

But just the kid playing around,

It was just a bad accident.

Parents forgave him,

But he couldn't forgive himself for years,

Until one morning he woke up in the morning.

He just had like an opening,

A waking up,

I don't need to feel guilty.

And that permission meant he just totally let it go,

And started his life again.

And he became a really good person.

And it's just that moment,

I realize I can let it go.

It's okay to.

That belief that you can let go of the past,

Is one of the biggest hurdles.

And my job,

As a teacher,

As a leader,

People have faith in me,

Is actually to tell you,

You can let go.

So I give it my tick.

Of course,

That's not enough,

But it helps.

Now you have to give it your tick.

It's okay,

And then you do it.

Wow,

Now I'm free.

Regret,

Sorrow,

Is a prison,

Whose cell door is always open.

You can walk out whenever you decide,

That you deserve to.

That is the truth of the matter.

And please,

It's good to walk out of prison.

You're not helping anybody by being in there.

So please,

Let that go.

So thank you from Romania,

Very nice question.

Any comments from the people here?

Okay,

No questions,

But there will be a line of people afterwards asking their questions.

But because there are a few people here who've been here a long time,

I just wanted to let people know that there is one of our members from a long time who passed away recently,

That's Linda,

Linda Fiera.

She was over in Peru,

I think,

When she passed away.

But we've been trying to arrange a ceremony for her,

And I've been talking with her daughter Lisa.

So the ceremony will be next Saturday after the meditation,

From 4.

30 to 5.

30,

Roughly about those times.

So any of the friends,

Those people who know Linda,

She was a committee member a long time ago,

And always see her on WaySackDay whenever she's in town.

Linda Fiera,

Her commemoration service 4.

30 to 5.

30 next Saturday,

I think it's the 7th of June,

So next Saturday right here.

Okay,

I guess I only talked about that just before the meeting here,

So I don't think Lynn,

Is that okay for using the whole day?

Okay,

Very good,

I should have asked you first of all,

Sorry,

But I've already got it just before the meeting.

So try and put that on our website as well.