Day 007/365: Guided Meditation | Ajahn Brahm

And I just come back from Sri Lanka.

And when I go to Sri Lanka or maybe this other place,

I end up teaching monks how to meditate.

And because a lot of them have got some really strange instructions of how to meditate,

Using force,

Using willpower.

And once you understand how this mind works,

It becomes so clear that that willpower will only take you so far.

It will make the mind very tight,

Very stiff.

And I'm able to go into the really peaceful states.

And again,

One of the reasons for that is for so many years,

Maybe a century or so,

People have translated the Sanskrit Pali word for meditation in Somali as concentration,

When it's nothing to do with concentration.

But just that one mistake of the scholars calling something concentration,

That would imply that you have to achieve that through effort,

Through struggle,

Just like in school,

To concentrate,

It does take a lot of energy and effort.

But that's not what that word means,

It means stillness.

And once you get the idea of stillness in your head,

The meditation is about being still.

And many of you know from other religious traditions,

We have that even in Christianity,

In the Psalms it says,

Be still and know that thou art God.

There's only one place where they have some,

Seems to be a tantalising indication that they knew something about meditation in a very,

Very early part of the Abrahamic religions.

But that be still business is there in the Christian Bible,

It's also there in the Chinese version,

It's about stillness meditation.

And once you get the idea what stillness is,

It makes it quite clear that any effort,

Any doing stuff,

Even setting a goal in your meditation,

That is what stops you being still.

Any effort shakes up the mind,

It agitates it.

And if we want our mind to become still,

We have to leave it alone to become still all by itself.

The old symbol of a leaf on a tree only moves because of the wind,

When the wind disappears,

The leaf stops moving,

Eventually,

But it takes time.

So the job of a meditator is to be aware enough so you don't do anything.

That's a problem,

Because at first,

Our awareness,

Our mindfulness,

Is so sort of weak,

Basically we don't know what we're doing,

Or if we're doing anything at all,

Or what we're doing.

Simply that we're not aware of our mental processes.

So a lot of times meditation is a balance of trying to be as still as we possibly can,

But not really being still,

Enough to make the mindfulness a bit stronger.

And this is one of the things with mindfulness,

It's a huge thing in our modern world,

The last few years it's become so popular that even apparently the British parliament,

The House of Commons,

Did one minute of mindfulness,

All the MPs were silent for one minute,

Which was a struggle if you know what a politician is like,

For one minute to keeping your mouth shut,

But they managed to do that for one minute.

So that's how popular this mindfulness business has become.

But it's places like here where you learn that mindfulness has many different levels of power,

Of strength,

And most mindfulness is just so weak you can't really be aware of what's going on.

You try to be aware of what's going on but you miss far too much.

So in order to bring mindfulness to become really strong,

We understand that the cause of powerful mindfulness is stillness.

It's stillness which makes mindfulness stronger and stronger.

Just like when the sun comes up in the early morning,

You can't see very much,

That's low intensity so you can't see.

When the first dawn comes up,

You can't see colours,

It takes greater intensity of light to see the colours,

You just see silhouettes,

Black and white.

But as the sun comes up and becomes brighter,

During the day we can see more,

We can start to see colours,

As it gets brighter and brighter we can start to see more details,

As it becomes very very bright,

It's amazing what we can see.

That is like a simile for the growing of power of mindfulness.

At first it's like going out in the darkness.

Here we can see,

We don't trip over but we're not very clear what we see.

Through stillness your mindfulness gets stronger and stronger and stronger.

And as mindfulness gets stronger,

You see much more.

When it gets really strong,

You can see a huge amount.

When it gets incredibly strong,

As I say,

Even the carpet looks incredibly beautiful.

There's so much there which you can see which you normally can't.

That is just the nature of mindfulness.

Now this is why the whole process of meditation is mindfulness and stillness,

Working with each other to make the mind more and more still,

More and more powerful.

Stillness feeds mindfulness.

It makes mindfulness brighter.

When mindfulness is brighter you can see where you're doing stuff.

So that can be stopped,

Once you see it,

You can stop it and become more still,

Which means the mindfulness gets stronger,

Which means you can start to see other things you're interfering with,

You can stop that.

The mindfulness gets even stronger,

Even more subtle things you can notice,

You can stop that.

And so the mindfulness increases,

And as it increases,

That enables you,

Empowers you to become more still.

And the stillness gets stronger and stronger and stronger.

Of course,

Along with that mindfulness and that stillness,

You have to have some idea of what you're doing or why you're doing this,

And that's why I keep on giving these instructions.

Stillness,

Being perfectly still so nothing moves.

You're not doing anything,

You,

The person who thinks you're meditating,

Stop it.

You want to have the profound teachings in one of the famous manuals of meditation used in Buddhism for centuries,

The Visuddhi Magga.

There they give this really powerful little poem.

The path is but no traveller on it is seen.

Nibbāna is but no one who enters it,

Not a person.

You have to disappear.

But the first part of that,

The path of meditation is,

But no traveller on it is seen.

If you do the meditation,

There is no real path.

Meditation is lost.

No traveller,

No meditator,

No one doing the meditation.

When you don't do it,

Then the meditation happens.

When you don't do anything,

You just sit there and don't interfere.

When you are perfectly still,

Not sorry,

Not perfectly,

That's still enough,

Then the mind starts to become really mindful.

Meditation starts to happen.

And you can feel that when meditation starts to happen,

You are,

Your mindfulness starts to increase,

You can see more,

You can feel more.

You're more awake.

And the other thing with meditation,

The more powerful your mindfulness is,

The more awake you are,

The happier you are.

Because this is another strange thing,

It's like a byproduct.

I call it a byproduct at first but really it's more essential than that.

The more still you are,

The happier you are.

In other words,

Your mindfulness gets powerful.

And with that powerful mindfulness,

There's a lot more joy and happiness.

And this is why when the mindfulness is very strong,

You look at the little flower,

It is beautiful,

It's amazing.

You look at sort of even your body and it's delightful.

Whatever you look at,

Feel,

Hear,

Taste,

When you've got strong mindfulness,

It's always delightful.

It's the opposite of someone who's depressed.

That's incredibly low mindfulness.

People have been depressed,

Everything is grey,

You can't even see colours.

You can't taste anything,

Or you taste it but there's no taste there.

Even bright colours are just like pastels.

You just can't pick it up.

Your energy is so low.

And of course that's a very,

Very unpleasant state to be in.

When the mindfulness starts to increase and gets power,

Starts to get really strong because of stillness,

Then whatever you see,

You hear,

You taste,

Becomes so incredibly,

Amazingly delicious,

Fantastic.

Often say that when people go on retreats,

The food is always delicious when you're on a meditation retreat.

And if you tasted that food this afternoon,

It would be nowhere near as tasty.

The flavours would not be picked up by you because you're not so aware.

So,

The goal of this meditation is stillness.

As you go through stillness,

Your mindfulness increases in its power.

That allows you to actually sharpen up the stillness,

To make it more effective.

You start to see where you are interfering.

So you stop that and the stillness gets stronger,

More delightful.

And that allows you to overcome even more subtle ways you're interfering with the process.

You stop that and you get even more still and more happy.

And it becomes an increase of these 3 factors,

The stillness,

The happiness and the awareness,

All grow support in one another.

That is the power,

Path of meditation.

Such a simple thing when you know what it is.

Your job is to be aware and do nothing.

Easy.

Okay?

Okay,

Let's give it a try.

So,

Sitting down,

Crossing your legs,

You want to cross your legs,

Sit on a chair if you wish to.

You can lean on the,

Lean against the wall or the doors,

Whatever you are leaning against if you wish to.

But at least get your body comfortable.

When you've got your body reasonably comfortable,

Make your ball comfortable.

With your eyes closed,

You can always be far more aware of your physical sensations.

If there is a source of irritation,

That would be the physical sensation which is most prominent,

Which stands out.

Don't try and suppress that feeling.

Be aware of it as much as you can and give it kindness.

Relax it.

If you need to move,

Move.

If you need to scratch,

Scratch.

If you need to cough,

Cough.

Especially the beginning part of the meditation.

You will not disturb people that much at the beginning.

There's always other sounds,

Dogs and cars and stuff,

Which are far more disturbing.

When the most prominent feeling is dealt with,

There may be a couple of others.

Tightness somewhere,

Pulling and pushing of the muscles of the body,

Should never rush the first stage of meditation,

Of relaxing the body.

If you do,

You'll have aches and pains later,

Which will stop you getting into deep meditation.

STIR market for harmony When the body is really relaxed,

It should feel really comfortable.

I always tend to notice the delight of a relaxed body,

Certain type of pleasure which I have got to know,

Similar to what I expect people to feel when they are at the beach relaxing.

When the body is not pushed and pulled and made tense by all the activities of life,

It is cared for,

It comes to a state of comfort,

As much comfort as you can get,

And that's delightful.

When my body is comfortable and I can notice some of that delight,

Then I let my body disappear.

I do the same thing,

Exactly the same thing as my mental world to start off with.

I relax it,

It's only a superficial relaxation but it's not that bad.

So many things I have to do which keep pulling me off into the future,

Things I have to remember from the past which keep holding me back in the past.

It's like I've got these two ropes around my neck,

One pulling me to the future,

One pulling me to the past.

I untie those ropes,

The ropes to my mind,

Keeping me in the past,

Pulling me off into some future plan or fear.

I stop the coarser parts of past and future.

And I try to be aware of this amazing thing we call the present moment,

Now,

A place without mental stress,

Where nothing is pulling you or pushing you.

The past is gone,

Future not yet arrived.

This present moment you can't really judge it yet,

It's just new,

It's fresh,

Alive,

It's now.

I learn how to be aware of this present moment and to maintain it I use kindness.

Whatever I experience now,

I smile on it,

I'm kind to it,

So I know whatever I'm compassionate towards tends to stay with me.

If I give it any ill will to try and change it,

I just chase it away.

So I'm aware of this present moment,

Whether it's a bodily feeling,

A sound or whatever,

I add kindness,

The door of my heart is open to you now,

Whatever this is.

And I try not to judge this moment,

Because I know as soon as I judge it and measure it,

I have work to do,

I can make it better,

Get rid of problems,

I don't measure this moment,

I accept it fully with no judgments.

Just being here,

Opening the door of my heart,

Unconditional mindfulness.

So I'm aware of this present moment,

Whether it's a bodily feeling,

A sound or whatever,

I'm kind to it,

I'm kind to it,

I'm kind to it,

I'm kind to it,

I'm kind to it,

I'm kind to it.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Seeing how still you can make your mind.

If you leave it alone,

As there is no winds of wanting,

Then the leaf becomes still.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

So getting close to the end of the meditation now.

How did that go?

And how do you feel?

What is it like to be still?

This is meditation.

I'll now ring the gong three times.

Please listen to every sound from the gong.

And then come out for meditation at the third ringing.

Very good.

Now as usual,

Questions on meditation time.

Remember you don't always have to email these in.

People here can leave their questions on the piece of paper in the back.

Please you can come.

Well there's only one here.

Is there any questions in the box in the back?

No?

Okay.

From Sri Lanka,

Where I just speak.

When my mind calms down,

I see a bright white light and then appears a whole meditation room,

If I focus my eyes,

What is happening?

Thank you.

That's just nimittas which come up which is always really nice.

It means when you do really become still,

Then the mindfulness gets so powerful and the energy gets really strong and the way that appears inside the mind,

You see these nimittas,

These lights which come up.

It's only when your mind gets really still,

The mind,

The sixth sense,

Gets very strong.

As I always say,

Just from the time of the Greeks and the Buddhists,

They always mention that you have six senses,

Seeing,

Hearing,

Smelling,

Tasting,

Touching is suppressed.

That gets very still and the mind becomes very powerful.

All the energy goes to the mind,

That's why we call it mindfulness.

And the mindfulness is really strong,

You have happiness.

Five senses disappear and all you've got left is the mind.

That's what you usually see,

A beautiful light arises in the mind.

And that's just the nature of these things.

So here your mind has calmed down and you see a beautiful bright white light.

The light can be any colour,

It can be blues and yellows and stuff,

But white light is good.

And appears a whole meditation room,

So all that's really doing,

That was the last vision which you saw,

The meditation room.

So that is actually what you're actually seeing,

You're not seeing the real thing,

It will be just the image of it in your mind.

If you see the meditation room instead of the white light,

It means your mind's got a bit too complicated.

So if you see the whole meditation room,

Just choose one little part of that meditation room which is an image in your mind's eye,

Which looks more beautiful than anything else.

And then when you focus on the most beautiful part of that complicated image which is the meditation room,

Then you'll find that the mind will come back to a simple white light again.

That is always the best.

So the fact you see the meditation room,

It's not real meditation room,

It's the image in your mind.

This is just a sign that the mind was a little bit not calm enough.

So you did something,

Just relax,

Do absolutely nothing,

And the power of the mind gets stronger.

You just see the beautiful white light.

When you see that beautiful white light,

What do you do next?

As usual,

Absolutely nothing.

Just keep on being even more and more still and that light gets stronger and more incredibly beautiful.

You start getting into the ecstasy state.

Once you start doing this,

You really get into these jhanas and have a wonderful time.

As I mentioned to some monks on,

When was it,

Tuesday or Monday or something last week,

Telling them that it's such a great shame that you're Buddhists.

If you get into those ecstasy states as a Christian,

You become a saint.

They name churches and schools and hospitals after you.

Unfortunately as a Buddhist you realise there's more to go yet,

So you don't get any sort of names after you.

You can get St Thomas',

St Jesse's,

And other places,

St Brahms.

Because that's what some of these saints in the Middle Ages did.

They got these incredible beautiful states of mind and ecstasies and they thought that was amazing.

But anyway,

This is what happens.

This meditation is incredible when you really get into it.

It's not,

Yeah many people come here,

They meditate,

You get a bit of peace and quiet in their life to lessen their stress,

To cure their cancers,

Goodness knows what else,

That's why you come here,

But if you keep coming here,

This really blows your mind,

The sort of stuff which happens to you in meditation.

Incredible powerful lights in the mind,

The nimittas.

And there's a few things just to know about these.

Number one,

Please never get afraid.

A few people in Sri Lanka last week,

They were saying they get these beautiful lights,

They get afraid of their power and it just all falls apart.

There's nothing to be afraid of in meditation.

In fact,

Somebody often asks,

Is there any dangers at all,

Any bad side effects?

And the only bad side effects I've seen over the years,

And it's not really bad,

But the only side effects you should be careful of,

That if you meditate a lot and you get these incredible beautiful white lights and you get into these traumas,

You are quite likely to lose all your hair.

Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee.

And become monks and nuns.

It is,

That's always where you belong.

Have a great time and just,

It's not as if you're giving up anything,

Becoming a monk or a nun,

You just,

That's where you belong.

Just blissing out all day.

Not a bad lifestyle,

Is it?

That's what happens,

Because when you get these beautiful light lights,

If it's a bright white light,

You usually get a lot of happiness with it,

Really bright,

Really happy,

And you just really get ecstatic.

And I like telling people,

This is what happens,

You get afraid,

You know,

Sometimes you think,

Can any human being take so much pleasure?

And that's what it's like,

Okay,

I'm just describing personal experiences in deep meditation.

I can't take any more pleasure,

I'm going to explode.

But there's one insight I found from experience,

You can always take more.

Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee.

Are you interested?

I'm not just making this up,

Okay,

This is what happens.

So this is just a way of meditation,

Just in Buddhism for centuries.

Ever since the time of the Buddha,

Sitting down,

Becoming really still,

Mind becoming powerful,

Becoming even more still,

Seeing these beautiful lights,

Getting to incredible states of mind,

Really peaceful,

Very happy,

Very powerful,

You come out afterwards,

Can't get angry,

You can't get upset,

You're just beautifully poised.

If you want to be creative,

Your mind is really open for creativity.

That's sometimes where some of my jokes come from.

Being creative,

You have to be very creative to have a sense of humour,

To be able to see things in weird ways,

Not just being the old ways which most other people have seen,

Just to be a bit out of the box,

Because you are out of the box,

Literally way out of the box when you see these lights.

And that's where you can get creativity,

Whether it's with IT,

Whether it's with music,

Or whether it's with literature,

You see things in different ways,

And you can really create.

This is one of the side effects of getting these beautiful deep meditations,

But the bliss is one of the best.

You're really happy and that stays with you for hours or days.

That's what happens.

So,

From Sri Lanka,

Very good,

You've gone far.

So he saw the beautiful white lights and did say how long it lasted.

Find out when you come out from these,

Why,

Why did that happen?

What did you do in that meditation which got these beautiful lights up?

And you'll always find out,

You let go of something,

You were still,

You didn't try,

You didn't expect,

You didn't want it,

You didn't aim for it.

Cos all those things stop the mind being peaceful,

Aiming for something,

Striving for it,

Expecting it.

That's what agitates the mind.

You want to keep it really still and peaceful.

In this present moment,

No future,

Nothing to aim for,

You need a future to have a goal.

This is present moment,

Perfect and peaceful,

Perfectly still,

The stillness builds and builds,

Nimittas come up,

These beautiful lights carry on being still,

Even more still.

It shows you've got some really strong mindfulness there.

Just make sure the mindfulness is used so you can take that deeper.

Eventually you get into the incredible jhanas.

If you want to learn more about those,

My little book which I wrote,

Mindfulness,

Bliss and Beyond,

The handbook,

Which actually when I was in Vietnam,

I was actually told that I was considered to be a classic in Vietnam and they were giving it to all the young monks who ordained it.

When they ordained as monks,

They gave them a few books and that's one of them.

I was very proud of that,

Just letting people learn how to meditate and being like a classic standard textbook for young monks in Vietnam.

Isn't that really cool?

And you hear it here for free,

Every Saturday afternoon.

Wow!

Any questions or comments?

A few times during that I forgot where I was.

Yeah,

You never were anywhere.

So it's the same as me sometimes I wake up in the morning and literally I look around and say,

What country am I in today?

Sometimes you just don't know.

You say,

Oh yeah,

It's Malaysia today.

You don't really mind,

Sometimes I do that here.

You know,

In meditation,

You're out of the world.

You're like,

Oh yeah,

Back here in Nollamara Centre.

Don't worry about it,

You're still sort of settled in.

Your inside GPS will tell you where you are after a while.

Yes,

Richard?

Can you talk about violence and the way that you are taking it?

Yeah,

The violence,

It's all about wanting something,

Not wanting something,

Getting rid of stuff.

Basically you've got ill will,

Negativities,

Trying to get rid of something,

Anything.

It's amazing,

You have a beautiful mind state,

You want to get rid of it.

It's a bit crazy stuff because we have ill will,

We're not really happy with it,

We're afraid of it,

That's all sort of defilements.

And always wanting something,

I want something more,

I want more happiness.

This is an amazing thing when you really want happiness and you go searching for it in the world,

You only get trouble.

But when you just let things be and be perfectly still,

You have more pleasure than you can handle.

Literally,

But you can handle it,

You learn.

It's one of the trainings which we give people how to handle extreme pleasure.

I like talking like this,

You're a monk,

You're not supposed to have pleasure.

Yeah,

You want to really find out?

Yes,

You've got a question?

Ah yes,

It's got many titles,

Mindful and Spatial Unhappiness and Meditation.

The Vietnamese version has got its own title in Vietnamese,

I don't know what it is.

Yes,

There is a sutta class tomorrow for those who want to listen about some more of the Buddha's teachings.

So that's coming tomorrow,

I'm doing that tomorrow afternoon,

3 to 4.

15 or around that time.

It's the last one for the season until we have our Rains Retreat.

And that one,

I'm doing some sutras from the,

Again,

The Sanyutta Nikaya,

This time from the Satipatthana Sanyuta.

So you don't need to bring your book,

I'll just do the printouts for you.

Tomorrow afternoon,

Woohoo.

It's really nice,

This is just really good meditation weather.

Not too cold but rainy because it's useless for anything else.

Meditation is just nice.

So anyway,

We had a nice deep question there,

So eventually,

If you haven't seen any lights yet,

Don't worry about them,

Don't think,

Oh I'm hopeless,

All these people talking about lights and bliss and I just get bored out of my skull and thoughts come along and I get sleepy,

I get restless,

Yes you wait,

It comes,

Nothing to do with you,

But everything to do with when you disappear,

When the traveller disappears,

The path happens.

Woohoo.

Okay,

So let's,

I'm going to just pay respects to Buddha,

Dhamma,

Sangha.

Any other questions you can line up here to ask him.