Day 019/365: Guided Meditation | Ajahn Brahm

Okay,

Enough messing around.

They're really actually good though,

From a distance they don't like the real candles and they're just like electricity reflecting on a little wobbly thing.

Anyway,

Welcome to the,

Not the fake meditation,

The real meditation.

So welcome everybody and again this is a class,

The ongoing class for those who have meditated before because in a few minutes we'll start for a good 45 minutes,

40 minutes meditation.

If you come here for the introduction to meditation class that is going to be in the room to my right.

And I give many,

Many talks on meditation and it was just on Friday night someone came up to me,

They were visiting from New York and they were telling me that even though they just started meditation they were getting these lights coming up in their meditation.

And I very rarely talk about that in this class and I determined when I heard that just an ordinary person just beginning meditation was getting these things,

I thought,

It might be nice today to talk about some of the deeper experiences which people do experience in their meditation.

Usually I just teach you how to just relax the body and then relax the mind,

Make it nice and peaceful so you can be aware of your breathing.

If you can be aware of your breathing,

Just breathing in,

Breathing out,

I usually ask you to begin by breathing in peace,

Breathe out,

Let go.

And then eventually you start to get settled down and start to get peaceful.

And I did mention to many people that a lot of the time you don't go searching for the breathing,

It just happens by itself,

You become aware of the breath.

And the reason you become aware of your breath is because everything is being very calmed down,

Your body is relaxed,

Your mind is pretty peaceful,

So all the thoughts tend to get less and less and less.

And when you haven't got this background noise of thoughts,

You start to become aware of something as subtle and peaceful as your breathing.

So it becomes quite natural you get aware of your breath.

And today I'm going to say what happens next.

Now when I say these things,

I also want to make sure that you don't look upon these things as stages you must attain,

Something more to get,

Another goal you have to reach because that's one of the problems when you start talking about deep meditation.

People say,

Yeah,

I want that,

I'm as good as anybody else,

Therefore I'm going to get this too.

That type of mind blocks any peace in meditation.

When you want something more,

You cannot enjoy what you already have.

So first of all,

The warning,

When you.

.

.

I see these when you start hearing about these stages,

Don't want them for goodness sake.

They come by themselves or they don't come at all and you can't make them happen.

So anyway,

You're watching the breath and the breath becomes very peaceful and very delightful.

Throughout the early stages of the meditation,

I am emphasising that when your body relaxes,

It's very pleasant and delightful.

When the mind starts to become peaceful,

That's also delightful.

It's so wonderful not to have any thoughts in the mind.

The mind is peaceful and that's wonderful.

And then eventually you're watching the breath and the breath becomes delightful.

You're just watching the breath going in and going out.

Some people say,

That must be really boring.

But it's not boring at all because you start seeing much more than just an in-breath and an out-breath.

You start to see the very beginning of an in-breath,

That's one sensation.

And then for all the different sensations which makes up just a single in-breath,

You see all of that.

It's not something you try to do,

It's just something which happens.

You're sitting there and you find,

Wow,

There's so much of this breathing I've never seen before.

You really start to become very mindful,

So mindful that you see all the little different parts of the breathing.

This mindfulness,

I have been talking about this increases in its intensity.

You see more,

You feel more,

You experience more and you see little bits rather than just these holes.

The whole thing,

You see bits of breath from the beginning to the end of an in-breath.

And you can also perceive very clearly there's a space between the breaths,

Between the in-breath and the out-breath and the gap between the out-breath and the in-breath.

You see the whole lot of this.

And it's very pleasant to watch.

And as it gets more and more still,

It gets more and more pleasant,

And that leaves more and more stillness,

Your mindfulness increases until that breath becomes so calm and peaceful,

It starts to vanish and disappear.

And it's usually in that stage where you start to become aware quite naturally of these lights which come up in the mind.

When these lights start to come up in this mind,

All it really is,

Is the five external senses,

Seeing,

Hearing,

Smelling,

Taste and touch,

They are disappearing,

They're vanishing.

And in its place you've got the sixth sense called the mind.

In our Western medicine and Western psychology,

They still only have five senses.

But historically,

Even Aristotle,

Which we're supposed to have our philosophy in the West,

Coming from the Greeks,

But even Aristotle would always talk about six senses,

Included the mind as the sixth.

That has been lost.

But it's always been there in Buddhism and all other Asian philosophies.

And you can experience this,

That when the five senses start to calm down and disappear,

In the place you can see the sixth sense,

The mind.

And that's how you experience it,

It's a beautiful light.

And if your mind is complicated,

You see complicated images.

If your mind is restless,

You see those images moving around.

So when people start to see lights and images,

Quite often at first,

They're complicated ones.

They are sometimes moving.

That is a sign that your mind is not still enough yet.

So you don't do anything except just relax a bit more,

More peace,

And so those images can calm down and become more still,

More stable,

More simple.

The more simple those images are,

The more stable,

The more powerful they feel.

This is actually where we go into this realm of these nimitta experiences.

Now when they start to get very still,

Very powerful,

Then if there are any lights which you experience,

You have the experience of these lights are deeper than anything you've seen with your eyes before.

If it is a blue light,

It's a blue,

Which you've never seen in the real world,

It's more blue than blue.

It's more green than green.

You won't say it's fluorescent but just the depth of it.

You can perceive it as a blue colour or something but the experiences,

Never seen a blue so deep and so vivid before.

That's a common sign of these so-called nimittas.

And also they are very joyful,

Sometimes you get lots of peace,

Lots of happiness in these lights,

Which is also a sign.

Now when they first come up,

Usually people get a bit excited or they get afraid because they're powerful,

You've never experienced these things before.

They're just par for the course,

They happen to everybody sooner or later.

And don't get afraid,

It's a well-worn path and also don't get excited because if you get afraid or excited,

The whole thing just disappears because you know you've spoiled the peace,

The stillness,

The cause of these things happening is you're peaceful,

You're still and anything which disturbs that peacefulness,

That stillness,

Will actually disturb those beautiful lights.

So just relax and leave them alone.

And again,

Sometimes they can be very complicated,

Sometimes they'll be like scenery or people or stuff.

And if you do see the scenery or people or stuff,

That's okay,

You can enjoy that and see what happens.

It's like watching a little movie while you're meditating and it's not sort of a fantasy,

You don't make it happen,

You're very passive and it can be interesting for a while but after a while you just realise that's pretty boring,

It's not really getting you anywhere.

It's not going to be some omen for the future or anything like that,

So don't believe this is telling you something.

If you see sort of 46 flowers,

You don't buy that number in a lottery.

Actually is that lottery number 46?

I don't know lottery because I'm a monk,

So anyway,

Don't take it as some omen,

It's just the mind is playing,

That's all.

But if it is complicated,

Like scenery,

One of the tricks which you can develop which really works is you focus on the most beautiful part and that's scenery.

And I have to say sort of personal stories,

Anecdotes to actually say how this works.

I remember once seeing scenery in the first stage of these nimittas,

Breath was very peaceful,

Very joyful,

Then disappeared and so this beautiful scenery,

Rolling green hills,

Nice trees,

A little river in the valley,

All very delightful.

But to take it further,

I did notice on one of the trees,

On the tip of one of the leaves,

There was a dew drop which was sparkling in the sunshine.

And intuitively I knew that's where I had to put my attention.

So you just focus in,

Like zooming in on Google Earth,

You zoom in to the most beautiful part,

The stuff which is twinkling,

Which is sparkling,

When you zoom in to the most beautiful part,

Then that becomes the really useful lights in the mind,

Like the starlight,

Single colour,

Very bright,

Very enjoyable,

They become incredibly powerful.

And if you can develop those,

If you get one of those first of all,

I probably guarantee every one of you,

As soon as you see that,

You'll get so excited,

You'll destroy it and go back to square one again.

But nevertheless,

I warn you,

They will happen,

Beautiful light pops up in your mind,

Very powerful,

Very strong.

After a while you learn how to just be at peace with it.

So it lasts longer and longer.

So you have this beautiful light in the mind,

Beautiful light star,

A circle,

Beautiful,

Whatever colour it is,

Doesn't really matter,

And doesn't move.

If it moves,

It means that you're moving,

So just stop moving.

In my development early on,

Used to see these lovely lights in the mind and they're always moving.

And it took me a long struggle to learn how to keep these still.

And the experience which helped me enormously was when I was shaving one morning in the mirror.

And I just noticed that when my head moved,

The image in the mirror moved as well.

And just that little experience,

I realised that the reason why the light I was seeing in my mind was moving was because I,

The watcher,

Was also moving.

And all I needed to do,

Like when I was shaving,

If my hand didn't move,

Then the image of my hand didn't move in the mirror.

So I remembered that when I meditated,

The next time I had an imiter,

A light,

Which was moving,

I made sure the eye didn't move,

The thing which was watching.

When the thing which was watching stood still,

Then the light stood still.

And that gave me the opportunity to redevelop those lights,

Because when they got still,

It was like they never lost any energy,

The energy just poured into this light and got very,

Very beautiful and very strong.

And like many people I teach,

They often come up,

Oh I couldn't take it anymore,

The light in my mind was so,

So bright,

So intense,

I thought I was going to go blind.

And I know that because I had that as well and after you realise how stupid can you be,

You got your eyes closed,

You're not seeing these things with your eyes,

You're seeing it with your mind.

You just,

You experience it,

You interpret it like a light seen by the eyes.

So it can be as bright as you want and you'll never ever go blind.

You are safe.

And the other time,

I thought I was the only one who had this experience but somebody else came up to me and said they had the same experience.

Sometimes it becomes so pleasurable,

Seeing these lights.

And this one occasion,

I'm not really a boast,

But it's a nice thing to say to people,

Sometimes you experience so much pleasure just watching this light,

I thought,

No human being can take so much pleasure,

You're going to burst,

You're going to die of ecstasy,

Overload.

But the other thing which I realised,

There's no limit to the ecstasy which you can take at this stage of meditation.

So just go for it,

Don't be afraid,

It's gorgeous,

It's beautiful.

And the only reason they don't develop is if you get afraid or if you get excited,

You start to interfere.

It's a natural progression.

And to make it even more clear that you're not supposed to do anything,

Then I've already,

From the very beginning I've warned you,

You always think,

Ah,

This is the stage,

I really want this.

In all of meditation,

Especially the deeper parts of meditation,

To progress,

You never go on to the next stage of meditation.

You never move from where you are to go to the next superior stage.

In meditation,

You go in to the next stage,

You don't move at all.

It's like you're falling in,

Deeper inside at every part of the meditation practice.

So that when you have the awareness of the breath,

You don't go anywhere,

You just go deeper into that breath.

And that's where you see the whole of the breath.

You go deeper in to every part of the breath,

You don't go on to another stage,

It becomes gorgeous,

It becomes beautiful,

You go deeper into that,

And then that's where you see the light,

You go deeper into the light.

When I mention like a whole scene,

Just the most beautiful part,

Go into the most beautiful part,

Go into it,

You get a light,

Go into that light.

So you never abandon where you are to go somewhere else.

You stay where you are and just allow this natural process of going deeper in to where you already are.

That is the path of meditation.

And when I explain it like that,

It becomes clear,

You don't do anything,

Doing is what moves you from here to somewhere else.

Stay put,

Do nothing,

Be here,

And then all these things develop.

In fact,

They must develop.

The only thing which you are capable of doing is preventing it,

Stopping it,

Interfering with it,

Which is what we always do,

Interfering with the natural process.

But if you can learn how to let go,

Not interfere,

Sooner or later,

If you sit long enough,

These beautiful lights have to appear.

So when they do,

You got some indication of what they are,

What they mean and what to do next,

Or rather what not to do next.

So if you just come for the first time,

That's a lot of gobbledygook,

And sometimes you say,

Oh,

You're talking about these lights and lights,

I can't even stop thinking.

But nevertheless,

It will soon happen to you,

So this is for those of you who have been meditating a while now.

But whether you've been meditating a while or haven't been meditating a while,

We'll start from the same place,

Sitting down and calming our body down.

So now we can start the meditation,

So if you'd like to adjust yourself on your seat or whatever you're sitting on.

And close your eyes.

And with your eyes closed,

Bring awareness to your body.

You all have to start at the body level before we can go any further.

When you're aware of your body,

See if you can make it more comfortable by adjusting the posture.

Don't just sit there and endure.

The reason people fail to be able to sit long enough is because of physical pain.

And the physical pain often begins because we don't put our body in the best position to begin with.

So now is the time to move the legs.

With your eyes closed,

Fidget the bottom,

Stretch your back,

Loosen the shoulders,

Whatever you need to do.

But when you do any of those,

Just be mindful enough to know whether it helps or not.

Fidgeted my bottom,

Did it make it feel better?

Stretched my back,

How did that feel?

Cos this is a preliminary exercise in establishing mindfulness of your body.

Be aware of the feelings.

As you notice a feeling in your bottom before moving it and after.

It is how we get feedback,

Knowing if our body is more comfortable.

If you have any tight piece of clothing,

My belt is a bit tight,

I'm going to loosen it.

If you need to cough,

Scratch,

Please do so.

It can usually take a couple of minutes at least just to adjust my body by movement.

Until you get to a stage where moving the body does not make it more comfortable.

So now I go to the next stage which is a deeper relaxation.

Now having established basic mindfulness,

Allowing feedback,

I now take a part of my body which is aching,

Sore,

Painful,

Maybe sinuses if you have hay fever,

Throat if you have a cough,

A headache if you have a pain in there,

You've always got an ache or pain somewhere.

So we focus our attention just on that feeling,

Mindful of the part of the body which is irritating.

As you are mindful of that small area of your body,

See what attitude of mind relaxes that feeling and what attitude of mind makes it more tense,

Tight,

Painful.

We are not relaxing the body by movement,

We are relaxing our body through attitude of mind.

And you will find attitudes which you will later learn are called letting go,

Making peace,

Being kind.

Those attitudes of mind ease the pain.

They relax the tension like letting go of two ends of a rope.

The tightness loosens and you feel that and you associate that relaxation,

That ease with the mental attitude of letting go.

You are learning by the feedback of mindfulness how to let go and relax your own body deeply.

You feel,

You let go and notice the feeling get more comfortable.

And this should be a practice for at least 5 minutes,

Spending this time relaxing your own body deeply.

The more relaxed your body is,

The more delight it feels.

And you notice that this feels great for your physical health,

The stress in your body is being released.

You feel the awareness on the body,

Your legs are like resting on thick cotton cushions,

Like your back has been in the swimming pool just floating,

Doing nothing.

Your shoulders have been massaged.

Every muscle is open,

Nothing being held tight,

No pressure,

Until you can perceive the delight of a relaxed body.

That delight is the reason why people pay big money to go to spas.

You do it for nothing,

Just at will.

You do it for nothing.

And once the body is relaxed,

We continue the same method on our emotional world,

The world of our mind.

How relaxed is your mind?

Or is it weighed down with problems from the past and fears for the future?

See if you can be mindful of the general state of peace or agitation of your mind.

So say it's like watching an indicator,

A dial in the dash screen of your car.

You look at the numbers,

You know how hot the engine is,

How fast you're going,

How much petrol you have left.

Those figures allow you to have feedback.

You're going too fast,

You can release the pressure on the accelerator.

You can see the numbers go down,

The agitation indicator.

What do you need just to make the mind a little bit more peaceful?

And again you'll find it's the mental attitude of just letting things be.

Kindness,

Opening the door of your heart to this moment,

Non-judgment,

Letting be.

And the mindfulness gives you feedback.

And that is how we do this first relaxation of our mind.

What worked on your body also works on your mind.

Kindness and letting go.

.

.

As you calm your mind down,

One of the symptoms of the mind calming down is the thoughts get less heavy.

You don't stop calming the mind down until the thoughts get so light,

They vanish.

So keep aware of that indicator,

How agitated or how peaceful your mind is.

Keep noticing how to move that indicator deeper and deeper and deeper into peace.

Keep noticing how to move that indicator deeper and deeper into peace.

Keep noticing how to move that indicator deeper and deeper into peace.

Keep noticing how to move that indicator deeper and deeper into peace.

Keep noticing how to move that indicator deeper and deeper into peace.

Keep noticing how to move that indicator deeper and deeper into peace.

Keep noticing how to move that indicator deeper and deeper into peace.

Keep noticing how to move that indicator deeper and deeper into peace.

Keep noticing how to move that indicator deeper and deeper into peace.

Soon you may start to be aware of your breathing.

It usually comes by itself.

As you breathe in,

Breathe in peace.

As you breathe out,

Breathe out,

Let go.

Bring more peace into your body and mind.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

As you're watching the breath,

Also keep a look at that indicator,

Making sure your mind is becoming more and more peaceful.

Just like when you're driving your car,

You're looking at the traffic,

You also notice your speed.

Because as you become more peaceful,

Your mindfulness,

Your awareness gets stronger.

You can see more of your breathing.

It's not just in and out anymore.

It's beginning,

Middle,

End and all places in between.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

Let go of more control doing negativity with every out-breath.

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

How do you feel?

How peaceful is your mind?

How happy?

How relaxed is your body?

What worked and what didn't work in today's meditation?

This is how we learn.

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

Very good.

Now we have questions,

Beginning with the questions from overseas and then the questions from here in Perth.

Today from,

Question from USA,

UK and India.

Okay,

The first one from the USA.

I have narcolepsy.

It is very difficult to stay awake during meditation.

Any suggestion would be appreciated.

I've often said that any physical or neurological impairment is only part of you so never believe that the narcolepsy is permanent and it's all you have.

You have episodes of narcolepsy,

Episodes when it doesn't exist at all.

It's just the nature of the brain.

So if you find it difficult to stay awake during the meditation,

Put your mindfulness just on the state of wakefulness.

In other words,

Instead of looking so much at the peace of the body,

The relaxation,

Just how awake are we or how unawake are we?

And then you will find that you will be able to notice some of the triggers which make you sleepy and what makes you awake.

You get the feedback from noticing the sleepiness indicator in your mind.

What makes it worse,

What makes it better?

And that way you can actually catch the mind before it falls asleep and keep it awake.

The story which is not the same but similar is one of the monks who I grew up with.

I've been a monk for 41 years now,

So many of the monks I grew up with,

Especially the Americans,

Were veterans of the Vietnam War.

There was one young man who was an ex-US Marine and fighting in the jungles of Vietnam.

He was shot in the back of the head and thought he was going to die.

But he survived,

He had a pension from the US government,

He was going to pay him a thousand dollars a month because that was a big injury,

And eventually he became a monk.

But because of the wound in the back of his head,

He suffered from epileptic fits.

And he overcame them by being very aware,

Very mindful of just the state of mind prior to the full-on epileptic fit.

He could actually start to see it coming.

He could not catch it,

He knew it was going to happen and it happened.

But because of the mindfulness of that particular indicator in his brain,

He started to catch those fits earlier and earlier and earlier,

Until he could catch them so early that he could take evasive action.

Usually,

He said,

He would stop whatever he was doing,

Go into his room,

Lay down,

Turn off the lights and really relax the body.

And that was the end of his epileptic fits,

Never had them.

Unfortunately,

He died because he had a brain tumor,

Basically because of the injury later on in life.

But he'd overcome the epilepsy that way,

Through being very aware of that particular function because the epileptic fit never came from nowhere.

It grew and he started to see the signs.

And when the signs were very tiny,

But if he carried on,

It's going to lead to.

.

.

He could stop it by taking evasive action.

He knew what to do,

What made that worse,

What made it better.

So it's the same with any other mental impairment,

Impairment of the brain,

Not really the mind,

The narcolepsy.

It means that if you can catch that early and early,

See the signs,

When you really get into a very dull state,

What happened before?

What happened before that,

Which happened before it?

Catch it earlier and earlier with mindfulness awareness,

And then find out from the feedback of mindfulness what avoids it,

What makes it worse.

Anyway,

This is a great question.

I have meditated daily for five years.

It's not made any difference whatsoever.

Is it time to give up?

I think it may be time to give up the type of meditation you've been doing,

If it hasn't worked at all.

You may have,

Probably you did follow the earlier part of the meditation today,

Is you are mindful when you meditate.

Is it making any difference or is it not making a difference?

So you're aware,

Just even bodily relaxation.

Where am I sitting,

I move,

Has it made a difference?

Has it got any better?

If it hasn't made any difference at all,

Then I just am wasting my time.

When I feel my body,

You know everybody knows,

If you're just uncomfortable,

You move a little bit,

That feels better.

That feels better is what I mean by the feedback.

And you develop that,

That's a very coarse way of relaxation,

Just moving your back,

Stretching your arms.

But you go very deep inside your body,

You feel just a pain,

An ache somewhere.

And that's made a lot of difference.

I teach this to cancer groups,

Especially breast cancer,

Throughout the world.

Feel your breasts,

There's some tension there,

Some tightness,

Something which doesn't feel quite right.

You're mindful of those feelings.

Once you can be aware of those feelings,

You can actually start to relax.

It's a pretty gross word,

Relax.

It's much more refined than that,

Just to make it easy,

Release the tightness,

Release the tension,

Just make that feeling so soft and peaceful,

It just vanishes.

You have just avoided a tumour,

Just by simple relaxation of the body.

And people do that with all parts of their health.

So even just with your body in UK,

Learn how to relax the body through mindfulness and this beautiful letting go.

And you find it obviously makes a difference.

So I think you'll be maybe,

I'm not sure what type of meditation you'll be doing in UK,

Or if you've really been following the instructions and notice the effect it has on you,

Do it on your body first of all,

But with your confidence this actually works.

You feel incredibly relaxed.

People have insomnia,

You're teaching this to them as well,

So that when they go to bed at night they can't relax.

Where is it tight,

Where is it tense?

Put your awareness on that,

Mindful on that and just relax the whole thing.

And then you get the feedback,

The body feels more at ease,

More comfortable and soon you just relax.

And so you go to sleep.

So it's time to give up the type of meditation you've been doing.

Go back to basics because if it works on your body,

Make it work on your body first of all,

And then apply exactly the same thing to your mental world and you find it works incredibly well.

For all the people who actually do meditation,

You have to do it for the whole body,

For the whole body else.

So if it's not working for you,

Just check on what you've been doing.

Is it really meditation or not you've been doing?

And lastly from India,

With my migraines sometimes I'm able to continue with my breath meditation.

Peace teaches compassion meditation.

It's breath meditation,

Compassion meditation,

We pass on the meditation,

Samptha meditation,

There's only one type of meditation that's just making the mind peaceful and alert.

These are just different words for the same thing.

And going back to Adam in the UK,

That sometimes I use a trick on my students,

Sometimes,

Not so much these days,

I'm far too honest to do tricks anymore,

Sometimes I start them off with breath meditation.

If that didn't work with breath meditation,

I taught them the meditation called Anupana Sati.

And if that didn't work,

Then I teach them letting go meditation.

And if that didn't work,

I teach them compassion meditation.

If that didn't work,

I teach them metta meditation.

It's all the same things,

But give it a different name,

Think,

Oh yeah,

This is much better.

But you just repackage it and it's the same old thing again.

And so you have migraines and it's recently,

Just the last range retreat at Jhana Grove.

I do allow 12 people to do the whole three months range retreat at Jhana Grove.

And this last year there was,

Maybe listening this evening,

This afternoon,

This Italian theoretical physicist.

And because I was a theoretical physicist,

I was very interested in inviting him to come over for the three months range retreat.

And he had all sorts of migraines and very sensitive to even fluorescent lights and he thought he would not be able to stay for the three months.

His meditation didn't have a migraine,

No problems at all for the whole three months,

Even in fluorescent light.

So you can overcome these problems.

But don't do breath meditation from India.

Don't do compassion meditation,

Don't do letting go meditation.

It's the doing of it which creates the migraines.

It's a force.

Be aware when you sit down of your head,

Especially.

Make sure you're obviously covering all the boxes,

You're eating well,

Resting well,

As much as you can,

Drinking enough water,

Check your diet,

All those sorts of check boxes first of all,

Which I'm sure you probably do from India.

And next,

When you're sitting down there,

Be aware of your migraine,

What makes it worse and what makes it less worse.

Put your mindfulness not under breath and try to force the migraine away.

That's just too aggressive.

Be aware of that feeling in your head.

Be aware as you possibly can.

It may be a bit courageous because it hurts like hell and you're just so fed up with it after so many years.

Put your mindfulness totally on that.

That's the compassion part,

Open the door of your heart to it and just also the compassion part,

Just let it be,

Be kind to it.

Let it live,

Don't try and kill it.

And you find out that if you have that type of attitude,

The feeling,

The pain,

The intensity gets less.

That is the trick,

You get the feedback,

You're learning.

If I'm worried about it,

Try to get rid of it,

I feed it.

It gets worse.

Now let it be,

Let it go,

Relax.

It gets a tiny bit less.

That's all you really need,

A tiny bit less to give you that encouragement.

You're going in the correct direction.

And that's with a bit more practice,

You learn how to let it go deeper,

Longer and you find the pain,

The tension gets less and less.

And so it's not there at all,

It goes.

So it is amenable to meditation with migraines,

With everything else.

And also of course many migraines come from this,

The stress of one's life,

One doesn't know how just to perform to a higher level without stress.

And many of you have seen this before,

Quickly one,

This is for the fellow from India.

Probably it's the stress-related migraines,

How heavy is the cup,

The longer you hold it the heavier it feels,

If you keep on holding this until you're in pain,

You're very stupid.

When it starts to get heavy,

You can feel,

Mind-blows heavy,

Put it down,

Relax.

Let go,

Take a break from your work,

Go to the toilet,

Sit in a cubicle and lock the door for ten minutes,

Whatever it is,

Any place you can escape,

Just to relax.

And learn how to relax properly.

If you can't relax through meditation,

Get some really calming music on your smartphone or whatever,

Listen to it,

Just relax to the max,

Take your mind off the work,

Live in the present moment for ten minutes.

You pick it up afterwards,

It's light.

You can carry this without any pain for another don't know how many hours.

That's your work.

You get more work done in less time of higher quality when you use your brain wisely.

So the reason why people get migraines and stress,

They keep pushing,

Pushing,

Pushing past the limit.

They should just take ten minutes off instead of pushing.

But they've got deadlines,

Exactly.

That's why you need to relax and become more productive.

Like this old story,

This guy made a wonderful comment,

He said he meditates one hour every day except when he's busy.

When he's busy he meditates two hours a day.

So wonderful sort of counterintuitive statement.

One hour every day,

When he's busy he needs to be more efficient.

So that's why he meditates more,

To get more work done in less time.

It's a brilliant saying.

So that's with migraines,

A lot of times migraines and other sicknesses these days.

Stress related and it's unnecessary.

You can still perform to a very high level and get more work done in less time with no stress.

I know this sounds like a magic bullet and it's too good to be true,

But it is true,

It works.

It's taught in Harvard Business School now,

It comes from me.

Even the current state,

So the state representative for Perth,

Evangeline Angelino,

Something like that.

I went to a function and she gave a speech,

You know in her speech what she did?

She said,

I heard a wise man say,

And she picked up a grass,

That stress is about holding your grass for too long.

It was really funny,

My story,

I was sitting in the audience and hearing somebody else say it.

It gets around,

I'm very happy it gets around.

That's how we deal with stress and maybe that's one of the keys to overcoming the migraine.

So hopefully I've answered those questions from overseas,

From the USA,

UK and India.

Is there any questions from anyone in the audience here today?

From Perth,

Yeah.

What's the last few minutes of meditation?

Oh,

Flashes,

Yeah.

This is sometimes when the lights first come up,

They appear as flashes for you because you just interfere.

Sometimes you don't see that,

It's just almost automatic.

It's a very strong experience,

A wow or fear,

Those are the two usual responses.

This means that the lights can't be stable,

They come out and they run away again.

And unfortunately we do have a time limit here because we have to ring the bell so people can go home.

But when you're at your own home,

When you're meditating,

No bells.

Keep no bell silence,

No bells and you may,

If you're lucky,

Win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Sorry,

Those terrible jokes.

But that's my nature.

So I hate bells as well.

If I had the choice,

I wouldn't have rang the bell this afternoon,

But it's my job,

I have to.

Rather just let's go on,

Let's continue on,

Because I'm having some nice meditation.

But sometimes people can't wait for the bell to be rang.

You know when I was young,

I used to go to these classes like you,

I thought of getting like a slingshot with some peace so I could actually aim for the bell and go Bong!

When I wanted it.

Or creeping up when the teacher was there,

When they're not noticed,

And grabbing this thing and banging it myself,

I had enough.

And other times you had the bell,

You really like you were saying,

Some nice meditation,

Why did he ring the bell?

So if you can,

When you do meditation by yourself,

No bells,

If it's only five minutes,

That's all you need,

And that's all you can do,

Great,

Five minutes,

If it's five hours,

That'll be five hours.

Just be natural,

Don't even look at the clock.

Which means that the mind knows,

The body knows how long it wants to meditate,

Sometimes it's short,

Sometimes it's long,

Just go for it.

Just enjoy,

Keep it natural.

It's like sleeping sometimes,

Sometimes people go to sleep,

An hour,

Two hours,

You feel,

Wow,

This is weird,

But I feel awake now.

Sometimes you've had a busy day or some sickness,

You've got to sleep a long time.

Just keep it natural,

Don't think,

Oh,

I sleep six hours a night,

Or seven hours a night,

Or four hours a night,

Because it's not like that,

Maybe on average,

But sometimes you need less,

Sometimes you need more,

It's just the way of the body,

Meditation,

Keep it natural.

But yeah,

Those lights do flash up first of all,

I just nickname them the firework nimittas,

Flash,

Like you see these nights,

Christmas,

There's always fireworks around somewhere,

And so firework nimittas,

And they're good fun,

But after a while they tend to stop and just become stable,

Just one light comes up and stays,

And that's really cool.

Very good.

Any other questions,

Comments before we finish off?

Okay,

Let's finish off now then,

If you have any more personal questions,

I'm very happy to receive them.