Day 083/365: Guided Meditation | Ajahn Brahm

Welcome everybody to the ongoing meditation class.

For those of you who've come,

For the introduction to meditation class,

The series of four talks for people beginning the journey of meditation,

And that is being held in a room to my right.

This is the ongoing class.

Welcome everybody here today.

After about 10 or 15 minutes of introduction,

Then we'll have about a 45 minute meditation followed by some questions and answers,

If there are any questions.

The thing is with meditation,

It doesn't make the mind so peaceful and calm that usually any questions which one had before meditating doesn't seem to happen after the mind comes out of meditation.

Because the job of meditation is to calm that mind down.

Usually questions are just a symptom of a very agitated mind.

It's not as if one needs to know the answers,

But it's just a distraction,

Something to waste time.

You'll find that the nature of our mind is always to seek distractions,

To try and escape from the reality of now.

We have many different means of escaping,

Escaping into fantasy,

Escaping into planning,

Which is a big way of escaping.

We plan our future even though the plans never happen.

We just love planning.

It's a form of attempted control over the future.

Rather than letting the future evolve,

We want to work it all out.

It really is an escape from our present moment.

Of course,

The other way of escape is just falling asleep and getting into dullness.

Sometimes you wonder why people want to escape because this is your life.

This is life as it's happening right now.

This very moment is the only time you'll ever have.

You really wonder why do people throw away the present moment,

The plans,

Fantasies,

Or sleepiness when this is your life as it really happens.

One of the reasons is because,

Or two reasons.

One is because we're actually afraid of life.

We're not really quite sure what we should be doing or how we should be doing it.

Maybe we've had some pains or difficulties in life.

We'd rather just go to a place like a fantasy future where which we can control,

Or rather just go into sleep where we don't have to feel anything.

There's nothing really to challenge us.

The present moment is actually quite challenging.

It's reality.

This is it.

This is life.

The trick in meditation is if you want to get into life,

You want to be here,

We have to learn how to be kind to the moment,

To show it compassion.

Because you'll find that compassion,

Kindness,

Love,

Whichever one you wish to call it,

It's all describing the same emotion or rather the same attitude.

You find with that compassion and kindness,

Not only does it glue you to the present moment,

But it also makes the present moment look quite attractive.

It makes it look comfortable and appealing enough for us to stay there.

With compassion for this moment,

With compassion to life,

With compassion to the truth of now,

You'll find you can stay there.

That tendency of the mind to wander off into thoughts and fantasies,

Dreams,

Or sloth and torpor tend to diminish when you're enjoying yourself.

I've known many examples of my life when I should have been very tired,

When you hadn't slept and worked very,

Very hard,

But because you're enjoying yourself and you're interested in what's happening,

You don't feel any sleepiness at all.

I remember as a young man going to all night parties or all night rock concerts,

I never felt sleepy at all.

When the doors were playing,

At two o'clock or three o'clock in the morning.

You can understand,

Why wasn't I sleepy?

Because I was really enjoying it.

The same with a few people,

There's a lot of Sri Lankans in our society who will be up tonight watching the cricket because Sri Lanka apparently in the final,

The World Cup,

They won't feel tired at all.

You get them to come to a Dhamma talk on a Saturday night and they're all fast asleep probably.

It's just whether you enjoy it or not,

That's what makes things alive.

So it begs the question,

How can you enjoy the meditation?

It's really the attitude you put into it.

If you put this wonderful compassion into this moment,

It's the kindness which allows this moment to be.

When you put compassion which allows the moment to exist,

It will allow it to actually show its beauty to you.

It's only a short matter of time when this moment appears to be beautiful.

This part of our meditation techniques as taught by the Buddha from the earliest times was encouraging the development of this type of inner happiness,

The happiness of a contented mind called Piti Suka.

Piti Suka is a Pali word.

The monks know that word because we use it very often.

Those of you who have looked into the original Buddhist teachings would have come across that compound Piti Suka.

It means like happiness,

Joy,

Which is supposed to come up in the meditation.

It's supposed to be developed.

The meditation path includes the appearance of joyfulness and happiness inside.

It is when you put enough kindness and compassion into this present moment you get to feel this sense of joy and happiness.

You're just a happy being here.

Of course,

That is a very important part of the meditation.

Without that happiness and joy,

That Piti Suka which comes up in the meditation,

The mind will always have the tendency to wander somewhere else,

To do something else.

It's a happiness which is the glue which again keeps you there.

First of all,

Use compassion.

After a while,

With compassion,

It does bring up a sense of happiness and joy.

I often just,

Little teachers technique,

I look at someone and I smile at them.

They smile back.

It always happens.

It's just our nature.

If you smile at anyone,

Well maybe if you be careful,

Don't smile at a biker or a police officer,

They may not smile back.

They're trained not to.

Most people,

If you smile at them,

Will smile back.

Because you're giving compassion to someone,

They give this compassion kindness back.

They look at you in a different way.

The interaction becomes far more enjoyable.

It's the same way if you have this present moment,

Whatever you're experiencing right now,

Whatever sound,

Whatever feeling,

Whatever's happening in this moment,

If you metaphorically smile at it,

You're kind to it.

You look upon it with a sense of respect,

Love,

Whatever,

Then you'll find that the moment actually sort of smiles back at you.

It becomes more beautiful to look at.

In other words,

You're starting to develop this sense of happiness with what you're doing.

Many people in our world have somehow developed a very negative attitude towards everything.

They're always critical of this and critical of that.

I remember just going to visit my mother in London years ago.

As I was walking from her house to a Buddhist temple to give a talk,

I saw these two young men sitting on a garden wall waiting for the bus to arrive.

As I passed them,

The two young men were complaining because the garden wall wasn't flat,

It was round.

They said,

They should not make round walls,

They should make flat walls,

Make it easier for people to sit on.

That sort of attitude reminded me so much of just how negative people were in that city,

Always looking to find fault,

Always looking for what's wrong.

That type of negativity,

Always looking for what's wrong,

Means you can never be still.

You can never find any peace.

It's the opposite of compassion.

What compassion and kindness is,

You're looking at this present moment,

Yeah,

Sure there's many things wrong with it.

Sure,

It might be a bit too hot or a bit too cold,

The chairs are too high or they're too hard,

Or the person sitting next to you is making a noise or whatever else.

There's always something wrong.

But don't look at that.

Don't look at the faults.

Have this beautiful compassion.

Think,

Yeah,

I'm just going to be with this moment as it is.

I'm not going to try and make it different.

I'm not finding the faults with it and trying to fix up the faults.

I'm just trying to be here.

I do this for the rest of my day,

The rest of my life,

Always fixing things up.

Now,

This is meditation time,

Rest time,

Peace.

The only way I can find some peace is not to change this moment,

But change my attitude and just allow it to be with kindness.

So this beautiful idea of compassion and kindness towards this moment.

The dogs next door bark.

The birds make their noise.

There's a hum of the air con,

Of the,

Not the air con,

We're not that rich,

Of the fans.

There's the irritation in my throat because I've got a cough.

Whatever that is,

You can feel that,

But you don't fight it.

You just let it be.

You have this kindness,

Not fault finding.

That gives you enough stillness that very,

Very soon you develop the happiness,

The joy.

That joy you recognize as you're sitting here just in this moment,

You really are happy to be here.

When you are happy to be here,

Literally you're not faking it,

It means the mind doesn't want to fall asleep.

It's having a good time.

You're enjoying the joy of peace and stillness,

Which is what people meditate for.

So when it comes up,

Notice it and get into it,

Indulge in the joy of peace.

Imagine you're just sitting here,

You've got nothing to do.

You don't have to get any shopping,

You don't have to figure out the accounts,

You don't have to make the dinner,

You don't have to talk to people and impress them,

You don't have to do anything at all.

You're totally free.

No one is judging you,

No one is going to give you a report afterwards.

This is a time when you can be totally free to be who you are and no one is demanding anything of you at all.

There's nothing to achieve,

No one to become,

Nothing to do.

This really is rest time.

My goodness,

You all deserve it.

I know I deserve it,

So I'm going to shut up soon and rest.

When you do shut up and rest,

You can appreciate,

Ah,

This is my time.

I don't have to perform,

I don't have to do anything.

There's no plans,

Nothing to go,

Nowhere to go.

You feel this total sense of ease and freedom,

As if the prison of life,

And I talk about the prison of life because you've got so many demands,

So many things you have to do for yourself and other people.

The list just goes on and on.

You complete one task and there's two more so you have to go and rest.

Here,

There's nothing to do at all.

Forty-five minutes just to be here,

Not going anywhere.

That by itself causes an enormous amount of joy.

It's like you've been in prison and now we're free.

Free just to be,

Without any demands,

Without anybody judging us.

Please don't judge yourself.

It's not about attaining anything or getting somewhere.

It's just about being whatever you happen to be at every moment during this forty-five minutes.

The happiness of freedom.

So no constraints,

No orders,

No control freaks.

Just being in this present moment,

Compassionate to this moment,

In this beautiful sense of joy,

Just being here,

Not having to do anything.

That's what we mean by kindness to this moment and appreciating the joy which will come up with a natural course.

That joy will take you into very,

Very deep meditations.

Okay,

So that's the introduction.

All sitting down.

If you want to sort of stretch yourself before we begin,

If you're not used to sitting down so long,

Scratch,

Cough,

Whatever you need to do.

We can prepare ourselves by getting into the optimum posture before we begin.

When you're ready just close your eyes.

I will lead the first five or ten minutes and then I'll be quiet.

The first five and ten minutes are the most important.

It just gets you started and that's part of my job.

So with the eyes closed,

Experience your body.

Fully experience it.

It takes a while to build up sensitivity to the physical feelings in my body.

Sometimes I give it a full five minutes.

There are some sensations and feelings which I don't notice at first.

Only later on when they manifest do I realize that that can be a problem.

So I do something about it.

I develop awareness,

Sometimes called mindfulness,

The sensations in my own body,

Feelings of tightness or aches or irritations or pains and then I send them compassion.

Sometimes sending them compassion means moving or scratching or adjusting,

Whatever.

Out of kindness I'm settling my body down,

Attending to its needs fully,

Not being distracted.

Stay with the body,

Practicing care,

Kindness,

Attention.

You should be able to feel the body start to relax.

Many people don't realize how much tension persists in their body.

Now we release those tensions.

Feel them,

Add kindness.

We notice the feelings relax.

Open out,

Ease off.

You should be able to feel the body start to relax.

You should be able to feel the body start to relax.

You should be able to feel the body start to relax.

You should be able to feel the body start to relax.

You should be able to feel the body start to relax.

You should be able to feel the body start to relax.

You should be able to feel the body start to relax.

You should be able to feel the body start to relax.

You should be able to feel the body start to relax.

You should be able to feel the body start to relax.

You should be able to feel the body start to relax.

You should be able to feel the body start to relax.

You should be able to feel the body start to relax.

You should be able to feel the body start to relax.

You should be able to feel the body start to relax.

You should be able to feel the body start to relax.

You should be able to feel the body start to relax.

When the body is relaxed,

You go to the present moment.

We're kind to this moment until the moment becomes happy.

So I thought we can go into the breath.

We're going to go into the breath.

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Just getting very close to the end of the meditation now.

How much peace and happiness do you feel?

How much pithi sukha have you generated?

How happy are you to be here?

This is the pithi sukha,

The joy of meditation.

I will now ring the gong three times.

Please listen to every sound from the gong.

This is the third ringing of the gong.

Okay,

So meditation session.

Time for peace,

Relaxation,

Letting go,

Pithi sukha.

When you come here sometimes because everybody is sitting together,

You do get like a joint energy,

Almost like a momentum of peace comes in the room which drags everybody with it.

Sometimes it's much harder when you're sitting alone.

Sometimes you just see the presence of other people meditating peacefully around you is not there.

Nevertheless,

It's great to develop meditation at home as well as in groups like this.

That way one's skill in meditation gets more and more.

This skill in developing these beautiful,

Peaceful,

Happy states of mind will give you lots of release,

Lots of rest,

Lots of respite from the difficulties of life.

And also after the meditation is finished,

You always end up feeling refreshed and clear and bright and ready to do whatever you need to do in the world with greater efficiency and less stress.

It's a beautiful thing to do.

So are there any questions about today's meditation or any comments?

Please don't be like it's usually every Saturday afternoon.

Just no one puts their hands up for a question and as soon as we finish,

There's a whole line of people asking questions.

Some of the questions people ask me personally at the end are just really interesting and I sometimes wish you could only ask that question in public.

The question and the answer can be shared with everybody.

So for the second time,

Are there any questions about the meditation today?

Or is it the case I mentioned in the beginning,

When the minds are very peaceful and calm and you just don't feel like answering questions?

Just happy just to stay in the peaceful,

Calm state.

Okay third time.

Okay so we'll read the gong and we'll just play this flexible dhammasanga and then we can go back and do our duties.