Day 099/365: Guided Meditation | Ajahn Brahm

So welcome everybody to the ongoing class of meditation.

For those who have come to the Introduction to Meditation class,

That is being held in the room to my right with Bianca.

This is the ongoing class because in this class we assume people know a little bit about the meditation and also that they're able to sit quietly for 45 minutes,

Which is how long we sit meditation for here.

A little bit longer.

So the Introduction to Meditation class,

Which is this February's series,

Is starting today,

That is being held in the room to my right,

Or your left,

Depends on which way you're facing.

So we'll just wait for a few more minutes,

There's people,

Lots of people still coming.

.

I've got three o'clock now,

So I think we,

Oh no,

Still more people coming.

Most important thing,

Or one of the most important things is meditation.

Meditation is learning how to relax,

Just to be peaceful,

How to get stressed out,

Especially about time.

It's wonderful when you can just be,

Not worry where you're supposed to be in the next few minutes or the next half an hour,

The next hour.

Just learning how to relax in this moment.

So anyway,

I think most of those people are in now,

So I'm sure some more people will come in a few minutes.

But anyway,

Just welcome to this class of learning how just to,

And I keep on saying this to people,

Really relax the body,

Relax the mind,

The two go together.

And sometimes with the way of meditation,

Sometimes people say,

Well what's that got to do with life?

It's okay,

You're a monk,

You live in monasteries,

You don't have to work hard and struggle like we do.

That was a very quite appropriate cough because that's of course not true,

That I do work very,

Very hard.

I still recall the time when I was giving a big talk over in Singapore and people asked me that question,

Said,

What you talked about was very inspiring but you don't live in the real world.

It's okay for you to say that,

What do you know about working hard and stress?

And so I did tell people that I had in my life,

I actually just worked very hard and especially touring around and giving a series of lectures in Singapore at that time.

I got up I think about four o'clock in that morning and I listed everything I'd done that day.

And it was so much hard work,

Just one day,

And it was about ten o'clock when this question was asked of me,

Ten o'clock in the evening,

And a fellow who was listening to me just got onto the microphone afterwards where he said,

Wow,

I never realized that monks in today's world had to work so hard.

And he said,

You know,

He said,

I always wanted to be a monk one day but not now.

I lost another candidate.

But anyway,

The point is that you learn how to use these techniques,

These pieces of wisdom in order to deal with stress in life,

To deal with stress when you're sick,

To make yourself healthy,

To actually to be able to produce when you're writing books or answering emails,

All parts of life,

And the sicknesses of tensions,

Anxiety,

And worries,

And illnesses which come in your body,

All of those are so easy to deal with,

That once you learn these very simple techniques of awareness and kindness,

What I keep on calling kindfulness,

Mindfulness together with kindness,

Because you find that the awareness gives you the wisdom faculty.

Wisdom,

In other words,

You see what's going on.

You're clear,

It's not knowledge,

It's not study,

Because if you study,

You may read one of my books,

But that's how Ajahn Brahm understands these things.

It may be interesting for you,

But it's nowhere near as good as you seeing how your body and your mind works for yourself,

Which is one of the reasons why the mindfulness starts to open up wisdom for yourself,

A wisdom in this moment,

A wisdom which you can feel and see and know for yourself,

Right here,

Right now.

You don't need language for that,

Because many of the wisdoms which you have,

It's just a struggle to put it into words,

But you can feel it,

You can know it,

You can sense it,

And you don't need to struggle with the words.

That just wastes a lot of time.

So that wisdom which comes from mindfulness is one thing,

But just to know what the problems are in life,

That's not good enough,

Because we have to know how to deal with them and live with these and find out how these things work in our lives,

And that's where kindness comes up.

It's beautiful compassion,

Kindness,

Loving kindness,

Love,

Whatever you wish to call it,

And of course we don't use words precisely in any type of language.

So this is how you get a feeling for what the kindness is,

And the kindness is what relaxes everything and makes you at ease and peaceful.

So this is actually where the mindfulness and kindness come in.

We understand our body,

We understand our mind,

We know how to,

What I call relaxing it,

Make it nice and easy and peaceful.

And then we find these problems in the world tend to disappear.

Last night I was talking about anxiety people have with,

Sometimes people say,

Oh the terrible things which are going on in the world,

And then in the morning I go for my walk,

The arms around,

It's such a peaceful,

Calm,

Beautiful city in Perth this morning.

Where's the problems which I saw on the news today?

And instead you see the reality right in front of you right now.

Where is the problems gone?

So sometimes I prefer the reality of right here,

Right now with you.

Of course sometimes you are tired or you're sick or there's a difficulty or there's an argument,

But whatever is your reality right in this moment,

That's all you have,

That's all you should be dealing with,

That's all you can deal with.

And if you learn how to deal with this moment now,

Your own reality,

Then you find it's not that hard to be very peaceful,

Very simple,

And you can do amazing things with your body and with your mind.

First of all you can heal the body and make it so peaceful,

So energized,

So you can be sitting there and the body is just peaceful,

It's wonderful.

And of course I don't mind saying that in my life as a monk you've done some amazing things with the body,

Being able to get into deep meditation when I was in the middle of a fever,

A typhus fever years ago,

Being able to sort of take,

What was it,

That.

.

.

Not scrunch,

The food poisoning,

When my body was in cramps and just relax it,

About 20 minutes,

Half an hour,

And then there was no problem and after it all disappeared and gone.

All these amazing things which you can do,

Which is possible,

And it's not that sort of I was born on kryptonite and came in this world in a capsule,

You know,

I'm a human being,

I was born in London.

So this is just what's possible a person can do by being aware of their own body and also learning to work with kindness rather than with fear.

Imagine what fear does to you when you're meditating.

One of the reasons why I did when I was young go to a Zen monastery,

As a young,

A lay person,

When they used to go behind you with the stick.

You know,

I never got hit by a stick,

It was only a weekend retreat,

I never got hit and many of you know the reason why,

It's because the guy sitting next to me got hit and I wasn't sleepy all week after that,

All weekend,

So it was only a weekend retreat.

I was awakened,

Not because of great peacefulness or stillness,

I was awakened because of sheer terror.

I didn't want to be hit with that stick.

But that's meditating through fear.

What does that do to you?

That doesn't give you any peace or any freedom at all,

That's just this very tightness in the body.

So instead we meditate with kindness.

And with the kindness there's a totally different experience.

You find that you want to engage with this moment,

You don't wander off anywhere.

You know,

People say,

I would think too much,

I can't keep my mind still,

I can't keep my mind on the object.

What object are you talking about?

Can't you keep your mind in the present moment?

Right here,

Right now.

Of course you can,

Because that's all you've got,

Right here,

Right now.

Aren't you always here?

Of course you are,

But sometimes you forget you're here.

Sometimes you're fantasizing,

Dreaming.

But if you just check that fantasy,

That dream,

Whatever it is,

Is happening right now,

Then check it out.

Be here with whatever's happening.

And be kind to this moment.

Check it out.

Then you find you don't need to actually to turn off the present moment reality.

You can be with it.

One of the only reasons why people do go wandering off and get themselves all stressed out is because they have some idea of what they should be watching,

There should be some idea of who they should be,

Always trying,

As I keep on saying,

Trying to cure themselves of this bad habit or that bad habit instead of caring for themselves.

How many times have I said that a doctor's great main job is not to cure people,

But to care for people?

A nurse,

Psychologist,

Psychiatrist,

Monk or nun,

Or any good friend,

Care for people.

Don't try and cure them.

Care for yourself.

Don't try and cure yourself.

Then you find that which you thought was curing happens in a much more peaceful,

Beautiful way.

Because that care has power.

Curing is negative.

So when you start to care for somebody,

When you start to care for yourself,

Care for your body,

It relaxes.

When you start to care for your mind,

The mind wants to stay with you.

It doesn't want to go anywhere.

So that's all these years I've been a monk.

That's over 45 years now as a monk.

I got to know my mind,

My mind's got to know me.

We're best of friends.

So it's very much the case as soon as I close my eyes,

And just start meditating,

Whatever that means.

As soon as I start meditating,

That just like my mind reckon,

Hey,

You're here again.

How have you been?

Oh,

Yeah,

I've been really busy,

Been talking to people,

Just asking all these questions,

Interviews and stuff,

Always been very busy.

Ah,

Nice to see you again.

Yeah,

Let's hang out for 45 minutes.

Yeah,

Sure.

So we just chill out for 45 minutes.

It's not a case of something wanders away.

Because my mind and I like one another.

Sometimes I always wondered why it is that people are sitting here,

They've got nothing to do in the whole world.

Just sit here for 45 minutes and relax,

Chill out.

Why is it that people wander off and go to sleep?

Well,

Sleep you can understand because you're tired.

There's dream and fantasies and plans and memories which you don't need to think about at all.

We do it anyway.

It's just an escape.

We just don't like ourselves.

We haven't got this beautiful sense of kindness.

When we have that kindness and mindfulness,

The kindness,

Those two go together,

Wow.

You and your mind.

Sometimes the mind can be a bit silly,

Do stupid things.

Oh,

Okay,

I've got time.

There comes a time when you get so quiet,

You and your mind,

You're just maybe watching your breath,

Or beautiful breath,

Delightful,

Those beautiful lights come up in the mind.

I think I gave a little talk about these nimittas here a few weeks ago.

But when it comes,

These night lights come up in the mind which you get very,

Very still and the body starts to disappear,

See these beautiful lights.

You know,

One of the beautiful lights which I saw a couple of years ago,

I love telling people about my mistakes.

Because the light which I saw,

You know,

Grew very peacefully in my cave over in Serpentine,

Nice and quiet and still,

Beautiful breath,

Watching the breath come in,

The breath go out,

And the breath became just so quiet,

It vanished.

You see this beautiful light come up in my mind,

Classical part of meditation we call the nimittas.

And as this light came up in the mind,

This beautiful nimitta,

I recognized it really was a nimitta,

One single color,

More yellow than yellow,

But it had a shape to it.

It had a shape,

I know the best ones are the circles,

But this one had many different parts to it,

And as soon as I looked at it,

I recognized it straight away.

Garfield the Cat.

I've been reading too many comics in the newspapers of Garfield.

He's one of my favorite characters.

Yeah!

So I had the Garfield Nimitta.

I've never read about that in any standard meditation book,

But there it was.

So I started laughing and that was the end of my meditation,

That session.

But anyway,

I was kind to myself,

It's just you can see the causes and effects,

Where it comes from,

Why these things just come up in your mind.

You never sort of,

My mind and I never sort of argue with best of friends.

I think you can see that,

Can't you?

You hang around me,

Just my mind and I.

I don't go kicking myself or giving myself a hard time,

Because I know my mind,

It's just conditioned.

And by that we mean we know how to be with one another.

Happy together,

Which means you don't have to force the mind and you to stay together.

It's natural.

So you close your eyes.

You don't need to talk to one another.

Ever seen those beautiful relationships?

It's not because a person doesn't talk with their best friend or their lover,

Because they've had an argument.

They don't need to.

They know each other so well.

You don't need to say anything.

Just walk quietly together in harmony,

In peace,

Almost as if they were one,

Like your mind and you.

That way you have a nice peaceful time.

No thoughts,

Silence.

I love the silence.

Have you ever,

I better not go into my silence talks,

Because sometimes,

Whether it's getting up early in serpentine,

In Bodhinyana monastery,

Where I live,

Sometimes you wake up early,

You get up and it's quiet.

Nothing is moving.

No traffic sounds,

No aircraft overhead,

No wind blowing the trees,

No animals around,

No monks in bed sleeping,

Just quiet.

That's just something magical,

Really spiritual about deep silence.

So much so that I almost worship silence.

Of course you can't capture it,

You can't say anything about it.

It's just there to be loved,

To be appreciated.

You can't again photograph it.

So those are the sorts of things which you appreciate.

And with the eyes closed,

That silence just grows and grows and grows.

It gets so peaceful,

So beautiful.

In 45 minutes,

Wow,

That goes so fast.

45 minutes of deep rest and peace and silence and kindness.

Your body,

Healing,

Resting,

Your mind,

Energizing,

Peace.

What a simple thing this meditation is.

But how,

How powerful.

So that's just the introduction.

So now let's do it.

So once again,

For those people,

I'll just get off on talking like this.

Those people who have come here for the introduction to meditation class,

That is in the room to my right.

And so this is going to be the ongoing class,

45 minutes of pure relaxation,

Hopefully.

So if you'd like to get yourselves comfortable once again and close your eyes and we'll begin on a journey of quiet.

So getting yourselves in a decent position.

Closing your eyes.

I just take people through this normal process.

First of all,

Being aware of your body.

Just in one go,

First of all,

Just how does the whole body feel sitting here?

And then,

And then starting with the legs,

Asking your legs,

How are your legs?

Are you comfortable?

Such a simple thing,

Mindfulness.

Just ask a question,

You get the answer.

This is your own body.

If you even ask my question,

I'm going to ask a question now.

The middle toe of my left foot,

How are you?

I can feel her now,

My little toe,

Middle toe in the left foot.

When you ask a question,

You connect with a part of your body.

Now it's my whole legs.

How are your legs?

Are you okay?

Is there anything I can do to make your life,

Your level of comfort,

More easy,

More relaxed?

Even just saying those words relaxes my legs.

They're not just forgotten,

I care for them.

Even though they may be a long way away from my brain,

It doesn't matter,

I'm still looking after you.

So my legs relax.

I can feel relaxation happening.

Any place which is tight just releases the tension.

So my legs relax.

And then of course go up to the very top of my legs,

The buttocks,

Making sure they're relaxed.

I did pay attention to the cushion under my butt at the very beginning.

The reason I do that is because I often see people fidgeting during meditation,

Because they didn't put their butt in a good place to begin with.

And then my back.

I literally ask my back,

How do you feel?

So my awareness,

Attention goes to the whole back,

Just from the waist up to the neck.

I'm not afraid to move at this time,

To adjust,

To get the optimum position.

Because when you do move,

The feeling changes,

The feeling changing is called feedback.

And I know whether I'm more comfortable or less comfortable.

And through kindness I choose the more comfortable.

So my back is nice and easy.

There are my shoulders.

Once again,

The robes are a bit tight around my right shoulder,

So I loosen them.

And I relax my shoulders.

When you put your mindfulness to say your shoulder blades or your shoulder muscles,

Ask how are they?

And then after a while you can move this,

Move that,

There's so many different techniques,

Find out what works for you.

These days I'm just aware of my shoulder muscles and just decide to relax.

And I can feel them change,

Become more peaceful,

More at ease.

They're not being pulled apart.

There's no tension on them.

I continue relaxing them.

I look at my hands,

Make sure that they feel good.

How are your hands?

Do you want to be moved?

If so,

I'll do it.

So you get the optimum position.

I go up to my neck,

Making sure the head is well balanced on top of the neck.

Sometimes people,

They sit meditation with their head really a long way forward.

They must have a very sore neck at the end,

Or too far back,

To the left,

To the right.

Just be aware at the very beginning how your head is positioned on top of your neck.

Choose a position which feels good,

Which is relaxed,

Which is not going to cause you stress,

Physical stress.

Core balance.

Inside the neck,

Anyone who has coughs,

Allergies,

Irritations,

To be able to relax the muscles inside the throat,

Aware of them,

Relaxing them,

Finding out what causes them to be stressed,

What causes them to be released,

At ease.

Then go up to the face,

The head,

To the face especially,

Making sure the muscles around the eyes and the mouth are loose.

So I'm just asking those muscles,

How are you?

Muscles around my own eyes right now are a bit tight,

Tense.

I'm going to stay with them for a little while.

There they go,

They start to loosen off now.

The reason I relax my facial muscles is because there is that connection between the tightness in the face and the emotions which you are experiencing in your mind.

So that people can read your face and get an idea of how your emotions are.

So I relax my whole face.

So my emotional world is peaceful.

You can take longer being aware of your body or a shorter time,

It's up to you.

But there comes a time when you can't really do much more to relax the body,

So you think.

So you just take a look at it as a whole,

Just one united organism.

Your body,

From the hair of your head to the tips of your toes,

To your fingernails,

Relaxed to the max,

As much as you can.

Sitting comfortably on this seat,

You can move during the meditation if you need to,

But only if you need to.

But my body feels relaxed.

And that feeling is delightful.

The delight of physical relaxation is something which is worth noticing and indulging in,

In physical peace and the pleasure of such peace.

Because when you do feel the delightful relaxation of your own body,

You may be able to notice the relaxation go deeper.

All things in the body open up,

Become peaceful,

Allow you to heal,

Restore energies.

The body loves this.

So I stay with my delightful relaxed body for a few minutes.

And then,

When you want to go deeper,

You leave the body,

It's been looked after.

You go to your emotional world,

Your mind.

And the peace-o-meter,

How peaceful are you,

How agitated?

Like a thermometer,

A speedometer,

Take a reading,

One is very peaceful,

Ten is agitated.

How peaceful or how agitated are you right now?

And what moves that reading down?

What makes you more peaceful?

Worrying about the future is like carrying a heavy burden.

Being concerned about what you did in the past is another burden that stops you being peaceful.

Now is where your future is being made.

Now is the only reality,

Truth,

You can depend upon.

In the past you sometimes get it wrong,

Remember it,

Only 30-40%.

The future of course you get it wrong,

It hasn't happened yet.

This moment is where you can rely upon,

Just being now.

And being kind to this moment,

This is where you live,

This is your own home,

Right inside right now.

And when you relax in your own home in this moment,

You can feel on your peace-o-meter,

You're honest about this,

The number goes down,

You're getting more and more relaxed.

You also become aware of what peace is.

What does peace feel like as an experience inside?

So hard to put it in words but it's right in front of you,

Peace.

How beautiful that is,

How much freedom and ease.

You don't have to fight anything and there's nothing missing at all,

There's nothing lacking.

You're just here.

Softened at this point you can become aware of things like your breathing.

You've fulfilled the preliminary instructions,

Relaxing the body,

Bringing peace to the mind.

If you want to watch your breath go in and go out,

So easy.

Never forcing your breath,

Just watching it as if it was somebody else's breath you're watching.

And I like just adding a few ideas to my breath,

Breathing in peace.

Breathe out,

Let go.

Filling my mind with more of this thing which I know is peace.

All the decisions you have to make later,

Not now.

Now is the time to indulge in peace,

In freedom,

Relaxation.

And breathe out,

Let go.

Let go of any tiredness,

Tension,

Anything which you notice a bit long in this moment.

Let it go with the outbreath.

After a while the breath gets so peaceful.

If it does decide to disappear,

Beautiful happiness comes up.

The joy of peace,

Indulge in that joy of peace.

You get to know how it feels,

It's gorgeous.

Through that delight in your breathing,

From there these beautiful lights come up,

Enimatous.

Have a wonderful time.

I'm going to be quiet now.

If I start speaking again it will be a couple of minutes before 4.

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It's getting close to the end of this meditation period.

Right now,

How peaceful is your mind?

Can you notice the delight of that peace?

Special flavor of happiness.

This is a happiness which the Buddha said never to be afraid of.

Almost how religious,

How sanctifying,

How pure is this peaceful happiness of the mind?

And how relaxed and rested is your body,

Sitting here?

This is meditation.

Simple,

Powerful,

Full of amazing results.

In about a minute I will ring the gong.

Just get ready to come out for your meditation.

GONG There we go.

Beautiful meditation.

So at four o'clock,

Open the opportunity for some questions.

Any from overseas,

Chris?

Hi,

Nice to see you.

If anyone has any questions here,

Just please put your hand up and Chris will probably come with the mic.

Anyway,

Today from Russia,

From Spain,

From Denmark.

Dear Ajahn from Russia,

Is it possible to achieve jhana or at least a pachara samadhi by taking the awareness of peace itself as an object and just letting everything else go?

Here you can do that through the awareness of peace.

But it has to be an awareness of peace which is again so delightful.

You don't need to do anything.

The peace is gorgeous and beautiful.

And from that peace it turns into this beautiful,

Gorgeous peace.

And then of course these nimittas,

These lights will come up.

You don't do anything.

Just sitting there in this moment and the bliss gets very strong.

It comes to the stage,

You know,

After the nimittas,

You just get into the jhana.

But anyway,

Yes,

But I would say another little thing here.

You did ask is it possible to achieve jhana?

There's one little thing which I've been making a lot of in the last six months or so.

You don't achieve jhanas.

You disappear.

It's not an achievement,

It's a disappearing.

So many of the things which you take to be you vanish,

Disappear little by little.

You're not afraid because it's peaceful,

It's beautiful,

They come back again afterwards,

Unfortunately.

But when they're disappearing,

Oh,

Oh,

This is nice.

So try not to call it an achievement.

It's an achievement,

It means you want it,

You work for it,

You try to make it happen.

If it's not an achievement but a vanishing,

A disappearing,

You just sit there and allow these things to disappear and vanish by themselves.

Then all these blissful things like peace,

Real peace,

Just come up.

And you can feel it,

You know it.

It's there.

Powerful,

Deep peace.

And of course it doesn't stay like that,

It just gets even more refined,

More beautiful,

More delightful,

All the different delights of this world.

That's one of the most gorgeous ones,

Deep peace and silence.

Anyway,

From Spain.

Oh,

My nephew has Pravda Willi syndrome,

Which means he never feels full from eating.

He has constant hunger.

Could someone meditate in the state of intense hunger?

Would you recommend he meditate?

Oh,

Yeah,

Sure.

There's sometimes monks we go on fasts,

Sometimes we don't eat for days.

I used to do that a lot but it's very difficult for me to do it these days because people want to give me stuff to eat.

It's not an excuse but people need to do that.

But here people meditate but if it's actually hunger,

This is something different because if you fast for many days you don't feel hunger.

You just feel quite peaceful,

You just go past,

About four or five days I think,

You go past the feeling of just wanting to eat.

You're just very happy there.

So real hunger is,

I'm not quite sure what he's actually feeling there,

But to meditate,

Oh definitely yes,

Because the meditation just makes him so peaceful,

Doesn't need to feel hunger,

All those feelings of hunger.

Even remember I said earlier about having the typhus fever.

I know it's been right in the middle of a bout of fever,

It's almost typhoid as well,

It's a different source but very similar symptoms.

And I just did that because I was fed up with just enjoying a fever,

Always been a bit rebellious,

So I decided to meditate instead of just enduring a fever,

Just meditate,

Meditate,

Deep,

Deep,

Deep,

And soon you get into just part of the body vanishes,

Can't feel anything.

So yeah,

I'll really get into the meditation,

I think it'll be great,

And just see what happens.

Remember do the right meditation,

Not the meditation of trying to overcome the pain,

Trying to get rid of it,

Remember that's,

I said that earlier,

That's curing.

You don't try and cure things in meditation,

Be careful then.

It's a totally different attitude,

Be careful this moment.

When you're caring,

You're relaxing so much,

You're not trying to get rid of things,

Which means your will,

Tightness,

Tension,

Wanting,

Is all vanishing.

And of course great cures happen there,

But not when you want to cure things.

That's tight,

That's tension,

That's wanting.

Lastly from Denmark.

Oh,

Do you actually know I work with people all day as a doctor,

Ah wonderful.

When I'm done I feel a lot of stress has built up,

Ah,

Maybe I'm an introvert,

How do I get better at this?

Remember that when you're a doctor from Denmark,

The main thing you're supposed to do is to care for your patients.

And it's really not your patients.

Remember that old simile which I used,

And I extend this to so many different parts of my life,

That when I did marriage blessings,

Looked at the new wife,

From this day on you must not think of your husband,

Look at the husband,

From this day on you mustn't think of your wife,

You mustn't think of yourself either.

When you're married you must not think of yourself,

You must not think of your partner,

You must only think of us.

You're in it together,

You're married.

Same with doctor and patient,

It's all about us.

Doctor-patient,

Just one word.

Dachshund,

Or something,

No that's too close to some other bad word.

But you get what I mean,

Is it is a relationship you have with this person who's called your patient and you're supposed to be the doctor.

The relationship you have,

That's what you work on.

And so that you're part of them,

You're part of this amazing thing of caring for one another.

And then a lot of times that you don't get so tired.

But also remember that a lot of stress is built up.

If you feel a lot of stress is built up,

Find 10 or 15 minutes to do some meditation in your surgery.

If you haven't got,

Was it that long time ago,

A doctor,

No sorry not doctor,

A lawyer over in the United States in the time they had the death penalty.

And he was actually defending people who were accused of murder.

If he made a mistake they would get the electric chair or something.

So imagine the stress of that.

But then he decided to actually,

In his office he had a cupboard.

He took all the papers out of the cupboard,

Put them somewhere else and that became his meditation cupboard.

And his secretary would lock him in there every lunch time for half an hour.

He'd lock him in his cupboard.

And when somebody called up,

I need to speak to Mr.

Soneso,

I'm sorry he's in his cupboard.

And the secretary did that and that was understood because for two reasons.

If he was a much better lawyer in the afternoon,

Once he relaxed for half an hour,

His brain started working again properly.

And number two,

That he was a much better boss for his poor old secretary when he relaxed.

So I don't know who are your assistants in your surgery,

The doctor from Denmark,

But out of kindness for them,

Just find a cupboard somewhere and meditate for half an hour during the middle of the day.

And then when you can relax that much.

Or,

In the afternoon,

Number one,

Because you're not sort of carrying the past,

You find you can address the problems of the moment.

You're far more efficient,

A greater doctor,

And you won't go to go home so tired.

It's like you only work half a day.

You work half a day in the morning,

You work half a day in the afternoon.

But you don't ever work a whole day.

Do you understand what I mean?

Half a day in the morning,

Then you meditate at lunchtime,

You let the whole thing disappear,

And you meditate and then you only have one afternoon work.

And then when you go home,

You can let that disappear.

It's not that hard.

Because I don't know why people don't understand that you can't keep working hour after hour after hour and hour after hour without a break.

So instead you just take a break,

And you've heard me saying this so many times before,

Harvard Business School calls it an investment of time,

Half an hour of meditation.

So you're giving that half an hour up,

You're investing it in meditation.

And of course it's a really good investment,

Which meditation is.

You get your money back plus interest.

You don't just get half an hour back,

You get an hour back.

Because you're so efficient in the afternoon,

You solve problems,

Write letters,

Do things easily.

You're not so tense.

So that's work to do.

See if you can do some meditation in the middle of the day.

Or if you're a night doctor,

In the middle of the night,

Just go and find a place somewhere,

So you can be quiet and peaceful.

Imagine that in this world,

If every sort of company had a meditation room,

Every government department,

Every whatever you have.

My company has many meditation rooms.

It's called the Buddhist Society of Western Australia.

And when you can just relax and meditate for half an hour,

Just all that timeless tension can just vanish.

And afterwards you can really perform,

Really full energy,

Full power of your mind.

Really worthwhile doing.

I know that I've,

Sometimes it's nice being a monk,

Because I get to go and see all these interesting people.

I went over to the Google headquarters over in Mountain View in California.

They've got a lovely meditation room,

So I went to sit in there.

And also in Facebook,

Also just down the road from Google.

Quite a few places that I've been in their meditation rooms.

And they're allowed to go in there any time of day or night.

If they really still get tight,

Tense.

In these big companies,

Dell has meditation rooms,

Samsung has meditation rooms.

They go in there and they just chill out.

However long they need to,

They stay in there,

Meditate,

Become very peaceful.

And afterwards,

When they go to work afterwards,

They perform.

Wonderful thing to be able to do.

And it's so obvious,

Your brain needs the rest of it now and again.

And that's one of the best ways to rest.

And then you produce the goods.

Any questions from the people here?

How's the time?

Oh,

It's good.

It's almost quarter past.

No questions here,

I mean no one's going to line up after.

Of course you will,

That's not a problem.

Okay,

So I'll finish now.

Thank you from Russia,

From Spain and from Denmark.

And I know that once,

I always loved this story,

There was one person,

I know who it was.

I think it was actually many of you,

He's not here today,

Ron Mutton.

Remember Ron Mutton?

Yeah,

Anyway,

He was always,

Could never ask a question for where he was because there's always these questions from overseas first of all.

So you know what he put down?

He put like Mohammed from Iran or something.

He typed it in on his email and of course when he put Mohammed from Iran,

Of course it went number one on the list.

So if you have a question to ask,

You make up a name.

Elvis Presley from Mars or something.

I can't find my blue suede shoes or whatever it was.

So anyway,

You can do things like that because humor,

A bit of fun and games,

That's an important part of meditation.

Okay,

So now let's be serious and pay respects to Buddha,

Dhamma,

Sangha and then afterwards so we can do what we need to do.

Okay.