Day 108/365: Guided Meditation | Ajahn Brahm

Okay,

It's roughly three o'clock,

So it's time to begin.

Welcome everybody to the Saturday afternoon meditation class at our Buddhist Society of Western Australia Centre in Nollama.

And one of the aspects of meditation which often bother people is the wandering mind.

If you have a wandering mind,

Wonderful.

Is that okay,

The sound?

Okay,

Very good.

If you have a wandering mind,

It's fine.

As long as where you wander,

The mind also wanders the same place.

In other words,

That you don't try to keep your attention on a chosen object.

Whatever you're aware of right now,

That is your meditation object.

So never,

Instead of trying to control the mind,

We let things be.

And we're aware of whatever's in front of our conscious awareness right now.

And for years and years and years that I was taught,

Oh don't just let the mind do what it wants,

You just train the mind to stay with things like the breath or with the body or,

But you found out that after a while,

The mind would wander off somewhere else.

And then you bring it back again,

And then it will wander off again,

And then you bring it back again,

And it will wander off again,

And you bring it back again,

And it never stayed put.

So instead of using such force,

Instead in Buddhism we use wisdom.

Why did my mind not want to stay still?

Why did it always go here,

Go there?

And the reason was,

Is because it's like if you have a friend or have a partner,

And they come and stay with you,

Then they leave,

And then they come back again,

Then they leave again.

Why?

It's a relationship problem.

It's the way we look at our meditation objects,

Which we are supposed to be focusing on.

Instead of worrying about the object you're aware of,

Worry about how you are aware.

Are you aware with kindness,

With friendliness?

And as soon as I started developing some friendliness,

Some kindness,

Towards whatever I'm aware of right now,

Then my mind never wanted to go anywhere.

It was a friend's,

With whatever I was aware of.

Later on,

To make it much more clear,

You came across this story,

And you adapted it to be a type of meditation,

And I gave it the name,

The Emperor's Three Questions Meditation,

Simply because the story was called,

The story of the Emperor's Three Questions.

An emperor just was fed up with organized religion,

Wanted to try and find and set up his own religion.

Being an emperor,

He could do that.

In the end,

He realizes only three questions he needed to find the answers to.

When is the most important time?

Who is the most important person?

That's the most important thing to do.

And when is the most important time?

Is obviously now.

And who is the most important person?

It became the answer,

Became whoever it is right in front of you in this moment.

They become the most important person in the world for you.

And the most important thing to do is to care,

Not to cure,

Not to develop,

Not to change,

But to care for whatever is in front of you right now.

That became the Emperor's Three Questions,

And it was in a story from Leo Tolstoy,

A short storybook,

And when I read that,

It changed a lot of the way I looked at my life,

But also eventually changed the way I looked at my meditation.

When I close my eyes,

I make sure that now is the most important time,

It's the only time you have.

It's the place where your future is being made.

Everything you remember from the past,

Those memories are uncertain.

You argue about what happened because you are your friend,

You're arguing with,

You never actually remember it correctly.

It's the nature of our memory.

You only remember parts of what we experienced and not the whole.

So because of that,

The future is uncertain.

And so the past is uncertain,

So is the future,

Obviously very uncertain.

No one ever knew about the COVID pandemic and what was going to happen.

We still don't know what's going to happen next week,

What regulations are going to be released,

Relieved,

What are going to be tightened up.

That is the nature of our life.

The future is very,

Very uncertain.

So the only time we ever have is now,

In our meditation is now.

And the most important thing to be aware of,

You may hear people teaching so many different types of meditation objects,

Whether it's the breath or the body or mantras,

A group of words you say to yourself again and again and again.

But you may find it's much more powerful to actually what is in front of your mind right now,

What are you aware of in this moment?

And make that your meditation object,

Which means you can never really wander anywhere.

Whatever is in front of the mind,

You're aware of that,

Because it's the most important thing in the whole world.

So literally the problem of the wandering mind is stopped right there in its tracks.

If you think you have to be aware of one particular object,

Say you have to be aware of your breath and sometimes you're not aware of your breath,

But what are you aware of?

Are you aware of something?

Make that your meditation object,

Whatever's in front of the mind right now.

And the most important thing to do is to care.

For those of you who've been listening to me for a while now,

You know that's so different than what people call curing.

Curing means improving,

Curing means like getting rid of bad stuff and getting a mind to be this way or that way,

Whatever you imagine a beautiful good mind is.

You find that curing just creates more stress.

You're not being a friend to what you're experiencing.

If you give that beautiful kindness,

Compassion to what you're experiencing,

You care for this moment,

Whatever it is,

Then you find that this moment becomes so peaceful,

So beautiful.

The reason is,

Is because what you're aware of is the most important thing in the whole world.

You're caring for it,

Which means you have no real business at all.

There's nothing to do.

There's nothing to train.

There's no way that you can be critical of yourself,

Your abilities or inabilities.

There's no problem there at all.

There's nothing which is wrong,

Nothing to improve.

You're just caring for this moment.

If you do that,

Your mind soon becomes focused in this moment.

It becomes still,

It's happy to be here.

One of the problems with meditation is that people are tired.

They're tired because they're rushing all over the place.

Running here,

Running there,

Maybe not physically but certainly mentally and also emotionally too.

So their mind is very tired,

It's very weak when it's tired.

It's one of the reasons why people get angry and upset.

They're exhausted fighting the battles of their life.

But then we learn to be here.

This is the most important moment in the whole world.

We embrace this moment.

We're here with it.

We have nothing to do.

We're not fighting.

We're having a ceasefire as it were.

It's a metaphor.

And then your energies start to increase.

Your awareness becomes stronger.

You find that this moment is not really as bad as you imagined it was.

Becomes very peaceful.

And even if you have lots of anger or even pain in the body,

When you start this type of meditation,

Because you're caring for this moment,

You're making peace with it.

You find that the old simile of the monster who came into the Emperor's palace,

You will find that the Emperor,

Being away,

Returns and sees this big monster in the throne.

And instead of saying,

Get out monster,

Instead of trying to control the contents of his own palace,

Welcome to monster.

Thank you for visiting me.

The whole story you can see,

Some of the books which I have written and this online is a very wonderful story because what happens is every act of kindness,

The monster gets an inch smaller,

Less aggressive.

They keep on with the kindness until soon the monster is so tiny,

One more act of kindness and it vanishes away.

It's what the Buddha called an anger eating monster.

You give it anger and it gets worse.

So whatever you're experiencing in your mind,

Ache or a pain,

Give it anger,

Get out of here,

You don't belong.

You try and control it that way and you find the problem gets worse.

You're kind to it.

Mind worth the wonder?

Please,

Wonder,

Off you go.

And the connected story to that,

If you don't remember it,

It's the story of the wonderful mother here in Perth,

Had about a six year old son and one day the son threw a tantrum,

Mummy,

I don't love you anymore,

I'm leaving home.

Six year old and the mother,

Enormous emotional intelligence,

She said,

Okay darling,

I'll help you pack.

So the mother packed the kids bags for him and said,

Before you go,

You know,

Life is a long journey,

You're leaving home for the first time,

Here have some sandwiches.

So made some favorite sandwiches for the kid,

Put them in a brown paper bag,

Waved the kid off at the front door of the house.

Bye bye son,

Have a wonderful life.

I don't know if many mothers said they thought about that many times,

Good thing to do.

Six year old wants to leave home,

They feel too responsible,

But this woman had great emotional intelligence.

So she let the kid go and the kids waved a mum goodbye and then walked down the garden path to the garden gate,

Opened the gate,

Turned left or something and then went to its life,

Away from home,

Left home at six years of age.

Of course,

What happened next?

If any of you have had a child and know a six year old,

What happened next was the kid was homesick by about 100 meters down the road,

Turned around,

Came back through the gate,

Through the path,

Mother hadn't moved,

Mother knew what was going on and said,

Welcome home darling,

Did you have a wonderful time?

Instead of arguing,

Punishing,

Screaming,

Locking the kid in the room or something,

She said,

Okay,

If you want to leave,

Fine.

With lots and lots of love and kindness,

Who wants to ever leave a mother like that?

So,

Came back almost immediately.

So that's actually how we deal with our mind,

Not with trying to cure it or punish it or threaten it,

But to care for it.

You find your mother,

Your son or mother,

Your mind becomes so strong,

So peaceful,

You're not forcing it,

It likes to stay home.

In other words,

It likes to stay right here,

Right now.

You're aware of this moment,

Caring for it.

It becomes very beautiful.

There comes a time in the meditation,

When I do the guided meditation,

I bring this up as soon as possible,

What I call the delight in meditation.

And we start even right from the beginning where the body is really relaxed,

It feels delightful to be relaxed.

I mean,

I'm not just imagining this,

It really does feel pleasurable.

It's the reason,

I often say that people go to have massages or go to a hot bath or just rest in bed and just wake up in the morning so cozy.

You don't want to get up,

It's not the year,

Sleepy.

It's just so nice,

Stretched out,

Cozy,

Warm.

So,

Those sorts of delightful feelings,

This experience in meditation.

What happens if you feel that delighted,

It almost like cements you to this moment.

Of course the mind doesn't want to go anywhere,

Because it's delighted being here.

And that's only the start.

So you go deeper inside,

Often quite naturally,

You'll find that even the breath is delightful.

Just watching the breath,

Coming in,

The breath go out,

Not forced at all.

Totally natural,

You want to stay home.

Here comes the time,

The end of the meditation.

Then comes the time to me that I psych myself up,

After 45 minutes,

I've got to come out.

But then,

Often I don't want to come out,

Honestly.

Because I'm so peaceful,

So beautiful.

Enjoying the delight of stillness.

The delight of a very peaceful mind.

You don't need to force anything.

You are resting with full awareness,

Not dulled in the sleep,

But fully awake.

Enjoying every moment of being still,

Not moving,

Being silent.

Beautiful,

Pleasurable meditations,

Which create great health benefits,

Good wisdom,

Kindness.

And the insights have just come naturally,

Simply because now is the most important time.

The thing you're aware of is the most important thing in the whole world,

In this moment.

And you care for it.

It's just very simple meditation.

Basically very difficult to go wrong.

Stay in the moment,

It's much nicer than anywhere else.

Care for it,

You have a wonderful time.

So that's a little intro to the meditation.

So if you now like to,

If you're not already sitting in the meditation position,

Chair is fine.

Honor seat is fine,

Leaning against the wall is fine.

Oh you've got a couple of wall leaners.

Some places next to the wall is the most favorite spot in some of the meditation retreats or places I go to.

The first seats which get taken up are against the wall,

Simply because you can lean back and really have a wonderful time.

So anyway,

So let's get started now.

So please in your meditation postures,

We're going to meditate for about 45 minutes.

Not that long,

It's only a moment long really.

And then I will see what happens.

I'll be as usual leading the first 20 minutes or so.

And then I'll be quiet and I'll just talk towards the very end,

Two or three minutes before the end of the meditation.

At the end of the meditation I'll ring the gong three times.

There's a signal to come out for the meditation and then we'll have the question and answer time.

So,

With your eyes closed,

We do begin with a little bit of directed awareness,

Before we can totally let go.

Because to begin with,

On your body.

With your eyes closed you can get into a meditation posture,

But you can't really trust it's that comfortable,

Because you haven't looked carefully enough.

So we start with being aware of our legs.

How are your legs positioned right now?

And if you had your eyes open you'll see I fidgeted about.

I fidgeted about to get myself just in the best posture.

I know it really helps.

It helps because of two reasons.

One,

It does make sure that I don't put my legs in a position where they start to ache,

Or they fall asleep or there's pains.

And number two,

It's the general attitude of being really aware and kind.

And the feeling in this moment which is with my legs.

That's it.

If you need to adjust,

Move,

Please do so.

The thing with awareness,

It does give you feedback.

You know whether you're more comfortable or less comfortable.

You also learn about your body.

And then I move up from my legs to my butt,

Making sure it's comfortable,

Well balanced on the cushion.

When my butt is comfortable,

Then I go to my back.

Usually I like to give it a stretch at this point.

Making sure that everything is in a good position which I can maintain without having to move later on.

When my back feels comfortable,

I move to my shoulders.

Just being aware of shoulders.

Are you tense?

Are you stretched?

Once I'm aware of the feelings,

The tightness in my shoulders,

I've learned from trial and error how to release that tension.

How to not pull things,

Let things become natural,

Let things become loose.

I can feel the comfort increase.

From experience I know that now that my shoulders are loose enough,

Relaxed enough,

There will not be a problem during the meditation.

I allow my awareness to go down my arms,

Past my elbows,

To my hands.

If any place I find is some tension there or pain,

I will stop,

Pause.

I like to zoom in,

Which is like all focusing.

Zoom in on an area of irritation or pain.

As I zoom in on that little area,

I give it kindness,

Relax it.

Just like the simile of the monster in the Emperor's palace.

I don't try and get rid of it through ill will.

I soothe it with kindness.

I'm aware of my hands,

How they are configured in my lap.

I ask them,

Are you comfortable?

It's like I treat them as an independent entity.

I ask them what they want,

Never say what they should be like.

I ask them how they feel.

I adjust accordingly.

Then move the awareness back up to the shoulders and neck.

Always making sure my neck is well balanced,

My head is well balanced on top of the neck.

So there can be no stress in those neck muscles.

I also look at the throat to make sure there's no irritation there.

Being aware and being kind.

Then move to my face.

Be aware of any tight muscles around the eyes or the mouth or along the forehead.

Or signs of stress and emotional discomfort.

And I learn how to loosen those muscles.

So the muscles around the eyes are not pulled,

Not stretched,

They're loose.

Around the mouth they're also at ease.

Once my face is relaxed,

And I try to become aware of my whole body sitting here.

Having been relaxed and cared for part by part.

Now I just look at the whole body,

At ease and comfort as best possible.

It becomes similar to those times you're laying on a nice bed,

Sitting down comfortably somewhere with no tension or tightness in the body at all.

Really relaxed.

Until I can start to notice the delightful feeling of relaxation.

Feels good.

That delightful feeling I focus on,

Celebrate,

Enjoy.

When I become aware of the pleasure of relaxation,

My body relaxes even deeper.

My body feels great.

At peace,

Comfort,

Healing.

Because it's a delightful feeling,

My mind doesn't want to go anywhere.

It wants to stay with this,

It's enjoying it.

You get some insight into how the mind stops wandering.

I stay with my relaxed body for a while.

And there's a time to start going deeper inside.

I use the skillful means to imagine what I call the peace-ometer,

Or the speed-ometer,

Like the thermometer,

Which tells you,

In this case peace-ometer,

How peaceful you are right now.

Just being aware of that quality of your mind,

Called peace or disturbance.

For some it's easier to give it a number from one to ten.

One is really peaceful,

Ten is irritated.

How peaceful is your mind right now?

We're actually looking at this thing we call the mind now.

What calms your mind down?

What is the cause of peace?

What kind it is,

Present,

Long and away it is.

And silence.

Being in this moment,

And caring for this moment.

I could also say trusting it.

In this way I soon become aware of my breath,

Not choosing to watch the breath.

And the breath becomes one of the only things left moving.

It's easy to watch.

It's like watching the waves on a beach.

Just the other big waves,

Far out,

With the small little ripples,

Come out the beach,

Stop and go back again.

It's like the air coming into my body,

Going so far and receding again.

Now the empress re-quests meditation.

It comes easy.

Now is the only time you have.

Whatever you're aware of right now,

It's important.

Engage with it.

Don't judge it to get something better.

Care for this moment.

I will now be quiet.

When I start speaking again,

Maybe just a couple of minutes beforehand to wrap up the meditation.

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How is your body now?

How relaxed is it?

What does that relaxation feel like?

I will now ring the gong three times.

Please listen to every sound of the gong.

And let the third sounding of the gong open the eyes to end the meditation.

There we go.

Thank you.

Excellent.

So at the end of the meditation classes,

Because they are live streamed and it's quite a large audience,

We have the questions from first of all overseas.

Today from Los Angeles,

Netherlands,

Romania,

Germany,

London,

India and also from India.

So first of all,

Questions from LA.

Can you evaluate on emotional intelligence?

How we can distance ourselves emotionally from people?

Be careful.

Thank you.

You don't distance yourself emotionally from people you care for.

I suppose social distance yourself because of COVID.

But you don't sometimes need to be so physically close to care for others.

We do our loving kindness meditation and sometimes you can,

When you got powerful mind,

You close your eyes and wish people happiness and well-being.

We've done this,

One of the great examples is when we do meditation retreats after about nine days where we,

I encourage people,

I lead a loving kindness meditation.

And a part of that I ask people to,

If they wish,

To imagine someone who close to them,

But who aren't on the retreat,

Maybe on the other side of the world.

And just tap them with loving kindness.

Think about them because your mind is focused and peaceful and powerful.

Just think of them and just wish them all the happiness and health and well-being and joy and peace and brilliance of mind.

And then I usually just open my eyes and take a note of the time.

I let people know afterwards.

When they go home,

I ask them to give that person an email or a call or something.

And ask them what were they doing at that time of the day.

I try not to do that these days because I get bombarded with phone calls in the evening.

It worked,

It worked.

It does and it was just proving to some people that you can connect with a person very easy and send them some beautiful kindness.

And how can we distance yourself emotionally from people who care about?

Please also remember that the one of the people you care about is you.

And sometimes we do need to take a little time out to actually to recharge our own emotional batteries.

And when we're meditating,

We're caring for ourselves.

We're caring for our own spiritual life.

Not just so that we can just disappear from the people we're responsible for.

But so we can do that caring for others more powerfully afterwards.

And the classic anecdote to that is how many,

Many people have told me that maybe it's a Saturday afternoon or some evening meditation class.

Not so much a Saturday afternoon but some of the evening classes we would give in our Medaille meditation group.

And mother would just come back from work,

It was a Tuesday afternoon,

Tuesday evening.

And they were tired,

They just wanted to put their feet up,

Watch the TV or just have something to eat.

Just relax.

And the little children come up and say,

Mommy,

Are you going to meditation this evening?

No,

I'm tired.

Mommy,

You must go to meditation tonight.

I don't feel like it.

Mommy,

Go to meditation tonight.

And the people get sent to the meditation class by the children.

Why?

And because the children say,

They're only six,

Seven,

Eight years of age,

Because you're a much kinder mommy when you come back from meditation class.

The kids,

They can see it very clearly,

That you improve with your emotional intelligence and you can care for other people much better.

So sometimes we go on retreats,

Not for ourselves,

But for the sake of all the people we live with and meet.

It's our gift of recharging our spiritual energies,

Relaxing,

Resting,

Becoming wise and kind for the sake of others.

That's emotional intelligence.

You need a break as well.

Give yourself that break for others.

From the Netherlands,

Dear Ajahn,

I have meditated and watched the BSWA double talks for about four years now.

I still don't know the meaning of samadhi.

I may have experienced it,

But how will I know it?

It's a term,

Samadhi means stillness.

There's sometimes the people call it concentration.

Sometimes in the Hindu tradition,

It's almost like enlightenment.

It's quite interesting to see that those two,

That word in the Buddhist tradition,

In the Indian tradition,

Same word,

But one means something very,

Very powerful.

One means something which is an emotional feeling,

Deep,

Deep,

Deep stillness when nothing moves.

And of course,

There's so many different levels of samadhi and every time you are still,

Every time,

You know,

Even just in the world,

People haven't got a clue what meditation is.

Sometimes they're just sitting under a tree in the park and they're so content,

So happy.

If you ask them,

Is there anything else you want to know this world right now?

Is there anyone you'd rather be with right now,

Anytime,

Any place?

They say,

No,

This is just more than good enough this moment.

That sense of contentment and deep stillness,

There you find enormous joy and happiness and that's just with your eyes open out there in the world.

You close your eyes and enjoy that in deep meditation.

It gets very blissful.

So one of the signs of samadhi is stillness,

High awareness,

You're more aware than usual,

More awake than your usual state and you're more happy,

Really blissed out,

But calmly blissed out.

And I'm sure every one of us have had times when we've experienced the states like that,

But sometimes those states are just incredibly powerful,

Really still.

It's as if that experience,

I don't know if you've ever been walking in mountains,

Sometimes you go up to a peak and you think that's the summit and then you look,

There's another summit,

Which is even higher,

A little bit further on.

That's like the deep meditations,

You just get into a nice deep meditation,

This is really amazing,

This is wow.

And after each you find,

Yeah,

There's another summit,

More stillness,

More peace,

More bliss.

You keep on going.

That's what samadhi means,

It means stillness,

Very deep stillness,

Bliss,

Just contentment.

You don't need anything in the whole world.

From Romania,

Can you give the name of the blessing you have been giving at the end of your talks recently?

As a Chula Mangala Sutta,

There is a little blessing.

I just love doing it,

Because of that,

Maybe I should get a translation up on our BSW website one day.

I make all these promises and I do keep them,

But I don't say exactly which day,

It may be a long time.

It's in the chanting book,

Which chanting book?

BSW chanting book,

There we go.

And from Germany,

Why is the mind drifting away during meditation?

One of the reasons could be because you're tired.

Simple things.

You know that sometimes when I had any problems in meditation,

That I was not much energy in my life.

I wonder why?

And somebody told me,

Because I was not eating enough.

I didn't have enough fuel in my engine.

And it worked.

I had a bit more rice when I was in Thailand.

I wasn't always this size,

I was very thin when I was in Thailand.

So,

Mind drifts away.

Look at the most obvious reasons,

First of all.

Now after the obvious reasons,

Then just try something,

A little bit of patience.

Let the mind drift,

Like that child who runs away from home.

They'll come back again.

When it comes back,

It will stay with you.

If you want to drift off,

That's fine.

Please come back again afterwards.

Or,

Why not drift with your mind?

When the days when I,

Before Covid,

When I did go travelling all over the place teaching,

Sometimes some people ask me,

Do you get tired when you're travelling?

I made the perception that I don't travel anywhere.

Have you ever been on an aircraft?

You just sit down there.

I don't go anywhere,

I just sit down.

The aircraft is what does the travelling,

Not me.

Different perception.

If you go with the mind,

Then it's not wandering anymore.

And if it does keep running away from you,

Drifting,

Just be a bit kinder to your mind.

What's your relationship with the mind?

Why does it run away?

There's the simile of,

Do you have a friend?

Why don't they just love being with you?

Sometimes if your good friend rings up,

Say,

Are you free this afternoon?

Say,

Yeah!

Because they're a good friend,

You'll love being with them.

If you feel safe,

Not controlled.

If you're,

It's only a metaphor,

If your mind feels you're controlling it.

If you have a friend who tries to control you,

You don't want to be with them.

You drift off.

But if you have a friend,

A real friend,

Who never tries to control you,

They just scare for you.

They say,

Where do you want to go today?

What do you want to eat?

That type of friend which doesn't control,

But which cares,

You love being with them.

Don't wander away.

Number five over there.

Do you have advice on how can calm down social anxiety?

How do you apply mindfulness in a situation where the mind goes very fast and difficult to be in awareness?

Sometimes if your mind is going fast,

Just find a place called a toilet.

If it's the US,

This is London.

If it was from US,

They call it restroom.

I love that word,

Restroom.

So you go in there,

Not just evacuate your bowels or your bladder,

You go up there to sit and to rest.

And just to calm down,

Because it's hard to calm down in company.

People are asking you and talking to you and sometimes bumping into you.

If you go into the restroom,

You can sit down and just spend 10 minutes just sitting there.

That's why I say that if you do that at work,

You're really stressed out at work and you can't find a place to get a bit of time out,

Restroom.

And if your boss says,

Well,

You do it for 10 minutes,

You tell the truth.

You said you were constipated,

Mentally constipated.

You just need to relax a bit to let go.

And for social anxiety,

Look,

A lot of times we're so worried what other people think of us.

And this is something which I discovered that before I became a monk,

You go and see somebody,

You say,

What does she think of me?

And then later on,

I find out that when I was walking towards her,

She was thinking,

What's he thinking of me?

But totally crazy.

Instead of being afraid,

It isn't who you are.

Don't care what other people think of you.

It's not a big deal.

And that means you relax.

And when you relax,

You're not really so concerned what other people think of you in society.

You come across as the word authentic,

Real.

And the other part which I was mentioning last night,

Don't be afraid of making mistakes.

If you make a mistake,

Just laugh.

And they laugh too.

And they realize that you're not perfect,

And they're not perfect as well.

So you can be friends.

You match.

So if you're looking for someone who's perfect,

You'd be looking around the whole world and never find anybody who is the same as you,

Imperfect.

So it's great just learning just to be.

And good,

Bad,

Who knows that story.

But that's how to give it a social insight.

Don't be so concerned what other people think of you.

Spend your life trying to please other people.

Don't try and please others.

Don't try and please yourself.

Take that third option,

Pleasing us,

Like you're in it together.

And you enjoy the wonderful journey together.

Your friend makes a mistake,

Because we all make mistakes.

And we forgive it and laugh at it.

So you don't have social anxiety.

I was telling a few people recently,

I realised according to my mother,

And I got some vague memories when I was really small,

I was really,

Really shy.

I was so shy as a little kid.

I don't think I can call myself shy now.

Giving talks to so many people and messing around in the world.

But anyway,

You had social anxiety,

But when you become a monk,

It doesn't matter what people think of you.

And sometimes people think all sorts of really weird things about you.

I'm certain their choice doesn't bother me.

From India,

If a person has committed a grave crime like killing of parents or a monk,

And imprisoned for life,

What can be done to create good karma?

Well,

I don't know if the person from India who said this has done that.

But it's very unlikely to actually to be deliberately kill one's parents.

It's very,

Very unlikely.

Killing a monk,

Very unlikely.

Imprisoned for life,

Very unlikely.

If you're imprisoned for life of those three,

That's one of the easiest ones.

Depends what the prison is like.

But it's like you're being on retreat for life.

You have a cell.

Monks have cells.

You can't go anywhere.

When you're on retreat,

You can't go anywhere.

So is the prison the problem?

Or is it because you don't want to be there,

It's a problem?

And sometimes,

You know,

You find you can be happy anywhere.

You don't need to have the fields and the sunsets.

You can have your own little cell and just go inside and have all the bliss and beauty in the world inside you.

And if a person has done a terrible crime,

There's a wonderful story.

And this is again from the Buddhist suttas of this famous monk called Angulimala who killed so many people.

And fortunately he met the Buddha.

It's a big story in itself.

And the Buddha told Angulimala the beautiful saying,

Stop.

And Angulimala says,

No you stop.

The Buddha said I have stopped,

You stop.

He didn't mean like actually physically going anywhere.

Let the mind stop.

Let the mind stop running.

Stop.

When you stop,

All the purity and the peace and the power and the bliss just comes to you.

So that's one way that,

Yeah,

If you've done some terrible things,

It's in the past.

Let it go.

Forgive.

Learn and grow.

And then you can let go of everything.

And Angulimala,

He became this incredible enlightened being.

Totally enlightened,

Even though he'd done so many crimes.

Lastly from India,

Can you please advise how I and practically continue my own cultivation when I'm not meditating.

I read a book,

Selected Discourse of Vebu Sayadaw,

Which drives people to keep their mind continuously on the spot where one can feel the breath.

I find it difficult to do daily chores while maintaining awareness of the breath on the spot,

Of course.

Imagine you were driving a car and you're watching your breath here,

You have so many accidents,

Especially watching the traffic.

So for mind cultivation,

The best piece of advice was from how Ajahn Chah interpreted the Buddha,

Whatever you're doing,

Give it everything you've got.

So if you are doing your housework,

Give your housework everything you've got.

Don't be in the past with what you were doing beforehand.

Don't go planning,

What are you going to do next.

Right now is the only time you have.

Give it everything you've got.

Or just like I said with the Empress Three Questions,

To cultivate the mind,

Now is the only time you have.

The person or the duty in front of you is the most important in the whole world.

And care.

And then when it's time to meditate,

That's what you do when you meditate.

When you're time to sleep,

That's your duty.

So you don't think about meditating when you go to sleep,

You don't think of your work when you go to sleep,

You don't think of tomorrow when you lay in bed.

You give everything to sleep in.

Anything in the whole world for you.

And you care for it.

When you wake up in the morning,

You maybe make the breakfast.

If it's the only thing in the world,

You're a breakfast maker.

Give it everything you've got,

Care for it.

And when you have time to sit down quietly,

You have no breakfast,

You have no work,

You have no sleep.

This is meditation time,

You give that everything you've got.

Just one thing at a time.

It's amazing how much you get done.

Sometimes I used to say,

A busy person is not someone who has lots of work to do.

A busy person is someone who does too many things at the same time.

One thing at a time,

Do it well.

And you get more done.

Anyway,

Those are seven questions from overseas.

Thank you for those questions.

I hope I answered them to your satisfaction.

If not,

Please maybe write again and we can see what we can do next time.

But anyway,

For the people here,

Anyone here wishes to ask a question?

Are you allowed to ask questions to the audience here?

Just put your hand up and they come with the microphone.

Yes,

Over there.

We'll wait for the microphone because there will be people listening from overseas as well.

What effect does meditation have on your sleep pattern?

It depends.

First of all,

It teaches you how to sleep well.

So when you go into bed at night,

Sometimes if you find it difficult to go to sleep because of something,

It's usually because you're holding something from the past or the body's not relaxed.

So just that little bit of body sweeping,

Which we started off with.

You just get yourself as comfortable as possible in bed and you start with your legs,

Sweep up.

And that just relaxes you so much you never usually get to your face.

You're fast asleep.

There's a lady which,

As a psychiatrist or psychologist over in Sydney,

This was many years ago,

She said she started a little company,

Sleeplikeababy.

Com,

Which was doing exactly what I was saying at the beginning of this meditation.

And she said she was making a fortune because it worked.

Very simple,

I undercut her prices by giving out for free.

So that helps us sleep when we learn how to let go.

And number two,

Because we're more relaxed in our life,

We're not so worried,

We want to care for our body rather than cure it,

It becomes less need for sleep.

Because the body is not so tired,

It doesn't need that much rest.

Does that make sense to you?

Okay,

Excellent.

Yes,

Faster,

Faster,

Faster.

Yes,

She wants to ask in Thai and I'll translate.

Okay,

She was asking a question about Buddhist cosmology and reincarnation,

That if you are a very good person,

A kind person,

You meditate a lot,

And after death you get reborn in a big high heaven realm,

And then you use up all of your good karma there,

And then you have to come back being a human being again.

Human life is not such a bad life.

If you do come back as a human being from a high realm like that,

You always come back as a very good human being.

You don't use up all of your good karma.

So much of it,

There'll be plenty left over when you get reborn again.

Can you just get enlightened in the high heaven realms?

And the answer is yes.

Sometimes some of those heavenly beings,

They come,

This is in these suttas,

They come and listen to the Buddha teaching,

Or listen to,

That's what they said in the Old Suttas,

So they probably do that also with great monks or nuns today,

And they listen to the teachings and something just clicks,

And that's it,

They're enlightened.

So you're not going to lose out by getting into a heaven realm.

Okay,

I think that's probably enough for today.

Thank you for that question.

And now we can actually go and do that chanting,

The chanting book,

Yeah.

Here we go.

SABBA ROGA VINI MUTO SABBA SANTAPA VAGITO SABBA VERA MATIGANDO NIBUTO CHATOANG BHAVA SABBITI OUI WA CHANTU SABBA ROGA VINASATU MATE BAWAD WANTA RAYO SUKHIDI GAYUGOPA WA API WADANHASI LEE SINI CHANG WU TA WA CHALI NO CHATARO DAMAWATANTI AYU WANO SUKHANG BHAVA Excellent.

Okay,

Now we can bow and then finish off the session today.

Thank you.

Thank you.