Day 111/365: Guided Meditation | Ajahn Brahm

Okay,

It's close to three o'clock now.

So are we ready?

Yeah,

Good.

So welcome to our Saturday afternoon meditation class.

And I have to make the announcements every Saturday afternoon,

I sit in this chair.

This is the class for the advanced,

The elite,

The closer enlightenment,

A class,

Meditators.

And for those a little bit less,

They feel welcome.

But that is we also have an introduction to meditation class,

Which is for those who are just learning the basics of meditation for the first time.

And so we have shorter meditations,

They're not so deep,

Not so complicated,

But actually all meditation should be the same,

Nice and simple.

And that class is being held in the hall,

Which is outside the front gate to the right.

And you see there's another hall there,

We call it the community hall.

And in there we have the introduction to meditation classes.

So usually that people have to know a little bit about meditation before they come in here.

And also when you do come in here as well,

Please just sign those little books or do the QR code so that everybody here is free from that terrible,

Terrible virus.

So that's the little codes or the signing the little piece of paper over there.

All kept confidentially so that you are nice and safe.

And already,

Yeah,

It's nice that instead of door sitting on the floor,

Many times people prefer to sit on the chairs.

That's why we put the chairs out for so people can have a nice comfortable place to sit.

And you do see that we have the simple plastics chairs,

But out of kindness and compassion for everybody,

We've also got the upholstered chairs.

And for those people who are really tired and tend to nod and slip about when they meditate,

We have the meditation chairs with the arm rests,

Which stops you going from backwards and forwards.

And for those of you who tend to nod forward,

We also can loan you a safety belt when you're meditating.

So that if you fall off,

Or you won't fall off,

You can't afford the insurance.

So whatever,

As long as you are comfortable when you're meditating,

Because one of the first parts of meditation is just being able to relax your body.

A simple thing,

But if you can't relax the body,

How do people feel they can ever relax their mind?

There are sometimes even many of the physical diseases and illnesses and stuff which affects our body in a stress,

Maybe go through a difficult time,

A lot of disappointments,

Tragedies or whatever,

Or no one's invited you to a New Year's Eve party.

You know that Ajahn Brahm's New Year's Eve party,

Which everyone's invited to,

If you feel lonely,

If you feel rejected,

You can always come to my party.

So I don't feel lonely on New Year's Eve.

That's over in the community hall and here on New Year's Eve from 9 o'clock till just past 12.

Many of you know that and been there before.

But anyway,

This is when you are meditating to learning how to relax the body first of all.

And by learning how to relax your body,

The two important things which you need are mindfulness and kindness,

These two amazing qualities which you build up on your own body first of all,

Before you try applying that to your mind.

You apply it to your body first of all because you're far more sensitive to your body than your mind first of all.

For many people when they start looking at their mind,

A lot of time they just start thinking.

And they're not really relaxing,

They don't know how to relax it.

But if you relax your body first of all,

When you're meditating,

Sitting still here,

Sitting on a chair,

On a cushion or wherever you happen to be sort of sitting,

You do find when the body gets really,

Really relaxed,

You get this experience of its delight.

I know that many people have aches and pains all over the place,

But sometimes when you relax your body,

Those aches and pains,

Those tensions are far less than they were when you started.

And just that gives you a lot of inspiration,

Encouragement that this is actually working,

There's something happening here.

You are learning how to make peace with your body and taking something which starts off irritating and you turn it to something which is very amazing and very peaceful.

You get a very quick reward,

You get the feedback.

And I stress that point,

I shouldn't say stress in meditation,

I emphasize that point because when you experience that,

It's starting teaching this is actually something real,

Not imagination.

And you then can start to relax your mind.

When you are pretty relaxed in the body,

It's like the body is not disturbing you anymore.

It's like all that business,

You know,

Cooking or cleaning or doing your washing,

Whatever it is you're supposed to be doing in your life,

All that is done.

Your body is nice and peaceful,

It's sitting there,

Really comfortable,

Very much at ease and it doesn't demand your attention.

It's one less problem you have to deal with and a very big problem gone.

Just the body is just sitting here,

Perfectly happy all by itself.

And that gives you the freedom to start focusing on your inner world,

On the mind inside.

And as you start focusing on the inner world of the mind,

You learn how to relax that and open it up.

Even just a few days ago,

Even though I don't go traveling,

Not this year anyway,

Next year,

But this year,

Hardly any travel to go anywhere,

But still there's so many talks on Zoom and Skype and goodness knows what else.

So I gave a talk to the London Buddhist Society just a few days ago on Zoom and it was all about opening the Lotus.

That was the title of the talk.

And of course many of you who've been on my retreats should understand what that talk means.

The simile of the Lotus,

A Lotus closed at night,

But when the sun comes up and warms the outermost petals of the Lotus,

When the light hits those outermost petals,

The Lotus opens.

And the outermost sheath of the Lotus opens first.

And if ever you go and watch,

See a Lotus pond,

And you ever see a closed Lotus and look on the outside of that closed Lotus,

It's got no color on it,

Hardly any shade to it,

And it's rough.

A lot of time it's like serrated,

Like,

You know,

Corrugated iron,

Sort of.

And it's got no fragrance.

But when that outermost petal opens up,

It reveals the next layer of petals,

Which is still quite thick,

But at least they've got some color,

And at least they've got a tiny bit of fragrance.

But it allows the warmth and the light of the sun to hit that petal of the Lotus,

And that opens up,

Allowing the next layer of petals to receive the warmth and light of the sun.

And one layer after another opens up automatically because of the warmth and light of the sun.

And in that simile,

You are that Lotus.

Sometimes,

You're all closed up,

No fragrance,

No sort of beauty,

Just like a closed up piece of corrugated iron.

But inside,

You know,

There's this incredible beauty and fragrance and profundity.

All we need to do is open up that Lotus.

And the warmth and the light of the sun stands for the warmth,

Kindness,

The light,

Mindfulness,

Those two qualities just shining on you,

Opening you up.

So we start with the warmth and light of you on your body.

And it relaxes,

Becomes really at ease and delightful.

Then you go inside to your mind.

And I always thought the simplest part of the mind you could possibly conceive of,

How peaceful are you,

How irritated,

Agitated are you?

Be mindful of that most important part.

And then,

What makes you more peaceful?

What creates peace in your life?

Especially when you're sitting down in a meditation hall like this,

What makes your mind more peaceful?

What makes it disturbed?

I'm not talking about outside,

I'm talking about inside.

Even if somebody comes in late and bangs the door,

I've often noticed this when people are on retreats and they say,

Can you please tell people in my cottage to please close the door quietly?

And I ask them,

I say,

When did they last bang the door?

It was this morning.

And that door is still sounding inside of you,

Even though it was this morning.

You see,

The main noise which disturbs us is not the noise of the traffic or the banging door,

It's the memory of it and the thinking about it.

That's the loudest noise.

Someone bangs the door,

Bang!

It's gone within a second.

Who are they?

Which one was it?

I'm going to tell Ajahn Brahm about them.

I'm going to make sure they're banned.

They need to be taught a lesson.

I'm going to sort of.

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And you can see that that's the greatest noise.

We learn a little badhita,

We learn what creates disturbance to our mind and what relaxes and creates peace in our mind.

We know those two things,

It's kindness and awareness and you find your mind starts to get very peaceful.

And often I have to mention this,

The way you start opening that lotus,

Sometimes people get tired.

They get a little bit dull and sleepy,

Which is par for the course.

The reason,

Unless you've been doing a lot of meditation,

The reason it's par for the course is because your brain is taking the opportunity to just take a bit of a break,

It's low energy.

So when the brain is low energy,

You feel a bit dull,

What do you do?

Please don't fight.

Because if you fight,

You know once,

I was giving you many of the little tricks we used to do when I was a young monk in Thailand.

One of the things,

We'd get a needle,

We'd put it between our fingers.

So if you started getting sleepy,

Ow,

It would prick you.

But of course it never worked because after a while just automatically you dropped it and just had a nice sleep.

It never worked at all.

Until,

This is my own experience,

It's just after all you just let yourself be sleepy.

And then you're kind to the sleepiness.

You don't interfere with it,

It's part of nature.

There's nothing wrong with it.

It's not against the precepts.

Five precepts,

Eight precepts,

There's no precept there at all which says thou shall not be sleepy.

If you're in a car driving me somewhere,

Please that's a precept,

Please don't be sleepy.

If you're driving in a car somewhere.

But anyway,

When you are meditating,

That sleepiness happens,

You just leave it alone.

And because you're leaving it alone,

You're not fighting it,

You're not having any negativity towards it,

I don't want to feel this way,

It's there.

You have a little bit of awareness of it,

Just leave it alone.

And you'll find that your awareness starts to increase slowly,

But it does increase.

And just by relaxing as much kindness and awareness as you can,

That sleepiness starts to disappear all by itself.

And that's the most efficient way.

After a while you realise why that's the most efficient way to overcome the dullness of the mind when you're meditating.

It is because when you're fighting the mind,

Trying to control it,

You're wasting energy.

We just notice it with kindness,

You're actually not wasting any energy at all.

And the mind's got its own source of energy,

It starts building up energy,

It starts recharging,

That after a little while you are recharged.

You can try and fight it if you wish,

But if you do,

You get tense.

I remember that so well as a young monk,

That I'd either be sleepy or be restless,

Thinking too much or hardly aware at all.

And I could never find that middle point.

It was like having a pendulum,

It was either this side or this side,

I couldn't find that wonderful middle.

So I was sleepy,

I really put forth effort,

And then you become restless.

Restless,

Calm down,

And then go sleepy.

So instead,

I let sleepiness be nice and peaceful.

And you notice your head was down,

And then it would rise up all by itself.

And the back would become strong and you have energy,

Beautiful peaceful energy,

Not restless energy.

When you don't have that restless energy,

Peaceful energy,

Wow!

It's so easy to meditate when the mind is energised,

Clear and not thinking too much.

Because what you're doing,

You're noticing,

It's like you're listening to the world rather than thinking about it.

Sometimes that's what happens when you're giving a lecture or teaching somebody something,

That I'm saying something,

But inside people's heads there's another conversation going on,

So whatever is said by the teacher doesn't go in.

And this is the teacher here,

It's not the monk or the nun.

The teacher here is life.

Your experience in meditation,

What's that teaching you?

You have to be very quiet and listening to this experience called life,

To really be here in silence and learn.

And then you start to experience some amazing stuff,

The mind sort of brightens up,

Becomes awake.

And just like I always mention,

When you do your body sort of relaxation,

The body feels so comfortable,

That it's delightful.

When the mind starts to become peaceful,

That is also delightful.

It's fun to meditate.

I think I said this last night in the talk I gave here,

That it's so delightful that you just want to meditate.

It's not as though,

Oh crikey,

I haven't meditated in a bit of my hour.

You get up in the morning,

Oh,

Just as I was supposed to meditate I'm a monk,

Oh,

In the evening I better not go to bed yet,

I'm supposed to be a monk because I meditate.

You don't do it because you're supposed to,

Or there's some rules about it,

You do it because you love it.

You like to meditate,

It's enjoyable,

Because you've developed the perception of the delight in peace.

What a beautiful thing that is.

Many,

Many,

Many people,

They have delight in so many things.

What are you doing for Christmas,

New Year?

I say,

I'm just meditating.

Ah,

Go to Margaret River,

Go to the North,

Go somewhere,

Go and do something.

Nah.

Prefer the silence of the mind.

So joyful and delightful,

You can't get enough of it.

And of course that's only scratching the surface.

As you go deeper in the middle,

As your lotus opens up,

Wow,

You wouldn't believe what's in the middle of that lotus.

It's how beautiful the flowers are,

How refined and joyful.

You go inside to the nature of your mind.

And it's incredibly,

Incredibly beautiful,

All of your minds are.

When you're free,

The body disappears,

The mind becomes peaceful and still and joyful and happy.

The inner bliss stays.

Never be afraid of those.

It might feel weird,

But don't have to worry.

It's only weird because you've never been there before.

It's a wonderful place.

The first time you came to this place,

This temple or monastery down at Serpentine,

You didn't know who was who,

Where things were.

But after a while,

Many of you have been here so many times,

It's like a home.

You know this place,

You feel safe,

So you can come and hang out.

That's like in deep meditation.

You know it so well.

It's a wonderful place to hang out in peace and stillness,

Relaxing to the max.

Okay,

So that's a little introduction.

I don't know if it made any sense,

But one of the reasons I do that introduction is to get people to come in and calm people down,

Relaxing their body and mind.

So when you start meditation,

You've already done quite a bit of calm.

So now if you'd like to sit down on your stools,

On your cushions,

On whatever you have.

And here we go,

It's a nice,

Peaceful meditation.

I got into the habit over the last few years of just doing guided beginning of meditation.

Is that okay for everybody?

Is it too much words or too little words?

Yeah,

It's okay.

Someone says,

Some says,

Okay,

But anyway.

So anyway,

Let's see what happens.

Usually I try and do about 20 minutes of guidance to get people in and the last 40 minutes,

Who would like up to you?

Sorry?

The last 20 minutes.

Can't we do it longer?

Okay.

Okay,

The last 20 minutes of just silence to let you enjoy the peace.

So here we go.

So sitting down.

That's better.

Closing the eyes.

And just feeling the body in this moment.

Saying to your body,

How are you body?

How are you doing?

No matter what type of meditation I do,

I always start with the body awareness.

Because I know if I don't relax the body at the beginning of meditation,

It will just get stiff and achy towards the end.

If I relax at the beginning,

It never gets sort of painful or achy.

You're aware of your legs.

So you're just focusing in on that part of the body.

When you take photographs,

You zoom in and focus in on a part of the scenery.

Now you're just focusing in on your own legs,

How they feel right now.

And if you want to adjust your posture,

Move your legs.

If you're sitting on a chair,

Just separate the knees or bring them together or put the feet forward or tuck them more under the chair.

Get your legs as comfortable as possible,

Pamper them at the beginning.

Care for them.

Once your legs are comfortable,

You can move your attention up to your butt.

I'm sitting on a cushion,

I'm going to make sure that that cushion is centered.

Feels okay,

So I can move up from my legs to my torso.

I usually start with the legs and butt because basically there's not too much problems down there.

When you get to your body,

People with back pain,

Injuries,

Indigestion,

All sorts of other tumors,

Cancers,

All sorts of other stuff which got thrown in that main part of the body.

So I want to make sure that I've got enough mindfulness and kindness already developed,

So it's strong enough to relax my torso.

I just can feel my back and just,

It doesn't need to be straightened up a bit.

Until it feels the best for you.

And any organs inside the body,

If there's any,

The best word I can find is just imbalance in that part of the body.

And just focus on it and give it kindness.

Because kindness takes away any tension made of fear or other causes of inflammation.

When that part of the body relaxes from your own kindness,

You find that it becomes more at ease,

You feel more peaceful.

It's the start of healing.

I've got great confidence that your body has so many ways of healing itself,

Only we don't let it happen.

We tense up.

So now I'm just going up and down my torso.

My digestive system's fine,

Tummy's nice.

Heart and lungs are just at ease.

My back is a nice posture,

Feels good.

And get up to my shoulders.

And learn how to relax them too.

Sometimes I do visualisations.

Imagine the muscles in my shoulders like a lot of strings being pulled apart,

Stretched on both sides of the spine.

Now imagine letting go of that stretching,

Not pulling anything,

Letting everything just relax and be loose.

And along with that imagination I can feel the muscles start to loosen off.

So they're not tight,

They're not tense.

Release the pulling apart of those muscles.

It feels wonderful.

I always notice the delight when the body relaxes and it gives me the simple reward to learn how to relax part of the body.

I go down my arms and elbows.

And if you have any problems in places like your elbows,

Just pause there for a while.

Give lots of kindness.

The door of my heart is open to your elbows.

I care for you.

I can feel even my elbows which are usually very wonderful,

At ease,

Even they relax a bit more.

Go to your hands,

Wrists,

Checking out everything is in a really good position.

And you go back up to your shoulders and your neck,

Making sure the head is not too far forward or not too far back,

Not leaning to the left or the right.

It's nicely balanced.

So even the neck feels comfortable.

If ever you do have a little cough or irritation in the throat,

It could be caused by hay fever or so many things.

Just be kind.

A lot of time you find that compassion,

That gentleness,

Relaxes the inner part of your neck,

The throat.

And it's comfortable.

And lastly,

To go to your face.

Instead of looking at a mirror,

We are aware of any tightness around our eyes and our mouth,

How those muscles feel right now.

And of course,

Extending from the eyes above on the forehead.

And after a little bit of trial and error,

You can learn how to relax those muscles.

Until the facial muscles are open and free.

And gone through quite quickly.

Do it slow if you wish.

Now your whole body is at ease.

You're aware of your whole body.

When I'm aware of my whole body,

Something I've left out,

I will just attend to that,

Be kind to it,

And adjust it to make it so it's really almost perfect.

And then I start to watch my whole body,

At peace,

Relaxed.

It hasn't come up yet,

But it's going to come soon.

Here it comes.

Beautiful,

Delightful feeling.

My body is at ease.

Feels good,

It's a pleasant feeling to have a body that's relaxed.

And I stay with that pleasant feeling,

I get to know that feeling so well.

I know this happens with my mind as well.

When the mind relaxes and feels at ease,

It too has this pleasure.

The pleasure of peace,

Of comfort.

You also find the pleasure of a relaxed body takes the relaxation deeper.

And then after a while,

It happens naturally,

It's like the lotus opens up.

And you become more aware of your inner world.

And just got into the habit of just checking my peace-o-meter.

Mind,

How peaceful are you?

What makes you more peaceful?

What disturbs the peace?

So always,

Same answers,

You all know that thoughts of the future,

Memories of the past,

Oh they just disturb my mind.

Outside of meditation,

I have to attend to them maybe.

But during the meditation now,

This is a time-free zone.

The past,

Spend too much time there.

And we'll learn from the present,

Not learn from the past.

What's it like just to be now?

And the future,

My old saying that now is where my future is being made.

Looking after the present is one of the best ways of looking after my future.

In silence,

I'm listening to this moment,

Not talking back at her.

Now just to add something new for today.

Now use your imagination if you wish to.

Imagine you're not in Nautama.

Imagine some beautiful retreat centre.

Even better,

Imagine you're just in this park next to a river.

You're sitting on a comfortable grass cushion under a beautiful cool tree.

Use those powers of imagination,

Of role-play.

Just imagine for a moment that that park is now called Bodh Gaya.

The river was a river niranjala.

You're sitting in the spot where the Buddha became enlightened.

You're sitting there as if you were enlightened.

Sitting there was nothing to do in the whole world.

Nothing to achieve,

Nothing left to perform.

And everything that could be done,

You're enlightened,

At peace,

Deeply contented.

All you can feel is the sound of the birds and the soft wind blowing.

Nothing is missing in your life.

Just imagine that.

Nothing needed to be done.

Just sitting,

Enjoying this moment.

The future is for solving problems.

All your problems are solved.

The past is where you learnt.

All your learning is finished.

You're free.

Free to enjoy the peace of now.

Nothing missing in your life.

Just the peace with the present.

Just enjoy experiencing the incredible silence.

Just being.

Nowhere to go.

Nothing to plan.

Nothing to gain or lose.

All the causes which might bother you have disappeared.

All there is and can never be is deep state of peace.

Enjoying this moment.

There's nothing you can do.

This is perfect.

You cannot improve upon this.

How does that feel?

For those who get into this,

Call it Buddha Anussati.

You get deeply into it.

You do get that taste of freedom.

You don't want to think.

Nothing worth thinking about.

You just enjoy the peace.

The realisation is nothing missing.

From there,

Just let the mind stay and let the peace build.

Let the energy grow and the delight,

The delight in the peaceful mind,

Take you further into meditation.

Don't you drive the bus of meditation.

Just sit in the seat and let it carry you.

When I start speaking again,

You'll be close to the end of the meditation.

You can come here in three seconds.

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Please wait for the third ringing of the gong to fade away before you open your eyes to end this meditation.

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