Day 347/365: Guided Meditation | Ajahn Brahm

Welcome everybody to the ongoing experts meditation class.

As opposed to the beginners class in the room next door.

So if again you are coming for the beginners class in meditation series of four lectures about how to start meditation,

That is in the room to my right.

This is the ongoing class which we carry on every Saturday afternoon from 3 to 4,

4.

15.

And on this class if you've been here before,

We do meditate a little bit longer,

Which means that if you're not used to sitting for 45 minutes,

That we could get prosecuted by the Human Rights Commission for cruel and inhuman torture by putting you in a stress position for such a long time.

That is what they're used to doing in Guantanamo Bay.

And we can't do that here,

So in other words if you haven't learned how to meditate and sit still for 45 minutes,

Please try the room next door.

Those who have been here before,

The meditation is a very beautiful meditation about learning how to relax the body and also relax the mind.

All those years been teaching meditation,

People always complain the hardest thing in meditation is to overcome the thinking mind.

But sometimes,

Whatever they tend to watch,

They can watch it for a short time and then they start thinking about all sorts of stuff.

And the whole period of 45 minutes can go so quickly when you're thinking of stuff.

Well be careful because some monks do have powers.

One of my friends,

Who's quite a well-known monk now,

He told me that when he was training in Thailand many,

Many,

Many years ago,

They always had to do a two-hour meditation in the morning.

And it was tough in the morning,

You know,

First thing just after you get up,

Two hours meditating,

It was always a struggle.

But one day,

One morning,

Instead of actually struggling and meditating,

He decided,

Oh,

Just to give in and have a fantasy,

Had this long sexual fantasy and the time went past so quickly.

And he didn't have any pain or aches because he was occupied with unmonkeied thoughts.

It wasn't me,

By the way,

It was another monk who told me this.

And at the end of the two hours,

It went very fast.

And that's when he felt really,

Really guilty,

Because he knew his master could have powers.

And he felt really scared,

What happens if his master had known what he was doing when he was supposed to be meditating.

And sure enough,

His master came right up to him,

Looked him in the eye,

He knew he was busted.

And he said to him,

You've just been wasting your time,

And then walked away.

He said it was a wonderful thing,

It wasn't really scolding him,

It was just saying,

Well,

All that time you could have spent learning how to calm your mind,

You just wasted it.

It was a very beautiful little way of not scolding,

But just pointing out the facts.

So,

Instead of wasting your time thinking about all these other sorts of stuff,

We can actually do something different and find a way to find some peace.

So our mind isn't thinking all the time.

And of course that's one of the great tricks to find out how to meditate without having all these thoughts coming into your head and occupying you for the whole period of the meditation.

One of the things which I said last night was original,

Using the simile of a guitar string.

If it is taught,

Then of course you can pluck it and it makes a sound.

This is not the simile which the Buddha used,

It's another one.

If you pluck a string and it's taught,

It makes a sound.

But if your string is very loose,

You can pluck it and it makes no sound whatsoever.

And in that simile,

The string is like your mind.

And if your mind is tight,

Stretched,

Stressed,

If it's trying to get somewhere,

Do something,

If it's under some sort of strain,

Then every time something hits it,

It reverberates and that is what thoughts are.

But if your mind is nice and loose and relaxed and peaceful,

If the mind is pretty still,

Then things hit it and it doesn't resound at all.

But the string doesn't make any reverberations.

So the reverberations which are your thoughts,

When an idea or a concept or something hits the mind,

It goes off into thoughts for half an hour,

An hour,

Even longer,

Because the mind was very stressed and tight to begin with.

So if we can actually relax our mind to begin with,

Really make it loose,

You find that the thoughts hardly come up at all.

This is one of the reasons why I like to call this type of meditation,

Just give it a sort of an idea which you can actually relate to and it will set the scene,

The background for how to meditate is relaxing your mind.

And of course if you're trying to concentrate and if you're trying to defeat the thoughts,

If you're trying to aim somewhere,

You're not relaxing your mind at all,

You're just making it more tight and more tense.

Basically you're pushing your mind,

Straining your mind,

Stressing the mind because you have a task to achieve.

So here,

In this type of meditation,

We don't have any task to achieve sometime in the future,

All we do is learn how to be with what's happening right now.

In other words,

Nothing to do,

Nowhere to go,

Just to be,

And just as we observe our mind with mindfulness,

We just learn how just to be with it and relax it.

By relaxing it,

Maybe you haven't had this connection between mind and relaxation,

Body and relaxation,

Yes,

But mental world and relaxation,

Maybe you haven't understood that before,

But exactly the same way that you relax your body,

That's the way you relax your mind.

How do you relax your body?

Sitting comfortably.

If I ask you to stand up and stand like some soldier on parade,

Does your body get relaxed?

Of course not.

It gets tired or worn out,

It's under physical stress.

So you sit down in a comfortable position and that comfort has to be different to every person who's ever meditated.

No one has the same posture.

So when I see in books on meditation,

This is the way you must sit if you want to get into deep meditation.

Sometimes I think,

Oh who writes these stupid books?

Because that is not true.

Every one of you has a different posture because your bodies have got a different history,

Different makeup,

So you have to find that position where you can sit so you are comfortable,

So you can relax the body.

And as you've been to my meditations before,

You say I go even much deeper than just ordinary relaxation by choosing a comfortable posture.

You can look at a part of your body,

Any part of your body,

Focus on it and relax it almost by an act of will.

Not really an act of will because if you will something,

You tense up by sort of an act of observing and knowing how to relax.

Right now if you want to relax,

You just let go.

Let go of holding the body tight,

Let go of pushing the body,

Let go of any stress,

Strain in the body,

That's how we relax.

So you do have an understanding because of all your life so far,

What relaxation of the body actually means.

You go deeper into that relaxation until your whole body gets really,

Really,

Really nicely relaxed.

And you feel that and you know it's relaxed.

Similarly,

Similar to when you go to the beach,

I just came back from a teaching and meditation retreat in a five star resort by the beach in Thailand.

Nice job as a monk.

Although I never went to the beach,

I was just too scared what goes on at the beach as a monk,

So I decided to stay in my room.

So anyway,

Teaching down there and there was a spa available for people if they wanted to relax,

They never needed to,

They just came to the meditation instead because you're far more relaxed.

It's also much cheaper.

So you learn how to sit down,

Just basically open up all those hard parts of the body,

Release the tightness,

Relax,

Stop putting pressure on the body,

Feel a place which is tight.

And with this wonderful thing called mindfulness,

Awareness,

You can see just how to take that tightness and move it to a place of less tightness.

It's what I call the feedback which you get from being aware.

You can see how the body feels or part of the body feels and move it,

Just with or rather change the attitude of the mind and watch that feeling,

Relaxing,

Relaxing,

Relaxing.

You can actually feel muscles loosening.

When you have that type of mindfulness,

That type of feedback,

You can really relax the body and it feels great when the body's relaxed.

Once you have relaxed the body,

The next thing is do the same on the mind.

Relax it,

Which means stop pushing it,

Trying to get it to be different.

Stop pulling it,

You have some goal or something you want to achieve or something you want to get rid of.

That causes stress in the mind.

That's the last thing you need in this type of meditation.

You just leave it alone,

Let it be.

Let it be is one of the great words.

In other words,

Don't change it.

Don't try and achieve something.

Don't try and get somewhere,

Just let it be.

And you actually feel your mindfulness,

Your awareness of your own mental state shows that your mind is actually relaxing,

Relaxing,

Relaxing,

Relaxing until your mind does become loose like a string.

When it's loose like a string,

Ha ha,

You'll find that what I said actually is true.

You don't have so many thoughts.

Any impingement comes up,

You hear a sound,

Somebody slams the door or coughs or someone's mobile phone goes off and remember no mobile phones.

Every week someone's mobile phone goes off,

So please.

Now this says please switch off mobile phones,

Which means switch off your mobile phone,

Which means turn the damn thing off.

I just have to keep saying that because sometimes people can't read signs.

And anyway,

If you can do that,

You find out your mind gets very peaceful and someone's phone goes off,

There's a sound,

A noise,

You don't get upset by it.

The thoughts,

If any thought comes up,

It just disappears almost immediately.

So the thoughts are undermined because you cannot create a musical note on a string which is loose.

And after you get to that state,

The rest is usually pretty easy.

You just need to just observe your breathing,

How you watch your breath is up to you,

You don't have to watch at the tip of the nose,

You don't have to watch it at the belly,

You can watch it at your left big toe if you want to,

I don't care because as long as you know what the breath is doing,

That's enough.

If you know the breath's going,

You know the breath's going out,

That is enough.

So when you do things like that,

Then the mind gets very,

Very peaceful,

Very,

Very still and you can observe and feel that peaceful mind.

When it comes up,

When the mind is peaceful,

Please remember how you came to that place of peace.

You never did anything,

You actually let things go,

You left it alone.

That is why the mind becomes peaceful.

So after a while,

You should learn,

The insight should happen,

If you want to get really,

Really still in meditation and get the great results of a very relaxed body,

A very peaceful mind,

No worries,

No concern,

Or feeling really free.

One of the reasons I get invited to teach in these beautiful places is because people know it works and because you get really,

Really relaxed,

Very,

Very peaceful,

Very still.

It's a very beautiful,

Pleasant state,

Just like when your body is very relaxed,

Oh,

It feels great,

When your mind is similarly relaxed,

It feels very,

Very joyful.

So that's actually what we're doing here.

But today,

Relaxing the mind,

Don't stress the mind by trying to control it.

Relax the mind and it becomes like a loose string in which never reverberates,

Thoughts don't exist for you.

Okay,

So that is the beginning instructions and I know many people have come in since I started.

So if you have come for the Introduction to Meditation class,

The four lessons where we start learning about meditation,

That class is in the room to my right.

This is the ongoing class where we meditate for about 45 minutes.

And if you haven't,

Know what you're doing,

Please don't blame me,

You are going to suffer and don't want you to suffer,

I want you to have a nice,

Easy time.

So anyway,

So we can actually start now.

So if you'd like to get yourself into a lovely posture.

Very good.

Oops.

And to close your eyes.

And with the eyes closed,

Just aha.

Oh,

I just started,

It's already gone off.

It's best to go off at this time rather than just before someone's about to get enlightened.

So just get your posture just really nice.

Fidget as much as you want.

Get straight away by asking you to get your physical position,

The most comfortable,

You are having to be aware of your own body.

And it's incredible just how unaware people are of this body in which they live.

So once you are aware of your body,

Maybe some parts which are not comfortable,

Which are aching,

Or which you know,

May be comfortable now,

But if you keep it like this after 15 minutes,

Half an hour,

You're going to be in trouble.

So for goodness sake,

Adjust.

Adjust your bottom.

Can be very very sore if you don't get the cushion right.

Get the back nice.

You don't have to sit vertical like some soldier.

You can lean back against the chair if you find that more comfortable.

It's very much up to you.

You find out by being aware and comparing.

I put my back in this position,

How does it feel?

Compare it to putting in another position.

Mindfulness gives you feedback.

You'll find out which is the most comfortable for you at this time.

Your hands can be in your lap,

They can be sort of on your knees,

Doesn't really matter as long as they too are comfortable.

People fidget their hands because they don't get them comfortable to begin with.

If you need to scratch anything,

Scratch it now.

If you want to loosen your shoulders,

Make sure they're not tight.

People get a lot of neck pain because they're not really aware of what they're doing to those muscles in their neck and shoulders.

You can feel them,

Feel those muscles in the neck and shoulders and relax them for goodness sake.

You can feel them growing,

Going into the direction of more ease and comfort.

And then the head,

Making sure the muscles around the eyes,

Forehead,

The mouth are all loose.

Because when a person is tense,

Expecting something upset,

You can always see that in the tightness in their brow,

Above their,

In their forehead.

Feel the tension,

The tightness around their muscles,

Around the eyes and the mouth.

So if you can be aware of those muscles around the mouth,

The eyes and the forehead,

And loosen them,

Then you'll find not only is the face relaxed,

But you also diminish some of the power of the emotions which cause that tightness.

You're letting go.

Feel the whole body.

Relax as much as it can be by adjusting your posture.

And then relax the body to the next level by focusing on some part of the body which is irritating.

For some reason my knees are a bit tight right now.

So focus my attention on them.

You choose some other part of your body,

Just a small portion which is irritating,

Painful,

Or you know,

Just need some relaxation.

With my knees,

I imagine them sinking into really soft pillows,

Taking away any tightness,

Taking away any pressure.

And even just already I can feel that tightness which was there a moment ago,

Start to lessen,

Decrease.

I can feel the muscles,

Ligaments,

Whatever's there in my knees,

Relax.

And with it the tightness,

The ache,

Start to disappear.

Mindfulness can watch this.

And all I'm doing is letting go,

Taking away pressure,

Taking away stress,

Tightness,

Not pushing or pulling,

Letting it be,

Being kind.

That is the trick of relaxing a part of your body.

Once one part is really relaxed,

Go to another part,

I just cough,

There's a bit of an irritation in my throat,

Go there.

You may have irritable bowel syndrome,

Go to that sensation in your bowels.

Don't try and get away from it,

Observe it.

See what attitude of mind,

What change of attitude changes the feeling.

Soon like me you'll learn that letting go,

Being kind,

Being gentle,

Making peace,

Not war with those feelings,

That's what relaxes everything.

Brings this little part of the body,

For me the throat,

Takes away all the imitation.

Not all at once,

But it lessens little by little.

And I'm just observing,

Just letting things be,

Relaxing my own throat.

One part of the body after the other,

You relax to the max.

When the body is really relaxed,

It tingles.

Feeling when you had a bath,

Body is really at open at ease.

Look around,

It's hardly a tight place to be found.

That's the best.

At the very least you should be more relaxed than when you started.

Not only is this great for your body,

You've also cultivated,

Paid attention to the two things which are necessary for the later part of meditation.

Mindfulness and letting things be.

So now we move up to our emotional world,

The mind.

What are you changing inside of you?

Now can you be aware of how relaxed your mind is,

Or how tense is your mind?

It's not your fault,

It's just what you've been doing beforehand.

The problems and pressures which are being put on you,

And how you've reacted.

You can actually feel the degree of tightness in the mind,

Or the opposite,

The peace of mind.

Once you're aware of the correct thing,

Peace of mind slash irritation of mind,

Two ends of the same thing.

And see what you need to do to make the mind more peaceful,

Like a string which is not tight.

Let it go.

Anything of the past which disturbed you is gone,

It's dead.

Let it disappear,

Let it fade off into the past.

Anything in the future,

It probably will never happen.

Just a fantasy.

Now is the place your future is being made.

Now is the only time you'll ever have.

So let go of the future,

Be in this moment.

You'll find here there's peace.

And in this present moment,

Relax.

Imagine your mind opening out,

Being free like a bird,

Not in a cage.

So there's no pressure on this moment,

Nothing you have to achieve.

That's more stress,

More work.

Nothing that is wrong with you,

That's more work,

More stress.

Just be.

And feel the mind become more peaceful,

More relaxed,

More loose like the string with no one pulling either end.

You'll find hardly any thoughts come into your mind.

The more loose you are,

The more free from this plucking,

This resonating,

Cold thinking.

Ex doubled.

Just observing peace of mind and watching the peace grow.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

When the mind is peaceful,

Quite naturally you'll become aware of your breathing.

Just allow the mind to follow the breath.

You'll now be quiet to the end of the meditation.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

All you are doing is relaxing your mind,

Like you relaxed your body.

Let's get in close to the end of the meditation now.

How do you feel?

What's it like inside?

How peaceful are you?

And how at ease is your body?

Know that this is the result of meditation.

Mind,

Body so relaxed that nothing can harm it.

Now I'm going to ring the gong three times.

Please listen to the ringing of the gong,

The last sound of the gong come out in meditation.

Now we have some questions.

I've only got one question here from overseas.

It's from Germany.

It says,

Saturday afternoon meditations are streamed live all around the world and people have the opportunity to pose the question.

It's from Germany,

My mind is almost like a radio.

How can I come from the noisy thoughts and images in the head to a deep experience of stillness,

Peace of living,

State of letting go?

I have been describing that just by learning how to let the mind relax.

The thoughts,

What he says is the noisy radio,

Those thoughts that in a chatter is a surface phenomena.

It is the symptoms,

It is not the cause.

It is because the mind is restless that we think so much.

Just use the simile like a lake in the mountains.

If the lake is agitated it creates waves,

Agitated by something shaking like an earthquake or the wind whipping up the waves.

But if nothing is agitating that lake then there are no waves.

So if you can look at the thing which I call peace of mind and develop that,

If you get the thoughts,

If you focus on the thoughts,

Then the thoughts get more and more and more.

There's no end to them.

If you can focus on this thing we call mind,

The screen on which all these thoughts are played out,

The water on which the waves are just on the surface,

And focus what's underneath those thoughts,

The place on which they move,

And calm that down,

Then the thoughts vanish by themselves.

But number two,

Another simile which I've used is that why is it that when people watch a football match they get so excited that they can actually shout,

Shout to maybe some soccer match happening in Europe,

And they shout to the referee,

That's offside,

They shoot at the player,

They shout at the player,

Shoot,

Shoot,

Even though they're in Perth and they're watching a match played on the other side of the earth,

They shout to the TV screen because their perception,

The psychology is that they really feel that they're in the match,

That they feel that they're watching by the sidelines.

The same when you watch a movie,

I've seen this happen.

People are so engrossed in the movie,

They really think they're actually next to the hero or the heroine,

That they too are experiencing the explosion,

So they get afraid.

I've seen people in the time when I used to watch the movies just shout out,

Hey look behind you,

At the person in the movie.

Unfortunately they cannot hear you.

But we always believe that we're actually in that movie,

We believe we're there,

That's the perception.

We get entangled,

We get sort of drawn in psychologically into that,

Which is why we can't let it go.

But I sometimes ask people,

If you're watching a really important sports match,

Or you're watching a movie,

Try sometimes watching it and just feeling the chair on which you're sitting on,

So that you can't really get drawn into the screen.

You know you're just sitting here,

It's just a movie.

Anyone who gets killed will get reincarnated in the next showing of that movie.

It's not sort of real.

And if you can just keep your perspective,

That you're not inside the movie,

Then you'll find you lose a lot of enjoyment of the movie.

You'll find you won't get caught up in it.

And often you find it's just such a ridiculous thing which you've just been watching.

You know what's going to happen.

The heroes save the world at the very,

Very,

Very last minute,

Just.

Or eventually the heroine and the hero,

They eventually meet,

And they go off into the sunset,

Happy ever after.

Cinderella and Prince Charming,

The same movie,

Only just a slightly more complicated plot.

Those are usually plots of movies,

People always tend to win in the end.

But we get drawn into it,

And that's why we give it emotional significance.

That's why we like it.

But the same with the thoughts,

If you understand how movies and sports matches work,

The same happens with the thoughts.

The thoughts,

You get drawn into them,

And you really believe they're important.

You get emotionally entangled in them.

Could be fantasies,

Where you're the hero about to save the world,

Or kick the winning goal for Australia in the World Cup,

Or whatever other sport you like.

You get entangled in those thoughts,

Which is why they become like reality,

As real as a movie for you.

So because of that,

Once we can actually find some perspective,

Draw back from the thoughts,

Realise you're watching them from a distance,

Put some space between what you construct as an observer.

Just make this perception of an observer,

Watching the thoughts from a distance.

You're not involved in the thoughts.

When you put space between you and those thoughts,

You can see them for what they are.

You don't get emotionally involved,

You don't invest yourself in them,

Which means they usually can't last that much longer.

They just fade away,

They're boring,

When you watch them from a distance.

Right close up,

When you get involved in them,

You just get caught up.

When you stand back and put this perception of a distance,

Here I am watching the thoughts are over there,

A couple of feet in front of me.

If you can train yourself to watch thoughts like that,

The thoughts will not last.

And your image of a radio,

Thoughts and images in the head,

Yeah,

They're not really in the head,

They're a couple of feet in front of your head.

And then your head is free.

So those are some decent good ways of dealing with that.

They do go in the end anyway.

The other way is just watching the space between the thoughts.

Because there's sometimes,

There's a simile that even in this hall,

There's many people in this hall,

But you may notice there's more space in this hall than there are people.

There's more emptiness in this hall than there are things.

But we don't perceive that,

We just perceive the things in the hall.

And that's just like thoughts,

We just perceive the thoughts,

The things in our mind,

Rather than the emptiness which surrounds those thoughts or which is between the thoughts.

And if we could change the focus,

You come into a hall,

See the space between people.

Apparently that was a technique for actors.

So they can get some spatial sense when they're on a stage or when they're on a film set.

Don't just look at the objects but perceive the space between the objects.

And there you get some sort of idea of where you should be.

It's a different way of perceiving which is very powerful.

We do that with thoughts as well.

Thoughts are just these objects in a room called your mind.

And it's more to the mind than the objects within it.

You see what's behind,

Beyond,

Around,

Between the thoughts.

Look for that,

You can find it.

And then once you see that,

You can focus on the emptiness,

The space.

And again you don't put so much emphasis on things.

And then the things become irrelevant and the thoughts vanish as you just watch space,

The emptiness,

The space between the thoughts literally grows,

Extends,

Squashes out all the thoughts.

So those are the three methods for overcoming the thoughts.

But the one I said at the beginning,

I always try that the best,

Which is taking off all the stress of the mind.

It might become so loose,

You hit it and it doesn't make a sound.

Somebody mobile phone goes off,

It doesn't start your thinking.

A thought comes up in memory,

But it's just that.

It's just a memory,

Just like something hitting a padded cell.

It just squashes onto the wall and just never bounces back.

When your mind is loose,

It doesn't bounce.

Any questions from the floor?

Okay,

We've only one question here,

So that's enough for today.

I'm sure there will be questions when people line up afterwards to ask their questions.

So that's fair enough.

So now we pay respects to Buddha,

Dharma,

Sangha and then we can go do whatever we need to do.