Guided Meditation With Ven. Pomnyun Sunim (Sep13, 2020/S23)

Welcome.

We will begin the online meditation with Venerable Pham Nunsinim shortly.

Before we proceed,

We will meditate for a brief moment to calm our minds.

We will begin the online meditation with Venerable Pham Nunsinim.

We will begin the online meditation with Venerable Pham Nunsinim.

We will begin the online meditation with Venerable Pham Nunsinim.

Hello.

Hello.

We will begin the online meditation with Venerable Pham Nunsinim.

Did you have a good week?

I had a lot of fun.

I had a lot of fun.

Until last week,

Over the course of 10 days,

We had three very strong typhoons pass by Korea.

I had a lot of fun.

I had a lot of fun.

I had a lot of fun.

I had a lot of fun.

The first one went to the west of Korea,

The second one went through the middle of Korea,

And the last one went through the east side of Korea.

Yes,

The last one was in the middle of Korea.

So a lot of wind and a lot of rain.

I had a lot of fun.

I had a lot of fun.

Despite that,

Contrary to expectations,

Damages were not as severe.

I had a lot of fun.

I had a lot of fun.

I had a lot of fun.

Maybe it's due to the power of preparedness,

Or maybe we over-prepared due to the high expectations and damages.

I had a lot of fun.

I had a lot of fun.

I had a lot of fun.

We didn't suffer a lot of damages,

But we still had some of the crops,

Especially rice,

Fall down and we're still doing restoration at this point.

I worked for over two hours this afternoon just today trying to restore the crops that had been damaged.

My back aches a little.

I'm very tired physically.

Yes.

With the coronavirus,

I think it's important to remember that we have to keep the health of our people safe.

If we weren't under the pandemic situation,

Our members would have been going throughout the South Korean countryside,

Helping out the farms to restore their crops and help mitigate the damages.

But with the current pandemic,

There's nothing we can do.

We have to keep the health of our people safe.

We have to keep the health of our people safe.

Even the damages we suffered on our farms,

Since external visitors are not allowed in this current pandemic,

We have to deal with our current staff at hand.

It's taking us longer to recuperate.

In Korea,

We have to keep the health of our people safe.

We have to keep the health of our people safe.

We have to keep the health of our people safe.

After the middle of August,

Korea suffered a rapid expansion of infection rates.

That created a lot of social tension and forced a stronger social distancing scheme.

However,

I think we are getting that under control.

It hasn't gone away totally,

But it's still actually decreasing.

We are still experiencing a lot of stress,

And we are still experiencing a lot of stress.

According to the Korean CDC,

We went up to level 2.

5 in terms of social distancing in quarantine,

But I think they are going to lower that level to 2.

0 today.

We are still experiencing a lot of stress.

Of course,

Compared to the EU or the US,

The rate of infections and the sheer number of infections is very small.

We are currently seeing infection numbers up at 132.

5.

We are currently seeing infection numbers up at 130 to 140 per day.

We are currently seeing a lot of cases in the US.

We are still experiencing a lot of stress.

Before August,

Korea was only seeing about 30 cases a day,

But after middle of August,

It went all the way up to about 400 before coming back down to the hundreds.

We are still experiencing a lot of stress.

However,

Since the numbers of infected were actually more prevalent among the elderly,

The death rate actually has gone up.

We are still experiencing a lot of stress.

Mostly due to the willing cooperation by the citizens themselves,

We managed to get this under control again.

But I think the expansion is still ongoing.

We are still experiencing a lot of stress.

We shouldn't be fearful,

But at the same time,

We need to be cautious.

Yes,

We should be cautious.

Now,

Let's go to questions.

I infer from our teachings that in order to have a life without negative emotions,

It is also necessary to give up positive emotions.

That is,

To avoid suffering,

We must also give up the pursuit of joy,

Pleasure,

And happiness.

Is such a life even worthwhile?

I suppose it's a subjective question,

But it sounds like living life like an unfailing robot.

It is possible to avoid suffering.

It is possible to think this way.

However,

That's not so.

I think that the world needs to be more conscious of the world.

I think that the world needs to be more conscious of the world.

So,

When our five senses come into contact with external stimulus,

It creates an output called sensations or feelings.

Yes,

It is possible to control the world.

And those feelings could be positive or negative in nature.

Yes,

It is possible to control the world.

We can't control this.

Yes,

It is possible to control the world.

Because this happens automatically.

Yes,

It happens automatically.

It's not possible to control the world.

It's not possible to control the world.

It's not possible to control the world.

It's not possible to control the world.

So,

However,

If you experience an unpleasant sensation,

That leads or results in negative emotions.

Yes,

But if you experience a positive sensation,

That usually leads to a positive emotion.

If you experience negative emotions,

You experience depression,

Despair,

And the like.

Or we experience anger that excites our negative emotions even more.

And even positive emotions lead to some kind of excitement.

And this sense of excitement kind of overwhelms ourselves.

And that leads to our psychology being kind of anxious and leads to suffering.

Yes,

But if we experience a negative emotion,

We experience a negative emotion.

So whether it's a positive emotion,

Negative emotion,

It creates some sort of excitement,

Which is not conducive to being mindful.

Yes,

But if we experience a negative emotion,

We experience a negative emotion.

So what we're saying is through meditation,

While we cannot control negative or positive sensation from reacting and coming into being,

By being mindful,

We can stop that from translating itself into negative or positive emotions.

Yes,

But if we experience a negative emotion,

We can't control the sensation from reacting and coming into being.

So we're not saying that we're turning into our self-centered box or piece of wood.

We have no sensation at all.

Conversely,

We're actually heightening our senses and our awareness of ourselves.

We can't control our senses and our awareness of ourselves.

As an example,

Say we taste a piece of food.

Either we find it is tasty or find it is this tasty,

Not tasty.

And we eat or not eat accordingly.

But if we practice meditation,

We can taste even the most nuanced and subtle taste within the same food.

We can't control our senses and our awareness of ourselves.

We can't control our senses and our awareness of ourselves.

So it's not that you don't actually taste the food,

You develop a heightened sense of the taste itself.

So you can actually taste the subtle nuances,

But you do not allow those sensations,

Those initial reactions of the taste to lead into excited negative or positive emotions that will stop you from eating or rejecting the food.

So you don't allow the sensation to lead into an emotional judgment that controls your behavior.

If you allow the sensation to lead to emotion and excitement,

You are actually forgoing a deeper sensation,

A deeper experience and insight into that situation.

And you are leading a superficial life of non-knowing or ignorance.

So the way I want you to understand is that you are not only a person,

But also a person who is not a person,

But also a person who is not a person.

So the way I want you to understand this is that by doing meditation,

You actually gain an ability to experience everything,

All the sensations,

Hear,

Touch,

See,

Smell in a much more detailed and deeper way,

While at the same time not allowing those sensations to lead into an emotional excitement,

Whether that's negative or positive.

So basically you don't lose your ability to sense,

You actually heighten that ability,

Yet at the same time do not allow that sensation to affect your emotional state.

But all these explanations are just words coming out of my mouth.

It's better for you to experience this yourself.

All I can say is that we are not doing meditation in order to become a piece of rock or a piece of wood.

Next question.

There seemed two stages in meditation.

The first was sitting in half lotus and straightening the body and spine,

And a heightened attention to keeping focus on the breath,

Then awareness or curiosity of the subtle start of a thought process and attention moving away from the breath.

Curiosity seemed to help coming back to the breath more quickly.

The second stage was the half lotus position.

At the second stage,

Resuming the half lotus position,

Attention seemed lighter,

I felt more at ease and less concern over a thought process moving away from the breath.

I was all aware of this.

Still I had curiosity like why is that?

A faint yet distinct awareness.

Is this a correct way?

Is the curiosity simply a thought too?

Or an obstacle or something else?

By the way,

I wish you all good giveaway tours with me from StayThanMami.

And provides a Do you have any advice for people who are not able to do the same thing?

I think that the most important thing is to do the same thing.

It's a good job.

So what you describe is an actual very kind of precise,

Relatively precise experience that we go through through meditation.

But I want you to understand that this is your experience.

I think that the most important thing is to do the same thing.

Because you are not able to do the same thing.

So do not try to create some kind of artificial taxonomy over your experience and try to generalize that this is how meditation goes.

So what you have done,

You observe yourself being mindful of the breath,

Losing their mindfulness and refocusing on the breath,

And kind of experience and describe what you went through through that process.

I think that when you are conscious of the breath,

You are not able to do it.

You are not able to do it by yourself.

You are not able to do it by yourself.

And through your observation,

You've been asking yourself,

How did I regain my breath?

And these are the nature of your observation,

How you describe them.

So I can't say that you are way off base in your description.

However,

The only thing that you should really focus on is focusing on the breath.

If you lose the focus,

Just refocusing on the breath.

So all the analytics that goes behind,

All the analysis that you are doing on the whys of yes or no or regain the breath or not,

Are just mere thoughts.

You can't think your way to know thoughts.

However,

Any thoughts that you create out of actual conscious intention are not the desired state of meditation.

When you are thinking of thoughts,

You are not able to do it by yourself.

You are not able to do it by yourself.

You are not able to do it by yourself.

So all you have to do is just focus on the breath.

Just maintain the awareness without the effort.

Just focus on the breath.

You can't really stop these random thoughts from occurring,

But don't try to analyze or diagnose yourself and try to find the causes of certain activities,

Certain successes or failures,

All that.

You should let go.

In English,

I heard some describe this process as thinking stops,

Stop all thinking.

However,

Even the intent to stop thinking,

You should let go and the only thing is basically maintain awareness of the breath without an effort and just without any intent behind it.

Because I know we are going to engage meditation soon,

But any sense coming out of it that you had a good session or a bad session,

Any kind of results-oriented evaluation of your meditation session is actually far from the intent of the meditation itself.

So you could be tired today and you may doze off.

And you may be distracted by some thoughts.

But you are mindful of these and you regain your breath.

You may have been distracted for a long time or you may have been mindful and focused for a long time.

These things just happen.

And that's just a representation of your current state.

So yesterday during meditation,

You might have been distracted for a lesser time.

But today you were distracted for longer and you had a harder time regaining the focus.

That's just your state today.

Since we are letting go of the whole paradigm of setting goals and performance and evaluation to determine whether you did well or not,

Because all this entails some kind of intent and effort into a certain direction.

We are letting all this go.

So we are letting go of all the intent and the associated effort and we are just in a restful state being aware of the breath.

So coming out of session,

You should feel refreshed and rested.

With that,

Let's engage in meditation.

Let's do it for 40 minutes today.

Relax your mind and body.

And be relaxed and restful with your mind.

Do not try to insert an effort.

Do not try to intent something.

Do not try to swear a decision or set a goal.

And just because you lose your focus,

Don't give up.

And if you are mindful one moment,

Try to maintain that,

Sustain that.

But if you lose that,

Then regain it.

It doesn't matter what kind of thoughts come to your head.

Whatever the thought is,

Do not imbue there with any meaning.

And if you allow your meaning to be imbued,

You follow the trails of that thought,

Realize that and come back to the focus.

Since you are sitting down in this position,

Your bodies,

Your legs may ache.

And if your body is tired,

Then you might feel dozy.

So my question to you is,

You know,

I'm asking you to relax and really be easy and relaxed in doing this,

But you insist on putting forth an effort and making it very difficult on yourselves.

I ask you to rest and you insist on working.

Let's really rest.

However,

One of the side effects of being too relaxed or resting could be a dullness of the mind.

So what we're saying is that maintain the sharpness of the mind awareness while being restful.

And let's rest in your posture.

Let's rest in your posture.

Thank you.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.