MA 51 The Holistic Mind beyond The Thoughts

If you'd like to start by making yourself comfortable for some meditation and closing your eyes very gently.

Adjust your posture so that your back is fairly straight,

So that you're breathing easily and your circulation is unimpeded.

You should rest your hands gently palm upwards in your lap,

Ideally with your right hand over your left hand,

The index finger of your right hand touching against the thumb of your left hand.

You may be sitting in a half lotus position or you may be sitting on a straight back chair,

As long as you're not going to fall asleep halfway through and the meditation should go successfully for you.

You might try following the breath deep down inside your body while scanning down through the whole of yourself,

Relaxing each and every muscle as you go.

The muscles of your forehead,

Letting your eyes gently close rather than closing your eyes tightly,

Allowing the muscles of your face to become soft,

Relaxing your jaw,

Being especially careful not to clench your teeth together and then relaxing your neck and shoulders.

Letting your shoulders drop to their natural height,

Relaxing your arms,

Forearms and then your hands and fingers,

So that even the way your hands rest in your lap is as light and gentle as possible.

Continuing on down,

We can relax the whole of our torso,

Our chest,

Trunk and our core,

Then both legs all the way down to our feet and our toes,

Until no part of our body remains with any sort of stress or tension anymore.

Learning to relax the mind in preparation for the meditation ahead,

You find that the most efficient way to relax the mind is to forget temporarily about all the concerns with your everyday life.

So not letting our mind wander to thoughts of the past or of the future,

But keeping our mind firmly in the present moment and on the task in hand of relaxing the mind,

Training and cultivating the mind in meditation,

For which we've set aside this precious space in our life.

We can fill our mind with a sense of happiness and joy,

Making the mind spacious,

Radiant,

Light and refreshed,

Spacious like the ocean,

Radiant like the morning sun,

Light as a feather,

And refreshed like a flower bud in the early morning dew.

So fill your mind with a sense of happiness and joy,

As if that happiness and joy were composed of tiny particles that completely fill your body and mind,

Leaving no space within your mind for any other sort of thought.

And inside our mind,

We reconnect with the best of our meditation,

Not with particular experiences we've had,

But with what we can remember of the feeling that accompanied them,

That sense of joy or well-being that accompanied the best of our meditation,

Or by conjuring up the same feeling all over again,

Which will somehow help us to return to that same place in our meditation again,

The sense of lightness,

The sense of the whole of our body being filled with happiness and joy.

And when we feel refreshed and relaxed,

Both in body and in mind,

Very gently and using no effort at all,

You can imagine the whole of your body to be nothing but a hollow cavity,

An empty space with no organs or tissues,

No muscles or bones.

Alternatively,

You might think of your body as being like a transparent bubble with nothing on the inside.

For others who've been meditating for longer,

It may be that you have a feeling as if your whole body has disappeared altogether,

As if you were at the center of some great empty space,

A place of your own creation.

Whatever your experience of that inner space,

Now would be the time to remember back once again to some sort of inner image or feeling which you find helpful as an anchor for the mind,

To keep the mind in place somewhere within the space of your body.

It may be a bright image inside yourself,

Maybe like the sun,

Orange or yellow in color,

White or gold,

Shining with a cool,

Clear light.

It doesn't matter if the picture is not very clear,

Even if it's vague or fuzzy,

You can accept it anyway,

Remembering that it's not your eyes that you're using to see the picture,

But your mind itself.

The nature of seeing with the mind is that pictures tend to start out vague and get gradually more well-defined as time goes on.

If it's more of a feeling,

Then gently hold that feeling in your mind.

So work with whatever you have and allow that inner object to make its way slowly downwards within the space of your body,

Almost as if you were slowly breathing the object down to the turning point of the deepest breath,

Almost as if you are gently swallowing the object down to the pit of your stomach.

In either case,

It will bring you to a point at the very center of your diaphragm,

The center of gravity of the body,

And a place which is particularly calming for the mind to be.

We gently maintain our awareness at the center of the body by means of that inner object as continuously as we can for as long as we can,

Not letting our attention slip away anywhere else if we can help it.

If we find our awareness wanders off,

Each time we realize,

We just bring our awareness back again to the center of the body as before for as many times as it takes for the mind to start to settle at the center of the body.

And if there are thoughts still arising in the mind that disturb our meditation,

It may be that we can just do our best to ignore them.

But if this doesn't cut it for us,

We can make use of that traditional mantra,

Hearing the words,

Samma Arahang,

Samma Arahang,

Samma Arahang,

With the sound of the mantra coming up from the center of our body,

The same place that we perceive our inner object with the sound of the mantra soft,

Tender and soothing to the mind,

Until there are only two things remaining in our mind,

The sound of the mantra,

Samma Arahang,

And the inner object acting as an anchor for our retention.

So we repeat the mantra for as long as we need to,

And eventually the mantra will fade away of its own accord.

You start to feel the mind is calm already and doesn't wander anymore,

If the mantra disappears then there's no need to start it up again,

Just rest the awareness at the center of the body with whatever object you perceive there.

If you notice this inner object is drifting away into random thoughts,

Just bring it back gently to the center of the body as before,

And it may be that you need to continue with the mantra as before.

But for now we cultivate the mind to become calmer and calmer,

The longer we can gently rest the mind,

Staccooned at the center of the body,

The more refined our mind will become,

Little by little becoming calmer and calmer,

More and more refined,

Softer,

More peaceful.

So we continue in this way,

Lightly and gently,

For a few more moments in silence,

Until we come to the appropriate name.

So we continue to keep our mind gently on track at the center of ourselves the whole of the time.

We find our mind wandering away onto other things,

Each time we realize we bring the mind back again to the inner object as before.

If we find that the thoughts are persistent in the mind,

We do our best to ignore them,

Or we may use the mantra as necessary.

If you find that the same thoughts are always going around and around in your head,

According to the advice of our main teacher in Thailand,

The Venerable Dhammajyo,

There are certain attitudes that we can cultivate in the long term to reduce the level of thoughts that occur during our meditation.

The first of these is to try to see the world as it really is,

Not to be overly optimistic or pessimistic,

To take in our strides the ups and downs of the world,

Gain and loss,

Promotion and demotion,

Graze and gossip,

Happiness and suffering,

Not allowing the unpredictability of the world to shake us from our resolve whenever they touch our lives.

The second thing is to keep our mind immersed in a sense of joy whenever possible,

Both inside and outside the problems,

Shaking off any feelings of irritability,

Impatience or moodiness,

Letting go of these rather than clinging to them,

And automatically our mind will become more radiant in a way that will help our meditation when we sit down to close our eyes each time.

Another thing is to try to appreciate the whole of the human race as fellow travelers on the journey through existence,

Who just like us have to go through many trials and tribulations,

At the very least aging and sickness,

No matter who they may be,

And this will give us more of a sense of compassion for those around us,

Or a sense that we are surrounded by friends rather than strangers wherever we go.

And even the minor irritations in our life will be the things that we can shake off more easily,

Which no longer stir up thoughts in the mind,

Allowing our mind to settle more quickly,

And avoiding the mental clutter that tends to cloud the mind.

Also if we're able to relativize the state of the world,

Seeing it as ultimately empty or transitory,

Then what the world throws at us will be a little easier to distance ourselves from,

In a way that doesn't stir up so many thoughts in the mind.

Training our mind in this way will maintain a sense of joyousness,

And we'll be better equipped to let go of the thoughts in a way that the mind can come closer to a standstill,

And it'll become easier for us to touch upon a sense of equanimity in our meditation each time we sit down to practice.

So for now we continue to keep our mind on track,

Gently focused at the center of ourselves,

While maintaining a mind free of thoughts,

For a few more moments in silence until we come to time for some loving kindness meditation.

So we continue to keep our mind gently on track,

At the center of ourselves,

Always at the center of whatever inner experience we have built up for ourselves,

As a result of the meditation so far today.

It may be a sense of illumination,

A feeling of well-being coming from the inside,

Or a feeling of a sense of joy,

A feeling of well-being coming from the inside,

Or perhaps inner imagery.

We place our mind gently at the center of that inner experience,

In a way that allows what we have at the center to melt away at the point of contact,

Spreading outwards,

Ever outwards,

Initially toward the whole of ourselves,

And in ever widening circles around us,

Into the world at large,

With a sense of compassion for all living beings in the world.

With our meditation,

Although many of us started out thinking of the benefits only for ourselves,

Little by little there's a dawning realization that the benefits we thought we were bringing purely to ourselves,

In fact have ramifications that reach out for the benefit of the whole of the world at large.

When we were new to meditation,

It may just have been a feeling of happenstance,

An entry point to the practice,

Driven by a quest to experience some unattainable inner quality.

Later,

We started to touch upon an inner energy,

A sense of flow within ourselves,

Learning to release and to let go,

Rather than trying to add on to the experience.

At some point we will have had the recognition of the sense that consciousness is something of the utmost simplicity,

As if something inside us has somehow clicked into place,

With the realization that your choices and awareness were limited only by yourself and your perceptions of reality.

Later,

As you become more experienced in the meditation,

You will have started to integrate a sense of change or transformation into your lifestyle,

Sometimes gradually,

Sometimes in spite of yourself,

Sometimes in spite of yourself,

Sometimes flip-flopping between extremes,

Sometimes by experiencing a complete breakthrough,

Even in the way you perceive change that is otherwise known as a paradigm shift.

It is as if there is an appreciation that spiritual growth,

As a result of our practice,

Is more than the sum of its parts,

Bringing us a greater sense of emotional openness,

The ability to harness all aspects of ourselves,

Taking us beyond a place of grief or danger.

It's as if once we've glimpsed what's going on in our minds and in our lives,

We're less likely to get caught up in our old ways in the same way that we used to,

It's almost as if we are becoming adjusted to the thinner air of the high country of the mind.

As our meditation progresses,

Later comes a sense of integration between our inner experience and other aspects of our lives,

The sense that everything is connected,

As we become somehow less entrenched,

More realistic in our attitudes to the world,

It's almost like a freedom from wishful thinking or always wanting things to be otherwise,

In the sense of holistic knowing that builds up as a result of our meditation,

Something which scientists might refer to as tacit knowing,

We'll begin to grow and take root within ourselves,

As we become increasingly attuned to the inner signals as they seem to become stronger within us.

At the furthest extent of this process,

Personal practice will bring back benefit into the world,

In the sense of being one small part of a greater change in the world and in the universe,

With the sense that not only can you make a difference,

But you can also be that difference in the world,

There's a sense of a family bond with those around us,

Not just those who are our blood family,

But even those who did not grow up under the same roof,

There's a feeling of community that leads to a sense of joy and adventure in life,

A sense of being at the center of a change in the world,

As if our one single spirit that is becoming clarified and purified through meditation,

Is like a window that allows the light of peace energy to shine through into the world,

Allowing more and more of that bright goodness to enter into and heal this world,

So although we started out in meditation thinking only of the benefits to ourselves,

But in the end the positivity coming from the meditation reaches out holistically for the benefit of the world at large,

Almost as if our new state of mind heralds a new state for the world,

A sense of transformation that starts with us ourselves,

So we continue to spread loving kindness in this way,

Just for the last few moments of our practice together,

Until we come to the appropriate time.