4. Present moment - retreat talk Ajahn Brahm

attitudes of the mind and I did mention in in passing about how we collect little by little and I mentioned there are stages of letting go understanding there are stages of letting go gives you an idea of where you are in a process of meditation and also gives you something you can focus on and the stages of letting go are first of all just being able to let go of your body so you can focus on the mental world and in order to let go of your body that's why we sit in a comfortable position so we don't have to keep on scratching fidgeting or whatever else occupies our mind with try to find a physical comfort so that's what we do have questions we do have a quiet comfortable place to sit meditation in we do have chairs where people can meditate on in other words so your body can be comfortable enough so it can just basically disappear so in order to let go of the body and have enough time enough space to address the mental world and to bring that to stillness then we have to sit in a comfortable position and even though the most comfortable cushions and chairs you'll still get stiff after a time which is why we usually balance a sitting meditation with walking meditation so when you are here you can do some sitting meditation when the body feels stiff and it needs a bit of stretching exercise go and do some walking meditation once the body feels loose again then come into sitting meditation to alternate between walking and sitting meditation during the mornings and the afternoons or maybe the evenings as well and that way your body never really feels too stiff and the aches and pains in the body avoided which means that you can have a peaceful meditation spending your time attending to the mental world rather than problems with a physical world if during the meditation is needs a cough then please cough if you don't cough straight away we have what I call the volcano effect if you don't know what the volcano effect is it is what happens when you decide I am NOT going to cough I'm gonna hold it in because I don't want to disturb the people around me and if you do suppress like that you know what happens the energy builds and builds and builds and builds and builds and when you do cough it is like a volcano going off and everyone can hear it just to extend the volcano similarly lots of lava like stuff gets bright all allowed you which is not very healthy so it's a good example if you feel like coughing cough quickly get it out of the way it is much safer much healthier and the same if you have an ache or a pain in your knee you feel like you could have paid in a knee maybe you can try and avoid it for a little while to see if it's just something which is gonna pass very quickly but if it does build up then move all you need to do is very gently and mindfully move the body and get into another position it takes about 15-20 seconds yes you disturb the stillness but you soon make up what you lost in the next minute or two and you have no pain in your body so if you need to move move don't just sit there and think I'm going to enjoy this and break through this pain my one of my friends he tried that many years ago to sit through pain and he sat there even though his knees were killing him and we did have to send him into the hospital because he couldn't walk to have a double knee reconstruction there's absolutely stupid stuff to try and do things like that and it's not the teaching of the Buddha the first thing which he taught after he was enlightened is don't do those ascetic practices don't torture your body he said use a middle path have comfort for the body not indulgence but comfort so the body can disappear and vanish so you can attend to the mental world so once your body is comfortable you've invested enough slept enough at well and you feel comfortable then you find you're free to attend to the mental world so the first thing we do is to let go of the body by being into a sense of comfort by walking sitting sitting walking and also lying down if you need a rest now once you've let go of the body then you are free to attend to the mental world which is the most important part is to calm down or bring to stillness and the first part of the mental world we have to deal with is our thinking but there's always two parts of the thinking I say the first one is when we dwell on the past or the future as I was saying yesterday and that should be for the first couple of days of this retreat your main focus is to let go of the past don't worry about the future and start focusing in the present moment just being here being now and that's such an important stage of meditation because that's a foundation on which everything else is built if you keep on going off into the future that's called expectation that's called wanting and craving you just cause too much problems for yourself and also you don't have find any peace at all you will never find peace in the future or the past you only find it right now so we have to learn how to be in the moment much more and that is sometimes what people call mindfulness so when you are walking you're just one step at a time when you are even going from here maybe to the toilet you haven't arrived at the toilet you're not here in this room so be where you are be on the way don't send your mind to the destination before your body has arrived so wherever you are put your mind there I'm on the way to the toilet so always be in the moment never be ahead of yourself and that's also with the lunchtime meditation when you are eating a good way of practicing present moment awareness while you're eating is the one spoon at a time practice because you may notice that when you eat you may have a spoonful of wok full of food in your mouth chewing it and there's another one waiting on the spoon in line and is another one heat up on the plate and you're busily scraping around for something which you're going to have the fourth morsel of food you watch where people are eating their two or three morsels of food ahead of themselves which is why they're not really paying attention to the food that they are chewing right now there are two or three spoonfuls ahead of themselves so when you are eating today in the next few days see if you can do the one spoon one fork or one chopstick fall at a time practice choose what food you're going to eat put bring it up put it in your mouth and put attention on what you're eating and don't fill the spoon or the fork up until you've swallowed the food and then you start to gather up the next more food don't be two or three spoonfuls ahead of yourself if you don't know what I'm talking about have a look on the table where you eat and see how other people do this they're always ahead of themselves so here we come into our present moment and if to even do that if you really want you can take off your wristwatches and just forget about time now is the only time we really have just be in this moment you will know when it's breakfast time and lunch time there are a few clocks around which you can look at if you really need to but you don't really have to be a prisoner over time and worrying about is it morning is it afternoon Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday you don't have to go to work so it doesn't really matter and when you're not a person enough time you're not thinking about what's going to happen in the future and how you go to plan your day you're just much more in this moment every moment is important and forget about the moments which are coming next just this moment is the only one you have you finally come much closer into this person to moment which is letting go of time sometimes do you think you will have enough time in your life or as you're rushing around there is enough time only we're never here to enjoy it so on this retreat you have no responsibilities or duties or minimal ones so see if you can come into the present moment as much as you can and make that a focus it's strange when I say to come into the present moment that some people ask well what am I supposed to watch when I'm in the present moment what am I supposed to do in a present moment and that's made it clear to me that there's too many people who have got no familiarity with the present moment they basically don't know what I'm talking about and that's really quite sad in our present world we know about planning we know about remembering things we're so unaccustomed to just being here though we don't really know what the present moment is so you can imagine when there's no past and there's no future what's left is called the present moment so you can know it by exclusions nothing you're not thinking or worrying about the past the mind is not running off into the future really are right here this is called now in order to develop this stage of meditation present moment awareness I'd like to say there are three stages of present moment awareness all three levels the first is called will recognition so you recognize what we mean by the present moment in the same way you recognize which room is yours for which cottage is yours when you first came here you know you maybe take a few trips to find out you know where everything is in this retreat complex now you've been here for a couple of days you know you know the layout of the place so you can recognize everything and same with the present moment awareness you have to recognize what it means what is this room in the house of meditation called present moment once you recognize it the next stage happens naturally which is you become familiar with the present moment and after familiarity then you can relax in the present moment you get the ease in all these stages of meditation they also have these three levels recognition familiarity and your completes the training with your ease or an ease in the present moment and your ease in the present moment means it stays there it doesn't disappear you can stay in the present moment for long periods of times because you can relax in the present moment so try making the present moment your first goal for those who haven't heard this similes which I have developed to try and get you into the present moment one of the most powerful powerful similes which helps people get into the present moment is to do a little visualization to imagine yourself carrying two heavy shopping bags and visually visualizations only work if it's something which you are used to some think you can recognize and each one of you have been shopping I have been through the airport carrying heavy suitcases or heavy shopping bags one in either hand and you know what it feels like it makes your arms taken your shoulders hurt so you imagine you've been shopping and you're carrying these two really heavy bags one on the left hand one on the right hand and you can understand what that means because you experienced that before and now using your powers of imagination you look at the shopping bag in the left hand and that's got the letters written on the outside pas t past because inside that big shopping bag is all of your memories both good and bad everything which has happened to you which you are carrying around with you and a shopping bag in the right hand as the letters fu ture that represents the future in that bag or all of your plans your fears anxieties and dreams as well all packed in scientists huge bag which is incredibly heavy and you've been carrying that around for too long - so you're associating the bag in your left hand with your past the bag of your right hand with your future and you're associating carrying these around for too long there's a cause of this heaviness this ache and pain and now you focus on the back in the left hand you imagine yourself loving that bag to the ground doing it slowly if you are going to do these meditation exercises please don't rush through them if you go fast it doesn't have the same powerful effect do it slowly imagine yourself inch by inch lowering the bag and the left hand onto the ground and when it meets the ground just as over your back the weight of the burden disappears you put the bag down and then you move your fingers away from the handle but if your left arm to your side so it can rest and recuperate now you've let go of the bag containing your past and then you do the same with a bag in your right hand the future lowering it to the ground when it meets the ground the way it disappears you've let go of the future you're still holding it so move the fingers away from the handle till your right arm is hanging loosely by your side and doing that slowly how the visualization helps you let go of the real past and the real future and it helps because you know that no one is going to take it away from you you don't have to be afraid they're just putting it down for the time being to get a rest telling people to let go of the past and the future forever will be a wonderful thing if they could do it but that's scary tell them to let it go for a few minutes or for an hour for nine days on retreat yeah we can do that because it's only putting it down temporarily so that helps you let go of the past and the future it knows that you need to rest your mind and keep on worrying about the past or the future it's just going to you tired and so it's obvious that this is a good positive thing to do and once you put those two bags down you look down and you're standing in the space between the past and the future between the left hand bag in the right hand bag you're standing in the middle and you recognize that is this space called the present moment right in between and it's a place where there are no burdens a place of rest a place of freedom so we come into that present moment you stay there long enough few seconds or minutes or two minutes and you start to recognize it's a very peaceful happy place please recognize it's peace and happiness the sixth sense of freedom from all the burdens because if you can recognize it's peace and happiness then that means it will stay one of the reasons why the mind keeps wandering off is because it doesn't recognize that now is a very happy place this is beautiful this is peaceful and it doesn't recognize that and it goes looking for happiness somewhere house so deliberately appreciate the freedom of being in the present moment the lightness of the present moment and the sheer happiness of it and then after a while you become someone who can incline to the present moment and can stay there it's like a good old friend you like it you appreciate it it's a great home for you so see as much as you can on this retreat being in the present moment make that an important goal of this retreat is letting go of the past and the future abandoning those things so you can just be here just like when you were a little kid it was so easy when you were kid just being in this moment enjoying every moment of the day without any fears about what's going to happen next hardly any problems at all just living in a moment you can allow to do that during this retreat so go for it for those of you who still find it difficult being in the present moment go out into the the compound when you walk back to your heart take your shoes off take your socks off and feel the concrete or the the tiles whatever else is under your feet the stones around the stupa or the grass feel that with bare feet take off all of the the jumpers and the shawls don't take too much off and just feel the wind feel the cold feel the Sun on your body so get into feeling things if you go for a walk in the forest obviously wear your shoes and just listen to the sounds of nature because the feelings in the body like the feelings of the and the concrete under your feet the feeling of the war on your skin all of that brings you into the present moment it brings you back into reality feel the wind at night so don't go around protecting yourself from the elements so much if you want to be in the present moment take that stuff off so you can feel here you can feel cold you can feel the harshness of the concrete on your feet that actually starts to get you you into the present moment when you are having a cup of tea now just really drink that tea taste it feel it as much as you possibly can this is developing present moment awareness throughout the day and this is something you can always do even if you're sick if you're tired at least you can still be in the present moment you are here instead of always being somewhere else and that becomes the first stage of meditation is an important one you made is so simple but it needs to be cultivated and from the present moment that lets go of a lot of thinking and the next part of thinking which needs to be overcome it's just naming everything and discussing everything I remember us say as a scientist being taught that whenever you do an experiment you don't you collect all the data but you don't make any conclusions until all the data has been collected and the experiment is over once you have all the information then you can make a conclusion and you can think what it all means but not before so during meditation don't go thinking about the meaning of life during the middle of the meditation don't go trying to philosophize and becoming enlightened and thinking of what it all means during the middle shut up collect the information first and only when the information is in can you actually get some insights but we need silence first of all so the next thing we have to do is to learn just how to be and to be silent not talking to ourselves if you understand that you want to know what silence means and why we emphasize silence there's that old story I'm not going to do it you know in for that's the old lao-tzu story where hey fellow student was banned and scolded because on a walk with a master which is supposed to be in silence this student burst out and said what a beautiful sunset when he saw this incredible sunset over the mountains and people said what is wrong with talking why are we keeping say noble silence on this retreat what's the point of it and the point of it is is Lao tzus and when my student said what a beautiful sunset he was not watching the sunset anymore he was just watching the words every time you think a thought you're not watching things anymore just watching the thinking thinking what a beautiful sunset he's a lot different than seeing the beautiful sunset I don't know if any of you know those great Looney cartoons one of my favorite Looney cartoons was of Lunik watching the TV and the TV was a nature program of a beautiful sunset and in the other part of the cartoon was actually the window the sunset was actually happening outside but he was watching it on TV and you know why do we have to watch sunsets on TV when is what outside the real one and the point was it's like thinking the TV is like our thoughts it's one step removed from reality thinking what a beautiful sunset it's not the same as seeing the beautiful sunset the thoughts are the signposts they point to something so we don't just see the signposts the thoughts we see where it's pointing to the thing itself and you'll find all of your thoughts into so many signposts they're like Lonely Planet guides to meditation full of ideas and words but what's the point of reading a Lonely Planet guide through meditation when you don't go to the destination you don't visit it yourself when all you ever do is read books about these exotic places and doesn't matter how many books you read about exotic places the Great Wall of China or something you all know that it's so different actually being there than reading about it it's so different experiencing something than thinking about it so somehow other who you got to silence that thinking mind the place where most of us live thinking that's reality and I gave you wonderful method yesterday which was the NAM mobile daya please practice our because that actually works putting some spaces between the syllables which actually stops the thoughts and makes you become more aware of the spaces in between the words because it's in the spaces in between the words and where you find the meaning we're good example here I can just do so many examples for example I want you to experience your reaction after I say these words peace peace peace peace because after I say the word the mind will start to go in that direction it's a little signpost to the mind piece and it actually goes to that direction and after a while I hope many of you could actually feel peace like kindness kindness kindness can you notice a difference between the word kindness the thought kindness and when it actually is what that word is describing this only in silence can we actually really get to know what peace is as an experience what kindness is as an experience which is why silence becomes very very important in meditation whenever we're thinking we're just creating too much disturbance to our mind the thoughts are the waves on the surface of the lake where we can calm those thoughts down there are no more waves on the surface of the lake everything is really really peaceful and also the reflects truth people have the opinion that the thinking can describe the world it does not describe truth thinking distorts the truth which is why people have so many arguments or based on thinking silent people don't argue people who think a lot argued to death so calm the mind down and stop thinking so much sure at first when you calm the mind down and come into the present moment you get a bit sleepy because you're not really quite used to what you're supposed to observe in silence and in present moment it's such very similar to when you leave lit house at nighttime you go out into the garden which is much darker you cannot see very clearly at first going out from a lit room into the dark garden it takes a while for your eyes to adapt to the much more subdued light but they do adapt after a minute or two or three minutes you can start to see again the same with silence and present moment awareness at first you're not really quite sure what you should be observing it's like going into darkness after a while you can start to experience again and you can experience much more subtle things with greater power and clarity is worthwhile just hanging out in the silence and soon you'll be able to understand what you're supposed to see and the next part of the meditation is learning how to watch your breathing if you start to watch your breath too soon and you haven't done enough present moment awareness and silence you'll find you cannot stay with the breath easily it usually just disappears and you start thinking all sorts of fantasies and dreams or else you put so much effort into trying to watch the breath you get tensed up so instead of going to the breath too soon we have to make a proper foundation just like building a building you put a lot of time on the foundation then when the building goes up it doesn't fall down and the same is with the breath when you do the breath you have to have a solid foundation in present moment awareness and silence first and when you're really calm in the present moment it's so easy to watch the breath because the main distractions have been with and so once you have enough present moment awareness in silence and you can invite the breath in I say invite the breath in rather than capture the breath like some some US Marine catching a terrorist why I've got you now you don't do that to your breath you invite the breath in and then you regard your breath as a good friend for example people who keep telling me yes they can see the breath for the four or five breaths then afterwards their breath disappears and vanishes and they say why do we can't we stay with the breath for too long why is our mind always Restless and the reason is is because the way you treat the breath like a slave not like a friend and a simile I developed is a simile of inviting your friend out for a cup of coffee you give them a call one afternoon say hey how about coming out for a cup of coffee and you say okay and your friend says right we're going to go to Gloria Jean's not dome not Starbucks not coffee bean we're gonna go to Gloria Jean's I know you like those other ones but I like Gloria Jean's we're gonna Gloria Jean's right and you're gonna have a latter cuz I like that II I know you usually like to have a cappuccino but I don't care you're gonna have a letter cuz that's what I want you to have and you're not gonna have a muffin I know you like those chocolate muffins you're gonna have a biscuit just like I'm gonna have a biscuit and we're not gonna sit out the front we're gonna sit out the back cause I don't like being out the front I know you like being in the front but I'm gonna go in the back and you're coming with me and are we gonna start talking about politics I know you hate politics but I love talking about politics and you're gonna sit there for two hours not one of our half hours or three hours when you got two hours you're gonna sit there for two hours talking about what I want to talk about eating what I want to eat drinking what I want to drink for the time I want okay now if that was your friend and they said things like that they wanted to control you like that weld your response be you probably say oh I just remembered I've got to go to the dentist yeah I've got to go to the judge I was terribly so ever maybe next time okay anything to escape now you know why your mind tries to escape from you right you're gonna watch the breath and the tip of the nose or somewhere else for one hour I know last time you could only do it for five minutes you're gonna watch it for one hour and I'm no messing around and you're not gonna do what you how you want to do it you can do it how I'm gonna do it mind you're gonna stay still and your mind as soon as it sees you coming we'll run away we'll hide we'll go into the toilet and not come out again anything to escape from you because the way you've treated your mind or treated your breath has been like some control freak that is not the way to treat a good friend but imagine a real friend gave you a call one afternoon and said hey are you free this afternoon they say well maybe how about come for a cup of coffee I know that place you just told me about last week you said what's really good I haven't been there yeah let's go to your place and I know you really said those cappuccinos were really delicious yeah I don't usually like cappuccinos but if you recommend it yeah we're gonna eat what you won't think what you drink and I like to try one of those beautiful chocolate muffins you keep talking about are try one too and you've been coming to this Buddhist Society tell me something about what it's all really interested in what your interest you if you have a friend like that it was interested in what you're interested in I'm not trying to control you but being kind to you of course you want to go out with them when they treat you like that the time goes an hour two hours three hours you're having such a good time with that you don't notice a passage of time and you stay having a wonderful time together because of that kindness and sensitivity so if you want to stay with your breath for long periods of time treat it like a really good friend tell your breath how do you want to go in and now what do you want to do and just do what your breath was to do know what you want to do if the breath needs to go out for an appointment somewhere it just needs to disappeared okay off you go breath you can come back later on if you treat your breath like a friend with kindness then it's very easy to stay with your breathing as easy is to stay with a good friend and if your breath wants to disappear for a while let it go story I love saying is of a woman here in Perth whose six-year-old son decided to leave home he was a little kid and one day he told his mummy mummy I don't like keeping all your rules anymore I've had enough I'm leaving home so the six-year-old wanted to leave home and the mummy said okay darling I'll help you pack now the mother was not trying to get rid of a kid although many mothers can think of that a few times but she was just using very smart psychology so she went into the kids bedroom helped pack his suitcase with all the necessities of life like you know the Gameboy and the and a teddy bear and everything else and then before he left she told him hug a little bit darling I'll just make you a sandwich for lunch so made him his favorite sandwich peanut butter and jelly whatever I don't know what it was and then as a son left home she stood at the doorway waving her little six-year-old off bye-bye darling don't forget to call as a little six-year-old carrying a suitcase in one hand and a paper bag with the sandwich in the other hand walk to the end of the garden opened the gate turn left and went off into his life away from home as a six-year-old he got maybe a couple of houses down the street in which it lived and then was homesick turned around walk back open the garden gates walk down the garden path and her mother was still waiting there by the door welcome home darling because she knew the six-year-old won't go far you can let it go just goes a couple of minutes away and gets home 6:00 and wants to come back again that's how you treat the mind when it wants to go away when it wants to be restless you're watching the breath and then suddenly the mind wants to go off somewhere okay bye-bye mind have a great life don't forget to call then damn I will go off somewhere just let it go you'll be back in a few moments if you're kind to it if you really care and love your mind it would go off somewhere but always come back straight away that's a way to deal with restlessness but if you have a kid and as soon as it comes back you slap it around to pick it don't you ever do that again you're grounded you can't do this you can't do that of course your kid will want to run away again the same with your mind if it's been Restless don't slap it around don't sort of be cruel to it be kind to it and then it'll keep coming back again the reason why the mind is restless why it keeps wandering off it's because you're not kind enough to it because it's scared of you if it really loved you and you cared for it it cared for you you'd be inseparable friends and if you can be inseparable friends with your breath then you become a great meditator you don't stop restlessness through force or willpower you can't control your mind as if it was some servant or a slave you control the mind you are that not control the mind you become friends with the mind so comfortable in each other's presence you can hang out together for long periods of time and after a while hanging out with something as simple as your breathing is so peaceful so joyful it's as if when you have a chance to meditate the breath sees you you see the better hi it's you again yeah let's hang out together then you hang out together half an hour now an hour and a half having a great time with no other worries in the world and that's called breath meditation I should mention that when you watch the breathing you don't watch the breathing at the tip of the nose or at the belly or anywhere else this is not knows meditation it's not belly meditation it's breath meditation if you haven't done breath meditation before I tell people to close the eyes and as you close the eyes just breathe in and out three times at the end of the third breath open your eyes and then I ask the new people how did you know you were breathing in and how did you know you're breathing out you know you're breathing in you know you're breathing out however you know whatever it is whatever experience it is tells you you're breathing or not breathing out that is what you watch you don't watch the tip of the nose because sometimes you're not breathing into the tip of the nose you don't watch the belly because you're not breathing into the belly somewhere in your body you're breathing in who cares where it is as long as you're breathing that's what you watch the sensation that tells you the breath is going in they say the sation which tells you the breath is going out and don't be concerned about where that feeling is located just to know the breath and that's all and if you can keep doing that you'll find that soon the mind gets very peaceful and very still yeah it's tough at first because you have to make the transition from a very busy life with lots of thoughts and lots of plans and lots of responsibilities it takes the time but please give yourself that time be kind to your body kind to your mind and you will find little by little you ease into this meditation retreat it's still early days so please the beds are there for you to actually to have a good rest I think is what any news of the water is it the water is working now so you can take a shower but take short showers today so you know you don't think shower and just soak yourself for half an hour now it isn't a little by little because otherwise it might sort of all disappear again so we got some water again it is at last that long we don't have any water and just keep the mind very peaceful and very we can because when it's very peaceful and very very calm then of course you don't sweat so much your metabolism goes down which means you don't need to wash so much because it's not so much dirt coming out of you so be very still and very very peaceful and by doing that you are actually developing the meditations and all the other things which are going to come as a result of the meditation you would experience and I'll be talking about more of those in the next couple of days so please enjoy yourself and again meditate any place on this retreat in your room sort of in on the stupas wherever you you feel is comfortable for you so today I was just talking in more detail about present moment awareness silence or just by the way if somebody does talk it's supposed to be noble silence so you don't have to talk to anybody if someone talks to you sometimes people think what should if I say shut up be quiet then I'm breaking my noble silence too so instead when somebody talks all you need to do they're talking to you just put your finger up given the one finger sign but not the usual wondrous that's all you need to do just do ish and that reminds him to be quiet so you don't have to join in the conversation just and then they can be quiet too but because his people here if you don't talk to them sometimes they feel a bit upset so noble silence doesn't mean you have to scour people it's quite okay to smile at people in the morning when somebody gets up and they're in your in your cottage but you can smile this so smiling is okay talking not okay so any comments or questions so we've got some announcement here okay so please look after all the times he used to take the havenaire taps on their cottages and water may be discolored but it is fine so have nice showers and have a nice day so now we have some interviews at 9 o'clock so those those who put their names on the interview list please come up from the interviews the interviews are a maximum 10 minutes each so please keep it to the table minutes and can we please keep it if possible to meditation questions not about your husband your kids your wife and everything else because that goes on forever and ever and ever and ever okay so interview time now for those who are the interviews

Channel: BSWA Retreats 2011-15 & Media

Views: 16,237

Rating: 4.8974357 out of 5

Keywords: Ajahn Brahm, Jhana Grove, meditation, Dhamma, Buddhism, relaxation, Ajahn Chah

Id: MjKe4GjKMxM

Length: 46min 41sec (2801 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 20 2013