Very good, welcome. We've still got a few minutes to go yet before we start but welcome to the meditation class. This is the ongoing class here for those who have meditated before and who can sit still for roughly about 40 to 45 minutes. Those who are coming to the introduction to meditation class, the series of four lectures where we introduce the basic ideas of meditation, that class will be held in the room to my right with Bianca who is the one who is leading that. For those of you who are new to meditation, that is to be recommended, because here we just focus on one particular aspect of the meditation and after about 10 or 15 minutes of a little explanation, we ask everybody to sit still, to meditate for 40 to 45 minutes. For some people who have never meditated before, that is like what they do in Guantánamo Bay, prolonged stress positions which is torture for some people if you don't know how to sit quietly, so for those who haven't done much meditation before, the room on my right, and this is for the ongoing class. So you have been warned, he he he he he. Anyway, now is the time to get yourselves nice and comfortable. Just for the meditation, it's all learning how to relax and be peaceful. It's not about concentration. It's all about stillness, allowing your mind to become peaceful and calm. The most important word I used there was "allowing," because every time you get involved, every time you try and do something, every time you try to get rid of something, you will find that causes a little bit of stress in the mind. It is Ajahn Chah's simile, my teacher, who would put his hand up and he'd wave it up and down. He said that represented a leaf on a tree, and it only moves because of the wind. The movement isn't inherent in the leaf. If the wind stopped, then the leaf would move less, and less, and less until the leaf will become perfectly still which is it's natural default position. The leaf only moves because something outside of it is making it move. That is a simile for the human mind. The mind is naturally still, believe it or not, and it only moves and thinks and worries because there is a wind blowing, and that is the wind of wanting something or wanting to get rid of something, and that wind of wanting is the cause for the lack of peace. Any type of wanting whatsoever, even wanting to be peaceful just creates more waves in the mind so we try and let things be. This is good enough. Learn how to be content. Make this moment the most important moment in the world, not some fantasy of that happiness is somehow going to come in some amazing experience in the future. This is good enough right now. We learn to make peace in this moment. One of the similes we keep on talking about is learning how to combine kindness and compassion into the meditation. Sometimes people's meditation is so severe they either do that to themselves or someone makes them do that so instead of making it unkind, we introduce compassion from the very beginning just by being aware and kind of our body, to make sure our body is as relaxed as possible so you can sit on the chairs if you wish. You can sit in the corner with your back against the wall which is one of the most first-taken positions in any meditation hall. You can sit on the ground. You can actually sit on the stools, but make sure that you are comfortable, simple kindness to the body. When you are kind to the body, you can get the body in a good enough state where you don't need to move it. You don't need and want this, you don't want that, because the body is relaxed and comfortable. That is a first start, the whole meaning of having a good posture. It's not what looks good from outside. It's what feels good from inside, comfortable. Once your posture is comfortable, you do the same to your mind, be kind to it. I've often mentioned that everybody understands that what really is a place where you are wanting desires and getting rid of stuff, the thing which causes the stress in the mind, they all live in the past and the future. But people find it so difficult to just find an escape from the past and future which is the present moment. It always is the case they want to get rid of the past. They want to get rid of the future. They want to let go, and anyone who understands what letting go is, wanting to let go is one of the oxymorons. Two words put together which mean the opposite of one another. When you are wanting, you are not letting go. When you are letting go, you are not wanting. Just allow this stuff to be, whatever is happening right now. When you learn how to be kind to whatever happens in your mind, to open the door of your heart to this moment whatever it is, then you find the past and the future they vanish by themselves. You try and kick them out, you try and say, "I'm not going to think of the past. "I'm not going to worry about the future. "I'm not going to worry, I'm not going to worry, "I'm not going to worry." Try using force, and you just get more stressed out. Using kindness, you find it starts to vanish by itself, the past and the future. One of the reasons why to help people learn how to let go and what actually letting go is, when we calm the body down in the first part of the meditation with our posture, I sometimes ask people to focus on the most irritating part of your body, the part which is causing you pain, disturbance. It could be an ache, it could be a headache or whatever, and then you focus on it, be aware of it. Then you will find what you need to do to actually relieve that pain without moving your body just using your attitude and mind. You will find that with trial and error, you try this, you try that, eventually you will find that when you really let go, when you are kind the ache, the pain, the irritation, the inflammation, wherever it happens to be it gets a little bit less. It gets a little bit less, and a little bit less. It keeps on disappearing as it relaxes. You will find that thing, that attitude of mind which relaxes tension in the body, which eases pain, which allows the information to die down, what you just did was the meaning of kindness, compassion. This is how we really learn what these emotional responses are, by how they affect our own body. A little bit of kindness to your body relaxes it. When we see that, when we learn that, we then just not get a peaceful body and a healthy body too, but we also apply that to our mind as well and how to relax our mind. Worries, fears, anxieties, they are just like tensions, inflammations in our body, but this is in our mind. The inflammation of the mind. A wound in our mental area, and the only way we can really heal that is actually to be aware of it and see what makes it lessen. We find that it is the kindness. This is where, as I keep on mentioning in my meditation classes, you develop this concept of a peace-o-meter. Just like the comfort in your body, you can know whether it's tensed or it's relaxed, you can see in your mind are you agitated or are you peaceful? Which one is it? When you look at that quality, peace or agitation of your mind, then you will find you are looking at this thing we call a peace-o-meter. You are aware, you are mindful of it. And how do you actually relax that peace-o-meter? How do you move the needle, the meter down to more and more peace?@@ You know you are peaceful. You know you are agitated. Keep looking there, keep being aware there and after a while you soon realize that when you try and get rid of stuff, when you are off in the past and the future, You just get more agitated. When you are kind, you find you relax. The needle of the peace-o-meter goes down. When you let go, you let go of doing stuff and just let this moment be. Whatever it happens to be, just let it be. You learn that skill by the feedback you get from being aware of how peaceful you are or how agitated you are. You will learn how to let go and what it actually is. You learn it because if you do it right, you relax and get so peaceful. This is how we learn meditating. We get a very comfortable body and a very peaceful mind. For those of you who find it difficult sometimes because our hall on Thursday had a cancer group came to our monastery for every year. This is the 28th year apparently they told me. Just when one person said, "Meditation is so difficult," I said, "No, you are just making it difficult." I just taught them the very same exact what I've just been talking about a few moments ago but in different words, the old emperor's three questions meditation. Now is the most important time. The person in front of you is the most important person in the world. The only thing to do is to care. Not to cure, but to care. I told that story so many times. I'm not going to be repeat it here, but I'm now going to say how it relates to your meditation. You all know that now is the most important time. Why is it we find it difficult to stay here? Because we don't give importance to whatever is in front of us right now. We always think, "No, no, "we should be aware of something else. "No, no, I've gotten an ache. "I've got to get rid of that. "I've got a thought. That's bad. "I'm sleepy. That is even worse." We keep judging this moment instead of giving it importance. When we judge it, we try and get rid of it, we want to develop it. Whatever you are aware of right in this moment is the most important meditation object in the whole world, whatever it happens to be. You give it importance, it's happening now, then you find you stay in this present moment. If it's not important, it's not good enough, it's faulty, defective, then you will try and get rid of it which means you can't be mindful. This moment, the most important in the whole world, the one thing in front of you right now, the most important in the whole world, and the only thing you do is to care for it. Open the door of your heart to it as it is with kindness, letting it be, and then you will find the meditation develops by itself. No matter what you are aware of, aches, pains, terrible stuff going on in your head, it's happening now. Pay attention. It's important. Be kind, and then you will find it it disappears slowly but always. That's what happens. Now we can actually start the meditation if you would like to adjust your posture. Once again, because people have come in, those of you who have come for the introduction to meditation class, that is in the room to my right. This is the ongoing class for those who are able to meditate for 40 to 45 minutes without moving or making too much noise to distract others. 20 minutes is good enough I think. (murmurs) Okay, anyway. If anybody is too hot or too cold, for the first time I have the power. (laughs) Is everyone okay, comfortable enough? Not too hot? Not too cold? Not too perfect? (chuckles) Good enough. Closing the eyes. When the eyes are closed, you can have more awareness of your bodily feelings and sensations. Just settle into your body. Pay some awareness to your legs just a meticulous systematic feeling of your body. The awareness of any sensations in your legs, feet. If you need to move, please do so out of kindness, and if you do move, the change in sensation allows you to have some feedback to know whether you are moving in a good direction or a bad direction. The mindfulness and kindness if applied clearly, carefully, will take you to the most comfortable posture for your legs. This is how we get into good meditation posture, by feeling it. Then you are aware of your bottom, your buttocks sitting on a cushion or a chair. Feel it. That is being aware. See if you can improve. Fidget if you want to to get the best possible position. Become aware, move the awareness up to your waist and your back, just relaxing it. You can stretch it if you wish to just to experiment to find out the best possible position. Don't assume that it's the best possible position now. Just a bit of experiment. Trial and error until you find the optimum position for your body. You are going to be meditating for 40 to 45 minutes. Get it right to begin with, and it is comfortable later on. Note here the position of your hands. Don't look at them, just feel them. Are they comfortable? Can you keep them like this without needing to move them for the next 40 minutes? When you are careful and caring you get the best possible posture. Making sure the head is well positioned on top of the neck. Once your body has been adjusted through movement, look at the whole body making sure everything is okay. If you really do need to move during the meditation, it's no problem at all, just move. It does disturb the meditation a little bit but far less than enduring pain. Then as I mentioned before we closed our eyes, see if you can look inside your body anywhere to find the most irritating or painful part. Focus in on it, zoom in on the most irritating part of your body. Be mindful of it filling your awareness, noticing it does change by itself. Sometimes it gets more intense, sometimes eases off. Why? See if you can find the link between your attitude, the way you look at that, the way you regard it. Are you giving it, "I want to get rid of you," or are you giving it, "I care for you," opening the door of your heart, embracing this moment. See if you can experiment and try to narrow. You might learn that the way we regard the irritations and pains in our own body can make them worse or can make them ease off. What makes it ease off? You will be able to understand that that means letting go, kindness. Open the door of your heart to this moment. Acceptance. You are giving this moment importance and you are caring for it. If you find that part of your body it gets more and more relaxed, more at ease, you are going in the right direction. Remember this so that later on when we relax our mind you can do exactly the same thing. This moment, the most important Whatever is in front of you, the most important.. Just being kind, the most important thing to do. How peaceful are you now or how agitated? If you can answer that question, you are looking at the peace-o-meter, the part of your emotional world which you can understand tells you just how agitated or peaceful or agitated your mind is. See what is necessary to make yourself more peaceful, more content, more emotionally still. Mindfulness allows you to have feedback. You will soon discover what kindness, letting go actually is. It is what relaxes your mind. You will find once your mind is relaxed, the past and future disappear by themselves. When your mind is relaxed, you don't need to think. You are peaceful. Here the breath will come up later on, but wait until that happens. Whatever comes up, that is the most important. All you ever need to do is be kind. I will start speaking again when the meditation time is about one minute or two minutes from completion. It is getting close to the end of the meditation now. How do you feel? How relaxed is your body? How still is your mind? Why? What works? Did you give importance to this moment and care for it? Now I will ring the gong three times. When the gong the finishes sounding for the third time, that's the signal to come out from your meditation. (gong chimes) (gong chimes) (gong chimes) Very good. We have the live streaming working, good. This class is listened to by many people overseas so let's see what questions we have here first of all, and then follow from that any questions from here. Only one, ha ha ha. Iko from Germany. Is there such a thing as universal life energy and does meditation help be one with it? We usually whether it is something or isn't something is not really the question. It's that we make the reality. If that is what we wish, then we can make that happen, universal life energy, but becoming one with it, sometimes people always say it's nice to be interconnected, but to me it's nice to be able to disconnect from time to time. There was a beautiful little saying from Silicon Valley in a Wisdom 101 conference, I think, two years ago where this theme of the conference was to disconnect to connect. Of course, it was meaning disconnect from your mobile phones, to connect with real life, but also you could interpret that as disconnect from your body when you meditate and the only way you can do that is connect with it first of all, be kind to it, and then it vanishes. That's the way we disconnect from our body so we can be free from the body and understand our emotional world. Then with the emotional world, we disconnect from the past and the future to connect with this present moment. We disconnect with trying so we can connect with being peaceful and being still, and being able to disconnect with all these ideas like universal life energy, or ground of all being, or anything to connect with this moment and watch the whole moment vanish until there is nothing left. I kind of like that idea. As a physicist, I used to have this little problem with how the universe could begin, the mass energy of a universe of stuff. Also, because you all know this, but it was a fundamental law. You cannot create mass energy You cannot destroy it. Where did it all come from? It cannot be created. It cannot be destroyed. The answer is not hard to understand, but if all of the mass energy, all of the planets, solar systems, energy fields, if they could all come together in one spot, what would happen? There is such a thing not using the negative energy in the sense of an emotional darkness, but there is such a thing as a negative mass energy. What happens if it all cancels out? Many are proposing that at a seminar with our local professor, David Blair at UWA. They said, "What happens if it all cancels out?" If all of the stuff which is here in this universe, if it all came to one point, it would all be a zero-sum. It came from nothing. It goes back to nothing. I remember him turning around to me and saying, "Wow Ajahn Brahm, you are really up to date. " Omega equals one." In science they always have these numbers and figures, and symbols for stuff so that is the case. There is nothing here, no universal life energy, but that is just a device of division. Then coming from nothing and going back to nothing, wow, I think that is really cool. One of the reasons why it's amazing just the insights and understandings which you get in the most unexpected places. This one I got from a T-shirt where the T-shirt read, "Nobody is perfect. " I am a nobody!" with an exclaim, " Therefore, I am perfect." Nobody, so if you try and be a somebody, you try and get enlightened, try to be a bodhisattva, or fully enlightened Buddha, or whatever you want to be, then you will never be perfect. Nobody is perfect. Therefore, be a nobody and then you will find perfection. For those who are out and out Buddhists who know your scriptures, that is another interpretation of the Visuddhimagga's famous line, "The path is, but no traveler on it is seen." Nibbana is, but not the person who enters. To enter Nibbana, you have to vanish, to be a nobody. Then you will find perfection. Is that a bit much on a Saturday afternoon? (gentle laughter) I told you this was the advanced class, those people that close to enlightenment. You were warned, he he he he he. - Ajahn Brahm?
- Yeah? [inaudible] - A vanishing trick, yes. Yes, I know--
- Lao Tzu. - Lao Tzu, yeah. What was his famous saying, Lao Tzu? - [Audience Member] I think that is his name. - Yeah, Lao Tzu, yeah but they pronounce it differently-- - [Audience Member] Wei or something. - Yeah, in the ... What was the ... Oh, he did the ... His great story, I just was getting back my data bank, was that when he had this amazing rule with his disciples where he would go on a walk with them every evening. He'd choose one disciple every evening to go on a walk with him and he had a golden rule. If you went on a walk with the master, you weren't allowed to speak, not one word. This new guy, this young fellow, he got selected to go on a walk with the master. They walked through the forest, through the mountains, past the lakes, and they just happened to get to a ridge in the mountains at sunset. It was one of the most gorgeous sunsets. There were streaks of orange, and purples, and golds just illuminating the horizon of the mountain scape. It was such an amazingly beautiful sunset that this new student couldn't help himself but to say, "Wow, what an amazing beautiful sunset." He had broken the rule. Lao Tzu had to keep the rule too. He couldn't say, "You've spoken," otherwise two people were both in the wrong. He just turned around and went back to the monastery. When he got back to the monastery, that's when he spoke again and said, "That young man is never, ever for his life "allowed to come on a walk with me again." His friend said, "That's a bit too tough. " A life ban? He just said, 'What a beautiful sunset,' " What's wrong with that?" That's what Lao Tzu replied, "When my student said, 'What a beautiful sunset,' "he wasn't watching the sunset anymore. "He was only watching the words. "He wasn't watching the sunset. "He was only watching the words." I like that because there is great wisdom there. Whenever we say anything, we are just watching the words. We are not watching the real thing, the sunset. If anyone ever, if you are taking them out to a dinner this evening and they say, "Wow, this curry tastes nice," say, "You are not tasting the curry, are you? " You're just watching the words." Tell them to shut up. (laughing) Lao Tzu had some really nice stuff. That's what I remember, that a lovely story which explains just about how silence-- We always have these ideas, universal life energy and stuff. There is this wonderful story-- Any other questions by the way before I tell another little anecdote? This actually end questions, which I would love to ends questions because I get too many of them. You answer one question, you have another one that comes afterwards, endless except when as a young monk there was this very very famous monk. His name was Ajahn Tate, one of my favorite monks. As soon as I became a monk, that was about 42 years ago, that he was in the big hospital in Bangkok dying of cancer. Because he was a famous monk, he had a very, very best care, and a few people know this that that Monk actually visited Perth many, many years ago just about a year before, two years before I came here. He visited Magnolia Street anyway, but that was a long time ago, Ajahn Tate. Anyway, he had cancer when I first went to Thailand. He said it was a waste of time staying in a hospital. If I'm going to die, I'm going to die in my own monastery which was on the Mekong River just upstream of Si Chiang Mai. He went back there, and it was about another 25 years before he died. He took his time. Patience, no rush, but he was a really, really great monk and so hearing his reputation, I decided to one day go and visit him and ask all of my questions. I had to wait for an appointment. He was just such a famous monk. To ask these questions I really wanted to find the answers from someone I could really trust. What happened when I went into his room? My mind went so peaceful, so silent there were no questions left. I just sat there like some idiot only these guys understand, these great monks understand what's going on so we just sat there in silence. I just got the peace, and tranquility, and the amazing kindness, this beautiful, beautiful acceptance that even that no matter how stupid I was that was not a problem. You didn't need to improve to be perfect, to be accepted. The door of his heart was fully opened. I never needed any more questions. Those are wonderful experiences. Sometimes you feel so peaceful, so kind, so calm, so accepted, there is no need for any questions to disturb the peace. Many of the questions are just an agitated mind. Wanting to find out just through giving more names to sunsets instead of just being still. All the questions vanish, Questions like thoughts like the past and the future and just how we escape. It's an agitated mind wanting something more, not being able to appreciate we are good enough already. We have enough wisdom, but when we go searching for more, we forget, we don't appreciate what we have. How much do you need to be peaceful? To be agitated, yeah. To write a book, you need ideas. To actually get a PhD, you need to have research, you need to write something, but to be still, you need nothing. Nobody is perfect, or as before I went off somewhere last year, I think before I went off to Malaysia last December, this fellow came along and he decided to try to convert me to Christianity. I would have been a big prize. (laughs) He said, "Come on Ajahn Brahm, " you have to admit nothing is greater than God." I said, "Yes, I agree with you totally." He said, "Yeah, really?" I said, "Yes, nothing, " emptiness, the great void, "that is greater than your God." He was really upset. I don't know why. (laughing) I was just teaching him dhamma. (laughs) "That's not what I meant, that's not what I meant," I'm a very tricky monk. The nothing, the great emptiness, the void, What more can you get? People go from many gods, to one God, And then they finally go to no god, nothing, emptiness, void. That's the coolest. It's not meditation to help to be one with it, to be none. To be none with everything instead of one with everything. I found that quite cool. For those people whose aim in life is to be one with everything, nah, to be none with everything or to be one with nothing? I don't know, you could have some great fun on this. Anyway, any other answers, questions or did it work? The end of all questions. Nah, just in my dreams.. Okay, anyone put their hand up? No? Great. Okay again, This is the final session for the monks before we start our rains retreat tomorrow. Next week, we are going to find how well I have trained my followers because there's going to be a class next week. Isn't there, Hugh? It could be, it could be not. That's great, that's just how it should be, totally uncertain, maybe there is, maybe there ain't. (faint speaking) A recording. Well look, this is a recording anyway, isn't it? I tell the same old stories every week. What's the difference?
(laughing) So that's happening next week. I wish you all happiness and well-being for the rains retreat. As I said last night when people said, "Retreats? In other places, we advance." I said, "You don't understand what retreat means. " It comes from re- means 'again' and 'treat,' " having a good time," so it's another time to have a good time. A treat again. Also sometimes we call it a rest period for the monks which means the rest of the monks don't do much and I have to do all the teaching. Is that right? (chuckles) Whatever, anyway I wish you all happiness and well-being. Now pay respects to Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha or just three bows and then if you have a question please, can't be too long because at 4:45 or 4:50 I have to go back to Bodhinyana Monastery because this evening is a full moon tonight. It's a Sangha Puja. We need to do a ceremony of chanting and Patimokkha. We call it like a party at the monastery, The party mokha, for those of you who know what that means. It's a joke, a not very good one but anyway, that's what you get. Just bow. Very good, very nice.
