Guided Meditation

0:00 welcome everybody so it's gone past three o 'clock sorry I was slightly late so let's take a few moments to arrive here just Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:15 bring that awareness where you are now we are in this very peaceful quiet place we have arrived some of you may have just rushed through the traffic Finished various things in the earlier part of the day. Whatever it is, allow all of those, give your consent for all of those memories, all of those, you know, wobblings of the mind to fade away into the background. Report an error in the passage at 0:15 Highlight the passage at 0:15

0:50 No need to hang on to them. Even anything important, you can attend to that afterwards. For the next hour or so, we have nothing else to do, nowhere to go, just happy to be here, just being here, just Report an error in the passage at 0:50 Highlight the passage at 0:50

1:19 the idea of stopping and allowing your body and mind to become still. Report an error in the passage at 1:19 Highlight the passage at 1:19

1:31 It's quite delightful to give that mind a time to become peaceful. To rest and relax and Report an error in the passage at 1:31 Highlight the passage at 1:31

1:50 allowing then the natural energies to flow in. So Report an error in the passage at 1:50 Highlight the passage at 1:50

1:59 take a few minutes to check how your body is sitting. It is important that you are comfortable, that you can hopefully maintain this posture for the next hour or so. So do whatever that you need to adjust to become. As comfortable as possible. Report an error in the passage at 1:59 Highlight the passage at 1:59

2:30 It is also helpful to keep your upper body upright just because it brings a little bit more awareness. In case you had a busy day or you are tired, this is the time that the mind might fall into sleep. And if you are really tired, if it falls asleep, it's fine. but otherwise if you actually want to Meditation is mind waking up, becoming energized. So it is helpful to remind it that while I'm allowing my body and mind to relax, to rest, I want to be here and enjoy that process of relaxation. Report an error in the passage at 2:30 Highlight the passage at 2:30

3:26 So that's a clear indication. A clear instruction that you give to your mindfulness to stay alert, to remember what we are doing in the sense, you know, just being here, being aware and allowing everything to become still. Report an error in the passage at 3:26 Highlight the passage at 3:26

3:51 As a way of establishing mindfulness, during the workshop also, we learned about taming a wild elephant and it was... And tying it to a post on the ground once it's been brought out. And that post, the steady post, was the mindfulness established on the body. Report an error in the passage at 3:51 Highlight the passage at 3:51

4:18 So one way of doing it is just, you know, bringing your attention, full attention to this body, how it feels, how it's sitting here. Report an error in the passage at 4:18 Highlight the passage at 4:18

4:31 Instead of giving attention to the mind and thinking process, Past and future, instead you just bring it right here into the sensations in the body, how it's feeling, the way it's sitting. So Report an error in the passage at 4:31 Highlight the passage at 4:31

4:52 you can bring attention to your face if you wish. I invite you to bring attention to your forehead and just relax your forehead. It's amazing how we tighten our forehead. And you can extend Report an error in the passage at 4:52 Highlight the passage at 4:52

5:32 that relaxation to all the muscles around your eyes. Close your eyes in a very gentle and soft way. And become aware of all those muscles around the eyes. And Report an error in the passage at 5:32 Highlight the passage at 5:32

5:53 allow all of those muscles to relax. Report an error in the passage at 5:53 Highlight the passage at 5:53

6:08 And now you can bring attention to your cheeks and Report an error in the passage at 6:08 Highlight the passage at 6:08

6:15 relax all the muscles on your cheeks. Now Report an error in the passage at 6:15 Highlight the passage at 6:15

6:26 you can relax your mouth, your jaw. Report an error in the passage at 6:26 Highlight the passage at 6:26

6:34 Notice sometimes we are not relaxed with our jaw. So intentionally allow your jaw to relax and Report an error in the passage at 6:34 Highlight the passage at 6:34

6:49 bring up a beautiful smile. Report an error in the passage at 6:49 Highlight the passage at 6:49

6:55 And notice the mind uplifting as you smile. Report an error in the passage at 6:55 Highlight the passage at 6:55

7:05 the most important meditation posture because it brings positive feelings into your mind and it becomes easier to relax with a smile. Report an error in the passage at 7:05 Highlight the passage at 7:05

7:25 And now you can bring attention to the touch sensations of your palms or your feet touching the ground or your sitting muscles. Report an error in the passage at 7:25 Highlight the passage at 7:25

7:38 And you can ground your awareness. Report an error in the passage at 7:38 Highlight the passage at 7:38

7:45 I felt sensation of touch as an anchor to allow our mind to become more peaceful. Report an error in the passage at 7:45 Highlight the passage at 7:45

8:07 Whenever you catch yourself, your mind going into thinking, gently bring it back to the touch sensations and continue to smile as you just wait here silently with Report an error in the passage at 8:07 Highlight the passage at 8:07

8:33 acceptance of whatever is happening. Report an error in the passage at 8:33 Highlight the passage at 8:33

8:39 Our bodies may not always be perfect. There may be some discomfort. And that's okay. Report an error in the passage at 8:39 Highlight the passage at 8:39

8:51 Imagine it if it was your baby or if it was your best friend. You allow it to be. In Report an error in the passage at 8:51 Highlight the passage at 8:51

9:05 that same way, you allow whatever noise you hear, whatever feelings you have in your mind, whatever sensations you have in your body. Report an error in the passage at 9:05 Highlight the passage at 9:05

9:21 You accept that to be. Report an error in the passage at 9:21 Highlight the passage at 9:21

9:27 Last night Ajahn Brahm's talk was about not fighting with sound, right? Not disturbing the sound. Not Report an error in the passage at 9:27 Highlight the passage at 9:27

9:44 that the sound disturbs you. So this happens when we accept and allow things to be. And Report an error in the passage at 9:44 Highlight the passage at 9:44

9:58 with that kind of attitude, just Report an error in the passage at 9:58 Highlight the passage at 9:58

10:04 love your mind and body. To come to stillness, to rest, to relax. Report an error in the passage at 10:04 Highlight the passage at 10:04

· · · silence, 1 minute

10:57 And as you're settling down, if you notice the natural flow of your breath, the breath going in and the breath going out, you can notice it from a distance, aware that the breath is going in and the breath is going out. Report an error in the passage at 10:57 Highlight the passage at 10:57

11:29 And you can anchor your awareness in the flow of the breath. And allow that breath to calm you down, to bring peace to your mind. We Report an error in the passage at 11:29 Highlight the passage at 11:29

· · · silence, 44 minutes

56:02 are now coming close to the end of this meditation. Take a few moments to see how you feel now. How Report an error in the passage at 56:02 Highlight the passage at 56:02

56:17 is your body and how is your mind? Report an error in the passage at 56:17 Highlight the passage at 56:17

· · · silence, 2 minutes

58:32 Okay, so if... Anybody has any questions related to the meditation, you're welcome to ask. Report an error in the passage at 58:32 Highlight the passage at 58:32

· · · silence, 1 minute

59:46 Thank you, Ajayana. I was just wondering, can we use meditation to program our habits, as a way to program habits as in our daily life? Absolutely, yes. That's the best time. Because when your mind is very peaceful, When the hindrances have gone down, even if it is not completely like you're not in jhāna, still, if you're fairly peaceful at that time, whatever unwholesome habits that you want and you know what you want to change it to, that's the time you can very, very peacefully, very clearly say three times what it is that you want to change. Report an error in the passage at 59:46 Highlight the passage at 59:46

1:00:31 change and you can reprogram your mindfulness like that you can reprogram your mindfulness also to meditate in the same way so it's not only just about the habits it's i mean not only about the unwholesome habits but also develop wholesome habits so you can actually use it's the best time to do it so when the Does it like... Report an error in the passage at 1:00:31 Highlight the passage at 1:00:31

1:00:57 Is it same for fetters? Can we program them less to appear? The fetters are overcome through insight. So when you progress on the path and we start to see what they are, The hollowness, the emptiness, the transient nature of things, your attachments to things just fade away as a result of insight. But that also comes from meditation because once your mind is peaceful, there's more opportunity to see what's going on. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:57 Highlight the passage at 1:00:57

1:01:33 more clearly because other times you see things with the defilements it's distorted so when your perceptions are distorted it's hard to see what's going on so when the mind is more peaceful you see things more more closer to the reality and the reality is that there is actually nothing so yeah Thank you so much Ajahn. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:33 Highlight the passage at 1:01:33

1:02:11 There is a question here. Dear Ayya, how do you let go of negative pictures, emotions and thoughts when they come up? Thank you kindly. So the idea of let go, sometimes people perceive it in a kind of a wrong way. When you feel like you have to do something with willpower, It becomes difficult. So this is like Ajahn Brahm's very beautiful simile of the anger-eating demon, like the monster. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:11 Highlight the passage at 1:02:11

1:02:52 The more you try to not want them, when you want to push them aside, they try to become bigger. This is the nature of our stubborn minds. So the way to let it go is kind of a really beautiful process of actually... Allowing them to be, accepting them, embracing them, having compassion towards your own negative defilements, understanding they are the result of past conditioning. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:52 Highlight the passage at 1:02:52

1:03:26 What went before is why you're feeling or going through what you're going through now. So you realize, you know, in life we don't have too much control of what happens to our body and to our mind, to the experience sometimes we have to go through, like people we meet, situations that happen. So once we start to see that bigger picture, and when we see these things like they're never permanent, when you see them like just the clouds in the sky, sky or just the wind that passes through you can't hold on to the clouds or to the wind right it just passes by some clouds move a bit more slow and you want them to just go faster but if you're patient if you're just waiting there they do tend to pass away so that's one way of doing it if you are able to do that and another way Report an error in the passage at 1:03:26 Highlight the passage at 1:03:26

1:04:29 changing the object so this is like a very powerful mind training technique and all our mind states all the so they're called like the dhammas all our emotions anything pictures or emotions thoughts all of those things are created in our mind. They are called dhammas. And the Buddha says, So all of the mind states originate from manasikara. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:29 Highlight the passage at 1:04:29

1:05:01 What is manasikara? That is the movement of your mind, your intention, the way you project into things, the way you think about things as well. So giving attention, not the intention, sorry, attention. So manasikara means attention. So just a small example of moving of your mind is right now most of you are giving attention to the sound, to hear what is being said. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:01 Highlight the passage at 1:05:01

1:05:30 But if I ask you right now, what can you smell? And you can see a movement in your mind and you're giving attention to the nose, right? Smelling, sensations of smell. So that movement is called manasikara. But also, once you actually can feel some kind of smell, I don't know whether the carpet or any other, any smell that is around, there's always something which you didn't feel before because the contact didn't happen, then you also have a thought process, how you think about it. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:30 Highlight the passage at 1:05:30

1:06:05 Yeah, I like it, I don't like it, what is this, why is this, all these things. And as you think about it, A certain emotion comes up. If you sort of like it, maybe it's a food smell, you start getting hungry, you want it, so you have desire come up. Or if it was like a bad smell, you might feel, oh, how disgusting, how terrible, why is it there? And you have feelings of negativity. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:05 Highlight the passage at 1:06:05

1:06:32 So you can see the emotions, whatever is the mind states are generated through this contact. So there is an object, Right? External thing and how you give attention to it. So you can give attention in a wise way, that is yoniso manasikara, or an unwise way, which is ayoniso manasikara. So when you attend, so for example, so the best way to express this is like sometimes our negative emotions come as the result of an experience, a negative experience we may have had or something that is happening and the idea of it, the thoughts and how we think about it. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:32 Highlight the passage at 1:06:32

1:07:14 So if we had an incident where somebody was saying things that are hurtful and harmful, so the way that we are sometimes attending is not very skillful. How dare they said that? This is not right. This is not correct. This is hurtful. This is bad. And if you keep thinking like that, that way of attending into that object, that situation, keeps the irritation, the anger, that negative emotion up. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:14 Highlight the passage at 1:07:14

1:07:42 Or it could be somebody has passed away, a loved one. And then you think about, oh, I want to be with them. I can't let them go. Why they are not here? You know, I miss them. If you think like that, that's a way of giving attention. Sadness is kept up. So it's the object and the way you attend to it keeps up the emotion or pictures. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:42 Highlight the passage at 1:07:42

1:08:05 All of those things, thoughts, are kept up like that. And I'm sure we are all familiar, sometimes we get fed up and we want to end it, but this keeps coming up again and again, like an addiction, the same kind of way of thinking about things, attending to things happen, and the emotion is kept up. But in natural day-to-day situation also sometimes, you know, while you're going through that kind of thing, something else happens. Maybe somebody you love and care comes in, walks in through the door. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:05 Highlight the passage at 1:08:05

1:08:36 They come, bring some nice gift for you, say something nice to you, give you a hug. What happened? The negative emotion? vanish you can't even remember it's there Why? Because the object changed and the way you think about it has changed. So you can see how very quickly your emotion, thoughts can change by changing the object. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:36 Highlight the passage at 1:08:36

1:08:59 So this was probably happened just by chance, but you can intentionally also do that. So when you realize that there is something negative emotion in yours, Mind, you can actually change. Either giving the attention to that object. You can have a cup of tea. You can get up from where you are. Go for a little walk. Do a bit of walking meditation. Or listen to a sutta. Or just watch the clouds. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:59 Highlight the passage at 1:08:59

1:09:28 See the little insects. Something that is different and you think you are running away. But it is not. It is just giving a break. to that process which is very addictive and impulsive and once you change the object you get a break so that itself is quite helpful and this is done to of course need a reasonable degree of mindfulness and when you're more skilled and when your mind is ready you can actually even without changing the object using the same object you can change the way that you So if it was that difficult person, the person who said something that is really not nice to you, instead of going on and on and on thinking this is wrong, this is bad, they shouldn't have done that, said, why are they behaving? Report an error in the passage at 1:09:28 Highlight the passage at 1:09:28

1:10:17 Why are they saying this? While you may never know exactly why, you know for sure they are conditioned for that. They understand. You understand. Maybe they have wrong view. They have a different world view. Maybe they got wrong information. Maybe they have some sickness. Maybe they are suffering. There are so many reasons why somebody is acting in a way that is hurtful and harmful. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:17 Highlight the passage at 1:10:17

1:10:44 They are under strong defilements. Like nobody in their right mind would do anything hurtful or harmful to anybody. But we see that happening all the time. But because we are not in our right mind at that time, we are like a mad person. We are like somebody without eyes. You can't see. That's why even when we have done it, we say, oh, I couldn't see. That's why I said that. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:44 Highlight the passage at 1:10:44

1:11:08 So when you remember that, you realize, okay, this person is also conditioned, they're programmed, they're coming from their point of view. So that's a different way. Yet you also understand, if it is unskillful, that they are the owners of their karma. They have to reap the karmic consequence of their action. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:08 Highlight the passage at 1:11:08

1:11:28 So instead of saying, yes, they deserve it, they're terrible, so they should be punished, instead you realize they were conditioned. They had no choice really, we don't realize this. This is the path as you understand the right view about non-self. You realize how stuck we are, how stuck we are in our views, how stuck we are in our bodies. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:28 Highlight the passage at 1:11:28

1:11:50 So, you know, we are kind of helpless beings. When you see that, you develop a big... sense of compassion comes up wow you know we don't even know why we do things people don't realize the consequences and yet your intentional actions have consequences and you have to go through that and you sort of realize that when you sort of see that compassion comes up If compassion doesn't come up, at least equanimity comes up because you realize they are the owner of their own actions and you just stop there. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:50 Highlight the passage at 1:11:50

1:12:22 So like that you can change the way you look at the situation, the way you give attention. This is Yoni Somanasikara. Instead of saying they did that, that, that, we say why. So that's the inquiry going into the cause and conditions of situations. That settles things. So these are a few different ways of dealing with negative pictures, emotions and thoughts. And also it is very, very helpful because... Report an error in the passage at 1:12:22 Highlight the passage at 1:12:22

1:12:50 To know that these things are not constantly there and whenever you have a break, whenever these things are not there, to build up more positivity in our mind, to bring up joy, do little acts of kindness, smile more when you can smile. Because sometimes a smile is difficult when people are going through a hard time. But when you are able to smile, smile more. Do little acts of kindness, give little compliments, be generous with your compliments. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:50 Highlight the passage at 1:12:50

1:13:20 So it's a holistic approach of dealing with it and hopefully that will get better. I think I have just gone to 4.15. Anybody else has one last question? Yeah? Did it make sense? Yeah? Okay, good. All right, we better end today because we have a really tight program, one after the other. So thank you all for being here. I wish you all peace and happiness. Let's do Arahant. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:20 Highlight the passage at 1:13:20

1:14:28 Samma Sambuddho Bhagavad Buddha Bhagavata Thank you. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:28 Highlight the passage at 1:14:28

1:14:52 Supatipanno bhagavato savakasambho Report an error in the passage at 1:14:52 Highlight the passage at 1:14:52