Meh Meditation

0:00 Okay. Good evening. Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:12 Come here to enjoy another peaceful night in Rolling Stone. Report an error in the passage at 0:12 Highlight the passage at 0:12

0:26 There's a little phrase that kind of comes to mind. This phrase of like, good, bad, who knows? Good, bad, who knows? And Ajahn Santutthi likes to use it quite a bit. Especially when he's teaching and it's one of these things that you can... don't. Report an error in the passage at 0:26 Highlight the passage at 0:26

0:44 You can apply to many things in life, like if you're having some sort of difficulty with somebody, you don't really know if it's good or bad. Is it good? Is it bad? You don't really know. And sometimes when we look at our own minds and we're trying to understand how well our meditation is going, we try to... Report an error in the passage at 0:44 Highlight the passage at 0:44

1:16 We try to intellectualize, we try to question ourselves, we try to look into our minds. But sometimes we don't really know what is going on or what is happening. And I think a nice phrase to use during that time is, good, bad, good, bad, who knows? Report an error in the passage at 1:16 Highlight the passage at 1:16

1:38 Because you don't really know. Because sometimes you might just have a bad meditation and that's normal but then the next time you know you're having a bad meditation and then you're thinking to yourself oh I've been having bad meditations for the last two weeks or maybe for the last two years maybe maybe I should give up. Report an error in the passage at 1:38 Highlight the passage at 1:38

2:07 But you don't really know. You don't really know how long these bad meditations will last. And also, you know, with the good meditations, you're sitting down and you're getting peaceful. And sometimes these good experiences, these good meditations, they don't last for long either. They may come. Stay with you for a week, two weeks, three, four, five weeks, but then they disappear. So at the end of the day, when we're meditating, we don't really look at our meditation as whether it's a good meditation or whether it's a bad meditation. Report an error in the passage at 2:07 Highlight the passage at 2:07

2:56 We don't look at it in that kind of way. In a sense, we don't really know. Who knows? Who knows whether? The meditation you're having is a good or bad one or whether the meditation you're having may lead to bad meditations in the future or good meditations in the future. Report an error in the passage at 2:56 Highlight the passage at 2:56

3:18 So we don't really know. We don't really know. And I think the one reason I kind of like this phrase, one of the other reasons why I kind of like this phrase is because it kind of helps us not take things too seriously. Report an error in the passage at 3:18 Highlight the passage at 3:18

3:37 It's kind of something that you say to give you a mind state of relaxation. Good, bad, who knows? Whatever situation you're in, whether it's this thing that's happening, all these wars and stuff like that. It's probably a bad example, but good, bad, who knows? Good, is it good? Probably not. Is it bad? It is, but really. Report an error in the passage at 3:37 Highlight the passage at 3:37

4:07 Do you really know? Or sometimes we have to make decisions in life. Should we get that air conditioning system installed in the house? Or should we get a fireplace? And sometimes we may think, you know, is it a good decision? Is it a bad decision? You don't really know. And you just do it anyway. And then you just deal with the outcome. Report an error in the passage at 4:07 Highlight the passage at 4:07

4:38 So in a sense, so sometimes when we're meditating, when we come into the meditation practice, and we may be having a difficult time. And sometimes when I meditate, I go through those times as well. And when you're sitting there with your eyes closed, even though you have the intention to meditate, Your mind feels kind of like, meh, you know, meh. Your mind doesn't really want to engage, or your mind doesn't really want to do it. Report an error in the passage at 4:38 Highlight the passage at 4:38

5:19 You have this kind of like, dislike to your meditation practice. Is it good, is it bad? We don't really know. So what do we do in those situations? We kind of, we can, you know, we can... Report an error in the passage at 5:19 Highlight the passage at 5:19

5:40 And the one nice thing that we can do is to be patient, is to wait it out. And I think when I was meditating today, I was having a little bit of a rough time because I was a little bit sick. I was a little bit sick, had a bit of gastritis, and it's been hanging around for a while now. And today I had the... Report an error in the passage at 5:40 Highlight the passage at 5:40

6:08 I just felt that my mind wasn't being really engaged in the meditation practice. It had some sort of ill will or dislike to whatever is going on. But because I've been meditating for a long time, I understand that one doesn't really need to get caught up into that negativity. www.ajahn-santutthi .com www Report an error in the passage at 6:08 Highlight the passage at 6:08

7:11 .Ajahn Santutthi.com It's also about being patient enough to wait for the good experiences to happen. Report an error in the passage at 7:11 Highlight the passage at 7:11

7:55 My teacher says there's no such thing as a bad meditation because it's usually with the bad meditations, those are the times that we learn. Those are the times that we can learn about our own minds. Report an error in the passage at 7:55 Highlight the passage at 7:55

8:14 And if we come into our meditation practice with that attitude, it gives us the resilience, the tolerance, even the strength of mind to be able to see this meditation practice through. Report an error in the passage at 8:14 Highlight the passage at 8:14

8:40 And eventually, through time, You will be rewarded for your efforts. And one of the little nice methods that we can do when we're meditating is this method called the present moment awareness. I mean, you've probably heard it a gazillion times. Report an error in the passage at 8:40 Highlight the passage at 8:40

9:18 But it's something that is repeatable. Something that can be said time and time again. And I think that is the case because we all know as meditators that bringing our minds back into the present moment is actually a good thing for us. And this is one of these... Report an error in the passage at 9:18 Highlight the passage at 9:18

9:50 Mindfulness, present moment and awareness is one of these things that you can use in your day-to-day life. And it's one of these things that gives your mind the ability to almost like re-center itself. Report an error in the passage at 9:50 Highlight the passage at 9:50

10:12 Sometimes during our day when we're a little bit rattled or our minds are just a little bit too busy, Report an error in the passage at 10:12 Highlight the passage at 10:12

11:23 We kind of need something to do in our meditation practice. A nice thing to do is to bring the mind back into the present moment. Report an error in the passage at 11:23 Highlight the passage at 11:23

11:35 And the other thing about the present moment is this quality of the mind being able to engage. Sometimes when we're meditating and the reason why There's something... Report an error in the passage at 11:35 Highlight the passage at 11:35

11:55 If you're feeling kind of meh or we're not really liking it or we don't really see a purpose of doing it is because if you look closely you can see that your mind isn't being really engaged with what is happening. It's kind of lost in its own emotions or its own thoughts. So that disengagement. Meditation is almost an indicator that your meditation is not going well, which is fine, which is normal because, like I said, you cannot have perfect good meditations all the time. Report an error in the passage at 11:55 Highlight the passage at 11:55

12:40 So one of the things that can help us when we're meditating is we try to use our minds Engage in what's happening. We all know what it feels like when we're engaged. So we do that. We do that when we're practicing. So there's a few things that we can kind of work on in our meditation practice. Try to be in the present moment and trying to engage with whatever's happening. And there's also Many other little tips and tricks that we can use. But I think with the meditation practice, we kind of do it for the experience. Report an error in the passage at 12:40 Highlight the passage at 12:40

13:37 Just the experience of just being able to sit down and just to be with our minds and not to really worry about what's going on. It's a time for us to kind of look inward to see our minds, how it is during that day. whether it's happy whether it's sad and just just to see what is going on and then whenever we have a chance for for like the peace and happiness to arise we allow it to arise and I think and I think just just like the one of the beautiful things about meditation and what makes it Report an error in the passage at 13:37 Highlight the passage at 13:37

14:25 If we are finding it very difficult to meditate, or if we don't want to meditate, that is telling us something about our own minds. Report an error in the passage at 14:25 Highlight the passage at 14:25

14:47 If we're not meditating well, we're having difficulty. Ajahn Santutthi is telling us about ourselves about our own minds of how much like in a sense how much more like growth and how much more practice that we need to put into meditation practice because because um because in this in this life we have just so many distractions we have so many distractions we have our phones we have work We have friends, even though it's a good thing you go. Friends go to Buddhist society. You talk to people. And when you get caught up in, not even get caught up in those things, but when you do those kinds of things, the world seems to be okay. Report an error in the passage at 14:47 Highlight the passage at 14:47

15:41 But as soon as you sit down and look at your own mind, that's when you start to see whether your world is really okay. Report an error in the passage at 15:41 Highlight the passage at 15:41

15:53 The mind shows you more when you're sitting in meditation than it does when you're busy doing stuff in life. So I think if we really want to get down to how we actually feel as human beings, how happy we are, how much more meditation we need to do or how much more peace we need to add into our lives, a good place to show us How much more effort we need to put into being calm, being peaceful, being mindful is when we're sitting down and when we're meditating. Report an error in the passage at 15:53 Highlight the passage at 15:53

16:33 And that kind of lets you know what are the important things that you can do for yourself, which is the meditation practice. We all know that when we're meditating, Report an error in the passage at 16:33 Highlight the passage at 16:33

17:28 Rewards, the little bit of peace. We see a reason why to continue doing it and we continue doing it. And over the years we can just see how beneficial it can be for our minds. Report an error in the passage at 17:28 Highlight the passage at 17:28

17:45 So I would like to end the talk there and we can have a guided meditation for half an hour. And Report an error in the passage at 17:45 Highlight the passage at 17:45

18:02 there's always something nice about coming to a group. and doing like the group meditation the mind just seems a little bit brighter when we get together right it's sometimes easier to meditate in a group maybe because people around and we're social beings and our minds are a little bit more a little bit a little bit more alert a little bit more excited and when we sit in groups Report an error in the passage at 18:02 Highlight the passage at 18:02

18:38 You can kind of understand that that kind of energy uplifts the mind a little bit and it helps with the meditation. So Report an error in the passage at 18:38 Highlight the passage at 18:38

18:50 we can start off by closing our eyes. We Report an error in the passage at 18:50 Highlight the passage at 18:50

19:14 don't really know how our meditation is going to go. It can either be good, bad or who knows. Report an error in the passage at 19:14 Highlight the passage at 19:14

19:26 It just allows us to have this attitude to be open and accepting to what We are going to experience while we're meditating. Report an error in the passage at 19:26 Highlight the passage at 19:26

19:53 Meditation can be a difficult thing to do but also it could be it could also give you some of the most peaceful times in your life. And Report an error in the passage at 19:53 Highlight the passage at 19:53

20:17 all we're doing is giving our minds the opportunity for peace to arise. And we give it that opportunity By closing our eyes and sitting with ourselves. This Report an error in the passage at 20:17 Highlight the passage at 20:17

20:50 is a time where we can see our own minds and see where we are at in life. We Report an error in the passage at 20:50 Highlight the passage at 20:50

21:10 can also see whether we still have a long way to go to peace, to inner happiness. And Report an error in the passage at 21:10 Highlight the passage at 21:10

21:32 if we are sincere and if we want to make improvements, We will continue meditating. There's Report an error in the passage at 21:32 Highlight the passage at 21:32

22:05 something about the meditation that keeps on bringing people back to it. And one of the things is that one experiences peaceful states of mind. Being Report an error in the passage at 22:05 Highlight the passage at 22:05

22:32 able to be in this moment, being able to engage in the moment. For Report an error in the passage at 22:32 Highlight the passage at 22:32

22:54 some reason, When you're engaging with your meditation, whether it's the present moment, whether you like to watch the breath, whether you're just hanging out with your mind, hanging out with yourself, you Report an error in the passage at 22:54 Highlight the passage at 22:54

23:19 can feel, you can know that when the mind is engaged, it feels good. It feels like it's meditating correctly. Report an error in the passage at 23:19 Highlight the passage at 23:19

23:40 And when the mind is disengaged, is off with the fairies, it's taken away by its emotions, you can sense and you can feel and understand that your mind is not meditating well. When Report an error in the passage at 23:40 Highlight the passage at 23:40

24:08 that happens, just understand that that's okay. Report an error in the passage at 24:08 Highlight the passage at 24:08

24:17 That's just a human, it's just a mind state. that all humans have. that arise from time to time. Report an error in the passage at 24:17 Highlight the passage at 24:17

24:33 And sometimes, the only thing that we can do... is to sit patiently with it. Meditation Report an error in the passage at 24:33 Highlight the passage at 24:33

· · · silence, 4 minutes

28:31 is a peaceful thing to do. That's why we do it. You don't need any other reasons to meditate. Report an error in the passage at 28:31 Highlight the passage at 28:31

29:15 See, as you meditate, it gets better and better. The mind is... Letting go of things, not holding on to things that I was holding on to before. The mind is freeing itself because it's Report an error in the passage at 29:15 Highlight the passage at 29:15

29:53 enjoying the peacefulness or enjoying the simplicity that comes from meditating. Meditate Report an error in the passage at 29:53 Highlight the passage at 29:53

30:33 to let go of things. Report an error in the passage at 30:33 Highlight the passage at 30:33

30:40 So the more we can empty our minds during the meditation, the better. You Report an error in the passage at 30:40 Highlight the passage at 30:40

31:15 get to a point where it's not worth wasting time thinking about stuff. You can think about stuff later on, but when you're meditating, there isn't a need to. Report an error in the passage at 31:15 Highlight the passage at 31:15

31:41 So we teach our mind, we train our minds to... Take away the thoughts. We Report an error in the passage at 31:41 Highlight the passage at 31:41

32:05 say to ourselves, thoughts aren't important at this particular time. I don't need to think about them now. I can think about them later on. So Report an error in the passage at 32:05 Highlight the passage at 32:05

32:27 what we're doing is we're teaching the mind to learn how to disengage from the thoughts. We're Report an error in the passage at 32:27 Highlight the passage at 32:27

32:47 teaching our minds to learn how to let them go. Report an error in the passage at 32:47 Highlight the passage at 32:47

32:53 It's not that you let them go forever. You can pick them up later on. But you're just letting them go during the meditation practice so that you can have peaceful meditations. Report an error in the passage at 32:53 Highlight the passage at 32:53

33:15 That's why you let go of thoughts. So Report an error in the passage at 33:15 Highlight the passage at 33:15

· · · silence, 18 minutes

50:52 I think for a lot of us there's no such thing as a perfect meditation. Yeah, I don't think anybody can achieve Total silence for the half an hour that we were meditating. So it is okay to have thoughts. Sometimes we think that if we have thoughts then we're meditating incorrectly. But that's not the case. I think one of the important things is that we're able to just feel peaceful with whatever's happening. Report an error in the passage at 50:52 Highlight the passage at 50:52

51:38 That's the main thing. Because you can kind of see your mind drifting here and there. And that's kind of normal. There's no need to be too hard on yourself when that happens. But as long as you're staying peaceful in the moment, you're calm, then you can rest assured that that's the correct way of meditating. Report an error in the passage at 51:38 Highlight the passage at 51:38

52:13 Finish. Report an error in the passage at 52:13 Highlight the passage at 52:13