Letting Go

0:00 I think meditation is a path of letting go, letting go. Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:11 I think this ability to try not to make your mind so sticky. Our minds, sometimes we tend to stick onto the ideas that are floating through our minds. We get carried away with our thoughts. So this idea of letting go is almost even like an attitude of not really giving things too much importance when we're meditating. Report an error in the passage at 0:11 Highlight the passage at 0:11

0:46 And I think when we think of this idea of letting go, it's one of the results that you get from this idea of letting go. Report an error in the passage at 0:46 Highlight the passage at 0:46

1:32 during the evening drinks and it's one of these topics which kind of bring bring wild weather to I think to the east to the east coast and and that was one of the reasons why they had the big bushfires in I think 1992 so so you know you hear these kinds of things and when you start to your mind starts to become sticky and they start to attach to it You start to worry about these things. So instead, we kind of take on the attitude of there's no real need to worry about these things until they happen. Report an error in the passage at 1:32 Highlight the passage at 1:32

2:18 And that way, you can just leave things alone. You can leave things alone. And when you start to leave things alone, that kind of frees your mind. kind of thing kind of thing Report an error in the passage at 2:18 Highlight the passage at 2:18

2:29 It frees your mind. It lends to more spaciousness and peace when you're meditating. Report an error in the passage at 2:29 Highlight the passage at 2:29

2:39 So that's the one thing that we can kind of focus on is our attitude of not taking the thoughts that go through our minds too seriously. It's almost like having a blasé attitude towards the thoughts. or just having a you know things will be okay towards the thoughts so in a sense you're not I read this a long time ago. Report an error in the passage at 2:39 Highlight the passage at 2:39

3:28 And it was a teacher, it was a teaching from Ajahn Chah and it was about, it was about, it was about a cat, it was about a cat. And he compared the cats to like the, you know, the thoughts that we have in our minds or the anxiety or stresses that we have in our minds. And he said, you know, with a cat, you know, you have these in Thailand, in the villages, you have a lot of cats just roaming around. Report an error in the passage at 3:28 Highlight the passage at 3:28

4:25 The cat will know, oh, the next day it will come back for more food. And then when you feed it, it will come back again. You feed it, it will come back again. And in the same way, when we're meditating, and we have these thoughts that come through our mind, and the more we feed these thoughts, the more we give it energy, the more we even find interest in them. Report an error in the passage at 4:25 Highlight the passage at 4:25

4:54 We give it interest, we make it important, we're feeding them and they will come back. So as a meditator, what we're trying to do is we're trying not to feed these thoughts. So with the cats, with the cat, so what does the wise person do in order to not have cats come around to pester them for food anymore? Report an error in the passage at 4:54 Highlight the passage at 4:54

5:24 They will stop feeding the cat. So the cat may come back. One day they stop feeding it. They stop feeding it today. The cat will come back. And then the cat will know, oh, there's no food here. And then the cat will go away. And then the next day, the cat will come back again. But the person, he still doesn't give the cat food. Report an error in the passage at 5:24 Highlight the passage at 5:24

5:44 So the cat starts to think, oh, maybe I'm not going to get food anymore from this person. The next day he comes. The cat comes along. It goes up to this person, the person doesn't give it food. And eventually the cat will know that it's not going to get food from this person anymore, so the cat will leave the person alone. Report an error in the passage at 5:44 Highlight the passage at 5:44

6:07 And it's kind of the same with your thoughts. If we kind of take away the interest or take away the energy, we can start to see the power of these thoughts, they calm down. They calm down until they disappear. And that's one of the nice things about this meditation practice. It's a meditation practice which is almost like an automatic process. We kind of tell people that if you put yourself in the meditation posture, if you close your eyes and if you don't try too much, the mind will start to calm down. Report an error in the passage at 6:07 Highlight the passage at 6:07

6:53 All by itself. And that's one of the nice things about this practice. It kind of becomes like an effortless practice. We don't really need to do too much. We don't need to really try too much to get the results that we're after. All we need to do is sit patiently quietly for these things to happen. Report an error in the passage at 6:53 Highlight the passage at 6:53

7:25 And what you'll start to see is over time your mind will start to fall into this present moment. This present moment which is kind of described as a place in the mind where there seems to be a lot of spaciousness. you start to have Report an error in the passage at 7:25 Highlight the passage at 7:25

7:54 You start to experience the quietness in your mind. You will experience less thoughts and more quietness. And what that kind of means or what that is showing you is that your mind is slowly calming down. It's calming down. It's calming down. It's feeling the peacefulness is being present. Report an error in the passage at 7:54 Highlight the passage at 7:54

8:26 And that comes from just having an attitude that kind of steps away from the activity in the mind. We're kind of like disengaging with our own thoughts. We're giving ourselves the chance to let go. What happened during the day or what we're going to think about next week. And as meditators, as meditators, somebody who has almost like you've begun to meditate, you're a beginner. Report an error in the passage at 8:26 Highlight the passage at 8:26

9:14 Sometimes it's kind of hard. It's hard to experience this idea of the mind calming down. I remember when I first started to meditate, there wasn't any peace in the mind. The mind was either extremely tired or it was just thinking about something. There was no present moment awareness, no peaceful feelings. Report an error in the passage at 9:14 Highlight the passage at 9:14

9:53 And that was the reality of my practice when I first started. And sometimes as practitioners, there is no like instant cure to what you experience in meditation. And a way to kind of like relate to it is just to be there with it and to be present. And in a sense, Report an error in the passage at 9:53 Highlight the passage at 9:53

10:24 If you do it enough times, if you put your bum on the cushion, you put the hours in, then the mind will eventually start to settle down. Report an error in the passage at 10:24 Highlight the passage at 10:24

10:50 It will start to settle down. It will start to settle down. And then you will start to see the changes in your mind. And what I mean by that is, if you can go back to when you first started to meditate, and you ask yourself, how was my meditation when I first begun, compared to how my meditation is now. Report an error in the passage at 10:50 Highlight the passage at 10:50

11:26 And if you have a bit of experience, you probably all understand how to meditate. All you need to do is just close your eyes and just be present and go into those peaceful feelings, go into the present moment. And that is something that we gradually kind of work towards as meditators. So when we're meditating, there's a few tips and tricks that we can use. Report an error in the passage at 11:26 Highlight the passage at 11:26

12:08 And a part of the meditation practice is to be able to kind of develop the types of muscles of the mind that kind of bring you back into the present moment. So one of the techniques that We kind of encourage people is when we see our minds wandering a little bit, we try to bring it back into the present moment. Report an error in the passage at 12:08 Highlight the passage at 12:08

12:36 But we don't really force it to come back, but we gently bring it back. And we just stay there. We just stay there. And that's how the practice is. And the mind will start to wander, but we kind of bring it back. And the more times we bring it back, the more times we leave it in the present moment, The more times it stays there, and it will start to stay there longer and longer and longer, and that's when you start to feel like a sense of peace, a sense of spaciousness in the mind start to arise. Report an error in the passage at 12:36 Highlight the passage at 12:36

13:13 And for a practitioner, that is like one of the rewards or one of the nice things that we... One of the nice things, one of the reasons why we meditate. So I've kind of given you an idea of what to experience and how to meditate. So what we can do now is we can start the meditation. Report an error in the passage at 13:13 Highlight the passage at 13:13

13:54 So usually what I do is I'll guide people for the first 15 minutes. And then we can just sit quietly and just watch the mind. And just to remember that there's no good or bad meditation. And also understand that what you're experiencing in your meditation practice, whether it's good or bad, is not a result of... Report an error in the passage at 13:54 Highlight the passage at 13:54

14:29 of the meditation instructions. But just understand that it's just like a reflection of your mind. It's Report an error in the passage at 14:29 Highlight the passage at 14:29

· · · silence, 1 minute

15:18 nice being able to just sit in a peaceful state of mind. Report an error in the passage at 15:18 Highlight the passage at 15:18

15:31 We've all been meditating long enough, I think, to be able to just drop into a nice mood of meditation. Report an error in the passage at 15:31 Highlight the passage at 15:31

15:53 And sometimes, you know, all these techniques that we learn, like putting our minds in the present moment or watching the breath or mettā or whatever antidote that we speak about, and all that is to just be able to bring the mind to this place of peacefulness. And Report an error in the passage at 15:53 Highlight the passage at 15:53

16:24 they say, like, this place of peacefulness is the springboard. That leads the mind into more peaceful states. And Report an error in the passage at 16:24 Highlight the passage at 16:24

16:46 that's all we can really ask for as meditators is to be able to experience peaceful states of mind. And Report an error in the passage at 16:46 Highlight the passage at 16:46

17:08 we do that by trying to be aware of the present moment. I mean, it's one of the easiest methods. One of the easiest methods. One of the easiest techniques is to be able to bring your mind back into this present moment. Report an error in the passage at 17:08 Highlight the passage at 17:08

17:35 You could say, if you want to get the results of peacefulness, it depends on how good and how frequently can you bring your mind back into this present moment. Report an error in the passage at 17:35 Highlight the passage at 17:35

18:07 You'll start to feel the peacefulness and maybe Maybe that is one of the reasons why meditators fail is because they can't do this simple act of bringing back their minds to the present moment. Report an error in the passage at 18:07 Highlight the passage at 18:07

18:29 They're kind of more interested in their thinking world. They want to pay attention to, I don't know, their finances or their health or what they want to do on the weekend when they're meditating. Report an error in the passage at 18:29 Highlight the passage at 18:29

18:48 They're not giving themselves a chance to live in the present moment where peaceful states of mind arises. So that's what we do. We just gently bring our minds back into this moment. Just Report an error in the passage at 18:48 Highlight the passage at 18:48

· · · silence, 2 minutes

21:05 try to be one. Try to be one. Try to engage. Try to embrace. Report an error in the passage at 21:05 Highlight the passage at 21:05

21:22 Try to be this present moment. Fully aware. Report an error in the passage at 21:22 Highlight the passage at 21:22

21:36 We never give our chance. We don't really give ourselves chances to be fully aware of now. Report an error in the passage at 21:36 Highlight the passage at 21:36

21:59 Meditation is just an experience. All these words trying to describe what it feels like to be fully present. That's all it is. It's very practical. Down to earth, simple, just Report an error in the passage at 21:59 Highlight the passage at 21:59

22:41 being able to fully Report an error in the passage at 22:41 Highlight the passage at 22:41

22:47 be with this moment, be Report an error in the passage at 22:47 Highlight the passage at 22:47

22:57 so aware of this moment that the mind doesn't get distracted by Report an error in the passage at 22:57 Highlight the passage at 22:57

23:10 its own thoughts. Knowing Report an error in the passage at 23:10 Highlight the passage at 23:10

· · · silence, 1 minute

24:32 how to be satisfied with the present moment. The Report an error in the passage at 24:32 Highlight the passage at 24:32

24:50 reason why the mind wonders is because it's not satisfied here. Report an error in the passage at 24:50 Highlight the passage at 24:50

24:58 The mind always looks for satisfaction wherever it can. Report an error in the passage at 24:58 Highlight the passage at 24:58

25:11 Sometimes we have to ask ourselves where can we find the satisfaction in our meditation. You Report an error in the passage at 25:11 Highlight the passage at 25:11

25:41 can find that satisfaction by being fully aware of your present moment and Report an error in the passage at 25:41 Highlight the passage at 25:41

26:05 somehow when you're fully aware of the present moment the alertness the wakefulness that comes from it is satisfying it's Report an error in the passage at 26:05 Highlight the passage at 26:05

26:33 enough to keep your mind from wandering to Report an error in the passage at 26:33 Highlight the passage at 26:33

· · · silence, 2 minutes

29:05 try to let go and take away the importance of the thinking part of the mind when you're meditating because that allows you Report an error in the passage at 29:05 Highlight the passage at 29:05

29:24 To bring your mind back into this present moment when it needs to. Report an error in the passage at 29:24 Highlight the passage at 29:24

29:36 Sometimes as meditators we need to be able to strengthen that present moment awareness. And Report an error in the passage at 29:36 Highlight the passage at 29:36

29:56 it's the far easier method of meditation being able to bring your mind back into the present which is done easier. By having an attitude of letting go. Not getting caught up in things. Not worrying about them. The Report an error in the passage at 29:56 Highlight the passage at 29:56

30:36 world can worry about them for you. They can warn you when something's going on. Just make sure you give yourself enough time to prepare for these things. Report an error in the passage at 30:36 Highlight the passage at 30:36

30:52 And that's all you need to do. You can let go of the rest. Let go of the rest. That aids to helping one live with a mind which is freer, which is lighter, which can, you know, just flow and flow with life. What Report an error in the passage at 30:52 Highlight the passage at 30:52

· · · silence, 13 minutes

44:38 I'll do now is I'll ring the gong three times. I'll Report an error in the passage at 44:38 Highlight the passage at 44:38

44:47 have the meditation. That was Report an error in the passage at 44:47 Highlight the passage at 44:47

· · · silence, 1 minute

45:39 the meditation. It's okay. Anybody got any questions? Questions or comments? Many cats coming. Many cats coming. I stopped feeding the cats. You stopped feeding the cats? Did it work? I think sometimes Report an error in the passage at 45:39 Highlight the passage at 45:39

46:05 you need a little bit of direction. Sometimes we tell people to let go and go with the flow and do nothing. And at times we... Report an error in the passage at 46:05 Highlight the passage at 46:05

46:47 Earlier this week, or maybe I've been thinking about it for a while, but I was just thinking about my teacher Ajahn Brahm. I asked myself, why is he such a great meditator? And that's what he's known for, for his ability to meditate really, really well and get a lot of insights and joy and happiness from it. Report an error in the passage at 46:47 Highlight the passage at 46:47

47:18 And I think one of the reasons is because he's able to find so much satisfaction and contentment when he closes his eyes and he sits quietly. He's so content there in the present moment. He's so satisfied that his mind doesn't have to wonder. The mind doesn't have to think. Sometimes when we meditate we ask ourselves, you know, why are we thinking? It's because we're not satisfied here. Report an error in the passage at 47:18 Highlight the passage at 47:18

47:55 We're not satisfied with what we see. We're not satisfied with what we're thinking. So we distract our minds and go reach out for something else. So that's almost like one of the, I think one of the abilities of, or one of the signs that we're becoming better meditators. That we can find a little bit more satisfaction. Report an error in the passage at 47:55 Highlight the passage at 47:55

48:17 In this present moment. And after a while you'll start to see that the more satisfaction you find in this present moment, the longer that you can stay here. Report an error in the passage at 48:17 Highlight the passage at 48:17

48:31 And also, it's like, what is also another reason why he can meditate so deeply and so quickly is because he also has an ability to let go. To not carry Report an error in the passage at 48:31 Highlight the passage at 48:31

48:47 To not carry things into his mind. As soon as he walks into his cave, he's got a cave in the monastery, so he's got his main room that he lived in there for many years. And then when he would give his dharma talks, he would remind the monks of his favorite meditations. And his favorite meditations will always happen in caves. Yeah, always happen in caves, especially when he was a young monk traveling through Thailand. He'll travel from monastery to monastery, find a cave, he'll hang out there for a long time, meditating as much as he can, getting really nice meditations. Report an error in the passage at 48:47 Highlight the passage at 48:47

49:38 And then he always associates meditation with weird things. So one of the weird things that he kind of associated his meditation with was the delight that he would get from the smell of batshit. Report an error in the passage at 49:38 Highlight the passage at 49:38

49:57 Have you heard of that? Yeah, the smell of batshit. So then he would tell the monks his story. So what happened was the monks decided to build him a cave. So what happened was he went on his sixth month. He did a six-month retreat. So he went on six months just in solitude, not seeing anybody, not talking to anybody, no entertainments, just by himself. Report an error in the passage at 49:57 Highlight the passage at 49:57

50:23 And when he was doing these six-months retreat, that's when the monks were building his cave. So they built his cave, and then eventually they finished it. Eventually they finished it, and when they handed the cave over, one of the monks was able to get some batshit. Report an error in the passage at 50:23 Highlight the passage at 50:23

50:42 He got some bad shit. He put it in a little bottle and as a gift to Ajahn Brahm and the cave, he gave it to him. Report an error in the passage at 50:42 Highlight the passage at 50:42

50:52 But you can't understand, as soon as he walks into his cave, he leaves everything at the door. He leaves everything at the door and he doesn't take it in with him. Report an error in the passage at 50:52 Highlight the passage at 50:52

51:03 But it's almost like a training of the mind. It's not like you leave... You let go of everything and not take on any responsibilities but in a sense you learn how to use your mind more skillfully. You know how to pick things up when you need to pick them up and you know how to let them go when you need to let them go. So that's the skill that he's developed over the years. Report an error in the passage at 51:03 Highlight the passage at 51:03

51:31 I think that's also one of the reasons why he's able to just... For us, we can see why our meditation is getting better. It's because over the years we've also learned how to let go. We let go when we sit, and then when we're not sitting, we can just pick things up. We pick up our responsibilities and stuff like that. Report an error in the passage at 51:31 Highlight the passage at 51:31

51:55 And that's what he does. he doesn't completely let go you know if he did then there wouldn't be bswa there wouldn't be bodhinyana monastery there wouldn't be any other places because you need to be able to pick things up if you want to kind of build these things as well yeah Report an error in the passage at 51:55 Highlight the passage at 51:55

52:15 Okay, anything else? Are the cats still in your mind? Come back. Report an error in the passage at 52:15 Highlight the passage at 52:15

52:26 Don't feed the cats. Don't feed the cats. Okay. Thank you. Report an error in the passage at 52:26 Highlight the passage at 52:26