Friday Night Guided Meditation

0:00 So now, as usual, I speak too much. Sometimes, when I came off my retreat, I started greeting everybody I hadn't seen for a while. And some of the monks would look at me and say, Ajahn Brahm, we've got to eat before midday, and they're losing their chance to have any lunch. So anyhow, we've managed to, they sent me here for the weekend. So it means that... Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:30 They can have a proper lunch at Bodhinyana this weekend. So anyhow, now is the time for some meditation. And one of the things which I encourage for meditation, please be light-hearted. It helps become quiet when you're happy. Otherwise, you have all these problems, you keep thinking about problems, and the negativity can build up. Report an error in the passage at 0:30 Highlight the passage at 0:30

1:00 You never have the opportunity to be peaceful. But once the mind is happy, then peace, stillness comes. For those of you who think I just make these things up myself, it's one of my favorite Buddhist sayings. Sukhino Chittam Samadhyati. The happy mind is easy to become still. That's from the Buddha. So this is powerful teaching. So please, if you can, create a happiness and peace in your mind at the beginning. Report an error in the passage at 1:00 Highlight the passage at 1:00

1:40 And it's easy to become still. To create that happy mind. There's enough happiness in your life, but we tend to focus on the mistakes of life, the things which go wrong. Report an error in the passage at 1:40 Highlight the passage at 1:40

1:55 There's enough happiness there. Just find some beautiful piece of happiness and enjoy it. And let it grow. Okay. So we have a few people coming in now. Sometimes it's really amazing. I'll stop speaking in a moment. But sometimes when I start the meditation class on the Fridays, not many people hear. By the time I open my eyes at the end of the meditation, the number multiplies. Report an error in the passage at 1:55 Highlight the passage at 1:55

2:28 I always thought this must be some psychic power of multiplying an audience. It's not a psychic power, it's just that some people come in late, that's all. Report an error in the passage at 2:28 Highlight the passage at 2:28

2:41 Okay, so I'm going to be quiet now, I promise. So please close your eyes as well, if you wish. Very Report an error in the passage at 2:41 Highlight the passage at 2:41

2:58 good. And with your eyes closed, find a nice place to sit down. Cushions, chairs, we have many chairs here as well as cushions. Report an error in the passage at 2:58 Highlight the passage at 2:58

3:12 Sit down, close your eyes, and see if you can get your body into a comfortable posture. In Buddhism we do practice the middle way. No extremes. Not of indulgence and not of harshness. So find a nice comfortable posture. Close your eyes and relax. If you find it difficult to relax, check your posture again. Report an error in the passage at 3:12 Highlight the passage at 3:12

3:48 How are you sitting? And after a while you find you can relax so easily. Report an error in the passage at 3:48 Highlight the passage at 3:48

3:57 So now I'm going to teach you how to relax that body first of all. When your eyes are closed, you kind of get almost relaxed. We're going to be more refined. Right now, ask your toes how they feel. Report an error in the passage at 3:57 Highlight the passage at 3:57

4:19 I'm serious about this. If you can't experience or feel your toes, wiggle one until you can feel its existence. Once you can feel its existence, then how does it feel? Can you relax it a bit more? Sometimes before we become aware of parts of our body, we assume they're comfortable. And later on in the half-hour meditation, it starts to itch or ache. It's not comfortable. You never checked when you started. Report an error in the passage at 4:19 Highlight the passage at 4:19

4:59 I'm checking my toes now. One is a bit squashed. So I just moved my legs slightly. And once you can experience the sensations, the feelings in your own toes, then you relax it. You relax them a lot. And you can feel the toes relaxing. If you're doing this for the first time, you may notice that you've never felt the toes so relaxed before. Report an error in the passage at 4:59 Highlight the passage at 4:59

5:36 Often you haven't even felt them at all. Report an error in the passage at 5:36 Highlight the passage at 5:36

5:42 When they become loose and easy, they feel happy toes. If you're a dancer, you have to learn this technique. And then from my toes, I go to the soles of my feet. How do they feel? I have mindfulness, awareness, and kindness to the soles of my feet. Report an error in the passage at 5:42 Highlight the passage at 5:42

6:10 And you can relax them. If you have an ache or a pain, Learning how to relax this part of your body actually helps healing. Then the heels of my feet, I experience them relaxing, resting, expanding even. Report an error in the passage at 6:10 Highlight the passage at 6:10

6:34 Now to the uppers of my feet and then the ankles. Sometimes you may trip and sprain an ankle. You know it's not that hard to fix. Report an error in the passage at 6:34 Highlight the passage at 6:34

6:52 When you start learning how to relax your bodily parts, and you can feel the relaxing happening, you know this is very healthy. Report an error in the passage at 6:52 Highlight the passage at 6:52

7:04 And these are just your feet. This is kind of where we start. We move on from there, deeper. Report an error in the passage at 7:04 Highlight the passage at 7:04

7:15 So, then you, from your ankles, you go to your lower legs. It's not just the muscles, bones, the skin. Experience whatever you can pick up there. And as you are experiencing your lower legs, you ask those legs, how are you? Report an error in the passage at 7:15 Highlight the passage at 7:15

7:40 How do you feel? Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable? You're not assuming anything now. You're asking. If you're sitting on a chair and you need to move your legs outwards or further apart or tuck them... Closer in, under the chair. Experiment. Find out what works for you. If you're sitting on a chair, find out what cushions and where. Report an error in the passage at 7:40 Highlight the passage at 7:40

8:14 Where you can find a nice type of comfort. If you arrived early and managed to find a place against the wall, then don't just lean against the wall. Lean forward as well. Find out what's the best for you. Report an error in the passage at 8:14 Highlight the passage at 8:14

8:36 And then from my lower legs, I go to my knees. I'm an old monk now. My knees are in such good shape, which is kind of amazing. Report an error in the passage at 8:36 Highlight the passage at 8:36

8:51 I've fallen off cliffs. I've fallen off motorbikes. But everything's healed up so well. And as I'm aware of my knees, I can relax them. I just focus on one part of the body and relax it deeply. Thighs. Report an error in the passage at 8:51 Highlight the passage at 8:51

9:13 Big muscles there, but as you know, aches or pains. But the butt, when you sit down on a chair or on a cushion, there's always some feeling in the butt. Report an error in the passage at 9:13 Highlight the passage at 9:13

9:28 You can't just get rid of it, but you make the best of it. Try and get that feeling to be balanced. And then after a while, because it doesn't change, it doesn't get better or worse, because it's... Stable, it disappears. And after a while you can't feel your legs or your butt. You get to your waist. Report an error in the passage at 9:28 Highlight the passage at 9:28

9:58 How does your waist feel? Can the feelings in that part of your body be improved? Sometimes you get the best possible position and then you leave it alone. Report an error in the passage at 9:58 Highlight the passage at 9:58

10:15 And then, because I injured my back many years ago, I like being aware of my back. Making sure it's in a good position. And I find the most positive position for my back. And then I leave it. Report an error in the passage at 10:15 Highlight the passage at 10:15

10:37 It always keeps me comfortable for hours. And I go up my body. This is interesting. This is one of the techniques I teach to cancer people. Report an error in the passage at 10:37 Highlight the passage at 10:37

10:50 As you go up your body, inside, imagine going up your body and see what you can experience and feel inside. Up your colon and intestines to your tummy. Report an error in the passage at 10:50 Highlight the passage at 10:50

11:11 This evening, the whole reins retreat just finished. My stomach has been so well. If there is ever a food poisoning or indigestion, sometimes as an old monk, it's easy to deal with it. Report an error in the passage at 11:11 Highlight the passage at 11:11

11:32 You focus on that part of your body and relax it to the max. You can actually do that, which means that our body heals itself really quickly. I feel the next, not just the stomach, but the lungs and the heart relaxing it. Report an error in the passage at 11:32 Highlight the passage at 11:32

12:00 This is your bodily parts. Of course you can influence them for the better. From the heart, then you go up. I go up to my shoulders. It can always be tense. Learn how to relax my shoulders at the beginning of this meditation. I'm aware and I'm kind. Those are the two tools which I use. Report an error in the passage at 12:00 Highlight the passage at 12:00

12:30 And aware of the shoulders. And often I do this little easy technique of scrunching up the shoulders, pulling them together, overly so, and then letting go. Every time I do that, My shoulders relax deeper than when I started. It feels nice. And then I allow the awareness to go down my arms, past my elbows, hands, wrists and fingers. Report an error in the passage at 12:30 Highlight the passage at 12:30

13:06 As I go, I relax as much as I can on the way. If there is any injury somewhere or infection somewhere, I stop there and just be with it. Report an error in the passage at 13:06 Highlight the passage at 13:06

13:18 Not just be with it, but give it lots of kindness as I'm there. And because of that things relax so deeply and the body or the hands feel fine. Go back up to the shoulders and then I start to became Report an error in the passage at 13:18 Highlight the passage at 13:18

13:42 aware as I'm going up to my head I had an itchy nose. I scratched it. I hope you all had your eyes closed. Report an error in the passage at 13:42 Highlight the passage at 13:42

13:57 Maybe you can see it on the video afterwards. But I relax my head, especially the experiences, the feelings, sensations around the eyes, the nose and the mouth. Report an error in the passage at 13:57 Highlight the passage at 13:57

14:17 With that, all of my senses are relaxed to the max. If I find anything which is irritating me, I will relax it further. Report an error in the passage at 14:17 Highlight the passage at 14:17

14:35 And then what I'm aware of, the focus of my meditation, is my body. I've cared for it. part by part, until it feels just so at ease. Report an error in the passage at 14:35 Highlight the passage at 14:35

14:49 sitting on this cushion in front of a microphone. So I Report an error in the passage at 14:49 Highlight the passage at 14:49

14:59 now go to the deeper stage of meditation. Having relaxed my body, now relax my mind. Peace. Report an error in the passage at 14:59 Highlight the passage at 14:59

15:16 What is peace? What does it feel like? Not more concepts or ideas. The feeling, the sensation of peace. And Report an error in the passage at 15:16 Highlight the passage at 15:16

15:32 once you can contact it, know it, then make that the object of your meditation. What are you aware of? Peace. The more you are aware of peace, the more it grows, deepens, gets more stable. And Report an error in the passage at 15:32 Highlight the passage at 15:32

16:05 as peace gets deeper, it becomes stillness. Report an error in the passage at 16:05 Highlight the passage at 16:05

16:18 It doesn't need to move. What does that feel like? Your mind being still. Notice how pleasant that feels. Because that's one of the best ways of overcoming the restlessness in the mind, all the thoughts and ideas. The Report an error in the passage at 16:18 Highlight the passage at 16:18

16:45 mind is peaceful and still. And it also means it doesn't go off into the next moment or the last moment. You're abandoning this concept of time. Sometimes, in those early days when I meditated, I used to ask, when am I going to get any progress? Report an error in the passage at 16:45 Highlight the passage at 16:45

17:13 The problem was asking when. Now is the only time you have. Report an error in the passage at 17:13 Highlight the passage at 17:13

17:22 How do you feel right now? Report an error in the passage at 17:22 Highlight the passage at 17:22

17:28 Is it peaceful? Is it still, like nothing is happening? Beautiful. If Report an error in the passage at 17:28 Highlight the passage at 17:28

17:45 you stay in that peace and silence long enough, It gets very beautiful, really joyful. To allow that to happen, I'm now going to be quiet. I'll ring the gong in five or ten minutes when the meditation is over. Report an error in the passage at 17:45 Highlight the passage at 17:45

· · · silence, 8 minutes

25:39 How peaceful is it? With Report an error in the passage at 25:39 Highlight the passage at 25:39

25:51 practice, the ability to feel peace anywhere at any time becomes a reality for you and a great refuge. In the noisy parts of life, you can sit and be still. It's Report an error in the passage at 25:51 Highlight the passage at 25:51

26:25 a beautiful thing which you can give for others. You're calm when Report an error in the passage at 26:25 Highlight the passage at 26:25

26:41 you're in meditation. Please let the sound of the gong take you out from the meditation. Report an error in the passage at 26:41 Highlight the passage at 26:41

· · · silence, 1 minute

27:47 Please relax your body. Stretch your leg if you need to. Report an error in the passage at 27:47 Highlight the passage at 27:47