(EA13)-01-Guided-Metta-Meditation-1

We start by doing this metta meditation and then the Vritkun contemplation. Then after that we can go into the real, the proper meditation. Let's recite this one. Recite together with me. May I be well. May I be happy, free from enmity, free from suffering. Now we close our eyes and meditate for a few minutes. And we feel or imagine love pouring in from all beams everywhere towards us. Just meditate for a few minutes.

(EA13)-02-Practical-Exercise

Now, before we start the real meditation, I'd like to teach you some practical exercises. Even if you, whether you do these few metta meditation and the frequent contemplation or not, there are a few basic exercises that a meditator should do. The first one is breathing exercise. We take a deep breath. In, and slowly let it out. It must be at a natural pace, not too fast, not too slow. Take a deep breath in. And out. In. Out. In Out In Out In Out In. Out. This exercise is to remove the stale air from our lungs. You can either do it both nostrils together or you can shut the right nostril, breathe in through the left nostril and then let the breath go out through the right nostril. Then you take in the breath through the right nostril and let it out through the left nostril. And then take it in from the left nostril again and out through the right nostril. And in from the right nostril and out by the left nostril. This breathing in and out you can do about 10 times to change the air in you. especially if there are some people who do office work and they don't have much opportunity to exercise. And the second exercise to sort of relax your body is some neck exercises. You can bend your head backwards as far as you can go. And then you bend it around in a circle like this. Then you change direction. Then you move your shoulders like that to relax. This might be important for somebody who comes back from the office a bit tensed up and you want to meditate. You have to do all this to relax yourself. The neck is one of the areas in our body which is seldom exercised. And you see some people, they do this bending of the neck. They can't bend their neck very far and then they go like that. But if you are used to bending your neck, then you can bend it quite low. Now the other thing, before we begin meditation, for a lot of people, for most people, you have to relax for about 5 minutes or 10 minutes. When you close your eyes, before you begin meditation, you just tell yourself that you are going to relax. And don't think of any meditation object. This is for most people, they have a lot of things, for lay people especially. You have a lot of things in your mind, especially if you have a work, a job. You come back from the office, a lot of things in your mind. So, when you start meditating straight away, you're going to end up with a headache. A lot of people have a headache if they start meditating too fast. So you just close your eyes and if you stay in a quiet place, there's no sound to distract you. Then you just close your eyes and tell yourself you're going to relax. You're going to relax. Even imagine you're going to fall asleep. But as long as you keep your body straight, you won't fall asleep. So just tell yourself to relax, close your eyes and relax for a few minutes. totally relax your brain and slowly you can imagine relaxing your head, relaxing your neck, relaxing your shoulders, relaxing your arms, relaxing your chest, relaxing your abdomen like that slowly all the way down. So just relax for a few minutes and keep our eyes closed. Okay, you can open your eyes now. The reason why we want to relax in the beginning is you can think of a simile of a lamp. If you have a lamp with a flame in the middle and a glass on the outside, If you open the flame too big suddenly, the glass can't stand it and the glass will crack. So what you have to do is, you have to warm up the glass slowly by putting a small flame. And as the glass warms up, then you increase the flame. Now we have these six sense doors, the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body, and the thinking faculty. And in a normal waking state, our energy goes out through these six sense doors. A lot of our energy goes out through the six sense doors. And because of that, our mind becomes scattered, our mind becomes dark. The Buddha said that originally the mind is bright. And because of defilements, the objects of the six sense doors taking away our attention, taking away our energy, that is why the mind becomes dark. So some of you may have noticed when you are relaxing, you close your eyes and you are not doing anything, just relaxing. Just by closing your eyes and you have nothing to listen to, the mind naturally starts to concentrate. The mind starts to warm up as it were. So that is a preliminary warming up that is required before you start to concentrate the mind. That is why this is very important for most people just to relax for about 5 minutes or 10 minutes in the beginning just to make the mind slowly concentrate, warm up. Because if you don't do that and you try to meditate straight away, you try to focus your mind and concentrate your mind before it has warmed up, then you will get pain in the head. And a lot of beginners, they will experience this. The brain is like a computer, you know. There are many circuits in our brain. And when we close our eyes and our ears, and then certain of the circuits that normally we don't use, they start to energize up. Some of you who have meditated longer, you may experience as you progress in your meditation, there are certain tingling sensations in your brain as concentration develops. It is as though there are certain circuits of the brain being slowly activated, which were not activated before.

(EA13)-03-Sitting-Posture

Now in meditation, it is very important that we sit very straight. The spine must be very, very straight. That's why normally it is advisable to sit on a cushion to elevate your buttocks and make it very straight. Now I want to show you from the side how sitting very straight means. you see a normal person sitting when we sit after a little longer we tend to relax our body and when we relax our body what happens is there is a slight slouch of the body something like this it may not be very noticeable but there is a slight slouch, there is a slight bend. You see, if you sit very straight, you look at the difference as I begin to straighten up, even though this position looks quite straight, but when I begin to straighten up, it becomes like this. When it is straight like this, this cushion actually helps to keep the body straight. And there is a part of the spinal column here which can develop some pain if it's not very straight. That is why we need to sit very straight. The second reason is if we sit very straight, it is easy for the energy to flow through our spine. And when you get good meditation, When you get good meditation, you will notice that the spine straightens by itself. When what they call the Qi, the energy flows, the spine becomes naturally very straight. So to help the Qi to flow, we keep our spine very straight. This is very important and something that is not stressed very often. So very often you find some people meditating and later they develop a slouch like that and then they become very sleepy and they start to doze and even they are not aware of it. That is why in the early Zen school in China, this was very much stressed. The teacher would go around with a kind of a flat stick If you are not sitting very straight, he will hit you on the back to make sure that you sit very straight. This may seem not very important to some people, but you can be assured that it is very, very important. It is like in learning Kung Fu, like in the old school in China, they learn Kung Fu. The master doesn't teach you everything. all at once, you know. I was told by an old man whom I knew many years ago, he said that when he was young, he learned from the Shaolin Temple. And the old monks, the first thing that he was taught was to stand what they call the mapo, Hall stand, stand with the legs slightly bent. And he had to train in that position, just that one position for about one year. He wasn't taught any other thing, just that thing for one year. And to test whether he was ready or not, the master would come from behind and give him a kick slightly at the calf there. And if his leg was not firm enough, he would topple, he would fall down. And that was the purpose of developing such a strong leg position, so that whenever he got any blow, he would not fall down, he would be very firm. So in the same way, in our meditation, the sitting posture is very important to maintain our mindfulness. You see anybody, if his body is very... anybody sitting in meditation, if the body is very erect, then that person is mindful. When that person is no more mindful, you can see that person is either not sitting very straight, or the body starts to move, starts to shake, and usually he will slouch forward, in a sleepy position. So these are the preliminaries that we have to know.

(EA13)-04-Meditation-on-SELF

Now we come into this meditation on the self that we are supposed to learn tonight. This meditation on the self is the fourth type of Buddhist meditation mentioned in the Anguttara Nikaya 4.170 where the Venerable Ananda said that all the monks and nuns who attained arahanthood came to declare to him that they all attained arahanthood by one of four ways. The first one is to practice samatha first, followed by vipassana. As you know, samatha means tranquilization, vipassana means contemplation. You practice tranquilization first, followed by contemplation. That's the first method. The second one is the reverse. Contemplation first, followed by tranquilization. And the third is practicing samatha and vipassana at the same time. And the fourth one is the meditation on the self. The object of meditation is the self. And you're supposed to focus on that object, the self, until the mind becomes one-pointed. And then, according to the sutta, the way becomes clear for that person. This meditation, like the other meditations, always comprise, Buddhist meditation always comprises of two things samatha and vipassana so the samatha part is to focus on the feeling of the self and the vipassana part is like the other buddhist meditations is to focus on the body and the mind because that is the mortal part of us and that is the part that all beings take to be the self. The Buddha said, if we refer to our self in the past life or the present or the future life, it is always in connection with the body and the mind. And the mind consists of the four parts, the feeling, perception, volition and consciousness. This vipassana part is to always remember that the body and the mind is not I, is not mine, is not myself. These three aspects are always mentioned in the suttas. Not I, not mine, not myself. This word sati in the Buddha's teachings is the seventh factor of the Aryan Eightfold Path. And this seventh factor sati is to remember. This word sati comes from a word which is spelled as m-r-t-i. And this root word means to remember. So this real meaning of sati is also to remember. What is it we have to remember? We have to remember that this body and this mind is not I, is not myself, is not mine. We always have to remember this. All beings, we have two parts of us, the mortal part and the immortal part. And we always make the mistake of taking the mortal part to be the self. And this mortal part is the body and the mind. There is an immortal part in us. In Buddhism it's called the unconditioned state, the uncreated, the unborn. And that is the part we want to return to. That is the source, our original home. So we want to return to our original home. And our original home, our original source is that which has created the world. It is that which has created the six consciousness. And the six consciousness is the world. and there we find ourselves as a body and a mind. So this is the vipassana part of this meditation, always to remember that this body and this mind is not the self. So in remembering that this body and this mind is not the self, we always have to maintain a sort of observer attitude towards this body and this mind. We act like a witness observing the body and the mind and we don't become involved in the body and the mind. Whenever we become involved with the body and the mind, then we become back that person, this mortal person. Whenever we use the mind, we are trying to protect the self. usually. So we come back to become this mortal person. But if we want to return to our original home, then we want to divorce ourselves from this person, this body and this mind. That is why if we keep on watching our body and mind every day, we don't get involved. We remain equanimous. and we don't take part in the workings of the mind. This is not easy because for lifetime after lifetime we have been involved with mind, we have been taking this mind as a very good friend. Why? Because it is this mind which has been protecting us lifetime after lifetime. Protecting this body that is, protecting this body and this mind, this scheming mind, this calculating mind. It's very powerful and it's precisely because that we use this mind that we are the number one creature in this world. Man is the top creature in this world. Even an elephant such a huge creature cannot challenge man. Even the tiger so fierce also cannot challenge man. Why? Because we have a more developed mano, more developed mind. That's why mano, from this word mano, we get the word man, M-A-N. So in wanting to return back to our original home, we don't want to use this mind because that is the way of the world. And that is not easy to remain independent, to watch the mind without taking part. So every day if we have sati, we are supposed to look into our mind and just remain equanimous, don't get involved and don't follow the mind. And that is a practice you have to do every day. But when we sit down to meditate, we try to develop the samatha part. The samatha part is quite difficult to do for most people. Quite difficult. That's why you can only do it when you sit down and your eyes are closed. You cannot develop Samadhi when you are walking around with your six sense doors open. You cannot develop real Samadhi. You can just develop only mindfulness. Sati Sampad Janiya. But you cannot develop real Samadhi. To develop real Samadhi, you have to close your five sense doors. And then only can your mind become one-pointed. So these are the two aspects.

(EA13)-05-Importance-of-Samadhi

Now, one very good reason why we need to develop samadhi or practice samatha is because when we practice sati, when we observe the mind, when we are practicing vipassana, it is very difficult to remain independent. It is very difficult not to use the thinking faculty because we are so used to using the thinking mind that it is not easy to remain in different equanimous. But in the Buddha's discourse, the Buddha said the real practice of sati is to watch the body or to observe the nature of the body, feelings, the mind, and reflect on Dharma, but without thoughts arising. Without thoughts arising. The fact that thoughts arise often is a source of problem for us. There is one sutra called the Sakka Panha Sutra in the Digha Nikaya. In this sutra, the Sakhadeva Raja came to see the Buddha and he asked this question of the Buddha. He said, Lord, men and devas, they all long for peace and harmony. Yet, even though they long for peace and harmony, there are quarrels, there are fights and all that in the world. Why is that so? And the Buddha said, the reason is because of greed and jealousy. Because of greed and jealousy, people can't help but quarrel and fight with each other. Then Sakadeva Raja had to agree. Then he asked the Buddha, what is the cause for greed and jealousy? And the Buddha said, the cause for greed and jealousy is like and dislike. And what is the cause of like and dislike? The Buddha said, desire. And what is the cause of desire? The Buddha said, thinking. Thinking gives rise to desire. And then Sakadeva Raja asked, what is the cause of thinking? Then the Buddha said, the tendency to proliferation of the mind. The tendency to proliferation of the mind means one thought gives rise to ten thoughts, ten thoughts give rise to a hundred thoughts. The tendency for the mind to multiply the thinking. And what is the cause for the tendency of the mind to proliferate? Then the Buddha said, there are two kinds of happiness. There is one kind of happiness due to thinking and pondering. There is another kind of happiness that is without thinking and pondering. And the Buddha said, the kind of happiness that is without thinking and pondering is the more superior, the more excellent of the two. So you can see this thinking, this happiness without thinking is a state of one-pointedness of mind, more specifically the second jhana and above. The second jhana is a state where the thinking ceases. So if a person can attain the second jhana and experience the bliss without thinking, then the tendency of the mind to proliferate, to think, is stopped. Otherwise, for most people, the tendency to think is very strong. That is why many people, even when they are not doing anything, they tend to daydream. How nice if I were to go on a holiday. How nice if this were to happen. You start to fantasize. You like to imagine. And because of this tendency, you find when we go to sleep, we start dreaming. All over the world we are dreaming. So, it is in order to stop this tendency of the mind to think, that we practice samatha and that is why we try to develop samadhi. When we have the ability to develop the one-pointedness of mind, the samadhi, and attain the happiness without thinking, then We have stopped this tendency of the mind to prolate to the observation.

(EA13)-06-How-to-meditate-on-SELF

So, now of this meditation, this meditation on the self, if you close your eyes, for many people, you close your eyes and you imagine that your body has died, that you are no more in that body, that you don't have a body anymore. And then with your eyes closed, you ask yourself, do I exist? And for most people, you will have to answer that you exist. And if you are asked why you say that you exist, then the answer must be that you have this feeling, a very strong feeling of I. What in the suttas is described as I am. or I exist this feeling I exist even without the body is quite prominent for many people and that is that feeling you stay with you just stay with that feeling I exist that is one way the second way for some people they Observe the knowing mind, the knowing nature. What in the Thai forest tradition they call the knowing one, Achan Man calls the knowing one, Puru in Thai. And this knowing one, if it is more obvious to you that there is a knowing and awareness in you, you stay with that. It is the same thing. that feeling of the self or that knowing, the awareness, you stay with it. Another way is if it is not, both these are not so obvious, is to ask yourself. In Chinese, they have this koan, they call washes. Usually it is translated in the books as Who am I? But unfortunately if you use these words Who am I? People tend to meditate on the Who and that is the wrong thing to practice. You should meditate on the I. So an alternative translation is I am Who or I am What. You practice on this meditation, you ask yourself I am What. In other words, what do I take myself to be? So, that is the third object you can have. I am what? Now for some people, their minds are very, to put it a bit coarsely, a bit scattered, so that they have a lot of thinking. And because of a lot of thinking, all these three ways is not easily practiced. So if you find the mind is so full of thoughts that you cannot practice the first three ways, then you just remind yourself, I am here in the present. I am here in the present. Why? Because if you don't remind yourself that I am here in the present, thoughts, you will be following thoughts. And when you follow thoughts, the thoughts either bring you to the past or bring you to the future. You are never in the present. So that is why you keep telling yourself, I am here in the present. And as long as you are in the present here, the thoughts don't arise. If the thoughts arise and you follow them, you are either in the past or the future. So these are the four objects you can practice. One is to practice on the obvious feeling of I exist or I am. Second one is the knowing mind or the awareness. The third one is to ask yourself I am what. The fourth one is to remind yourself, I am here in the present. So let us sit for about half an hour on this practice and then if you have questions we can discuss.

(EA13)-07-Apply-Sati-on-None-SELF

If you practice the sati of remembering that this body and this mind is not I, is not mine, is not myself, there is a great difference from the normal state of a person. The normal state of a person is conscious, of all that is happening around him. But he does not remember that he is not this person, this body and this mind. He gets caught up with all the affairs of this world, with all the thinking. But he has no sati, he does not remember that he is not this body and not this mind. It's only when you remember that you can find the way out of samsara, which is eventually to see and realize that this body and this mind is not you.

(EA13)-08-QandA-on-SELF-Meditation

That is not the kind of feeling I meant. That feeling I meant is that clear feeling of I exist, I am. You can either call it a thought or a feeling. No, no, no. It is not the normal thought. It is an obvious feeling. But as I said just now, if that is not obvious to you, then perhaps that knowing the awareness in the mind is more obvious, then you stay with that. You have to find one of these four. You don't necessarily have to practice the first one. The third one is to ask yourself, I am what? Well, it is not that difficult, you know, because... Actually, it is very obvious. But the thing is you must not look for it too hard. If you look for it too hard, you won't find it. It's like asking yourself, I have no head, where is my head? The head is there. You just have to be aware of it even though you can't see the head. You can't see your own head, isn't it? Of course, without a mirror. But it should be fairly obvious that you have a head. So in the same way, if somebody, for example, somebody wants to harm you, why do you feel threatened? Obviously because of the feeling of that ego, that I in you, isn't it? It is there all the time. It's so obvious that you don't have to look for it very hard. If you look for it very hard, you won't find it. As I said just now, if you have your eyes closed and you imagine you don't have a body to ask you whether you exist, straight away you say, I exist. Right? Why? Because that feeling of that I exist is very strong. All the time is there. As long as you have the normal consciousness, it is there. If you don't find that too obvious, then you practice the last one. Just remind yourself, I am here. In the present, I am here. As long as you have that I in mind, then you are in the present. Because what is the difference between thinking and being in the present? When you are thinking, you are no more in the present, isn't it? You get caught up with the past or the future. You think carefully, what's the difference between the thinking state and the present state? When you are thinking, you get involved with the thoughts and you forget that I am here, isn't it? You get caught up with the thoughts, you are following the thoughts, you forget that I. But when you are in the present, that feeling of that I is very obvious, you know, whatever happens, I know, I am watching, that I is there. And this I we carry with us moment to moment. Every moment that I is there. It's always in the present. I am in the present. So when you make that I obvious in your mind, then the thoughts cannot arise because they are always in the present. That is why this practice of that I is very important if you want to stay in the present. Normally when we observe our body or our mind, when we practice that meditation, we tend to get caught up with the thoughts. So we need an anchor to anchor us in the present. And that anchor is that feeling of that I am here. Now this thing about who am I or I am what, Don't make it too abstract by thinking of all the possibilities. Just have that I in mind. The trick is to focus on that I. Just keep remembering that I, that I. This I, this elusive I. Just keep it in your mind. As long as you stay with that I, you are in the present. You see, the mind is always running, has been running for ages, lifetime after lifetime, and it's very difficult to get it under control. So this also is a way to control the mind to stay with that I, to stay with the present. But the point is not to allow the mind to run, to stay with the present,

(EA13)-09-What-to-expect-from-meditation

Just now she asked a question whether certain jnanas can lead one to Chula Suttapanna. Is that the question? And I told her that the jnanas that are taught in certain meditations are not found in the discourses of the Buddha. So because it is not found in the discourses of the Buddha, We would not like to use them. Only what is found in the discourses of the Buddha, we want to use them. It might be correct, it might not be correct. So we'd rather stick to the discourses of the Buddha. If you look into the discourses of the Buddha, you find that the Buddha taught us how to practice meditation without telling us exactly what to expect. If you are told what to expect, then it becomes kind of, you don't have to practice anymore. What is enlightenment? Enlightenment or insight is to realize certain truths that were not obvious to you before. That is why it cannot be told to you. You have to go on a spiritual journey into your mind. And then, when you get the insights, and then the real insight, you will realize, ah, you realize such a thing which you never knew before. If you've already known it before, then how can it be an insight? How can it be an awakening? Right? That is why in the suttas, the Buddha never told us what to expect. And you find great meditation teachers like Achan Man, and other teachers also, they only tell you the steps to practice. They don't tell you exactly what to expect. Because if you are told, then how can you go on a journey to find that truth? That is the truth you are supposed to find. So how can you be told about it? So it is better that we practice according to what is in the discourses of the Buddha. We go by the original teachings of the Buddha.

(EA13)-10-Gradual-progress

This meditation, if you learn something today, then you go back and try to practice it so that by the next time you come, you have made a little progress and then perhaps you have some questions to ask. Or you encounter some problems, then you have something to ask. You must remember in the suttas Buddha said the spiritual path is a gradual path. It is not a sudden path where you attain the path and fruition suddenly. The Buddha gave a simile in the Samyutta Nikaya of a carpenter using an axe. This axe is for planing wood. The kind of edge that we have nowadays has two sticks sticking out. You hold the two sticks and you plane the wood. But during the time of the Buddha, it seemed like they held the edge in one hand and they planed the wood. Because the Buddha said, after using the edge for many years, the carpenter looked at the edge and he found his fingerprints embedded, the impressions made in the wood, so that he knows that the wood has been worn away by his fingers. But the Buddha said he does not know how much of the wood he wore away yesterday. He does not know how much of the wood he wears away today. And he does not know how much of the wood he wears away at any other time. But he knows over a period of time that he has worn away the wood by the impressions made on the wood. So in the same way, the Buddha said, as we practice the spiritual path, we cannot tell how much of the defilements or the asavas we have eroded away at any particular time. But over the years, as we practice, and our attachments decrease, our ego decreases, our anger decreases, then we know for sure that we have progressed, we have improved in so many ways. So don't go for quick results. This is a long distance run, it's not a hundred meters dash. So you go for a long distance, you look at the long distance runner, he's got to have stamina to last a long distance run. A lot of people they go off to a good start, a flying start, but they don't last very long. That's not a good runner in the spiritual journey. Some monks after many years also they disrobed. So that one that has lasting power is the real one.

(EA13)-11-Guided-Metta-Meditation-2

Please chant together, may I be well, may I be happy, free from enmity, free from suffering. Now we just meditate for a few minutes. We feel or imagine love coming towards us from all beings all around. Now we go to the next one. May all my beloved relatives be well. May all my beloved relatives be happy, free from enmity, free from suffering. Now we think of all our family members and all our loved ones. In the same way we feel or imagine love radiating out from us towards all of them, individually or collectively. Now we come to the third one. May all my dear friends be well. May all my dear friends be happy, free from enmity, free from suffering. Now we think of all our friends, the same way we feel or imagine love going out to all of them. Think of them, think of their face, individually or collectively. Now we come to the last one. May all beings be well, may all beings be happy, free from enmity, free from suffering. We try to radiate love, feel or imagine love going out to all beings around us, above and below, especially all unseen beings.

(EA13)-12-Recitation-of-frequent-contemplation

we recite these five frequent contemplations that the Buddha advised all Buddhists to contemplate every day, left-home persons as well as lay persons. I am of the nature to age. I have not gone beyond aging. I am of the nature to sicken. I have not gone beyond sickening. I am of the nature to die. I have not gone beyond dying. All that is mine, beloved and pleasing, will become otherwise, will become separated from me. I am the owner of my karma, heir to my karma. born of my karma, related to my karma, abide supported by my karma, whatever karma I shall do, for good or for ill, of that I shall be the heir. Thus we should frequently recollect. It's a very meaningful recollection, especially the first four, it is because of the first four, that there is urgency for us to practice the spiritual path.

(EA13)-13-Breath-exercise

Now we come into this meditation proper. As we did last week, we will start off by taking a few deep breaths at a natural pace, not too fast, not too slow. You can either take in through one nostril or both nostrils, and out through one nostril or both nostrils. But take a deep breath without holding the breath, letting it go. about 10 times. This breathing exercise is very useful for people who don't exercise, remove the stale air.

(EA13)-14-Neck-exercise

Now we do some neck exercises to relax the body, especially the neck. When we sit in meditation, the neck has to support the weight of the head to keep it straight. And the neck is one of those parts of the body which we very, very seldom exercise. So every time we sit down to meditate, we should make it a point to exercise the neck. The first exercise we do is just we bend back as far as possible, try to keep it there for a moment. Ok, now we bend the head in a circular motion either clockwise first or then the reverse. We do that a few times. Those people who never exercise their neck will find that they are unable to bend their neck very low. But if you do it constantly, you are able to bend your neck quite low.

(EA13)-15-Shoulder-excercise

Now we do the shoulder exercises just relax the shoulders.

(EA13)-16-Sitting-posture

Now we sit straight. I mentioned last week this sitting posture sometimes is not stressed often enough. We have to sit very straight and that is to allow the free flow of the energy through our spine. And sitting straight means it's best to sit on a cushion and If you are not straight enough, you tend to slouch a bit. Sometimes it's not very noticeable. But if you make a point of trying to make your abdomen come forward, then your body will, instead of being exactly vertical, it will slant forward slightly. And then you try to, not only your chest come out, but the abdomen also should try to come out a bit in line with the chest. Then we are sitting straight.

(EA13)-17-Meditation-on-SELF

Now all meditation has two parts to it. One part is samatha practice, the other part is the vipassana practice. The samatha practice that we are going to do is the meditation on the self. Either when we close our eyes, we have a feeling of a self, either a feeling or a thought that I exist, I am. Even though you imagine you don't have a body, you still have this feeling that I exist. So you can stay with that feeling. Or the second way is, it might be more obvious to you, the awareness in the mind, the knowing mind, which Achan Man calls the knowing one. That knowing in the mind, we can also stay with that awareness or that knowing. That's the second way. The third way to practice this meditation on the self is to ask yourself. In the Chinese, it's the saying goes, wo shi shi. And the idea is to fix your attention on the wo, on the I. normally in books they translate it as who am I but when you translate it as who am I some people make the mistake of contemplating on the who you should contemplate on the I I am what so in trying to find out I am what you try to look for the source of that I where is that I what is that I And the fourth way, if all these methods, the first three, are not so easy, then you just remind yourself constantly, I am here in the present. I am here in the present. The idea is not to run after thoughts, not to allow the mind to think, because when the mind thinks, it is either thinking of things of the past, or it is thinking of the future. and you are not in the present. So you just remind yourself, I am here in the present. And then you will stay in the present with the I. Because the difference between thinking and being in the present is that when you are thinking, you forget about the I. Ideas occupy your attention. But when you are in the present, you are aware of that I. I am here in the present. So these four ways, first we practice this Samatha practice. The first one is staying with that feeling. I am or I exist. The second one is to stay with the knowing mind, the awareness in the mind. The third one is to ask yourself, I am what? And try to look for the source of the I. And the fourth one is just to remind yourself, I am here in the present. Continually remind yourself, I am here in the present. So we'll just meditate perhaps for half an hour or so on this.

(EA13)-18-Relax-before-begin-to-meditate

After the neck exercises and sitting straight, we went on to the meditation. I forgot to mention that for most beginners, you should allow the first five minutes to relax. For the first five minutes of your meditation, don't make an effort to meditate because your mind is are quite scattered and you just need to close your eyes and sit quietly and relax and slowly that five minutes that gives the mind a chance to concentrate by itself slowly as you would say warm up we need a warming up period of five minutes so that Later, after the five minutes when you start to meditate, you won't develop a headache. A lot of people, they go straight into meditation and when they try to focus their mind before the mind is warmed up, is concentrated, then you develop a headache, especially if you put in a lot of effort. So always try to remember that.

(EA13)-19-Samatha-part

Now I'd like to talk a bit about the vipassana aspect of this meditation. Before we go into that, I'd like to just give a parable mentioned in the Samyutta Nikaya to make you understand how the mind works. The Buddha gave a parable of a hunter who caught six animals. He tied each of these animals by a rope and then these six ropes, he tied them together in a knot and he allowed these animals, he let go of these six animals and these six animals each took off in a different direction. These six animals were an eagle, a monkey, a snake and crocodile or alligator, a dog and a hyena. And then when these six animals were loosed, the eagle would want to fly up into the air naturally, and the monkey would want to climb up a tree. The snake would like to go into a hole to hide itself, and the crocodile would like to go into the water. The dog would head for the town to look for food. And the hyena would head for the hills, because that's its natural home. So these six animals are tugging in six different directions. And the Buddha said, at any one time, whichever animal is stronger, it would pull, and the others have to follow it. And then when it got tired, another animal which was stronger would pull the rest, and the rest would have to follow him. So this tug of war goes on all the time. This parable illustrates the working of our mind. We have six sense doors representing these six animals. And our six senses are pulled by the six sense objects. And so our attention is continually going out to the six sense doors, depending on whichever sensation is stronger. Suppose now you're sitting here and listening to this meditation class and suddenly a car went by outside and maybe it sounded a horn. Then immediately your attention goes there and then perhaps later a thought comes to your mind and your attention goes to the thinking. Then another moment perhaps you get a mosquito bite and then your attention goes there. So our attention is going out to the six senses all the time. And because our attention is going out to the six senses, our energy is scattered. Now the Buddha said to tame the six animals, what the hunter would have to do is to take the six ropes and tie it to a stout post or a stout pole. And then these six animals, whichever direction they headed for, they would only be able to manage to go round this pole, round and round this pole until they are tired and then become very docile and they just lie down beside the pole. So in the same way, the Buddha said, if we want to tame the mind, we have to anchor it to one object of meditation. And then the six senses are always trying to pull our attention away. from that object of meditation, but we have to keep it, always pull it back to that one object of meditation, and slowly with practice we are able to tame the mind. That is the purpose of the Samatha practice, to tie our attention to one object of meditation. In this case, it is that feeling of that I exist, that I.

(EA13)-20-Vipassana-part

Now the vipassana part is, vipassana means contemplation. As you just now from the parable you know that the mind is always contemplating the six sense objects and is always going out to the six sense doors. So contemplation comes naturally. However, in Vipassana practice, we have to train the mind to look inwards. The mind, the attention of the mind is always drawn outwards. And so we know the external world very well, especially the world of the five senses, the seeing, the hearing, the smelling, taste and touch. But we don't reverse the light, we don't see the opposite direction, we don't look inside. And because of that, we don't know our inner self. We only know the outer world and what we take to be the self. Now when our attention is turned outwards, then we take the self to be this body and this thinking mind, the thoughts. So this mind and this body, lifetime after lifetime, we have been taking to be the self. But this is the mortal self, the mortal part of us, that always dies. After a certain period, it dies, and then it's born again, ages, sickens, and then it dies. And if we keep taking only this mortal part to be our self, then we are always in this cycle of existence. And this cycle of existence, the first noble truth says, is suffering, dukkha. So when we reverse our attention and look inwards, we are trying to look for our inner self. There is an inner part of us which is immortal, what the Buddha calls the unconditioned, the unborn, the uncreated. And what in other religions sometimes they call as the God nature. For example, in the Bible it is stated, man is made in the image of God. It is not the mortal part of us, it is not the body, it is not the mind. It is the immortal part of us within. So, that is why we always try to look within, always focus our attention within. Try to anchor it on the feeling of that self. This feeling of a self is a very kind of illusory thing. It gives rise to the concept of an ego, that I, that self. But that self, it has two, as I mentioned just now, two aspects, the mortal part and the immortal part. And if we only know the mortal part, then we are always in this ground of rebirth. And so we want to know the immortal part of us. And if we know the immortal part of us, we go back to our source. That is why when we meditate on the self, slowly when we are able to concentrate the mind, when we are able to get some control over our mind, then we try to channel our attention back to the source. That is the aim of meditation, for us to go back to our original source. to our immortal nature. So, in the vipassana partner, every day we are conscious of what is happening around us. We are conscious of seeing, of hearing, smelling, taste, touch and thoughts. But usually we don't have sati. And what is this sati? Sati is often translated as mindfulness. But it is not mindfulness of the six objects of the six consciousness. Because that one you don't have to make an effort to be conscious of the six objects of mindfulness. It happens all the time. It happens naturally, just like just now the parable of the six animals. We are always pulled by the six objects of the six consciousness. We don't have to make an effort to be aware, to be conscious of these six objects. Our attention is always pulled out to these six objects of consciousness. What we have to be mindful about is always to remind ourselves that this body and this mind is not the real self. It is the mortal part of us. And it is the part where we have the feeling of this person. I am so and so. You have a name. You have a form. But when we practice sati, we keep on reminding ourselves that whatever is happening in our consciousness, that is just phenomena. that is happening naturally. So every day, every moment of your wakeful state, you just keep reminding yourself, this is body and this is mind. It's not I, it's not mine, it's not myself. This is not I, this is not mine, this is not myself. And then if we are aware of that, then we try not to get involved We see, we try to observe how the ego always surfaces. How the ego is always trying to reassert itself. For example, when you hear somebody say something unpleasant, immediately you get angry. And then you see your ego working. You start thinking, I can't stand this. I have to do something. What do I deserve? to be told off like that or whatever. So you see the mind is seething, is frothing because the ego of that ego. So when you recognize that ego, then we try not to react. We just see it is just this ego, this Satan in us, this Mara in us that is trying to assert itself. So every day we try to do that. And if we are able to do that, then we slowly let go. We let go of reacting. We don't react. We just observe. We don't react. It's not easy. In other words, you are trying to behave like an enlightened person. If you start behaving like an enlightened person, slowly, slowly, you will become an enlightened person. If you don't behave this way, then you are always that same person. If you are just mindful of the six objects of consciousness, then all history repeats itself when an object impinges on your senses. then a feeling arises, then perception arises after that, and volition, and thinking, and all that, and it repeats, and the thought proliferates. One thought multiplies into ten thoughts, ten thoughts multiplies into a hundred thoughts, and then you see that ego in action. So this is the real letting go. Letting go is not the outside, letting go is the inside. It's very difficult to do. It's much easier just to observe what's going on in the world.