How To Calm Your Mind

Bhikkhus, this recollection of breathing, when developed and cultivated, is peaceful, sublime, an exquisite pleasant dwelling, and it disperses and relieves right on the spot evil unwholesome states whenever they arise.
“Just as, bhikkhus, in the last month of the hot season, when a mass of dust and dirt has swirled up, a great rain cloud out of season disperses it and quells it on the spot."
-Sn 54.9
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[@FredericMoreauful]

Thank you very very much. I have been listening, reading, reflecting and meditating on your teachings for years and this talk was like soothing rain. I’ve practiced patient endurance thinking something is wrong because of the insane levels of pressure to act and control and identify. It is like the sense of self is in turmoil and there is no release, with just more unpleasant endurance being the only seeming solution, like a necessary burden. It is very hard to keep up a practice when it is like choosing such unpleasantness. But something clicked in this talk of breathing always being there enduring in the background, that this knowledge can be recollected and turned to and thus “the pressure” can be laid aside, like changing the order without getting rid of anything. Then it’s like it’s not my point of view, my pressure, my burden. It’s just there, until it isn’t. Keep up the good work!

[@3260ELEMENT]

This was a good one. This solved my questions about anapanasati. You explained all the ideas with ease. This is almost unrivaled wisdom nowadays. Thank you for this. Sadhu 🙏

[@theinngu5560]

I am so happy to revisit these teachings and having read Dhamma within Reach, I can follow them and be inspired to a much greater extent. So much gratitude for potentially 🤞🏼taking the practice to a higher level. Hope more and more will also access and follow your wonderful teachings. 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

[@hz7988]

"Dhamma within reach" is a lightbulb Moment. A must read! Full of practical empirical useful advice. Very clear and easy to understand.

[@sandhyamam578]

Greetings from🇮🇳 India. 🙏🙏🙏 Sadhu Sadhu sadhu!!! Bhante Ji.

[@srimathisamarakone8535]

sadu sadu sadu

[@deathskunk3]

"Not forgetting" Way better way to see it than "observe it". As the lattee is forceful and active whereas the former is forceless and natural . This helped me a lot. Im watching all your videos these days. Very major appreciation for the videos to both of you . I appreciate the honest and genuine questions . He dares to ask the questions many are afraid to ask. 🙏🙏🙏

[@Danny-no5dx]

The breath is impersonal, but always there. By keeping the breath in mind (not attending as the object, but keeping it in the back of one’s head) the Satipatthanas are covered. One has an impersonal reference point to fall back on. The breath just ‘is’, without me being ‘in control’. Being aware of this impersonal reference point a space is created in which things can ‘be’. The eye of the storm.

[@OgdenM]

This explains what happened to me during the deepest mediation I've ever had. I was sitting outside in a single family housing neighborhood. Dogs were barking, cars were loud on the major streets a few blocks away. People were making loud nosies in their yards, birds were talking etc etc. And I was aggravated by all of it... Because I wanted silence. I then looked at what was going on around me, it was just fellow beings going about their lifes. I realized that I was actually safe where I was. I then just actively pretty much made myself dissolve into everything around me. It started with hearing, then smell and then touch and slightly vision but my eyes were closed. I then just became pure awareness.. I just heard sounds, smelled smells etc without attaching anything to them..... I felt everything, I felt the body react to everything that was happening. (very mild sensations at that point) And it was the best thing ever. Granted, it wasn't that easy getting to that point. I'm still not sure if it was Samadhi or a taste of Nibbanna but it was blissful...in the peaceful sense of the word. I came out of it feeling better than I have ever felt... And it lasted for weeks. I also asked myself some deep questions about my life when I first came back to "Self". Those were about why am I so depressed. The answer was unmet desires and that the reason I'd never met those desires was because I had never felt like the work /effort to make those desires a reality wasn't with it. ---I had to be in a state of calm and peace to even be able to ask myself that question much less listen for the answer. Until that point, I had always thought that I couldn't meet those desires because I'd just never be able to get a job paying enough money to meet them due to lack of education and being "unmotivated" as well as not wanting to engage in a economic system that I always felt was corrupt. Which, all economic systems are corrupt. I know that now... It's just how they are though. ... And I had a perfectly good reason for not being motivated the whole time besides that, I just wanted peace really. I knew at that point in some small intellectual corner of my mind that all I wanted was peace and that peace brings bliss... But had never experienced it. It's what lead me to Buddhism. I didn't even know that really the core of Buddhism deals with desire until after it... I started researching Buddhism afterwards.

[@infinitygirl1699]

තෙරුවන් සරණයි ස්වාමීන්වහන්ස😊 🙏🙏🙏🌼❤️🌼

[@fruitionapt]

Three and seventy years I've drawn pure water from the fire- Now I become a tiny bug. With a touch of my body I shatter all worlds. ~ Ingo, Zen monk poem written before dying

[@nadeekadilshan4226]

Thank you so much bhanthe!! This is marvelous!! Sadhu!!

[@rajithaprassanna]

Now this is samma ditti

[@SBCBears]

Oh, thank you! For years I've tried to identify the fundamental connection between ill will and sensuality. By the way, I think you once mentioned that other teachers did not address Existentialism, per se, in their talks. Bhante Punnaji often referred to Existentialism and the Existential position on "self" in his talks. In one he roughly traced the development of Western philosophy up to Existentialism-- the end point being a self and no escape. Then he made the point that Dharma resolved the problem of self. He recently passed, but he was an erudite scholar and practitioner.

[@RickyMcHale64]

thanks, Bhante. much prefer these older talks without the constant interruptions.

[@janetkocsis6419]

Excellent. Thank you Venerables

[@milanbogosavljevic7997]

Excellent

[@hariharry391]

🙏

[@hz7988]

Not forgetting the breath!

[@younghello1097]

Hi Ajahan, regarding the Sariputta and Maha Moggallana way of practice, AN4.167 & AN4.168 described both are fast, and Sariputta practice is pleasant and Maha Moggallana practice is painful. Also, AN4.163 described that Asuba practice is painful, while Jhana practice is pleasant. Can you comment on this?

[@HillsideHermitage]

You are absolutely right, I mixed up the names. As for both being fast, yes relatively so. Maha Moggallana took only a week to full Arahantship, while Saripitta needed twice that time. Thank you for the Sutta references, it seems that painfulness of one's endurance is also determined by the intensity of one's sensuality and aversion, which would explain why Maha Moggallana's practice was "painful", despite mastering the jhanas pretty quickly.

[@TJ-sq9xe]

How would this apply to lovingkindness practice or repeating mantras like "buddho"? Is it that the loving kindness intention is already there and we're just not forgetting it? That the thoughts are always there and we are just not forgetting it by listening to the repetition of the thought "buddho"?

[@harryk812]

Dear sir, could you help me understand how one deals with failure?

[@HillsideHermitage]

Don't harbor aversion towards the painfulness of it.

[@atthasilanigunanandini3473]

Sādhu Sādhu Sādhu

[@zarahjazmy8360]

Sadhu sadhu sadhu Venerable Bhante. 🙏🙏🙏 having juggled with some meditation practices i have realised recently that i am able to practice metta bhavana and buddhanussati bhavana for developing calmness much better. For instance after doing metta meditation once i feel i am calmed down i slowly begin anapanasathi...and i realise my concentration on my breath becoming more focused and a sort of blissfull happiness starts pumping up within me...could you please very kindly tell me what sort of experience this might be and whether my practice is "proper"? I felt the need to introspect myself and see what suits my meditative practice making my inner knowing my guide. Is it mandatory to have a bhikku teacher as a guide for receiving "kamatahan"?🙏🙏🙏

[@anthonychan3336]

The dogs are possessed by Mara. Trying to prevent the great Ajahn from teaching the Dhamma. Too unpleasant for Mara and he threatens to bite with the dog. 😅

[@OgdenM]

Naaa, dogs are just dogs. Mara doesn't possess anyone. We become Mara... And humans seem to become the only ones capable of doing so.

[@mattkasper9693]

Why is the eye of the storm like buddha nature?

[@alecogden12345]

In the eye of the storm you remain unmoved by the storm

[@mattkasper9693]

The eye of the storm is composite, like Buddha nature, in that when we refer to the eye of the storm, we're merely pointing out a quality of the storm and not actually the eye itself, for the eye doesn't actually exist, as Buddha taught when referring to the emptiness doctrine. There is no separate eye from the storm. Much like our identity, we think there is a permanent sense of self, but our true nature is more like the storm than anything else. When the storm dissipates, where does this "I" go?

[@OgdenM]

I like both of your answers.