Brisbane Retreat – Day 5: Morning Practice
Entering into 2nd jhāna
Ready? Make your body upright. Relax the body. And now observe the sweat or any other sensation that is appearing the body. Move your attention from the top of the head to the tip of the toe. Scanning part by part of your body.
Take the face and from head to face have a look at it how it is after this walk. Whatever that is appearing there, notice it. Then come to the neck portion. Now you go the back side of the neck and the back side of the head. Earloss come to the shoulders. spinal column to the place you’re sitting. The touch of the cushion. Then the front of the body, stomach upwards. to the chest to the hands to the fingers. Now we’ll do the below one.
Come to the knees from the place you’re sitting. The thighs and the knees. from there to the leg and to the ankle and to the feet. Now do the same thing. Reverse from the feet upwards to the head. Let us keep on doing this for some time to come. Good.
When you attending to each one of these parts, the breath will be in the background which will be awareness of the breath. toe. Starting with top of the head to the face to the back of the head including the ears, neck, front and back, shoulders, the back including spinal column. chest, stomach region, hands and fingers, thighs, knee, shin. bone, feet, fingers or toes of the feet both in the forward order and the reverse order. Watch the breath.
That is you now bringing attention to the nostril area or to the chest. chest or to the abdomen wherever you are comfortable in observing the breath. Now bring in your awareness with the air touching the body from head to toe while you watch the breath meaning while you observe the breath in any one of these three places. Have an awareness of the air touching your body. Don’t have to struggle. Just be aware that something is touching your body. It’s going away.
So you are the consciousness. You can know the air is touching the body. You can know that the air is touching the nostril. You can know the stomach is expanding as soon as there is inb breath and the stomach contracts when there is outreath. There’s nothing like my body and your body. It is just a body consisting of many things and you’re observing them. There is a nose through which the air is going and from the same nose it comes out.
As it goes in there is expansion. As it goes out there is contraction. Entire body is happening the same. If you’re finding it challenging, tough, not able to get it, look at the hindrances. Look at the doubt. Whether you are doubting there is breath or not, Have a forceful inb breath and slightly forceful outreath to see that indeed the body is expanding and contracting. There’s nothing to believe or disbelieve. Body expands with breath.
Body contracts with breath. As you see this, the restlessness goes away. If that is not working out, check whether you have set the precepts especially with relation to speech, lying, slander, harsh speech and some unwanted speeches. If he has make a renewed promise that you will not do it again because worry will ensure that you don’t get peace. Worry and peace don’t go together. And while you’re here The maximum damage you can do is by speech. Even though you’re not speaking to someone, but mentally you’re speaking, mental chatter that also comes under that just forgive yourself. Forgive that other person. I don’t want to suffer. I don’t want to be in pain and hence I’m relieving you from my bondage. May you be happy.
May you be whoever you are. I will forgive myself. I will not say lies. I will not slander. I will not use harsh speech. And I will not use or waste time in empty talks. Even if you’re doing in the mind, it means the same. Just throw that junk out. It’s not important. And here just have five more days left in this hardest journey of attaining peace. Then check whether you have ill will on anyone. If yes, Love yourself. Don’t curse yourself. Don’t harm yourself. Just give an internal hug to yourself.
You’re fine. Let go of bad feelings, bad memories. They are not important. Just Throw it. Leave these unwanted baggages.
Check whether you’re able to watch the breath now easily without struggle. You shouldn’t be putting effort to wash the breath. Let me not harbor enemity. Let me not harbor ill will. Let me not incite pain in myself. Not worth it. Let me forgive the conditions. Let me forgive the situ. uations. Let me forgive all those people who have abuse me either by verbal or physical or mental. Whatever happened so has happened.
Now I am in a good place free from all of that. I don’t have to remember those bad things which has happened. I’m in charge of my life. No. Nobody can dictate my life. If I’m suffering, I am the only person suffering. Nobody can do anything about my suffering. So I can only make myself happy. I can’t change others. Others can have opinions. They can have whatever they want. They can think whatever they want about me and that’s okay.
From today I will not have any opinion on anyone. Not worth it. Let them be the day way they are. I will leave. Give all resentment, all agitation. When you do this, you should be able to see the whole body breathing and a sense of joy coming on the body. Waves of joy bubbling either in the head or on the face or on the back or on the chest, abdomen, thighs, legs, etc. If it’s still not working, promise yourself, assure yourself that you will not harm. Y
ou’re giving up and then there would be a change. Let us come to this section of what are the senses and sense objects. Eyes will go behind sight. Ears will go behind sound. Tongue will go behind taste. Nose will go behind smell. Body will go behind touch. And mind will go behind mental objects or concepts. Sights can have good sight, bad side. Good sound, bad sound. Good taste, bad taste. Good smell, bad smell. Good touch, bad touch. Good thoughts, bad thoughts they just arise and pass away. You can’t hold even one of the side and make it as yours.
Same thing with sound and taste and touch and smell and mental objects. Looking at this drawback, let us give up the running behind the sense objects. If you do this very nicely, you’ll get a complete joy which is the second chana. The attention will come to the joy and the breath will go to the background. Meaning you become aware of the breath in the background while you are attention is on the joy you’re getting. It’s a nonsensual joy.
Meaning to say it is not dictated by the sight or the sound or the taste or touch, smell and thoughts and hence you will not have any thoughts at all. Your im First in this joy. May all of you be joyous right now. May you experience the joy, nonsensual joy. If you still cannot do it, keep on taking each one of them side. They don’t give any lasting happiness because I’ll get pleasant and unpleasant both. And how muchever I try to make it pleasant,
I have to accept the unpleasantness also. So, same with sound, same with taste, touch, smell, and mental objects. There’s nothing to imagine on the joy. It just comes when you are not interested in senses. Senses as in the sense objects. How would you know you have joy is by looking at the characteristics of joy. You’ll have a very light feeling of the body and the mind is really elated. Just look at when you get something in life, how elated you feel.
The same is this case but without sense objects. There is a bubbling sensation inside your body and coolness. Not of the air touching but really cool feeling from inside. Move your attention from the top of the head to the tip of the toes slowly watching each particular part and you’ll find Find coolness in each part of it. Wherever you scan it, you’ll find cool, check for any hindrances again. If as do the reflection this body is bound to age every day going One calendar day gone is gone forever. There’s nothing to doubt. When the doubt is not there, restlessness goes away and there is diseases. Every day I have to address this body. dressing it up. Upkeeping it. Getting rid of hunger and thirst. And take the body for urination. And the poop or feces. Then are to wash this body. This is an everyday job. No one is exempted. And by that token, there is nothing in this body worth holding on to. That will take out sensual pleasure, excitement and ill will. ill will in terms of jealousy, agitation, irritation etc. And then once you start getting the joy of watching breath both boredom goes away.
There is no mental lethargy and the sleep sleepy attitude goes away. So you would not be interested in losing the job. Joy in Buddha’s words, noble silence means being in joy. You don’t want to speak to anyone because you don’t want to lose your joy. Instead, you want to be in joy. Unnecessary speaking removes the joy because you have to put effort to talk. So don’t hold any hostility, anger, upset attitude towards anyone because it burns you. Make it cool. Just look at the aging. You can’t do anything about anyone. And the disease and death. We all are going to lose all that we love on a daily basis. And the karma is the only friend Apart from the breath, when you’re born, the breath comes in. When you die, the breath goes out. Just let go of all the negative emotions you have. Let the joys spread you all the way from the top of the head to the tip of the toe.
Let this very day be very joyous. Whether you are a husband or a wife, Whether you are a woman or a man doesn’t matter. Joy is joy. Consider everyone as just a fellow being, not as a wife or husband, not as woman or man. Let See without any successes. When you do that the joy springs up. for the whole day today. Achieve joyous attitude. Drop off all negative feelings, emotions. Keep on watching hindrances and throwing it out in this one and a half hour session. It’s not possible to do that. Keep working. Don’t spend time in unnecessary thoughts, unnecessary emotions. Let it come on the surface. Throw it out. If you want to cry, go out. Just like a vomit coming. Just throw it and forget all about it. If anger is coming, just throw it. It’s not yours. If envy or jealousy is coming, do the same thing.
Make a wish, make a determination adana that today you want to be joyous. Because the natural state of mind is to be happy which is the third janna suka. To do that you have to be joyous and also don’t have self-pity on yourself. Throw that out also. There is no need to be pity. You can be compassionate but not have pity. When you are in joy, there is a natural smile on the face. Not the fake one, the real one. We started with faking because when you have a smile inside, things have a natural tendency to release. Now that you find joy, that fake will become real.
There’s a genuine smile and the face has a different look. If you stand in front of the mirror, you look much different. Once you get joy, you don’t like to compromise your joy and hence you will have noble silence. Joy cuts negative emotions and joy also cuts speech. And in Pali it is avitakka and avicara. There is no debating on what I should do and what I should not do and there is no thinking relating to that. So we started with noble silence from day one. Now really you’ll have noble silence because you’re in joy and you don’t want to lose the joy.
Just want to leave everything because you’re in joy. No speech, nothing you want. Don’t have to laugh, don’t have to dance, don’t have to do anything external because you have Internal joy. If you can’t get the second one, being the first doesn’t matter. If that is also not working, work out on the hindrances. Use this time here in removing all the hindrances.
Don’t waste time in unnecessary judgmental thinking. Just let it go. Not worth it. Once you hit the joy, you will see how fragile, how wasteful it was in having all these negative thoughts and emotions. It’s of no use. You yourself will realize that. But for that you need to just let it go for now and See the joy and you will come to know what to keep and what not to keep. While you’re eating breakfast today, reflect on the joy. While you’re sitting on the sofa or anywhere.
Reflect on the joy. Don’t let your mind go anywhere other than the joy. And you will see it happen in front of you and then the noble silence appears. You’ll not have any resentment, not have any worries. Nothing, no hindrance, just joy. Our journey in this samsara started from this realm called as abhaasara. That is where we all started. That’s your home. Wish that today you return back to your own home which is joy. You can reside in your home while still in the human body. Take this opportunity to go to this realm of existence. Not that you have to believe in that. You can really see if you are joyous.
etaṁ santaṁ etaṁ paṇītaṁ yadidaṁ sabbasaṅkhārasamatho sabbūpadhipaṭinissaggo taṇhākkhayo virāgo nirodho nibbānan’ti.
May all of you be joyous today. May all of you attain the supreme bliss of nibbana.
Bhawatu saba mangalam.
Bhawatu saba mangalum.
Bhawatu sabangalum.
Sadhu, Sadhu, Sadhu
Day 5 – The Path to Internal Joy and Noble Silence
