Day 2 What is Meditation - The Brahmviharas

Thank you. Just a couple of things to be aware of. Tomorrow, your interviews will begin. You have about 10 minutes in the interview to talk about your practice. I will ask you a few questions. Generally, there will be the same questions every day, so you will get the swing of what the conversation will be as the days go on.

My first question to you at the interview will be, what is your object of meditation? Your object of meditation could be your spiritual friend, it could be the six directions, it could be the quiet mind, or whatever instruction you are doing, and as we're progressing, I give you instructions for. So, what is your object of meditation? The second is, tell me about your best sitting.

I don't need to know every single sitting that you've done in that day. I just need to know what you would consider your best sitting. A best sitting is generally where your mind is collected. Your mind is experiencing a state of happiness or bliss or upliftedness. Your mind is collected, which means your mind is generally on its object for the most part.

So you can explain to me some of the highlights. If you have a journal or a notebook, you can write down some of the main points of that particular sitting so that you may want to use those as notes when you come in for the interview. I might ask you, how long were you with your object before you got distracted?

And we can't really know, but you give us an average. Maybe it was only 10 seconds, maybe it was 30 seconds, maybe it was two minutes, whatever it might be. And then I might ask you, when you did get distracted, what did you do to bring your mind back? And I don't want to hear the six R's.

I want to understand from you how you're doing it. Are you doing to bring your mind back to its object? And I might ask anything else, and that's your opportunity to ask a question if we still have time. But please respect the 10 minutes that you have. Make the most out of it, and obviously be mindful of the time that you have, because there are people waiting after you. So that's about the interviews.

Second, it can be that in the last, let's say, 24 hours since you've been here, you've been meditating and generally you've been falling asleep while meditating. And that's okay. This is because you've been traveling, you are in a new place, you have very little stimulation, very few points coming up. So your mind is now, your nervous system is now, feeling relaxed.

So it may take a couple of days adjustment for you to be able to sit without slumping over and falling asleep. But it's okay if that's happening. Maybe you just need extra sleep. You're adjusting to the sleep schedule. So find the time that works for you to go to sleep, that you can wake up on time to come here and keep the precepts or take the precepts, and so on. Seven, eight hours of sleep is great. And then middle of the day, if you need, take a 20 minute nap. So make sure you're doing the basics to deal with the physical, the emotional and the mental. You want to till the soil so that the fruits of your practice can be yielded.

When you are sitting for a long time and you might hear the lunch bell, and you feel like your sitting is going good, please keep sitting. It's okay, because there will be a plate made for you and kept aside when you're ready to come and eat. So don't worry about that. So those are some of the practicalities, some of the things to be aware of.

Now, what is meditation? And why are we meditating in the first place? So what is meditation? How would you define meditation? Is it sitting in a chair or on a cushion, with your eyes closed, focusing on an object, and then feeling really good about it, and then you're done for the day, and then you go about walking around, and that's it?

Or is there more to it? We can say that when we sit for meditation, that is our formal sitting time. We can say that that is the work that we are doing, so to speak. That is the time in which we are giving ourselves the opportunity to truly understand how our mind works. There are, generally speaking, two broad categories of meditation.

The first is a meditation with object, and the second is a meditation without object. A meditation with an object is where we take a thought or we take an object to the exclusion of other mental objects, and we rest our mind on that. When we do that, our mind starts to become collected. The attention that we have on the object starts to become non-dispersed. It gets collected around whatever it is that we are bringing our attention to.

And then there is the objectless meditation. This is a meditation that might happen later, in which you are not taking anything as a specific object, but you are just observing. You are observing like you are on the bank of a river, and you're just watching the stream go on by. You're not holding on to anything. You're not looking at a specific thought. You're not looking at a specific memory. You're just observing the data that your mind is coming up with, the arising and passing away of thoughts.

Now, is that something I recommend for all of you to do? No, because I haven't interviewed you yet. So I don't know where you are in your practice. So for right now, until we are starting with the interviews, you just stay with where you feel you need to be, as an advanced practitioner, with loving kindness or compassion, radiating it in the six directions.

Or if you're starting out with loving kindness to yourself and your spiritual friend. So why do we meditate? What is the whole point of meditation? Well, some people like to meditate because it makes them feel at ease. Some people meditate because they're chasing after experiences. They have heard of something known as jhanas. They have heard of something known as being able to have bliss and equanimity and tranquility.

And so they push for that experience. But meditation is, you know, has all those things. Those are, let's say, the side benefits of meditation practice. Meditation is like this: I can give you an analogy. Let's say you have very muddied water with turbulent waves on top of that water, and it's a full moon night. In order for you to be able to see clearly the reflection of the full moon on the surface of the water, the water has to stop rippling.

And the mud needs to settle down so that you can see clearly the reflection. That's what meditation is all about. It's about bringing a certain level of clarity in the mind so you can actually see how you cause your own suffering. How you, when you let go of the causes and conditions for that suffering, you experience the cessation of that suffering.

So the process of insight, what we may call vipassana, is built into what we're calling the twin practice. What do we mean by TWIM? Tranquil wisdom insight meditation. So the tranquility here is when you relax into an object and the mind gets collected. The wisdom and insight that comes about is by your mind being clear and calm and collected so that the insights start to reveal themselves. never generated.

Insights are never created. Insights are found. Insights come up when you least expect them. That's why they feel like a eureka moment. Ah, that's what it is. I finally get it. Right? It's not dependent upon continuous reflection and contemplation of what is this, what is that, and analysis paralysis. It's about letting go of all of that. So when we use something like an object like the Brahmaviharas, the Metta, or the Karuna, or the Mudita, or the Upekkha, all of that is a way to keep the mind centered. In our lives, our minds have been used to continuously darting from one thing to the other.

Even though we may be thinking, we're focused on the task at hand. You know, we're doing the thing that we're supposed to be doing. Where is our mind? Our mind is thinking about something else, of the past. What should I be doing in the future? Never, very rarely, seldom, on the task at hand. And so when I ask you what is meditation, you may have the idea that it's about sitting and just focusing on an object, focusing on the breath, whatever it is. But meditation happens all the time if you allow it to happen. In other words, when you are walking, you are aware of your walking. When you are sitting, you're aware of your sitting.

When you are eating, you're aware of your eating. That's why the emphasis on the smile is there. Why do we tell you to smile? Because it brings you back into the present moment. It uplifts the mind. It cultivates mindfulness. It helps the mind to become aware of the here and now. that, you are meditating. When you are aware of what you are doing in the present moment, you have mindfulness.

And through that mindfulness, your mind is receiving or uncovering insight into when the mind gets distracted, this is why the mind gets distracted. This is how the mind gets distracted. Oh, my mind is going here because there was contact with this particular thing. And utilizing something like the 6R's to bring it back. That is the tool with which you are meditating. To smile when you wake up and be grateful for the day, and continue, and be in loving kindness.

It's not just to feel good. It's not just to try to feel joyful. Those are all side benefits. If you look at it from the context of the Buddha Dhamma, when we say the Buddha Dhamma, we're saying the teachings of the Buddha. What was the Buddha after? What was he looking for? He was looking for a way out of suffering.

He understood when he saw, and this is the story that is attributed to this particular Buddha, but they say that it's other Buddhas. It doesn't matter, but the story is that he saw the four sights. He saw a person who was sick. He saw a person who was aging. He saw a person who was dead. And then he saw a sage, an ascetic, sitting under the tree with a smile on his face, very serene and happy.

And so the first three sights, the first three visions, are the visions of suffering. And the fourth is a clue into there must be a way out of the suffering. This person seems to be quite happy. Why? How? And so begins the noble search. He does many different things. For those six years, he goes through attaining certain kinds of jhanas, formless states. We can get all into that when we talk about jhanas. And then he does ascetic practices.

But he gets so extreme in his process that he's on the verge of death because he's starving his body. And finally, he says, this is not the way. This is not the way. So he finds a different way. He sits down under the tree. Somebody gives him some kir, which is some milk and rice pudding. He eats a little bit of that, gains his strength. And then he thinks back to a happy memory.

The memory of when he was under the rose apple tree harvest season as a young boy. And that memory uplifts him and he says, perhaps this is the way towards that awakening, towards that cessation of suffering. And so he sits down and he meditates and he goes through the process of what are known as the jhanas. And then he attains insight into the nature of reality.

He understands karma. He understands how suffering arises. He understands the Four Noble Truths. And that is the purpose of practice, is to get in touch with the Four Noble Truths, to understand what suffering is, to realize what suffering is, and to learn how to abandon the causes and conditions for that suffering. When we say suffering, what does that mean?

Suffering is discontentment. Suffering is pain. Suffering is anxiety. Suffering is depression. Suffering is grief, sorrow, lamentation. Many ways in which we suffer. And so why or how does that suffering arise? Because there is craving. There is an obsession, there is an identification with how things should be, or how I want them to be. When something is pleasant, I want it to stick, but by the very nature of that experience, it fades away.

When something is painful, I push it away. I don't want that painful feeling. And so I have aversion to it, and that causes further suffering. my clinging, my identification with that experience, if I let that go. If I let that go, I experience the third noble truth, which is called nirodha, dukkha nirodha, the cessation of suffering. That mind that is free of any kind of suffering is a mind without cravings. And that mind without craving is like a clear, cloudless, blue sky.

Ever vast, ever expansive, untraceable. And we do this through the practice, practicing the Fourth Noble Truth. which is what we're here for on retreat. We are cultivating what is known as the Eightfold Path. We will get into what the Eightfold Path is later. But essentially, the encapsulation of that is what you have been doing. It's the sila, the samadhi, and the panya. Or sometimes it's also dana, bhavana, and panya. Depends on how you look at it. But Sila and Dana are pretty much the same. So when you say Sila, it means how much kinder can I be?

How much more at peace can I be with the world around me and with myself? Dana is all about how much can I let go through generosity? How much more patient can I be? more willing to love and be kind and have compassion can I be? Can I get to? That sila is the bedrock. Sila literally means the bedrock, the foundation.

And it's from there that meditation starts. So the reason I'm telling you this is because when you do the precepts, in the morning. When you take refuge, when you take the precepts, when you read the Dhammapada verses, when you do the five recollections, it's to prime your mind. When you take refuge, what you're doing is you're saying, I'm in a place that is safe and secure because I know where I'm heading towards, which is what the Buddha had experienced: the practice of the Dhamma. And I am amongst the Sangha. We are a Sangha here for the next eight or nine days, whether you like it or not.

And so I can depend on others. My life, my food, my water, everything that I have here is dependent on others. So I don't have to worry about these things. And then when I take the precepts, what am I doing? When I take the precepts, I'm saying I am choosing to be loving and kind. I'm choosing to be in a space of harmlessness.

I'm choosing to be generous. I'm choosing to be self-controlled. And when I say self-controlled, it doesn't mean I'm being, holding on to something. It's about the realization that I'm choosing to be disciplined in a certain way. People don't like to hear that word, discipline. But that's what we need. What is discipline? Discipline is being consistent every single day.

I have people who come on retreat, and they haven't meditated for months, or they haven't meditated since their last retreat. So then why are they here? They feel that they will make progress with the retreat. They feel they just need to take the precepts while on retreat, and then when they leave retreat, it's okay, it's fine. And yeah, they make a determination to meditate for half an hour, an hour, two hours every day. And then life gets in the way.

But if you truly want to sustain what you are going to experience on this retreat, if you truly want to deepen your insight and understanding into the nature of the world such that it actually liberates your mind, then you need consistency. Consistency, that's the discipline. Showing up every morning, doing the precepts, showing up, sitting in the chair, sitting on the cushion, and practicing for that hour. And then making sure that that meditative state of mind is sustained through your mindfulness, through your smile, through the mindfulness of loving kindness or whatever that object is.

Take these next eight or nine days as an opportunity to build that consistency, to build up that discipline. And then when we do the five recollections, what are those five recollections doing for us? They're priming the mind again. Anything can happen. I have now these moments with me to practice. I have the safety and security of these moments to come and sit and practice.

And when I see and remind myself that I too will be subject to suffering, I too am subject to illness, to old age, to death, that those who are near and dear to me may one day be separated from me. It's not meant to be a depressing thought, even though it might sound depressing on the surface. It's meant to rouse up urgency in your mind.

It's meant to clarify what is most important in every moment. We mostly go about our lives living as if we're never going to die. It never comes to mind. We live our lives as if we're not aware of old age, of sickness. It'll never happen to me, we think. Right? And lo and behold, you have just a common cold and how terrible does it feel?

Right? Your joints ache. You have different kinds of problems as your faculties start to diminish. For those of us on the younger side, we may be thinking, what are you talking about? I've never experienced that. Just wait and watch. So that allows us to realize what really matters to me in this life? Am I more concerned about gratifying sensual pleasures, the maximum.

You can do that all your life. That's fine. But all you're going to find is there's this loop. There's a cycle. And I need more and more and more and more and I'm never gratified. I'm never satisfied. Or can I reverse that cycle and come back into the mind? Because that's where everything starts from. Why do we read the Dhammapada verses? Mind is chief.

Mind is the forerunner of all states. You have to work with, I say here, right? I keep doing this, thinking the mind is here. But the ancients would say the mind is here, in the heart. But when we say mind, we're saying the thing that makes us interpret, allows us to interpret what it is that we are experiencing.

So if we don't take care of the mind, if we don't see how mind works, then we are a slave to it. We are pushed and pulled hither and thither in many different directions. So mind is chief. Mind is a forerunner of all states. Remember what that means. That for one who is in a joyful state of mind, he experiences joy in everything.

For one who has a debilitated state of suffering, who holds on to resentment, who holds on to remorse, who holds on to shame and guilt, what will happen? You see, the Buddha is the first to have said this. Whatever you ponder upon, whatever the mind continuously ponders upon, that it becomes, that becomes the new state of existence.

This is said in Majjhima Nikaya 19, the two kinds of thoughts. So if you continuously become aware, for the most part, with loving kindness, or of loving kindness, of peace and tranquility, and joy, guess what? That will express itself through your words and your thoughts and your actions. And by doing that, you purify karma. Now, I realize I'm throwing a lot of different concepts at you guys, but don't worry.

Everything will be explained systematically over the next few days. Even if you're not able to digest everything that I'm saying. First of all, these are recorded so you can always go back to them. But whatever is required for you personally to understand in your particular situation, you will receive that. You will understand that. And as you keep deepening your practice, the other layers of what I am saying will start to make more sense to you.

So when we cultivate these wholesome states, states of mind, we are treading on the path in the direction of Nibbana. The path to Nibbana. That's what we're doing. The path to Nibbana leads to a mind without craving. the morning and doing the precepts and all of it's not a ritual, it's laying the foundation for your meditation, and then the process of meditation isn't just sitting and doing the meditation, meaning focusing on an object or whatever it might be that you may have an idea of. It's about being able to observe your mind as best as possible. Where is my mind at all times?

What is my mind doing in this moment? And using loving-kindness, using compassion, using any of the objects that we're using in this retreat as a way to anchor the mind, to bring it back to the here and now. And when you do this, the panna, so we went with sila. And then the samadhi, which is the practice of meditation, collecting the mind. What does samadhi mean? Sama means same, same. Sama.

Even. Balanced. Mind. Right? That's the dhi. Samadhi. Budhi. So it's a mind that's even. An even-mindedness. The clear, collected mind. That's what we're practicing for. So that insight arises. So that wisdom arises. That's the panna, or the pragya, as it's known in Sanskrit. And what is insight? What is wisdom? What does it mean to be wise? of Buddha Dharma.

It is an ongoing process, the cultivation of wisdom. There are times when you get liberating insight into, ah, now I get it, and things drop away. And there's a time in which the wisdom comes and goes, comes and goes, and then it becomes established. And this wisdom that we speak of is the understanding of the impersonal nature of all experience.

This wisdom is the realization of the Four Noble Truths, the establishing of that in the mind, so that if not all the time, most of the time, we are aware of how the mind creates its own suffering and we have the tools and technology to let that go and experience a suffering-free mind. That's the wisdom. You stop taking things so seriously.

You stop taking things so personally. Your mind is at ease. And so you have behavioural changes that happen over a period of time. You have personality changes that happen over a period of time. And you start to see, this is where I started off, and now here I am. I don't react to things the way I reacted before.

I don't get frustrated at the things that I was frustrated at before. I don't get sad about things that I might have been sad about before. I don't repeat the same processes that I may have done before. That's the purpose of meditation. That's what meditation is. I want to shift gears a little bit to give you more clarity on what the Brahma Viharas are, to understand a little bit more about why we use the Brahma Viharas as the object.

So what does Brahma Vihara mean? You see, in the time of the Buddha, you had the Shramanas and you had the Brahmanas. The Shramanas were the wanderers like you had, for example, the Buddha and his Sangha. You had the Jains. You had the Ajivikas, who would go about wandering from place to place in search of food or whatever it is, but for the purpose of being supported so that they could meditate and do their practices for their understanding of what awakening is. And then you had what were known as the Brahmanas or the Brahmins. And these were a group of people within society,

who were namely the priestly class. And they did all of the rituals and ceremonies. They did fire offerings. Some of them did animal sacrifices at that time. They did all kinds of things. And their whole process, as we understand it from the lens of the suttas, is to understand how to get to something known as brahma. Brahma is the divine.

Their whole thing was, their idea of moksha, of freedom, of liberation, was to attach oneself to Brahma. To attain to the heavens in which Brahma resided. And so the Buddha said, there is a way to do this. You don't need to do rites and rituals. You don't need to do animal sacrifices. that's being harmful. There is another way of doing it. And they ask, what is the way leading to Brahma?

And the Buddha said, the Brahma Viharas. So Brahma here is denoting the divine, the thing that represents the divine. And Vihara means it could be a temple, it could be a living space, it could be an abode. So it's the divine abodes. And why did the Buddha say these are the divine abodes? Because you are essentially cultivating the same kinds of qualities that are present in the divine, in Brahma.

Namely, these four. You see, these four, what we call metta, karuna, mudita, and upekkha, found just in Buddhism. If you go to the Yoga Sutras, and that's how I came through this process, I was going through the Yoga Sutras and doing practices that were mentioned there, and learning how to do the practices that are mentioned there, and then learning how to master them, and so on. There was one sutra, one segment, which said, to stilling consciousness, the way to experience nirodha, to get the mutable consciousness into a state of immutability is by cultivating metta, cultivating karuna, cultivating mudita, and cultivating upekkha. Any of these that you may do allows for the stilling of the mind.

That was the goal. How do you still the mind? So I looked for how does one practice this. Of course, the rest is history. I learned about this place. I learned about Bhante Vimalaramsi. I did a retreat. Got what I needed from there. And continue getting what I need from there. So now, what do we mean by these terms? Metta, karuna, mudita, upekkha. You see, the word metta, it is coming from the Sanskrit maitri or maitreya. And that is a feeling of goodwill, a feeling of I wish goodness and good things upon myself and upon others. translation is usually friendliness.

Because it comes from the word Mitra. One who is a friend. Mitra. One who gives support is Mitra. Ati Mitra. That's my best friend. That's what it is in Sanskrit. Ati Mitra. So having that attitude of how you would be with a friend. Somebody you genuinely love and adore and admire and respect. Somebody who, when you speak with them, you feel uplifted. When you spend time with them, time just passes.

You can laugh with them, you can share jokes with them. These kinds of things is what a mitra is. But when we say metta here, it's that feeling of, I desire happiness for you. I desire happiness for myself, for you. When we share merit, like I said yesterday, that's what we're doing. May all beings be happy. That is a feeling and wish of metta. It may feel joyful in the heart. It may feel uplifted in the heart. Somatically, it may feel warm. It may feel all kinds of things. Those are all just little signposts to let you know you are being mindful and aware and cultivating and being collected and meditating. And then from metta there is something known as karuna, which is generally translated as compassion.

What is compassion? How can one cultivate and utilize compassion? In the context of this practice and in the context of the path, compassion is the recognition of one's own suffering and the suffering of others. I suffer the same way you suffer. I recognize the suffering you are experiencing because at some point I have suffered like that before.

I recognize it. I see it. But I don't look down upon it. You see, that's sympathy. That's pity. That's, oh, poor you. That's too bad for you. That's not what we're talking about when we say compassion. Compassion is not only the recognition of the other's suffering, it's the desire that they be uplifted out from that suffering. It's the feeling of, I see this, I know what suffering feels like. I hope things go good for you. I hope you come out of whatever terrible situation you're in.

And, you know, it's not about the equivalent of somebody is going through something and you just email them and say thoughts and prayers. It's not that. It's doing more than that. But remember, it's not about being a crutch for that person. When we teach Dhamma, as a teacher or as a guide, when they do it, they do it out of compassion.

They recognize the situations you're going through because they've gone through it themselves. They recognize the issues that you're going through in the meditation because they've done it before. They've failed many times. They've seen all of the ins and outs, or as many ins and outs as they have. And so they are here to help you to come out of it. But as they say, you can bring the horse to the water, but you cannot make it drink.

Right? A teacher, a guide, a practitioner, a fellow practitioner can only point the way and say, have you tried this? Have you tried that? Try it this way. Try it that way. But you have to take the action. You have to take the steps. So when you have compassion for someone, don't get involved in their suffering. Don't get enmeshed in their suffering. If they're not making progress, that's not a reflection on you.

If they're choosing not to come out of that suffering, they're choosing to be a victim. That's not a reflection on you. That's just their choice. You cannot take on their suffering. You cannot be their saviour. You can be there as a shoulder for them to cry on. You can be there to give them words of advice. You can even be there to take care of them maybe when they're sick.

Maybe make some food for them, make some soup, whatever it is that feels appropriate. They have to come out of that suffering on their own. So compassion can be as simple as listening to a person, giving them the space to be heard and seen. Many people just want to have a conversation because they just want things to be let out.

They just want to be heard. They want to be recognized for their pain and their suffering. That's fine. Just by listening and giving them that space, that's compassion in action. In the meditation, the compassion may feel lighter than metta. It may feel like the feeling is going away. It may feel like, what's going on with the metta? It's not the same intensity; it doesn't have the same buoyancy as it had before.

And that's okay because the metta changes to karuna. The loving kindness changes to compassion where it feels a bit more diffuse, feels a bit more spacious. Some people have described it as cotton candy. Very soft and fluffy. And then we go into something known as mudita, which I like to translate as empathetic joy. It can be sympathetic joy, whatever works for you, or just joy in general. Mudita is the celebration of another person's happiness.

It's the antidote for jealousy and envy. It's the true happiness that you feel when you see a person making progress. When you see a person coming out of their suffering. When you see a person celebrating their birthday. You see a person driving their dream car. Wonderful. Good for them. They're celebrating whatever it is they're celebrating. They come from a feeling of lack, a feeling of insecurity, a feeling of I'm not enough, I'm inadequate.

And so the other person, why do they get to enjoy those things? Why do they get to get all the things that they're having? Why do they get to celebrate? You can moan and groan about it. Wallow in self-pity, so-called self-pity, or be the victim, or be jealous, and all of these things. But that's just all elements of suffering.

Some people are very comfortable with their suffering. Some people are very attached to their suffering. And that's why some people are not ready for practice. You only come to this practice, generally speaking, be better, and second, you may have experienced suffering to such a great degree, you're like, okay, I've had enough of this. There must be a way out of this.

It's not the same old, I'll go and do some drugs, I'll go and party, I'll go and numb myself with food, or just watching TV all day, or whatever it is. There must be a way in which I can truly come out of suffering, because all those other things, while they may feel good in the short term and numb the so-called pain, they only accentuate it.

They only amplify it over a period of time. And what you're left with is a mind that is dull, a mind that is weak, a mind that is struggling. Mudita is the recognition of, this person is happy. And I'm happy because they're happy. And it feels like a very content joy. It's not an exuberant kind of joy. It's not a joy where there's a lot of fireworks going on.

It's a joy that is sustainable. It's not like a flickering flame. It's a steady flame. And so it's a quiet kind of joy. It's a joy that's okay, this is great, wonderful for them. And you can remain in that feeling for as long as you can, for as long as you want. And then we have something known as upekkha, which is generally translated as equanimity. In a way, related to upekkha, the Sanskrit, is in some ways related to apeksha. Apeksha means to wait. Apeksha means there's an expectation. Something is just around the corner. I'm just waiting. We've been waiting for this person.

We've been waiting for that thing to arrive. That's the apeksha. Upekkha is letting go of that. There's a lack of expectations, a letting go of expectations. Seeing things as they are, in full acceptance of however they are. It's not an indifference. Indifference has a certain kind of flavor of aversion. I'm choosing to be indifferent. I'm pretending to be equanimous by being indifferent to it.

But equanimity is, whatever is happening, I'm seeing it. I'm aware of it. I'm okay when it feels pleasurable. I'm okay when it feels painful. I'm okay when it feels neutral. My mind is able to see things as they are. And so in the meditation, that may feel like calm, tranquility, serenity. I like to use the image of a clear blue lake. When I was in Austria, when we did the retreat in Carinthia, a place called Carinthia, it was a beautiful large lake over there with beautiful mountains in the background.

There was one day when we were walking there and we were sitting on the bench by the lake, and you can see how the lake is so still that it's reflecting the sky above it, and so you just see a little bit of the border, the horizon of the lake, but everything is calm and still and quiet and at peace. You don't need the fireworks. You don't need a lot of joy to happen. You are content with being at ease and at peace.

Because I've said this in the past, bliss is overrated. When you experience equanimity, bliss doesn't compare to it. It feels amazing. And I say it feels amazing not in the sense of it feels exuberant, it feels wonderful because it's so profound. Of course it's profound, but it's amazing because of how your mind is just so content. How's the food? It's okay. It's all good.

How was your meditation? Just fine. Oh, a bee stung you? How are you feeling? It's okay. It's all right. There's pain there, but I'm fine. It's okay. So equanimity is not a numbing agent that you won't feel anything. Equanimity is where you're so content that you accept things as they are. And so in the meditation, as I say, it feels like this tranquil serenity.

It's called the fourth jhana, the beautiful, and that's where equanimity is strongest. It's a different kind of beauty. So that gives you some idea of the brahmaviharas. Now generally, when we give you the instructions, we will tell you, start with metta. Start with loving kindness. Tomorrow you will all start your interviews. And there, I may change your meditation.

And you may experience other things. You may experience these other brahmaviharas in different ways. We'll see how it goes. We'll see what happens. That's all I have for you today. Any questions? That's a question that's very particular to me. What I understood you to say yesterday is those of us who are beginning, I can do, I should keep my meditations to 30 minutes time.

But I can do multiple within a day, yes? Minimum of 30 minutes. And if you can sit for longer, sit for longer in that one sit. But only do one sit? No, no. As many as you'd like. When you've chosen a spiritual friend, should we keep the same one? Yeah. The whole time? Yes. Stay with that spiritual friend until I may change that for you in the interviews. Bhante would say you can change your spiritual friend, but only one time.

So make sure that you have somebody that you can stay with for the duration of that sit. And for all sits. Any other questions? Let's share some merit. May the suffering ones be suffering free and the fear struck fearless be. May the grieving shed all grief and may all beings find relief. May all beings share this merit that we have thus acquired for the acquisition of all kinds of happiness. May beings inhabiting space and earth, devas and nagas of mighty power share this merit of ours. May they long protect the Buddha's dispensation. Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu. All right. Enjoy the rest of your evening. I will see you all tomorrow. Thank you.