Voices from Ajahn Brahm

When you stop and let go of the things that weigh you down, the mind soars.

IF we were to constantly exercise our body without any break, we would end up exhausted. Yet our minds are incessantly thinking, worrying, planning, complaining and fidgeting – even during supposed holidays.

What if we could get the mind to stop and rest for a while? To give it a sort of chill-out? Would we then gain renewed mental vitality?


Take time to meditate: Like the lotus which opens gradually to reveal a fragrant jewel, if you are patient, the inner part of your mind will open up and lead you to a “higher” state.

One way to give our incessant minds some time to loosen up is through meditation. While its roots are Eastern, meditation is becoming increasingly popular in the West. For example, a search on the website of the British newspaper, The Guardian, reveals dozens of entries.

A Jan 11 article titled ‘Children need more meditation and less stimulation’ surmised that “if you want your children to feel more relaxed and less stressed, give them more silence, not iPods.”

In view of the obvious benefits of mediation, the Catholic Education Office of Townsville in Queensland, Australia, has decided to spend precious funds implementing the first Christian meditation programme for all schools in the diocese.
Meditation is about being unconditionally mindful and compassionate to the present moment.

America’s renowned Mayo Clinic has this on its website (mayoclinic.com): “These days, meditation is commonly used for relaxation and stress reduction. Anyone can practise meditation. It’s simple and inexpensive ... During meditation, you focus your attention and eliminate the stream of jumbled thoughts that may be crowding your mind and causing stress.

“Meditation can give you a sense of calm, peace and balance ... and also might be useful if you have a medical condition that may be worsened by stress, such as allergies, anxiety disorders, asthma, binge eating, depression, fatigue, heart disease, high blood pressure and sleep problems.”

It recommends that people should “take a stress-reduction break wherever you are.”

Patience and clarity

Last month, along with 113 others, I took part in a nine-day meditation course in Petaling Jaya (PJ). Fittingly, it was conducted by someone who has roots in both the East and West – Ajahn Brahm, an English monk who studied quantum physics at Cambridge, and Buddhism at a forest monastery in north-east Thailand.

Born Peter Betts in London in 1951, Ajahn Brahm (ajahn is Thai for “teacher”) is now based in Perth, and has been coming regularly to teach Buddhism in Malaysia over the past decade.



Ajahn Brahm uses jokes and humour to get his message across.

The retreat was organised by the Triple Gem Centre (triplegemcentre@yahoo.com), a small Buddhist group in PJ. Its coordinator, Tan Eng Chye, said:

“We decided to invite Ajahn Brahm as he is very capable and compassionate, and is able to teach people in a relaxed and inspiring way. By telling some jokes, he creates a happy atmosphere and makes the subject more lively and interesting.”

Jokes? Well, Ajahn Brahm introduced the retreat like this: “This is not a concentration camp. This is Club Med ... Club Meditation that is!”

To demonstrate what meditation was all about, he held up a glass of water in an outstretched arm and asked a volunteer to observe if the water was still.

“Is it still yet?” he asked several times. Of course, his tensed grip caused the water to ripple.

“So how do I make the water still? I put it down – I let it go.”
Sense of calm and balance: Research in the West has found that meditation helps focus your attention, and eliminates jumbled thoughts that may cause stress.

In the same way, he said, “if you’re patient enough, eventually your mind will settle down. Then it will be like a still lake and you can see things clearly.”

In another analogy, Ajahn Brahm related how, for seven years, he had always driven up to his monastery (in Serpentine, outside Perth).

“One lovely spring morning, I decided to walk up. I could not quite recognise the hill! I saw details I had never seen before – little flowers between the rocks. The colours were richer – there were so many shades of green.

“When we see things through a moving car window, the images move so fast. We think we are seeing, but we are just seeing a fraction and nothing is deep. But when we slow down and simplify things, we see so much more. We can then see the beauty of life and become happier.”

Indeed, last Dec 4, another Guardian article zeroed in on the “psychology of distractedness”.

Harvard professor Daniel Gilbert used an iPhone app to interrupt thousands of people, repeatedly, and discovered that 47% of the time, their minds had wandered from what they were doing. They were also asked to rate their mood. The results showed that being lost in thought wasn’t much fun; people were happiest when focused on the present, and not drifting in fantasy.
Participants at the retreat held at the Triple Gem Centre in PJ, listening in rapt attention to Ajahn Brahm

Ajahn Brahm told the retreat participants that the one thing to let go of was time.

“We go through life lugging two heavy suitcases with us all the time. In one, we carry past pain and sadness. In the other, worries about the future. If we want to fly high in meditation, we have to put down our suitcases for a while!”

This applies not just to Buddhist meditation. Western authors, among them Eckhart Tolle, say the same thing too. In The Power of Now, Tolle writes:

“Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry – all forms of fear – are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness and all forms of non-forgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence.”

Craving and anti-craving

We’ve heard it before, but old habits die hard. Which was why, during another session, Ajahn Brahm recommended that we walk out of the prisons we had made for ourselves by forgiving others – and, perhaps more importantly, ourselves.

“When someone calls us ugly, we tend to go, ‘Why did they call me ugly? I am not ugly. How can they call me ugly!’ And they’ve already called you ugly another three times. Why allow people to keep hurting you? Let them say it once and let it go,” he said.

“Anger takes up so much space in our minds that we have no room left to be happy. But forgiveness is an investment in our future. Similarly, the more we worry about the future, the more wonky it becomes.

“Being fully awake in the present moment is the best way to prepare for our future, because our future is being made now.”

Ajahn Brahm gives talks not only to Buddhist groups around the world, but also at corporate conferences which focus on the “zen” of business. He relates how some companies have “time out” rooms because they have realised that even short spells of meditation can rejuvenate employees’ minds and improve productivity.

So meditation is good. But doing it is not all that easy, what with work, entertainment, sports and buzzing handphones. Personally, it was a culture shock for me to just sit down, be silent, and be aware of my breath going in and out.

Before I could even get to 10 breaths, my mind was already drifting. Hmm, the air-conditioning is rather cold ... Oh, my shoulder is hurting ... Oh stop, come back to the breath. In, out, in, out ... When will I get to experience bliss, serenity and deep insight? Oh, my shoulder ...

During the retreat, we were not supposed to talk (it’s called maintaining Noble Silence) but, instead, focus on meditating. From the written questions posed to Ajahn Brahm by participants, it was clear that mine was not the only restless mind.

“You don’t DO meditation. Meditation is about letting go, letting things be,” he advised.

“Some people get upset when they cannot concentrate. Some feel dull or sleepy or have sexual fantasies. Meditation is not about fighting with the mind. It’s about letting go of wanting this and that and just observing what happens. It’s about being kind, compassionate, patient and gentle to your own mind.”

According to Buddhism, humans are dissatisfied with life because of craving (we are seldom content with what we have) and anti-craving (we dislike this and that). What if we could enter that mental spa and and just be content with whatever we have?

Ajahn Brahm used the simile of a donkey chasing a carrot dangling from the end of a stick to describe people craving after “higher” states of meditation.

“If the donkey stops running, the carrot will swing further away (at first). This is like the initial discomfort and restlessness we experience when we begin meditating. But if the donkey stays still and patient, the carrot will swing right into its mouth!”

He also used the simile of the lotus flower, which closes at night but opens layer by layer in the morning: “The outer petals are a bit rough but inside, you’ll find the most fragrant, delicate petals.

“Our mind is like that when we begin to meditate. It’s dull or restless or filled with sexual fantasies. But there is no need to suppress all that. You will find that eventually, if you are patient enough, the more beautiful inner part of your mind will open up by itself.”

And that is the true meaning of the mantra Om Mani Padme Om, “hail the jewel in the lotus”.

“When participants meet me, I know they have had a good meditation not by what they tell me, but by the smile on their faces,” he added. Meditation, not medication

But even “ordinary” meditation can benefit anyone.

“Before going to an expensive restaurant, do half an hour of meditation first. You will be able to taste and enjoy the food much better that way,” Ajahn Brahm said, at a previous talk.

A sharpened mind also helps one when it comes to studying.

“I once met this top medical student who had learnt meditation as a young girl back in Sri Lanka. She had such a clear mind that she only needed to read her books once and could remember what she’d read,” he related.

And there are the health benefits too.

A retreat participant who had reached the blissful meditation state asked about the hot spots she was feeling on her body.

“It’s a sign that the body is healing itself,” Ajahn Brahm replied.

Indeed, Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder and director of the Stress Reduction Clinic at Massachusetts Medical Center, and author of Wherever You Go There You Are, teaches hundreds of people to reduce stress and chronic pain through mindfulness meditation.

And Dr Herbert Benson, founder of the Mind-Body Medical Institute and associate professor at Harvard Medical School, has reported that meditation induces a host of changes in the body (involving metabolism, heart rate, respiration, blood pressure and brain chemistry), collectively referred to as the “relaxation response”. Thus the motto of his institute, “Prescribing meditation – not just medication”.

Ajahn Brahm recalled how he had helped a lady who was suffering from great anxiety.

“I asked in which part of her body she felt the panic attack? She said she felt the tightness in her chest. I asked her to relax her chest and give it some kindness.

“Don’t try to attack the emotion directly because the mind will loop on itself, like what happens when I put a microphone close to a (hifi) speaker.

“Instead, find the corresponding physical feeling and soothe that. It’s easier to address the physical symptoms than the emotional ones.”

Ajahn Brahm said the British National Health Service had found meditation to be an effective treatment for depression.

“Depression is caused by tiredness of the mind. When you meditate, you gain mental energy and happiness. Many people are taking up meditation because it works.

“You can call it contemplation, quiet time, mindfulness, stress reduction or whatever you like as long as it brings peace and happiness.”

~taken from The Star