Buddhist Society of Western Australia

Often rites and rituals are performed without knowing their significance. Whether it is a marriage ceremony or the upcoming Vesak, Ajahn Brahm encourages us to dig deeper to know the meaning of ceremonies and perform them with your heart.

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Ajahn Brahm guides a meditation for approximately 30 minutes.

Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon.

Confronted with the recent revelations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse, Ajahn Brahm responds by sharing ways in which people who have been abused as children may be able to deal with this hurt and pain. For more information on the Royal Commission go here: http://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/ This talk was given on 22nd May 2015.

Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon.

Who are you? Who do you take yourself to be? Are you there at all? Ajahn Brahm addresses one of the deepest question of all with insight and humour.

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Ajahn Brahm gives a humourous and wise talk on how understanding impermance can bring peace in life.

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Ajahn Brahm explains how the core teaching of Buddhism - the Four Noble Truths - are about finding progessively greater levels of happiness through the practice of the Eightfold Path.

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An often funny but most of all relaxing evening with Ajahn Brahm.  Ajahn asks us to remember why the British Empire lost many of it's colonies. They stopped having "tea breaks".  They stopped taking a break, stopped taking a moment to relax both the body and the mind.  When we become stressed we become less efficient at everything.  Driving, working and even doing our domestic chores.  Stop, take 5 minutes and meditate.

It is very difficult to relax the mind if the body isn't relaxed first.  So take the time to look deeply into your body, asking silently each part of your body if it is relaxed.  If it isn't then focus on it and move it if you need to.  Scratch that itch, rub that nose but most of all, relax.  Then move onto the mind and simply observe.  Don't get tangled up in your thoughts, just let them come and go.  Relax.  Guess what, you are meditating.

Ajahn reminded us that organisations such as Google and Face Book now have meditation areas set aside for their employees.  This allows them to take a break, relax.  This improves efficiency greatly.  So we should take the time to relax, meditate, even for just 5 minutes a day.  Learn our bodies, get physically comfortable, then relax the mind.

Ajahn then guided us through a 30 minute meditation that is well suited to beginners, novice or advanced meditators alike.

After the guided meditation, Ajahn opened to Q&A.

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Strange things happen during meditation, such as feeling like ants are crawling all over your body, or the sensation of moving back and forth. Ajahn Brahm explains that during meditation our perception becomes amplified and by not interacting with these strange experiences they'll eventually settle down.

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Don't be afraid of silence. Ajahn Brahm talks about the power of silence and explains that in Buddhism silence is sacred and very good for your health and mental well being.

Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon.

Ajahn Brahm guides a meditation for approximately 30 minutes.

Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon.