Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 59-minute guided mindfulness meditation, Ven Jamyang establishes expectations by clarifying what “good” meditation actually is—not a quiet mind, but catching your mind when it wanders and gently returning it each time. The first half covers posture and technique: following the breath at the abdomen, and learning to balance two mental qualities simultaneously—relaxation (which tends toward dullness) and alertness (which tends toward tension). Using the image of waves in the ocean, he guides practitioners through navigating this balance. The second half extends into Buddhist reflection on the nature of mind itself: spacious, clear, and without substance. Practical and welcoming to practitioners new to meditation or experienced alike.
File metadata (for organising)
File: Jamyang – LTM.mp3
UUID: 0f6c3a83-a3e5-49dc-bedf-462fb25d159a
Teacher: Ven Jamyang
Collection: Learn to meditate (Ven Jamyang)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 59.3 minutes
Words: ~2,749
Does that work? Yeah. Loud enough? Can everybody hear me? Good.
Welcome everybody. Every time there are some new faces, who is here for the first time? My name is Jum Young. I’m leading the meditation, which will take about an hour. And we will divide that into two times half an hour with a little break in between where you can stretch your arms and legs and whatever needs stretching.
What we’re doing is here is a mindfulness meditation which is a meditation that is not specific for Buddhism and is also practiced in other traditions. It is used a lot in psychology at the moment because it is so effective to calm the mind and to get some insight what’s happening in the mind. You know, we all come, most of us come for the first time to meditation because we feel that the mind is so stressed, we’re so sensitive to stress from outside and we can see the mind running around and we recognize that we are not in control or we don’t know how to stop or how to change it. So when we meditate what we’re doing is instead of following the mind in the habit of being so distracted and run around all the time, we’re trying to focus the mind on one point. Yeah, you recognize that the mind is doing this, running around.
So when you bring the mind back to one focus, beginning the mind will feel like, but that’s not my habit. You know, within two seconds the mind is off again and following stories, about things that have happened or things that might happen to us. So that is completely normal when that happens. And if you see it happening, you bring your mind back. And then the mind goes off again and you bring the mind back.
And we’re basically just training that. Right? So I’ll try to make it a little bit attractive that you don’t feel too bored while I do that. That can be hard work. It can feel like the first time going to the gym, where you do a big workout, you know.
So so don’t expect that you’re gonna be very relaxed within the meditation. It might happen, but it might not. It might be just hard working. But if that is the case, know that after the meditation, some result will come from that. So you might after a half an hour after the meditation you might feel oh wow now I’m feeling good you know while during the meditation it was hard working.
Having a good meditation doesn’t mean having a quiet mind. A good meditation means that you catch your mind when it walks away and you bring it back. So if the mind is already crazy but you can catch it every time you actually have a fantastic meditation although you might feel very agitated. When you are completely wandering off, you dream off and you have a very nice place where it’s very quiet but you actually don’t know what you’re doing, that’s not such a good meditation. Can feel very blissful, but it’s not really a meditation.
So try to be alert of that. Don’t have the wrong expectations. Yeah. So that’s all I’m gonna say today. So try to sit comfortable.
The main thing is that we have a straight back as much as we can. So it can be easier to sit a little bit on the when you sit on the chair a little bit forward that you don’t touch the back of the chair with your back. If you sit on the cushion, make sure that you don’t have to put too much effort into sitting up straight. Put enough cushions under your bum. Your hands, you can put them in your lap or on your knees or your thighs, wherever it’s comfortable.
In the Buddhist meditation, we normally put the right hand on top of the left and the thumbs slightly touching each other. And the elbows are a little bit away from the body. And make sure your shoulders are relaxed. That your stomach is relaxed. Try to let go of all the tension in the muscles.
And your head is a little bit bent forward. Your jaws are relaxed with the tongue touching the palate just behind the teeth. And your eyes are closed and allow a little bit of light to come in. So that it’s not completely dark. And then be aware of your posture, of your whole body.
It might be that just by sitting in this posture, some parts of your body feel tense. You might have some contraction in the muscles. Just allow that to happen. If there’s tension, try to let it go. And then allow the mind to come to the body.
Observe your the parts of the mind that are still reflecting on what has been happening today. And if you observe that, then pull that energy back and bring it to your body. And part of your mind or maybe already reflecting on what is going to come after this meditation. If you notice that, bring all that energy to your body, to this room. This is one hour of your week where you can completely relax, where you do not have to worry about the future, where you don’t have to do anything with what happened in the past.
You can just be. In society we are praised because we are doing something. Meditation we are successful when we can let go of that doing, when we can stop doing. So just let your mind rest on your body. And if you notice that your mind is wandering off, you bring it gently back.
And when you feel that your mind is settling in, that your mind is unwinding, then focus your mind more on the movements of your abdomen, the rising and falling every time when you breathe in and breathe out. You try to follow the whole movement. And when your mind wanders off, you bring it gently back. Meditation is about about finding the balance. If we make the mind too tense, the mind becomes distracted.
If we are too relaxed, the mind becomes dull. So normally when we are awake, we are doing, the mind becomes more tense. So that is the part of the mind that is awake, that is alert, that can see what is happening, that is observing, that doesn’t miss anything. And there is the part that feels like relaxing. And normally we relax when we go to sleep, when we dream away, when we can forget what is happening to us, with us.
So that’s the that has a tendency to be dull, but the good quality is that it can completely relax and open up. So when we meditate we try to get the good thing of both qualities and we try to use them simultaneously. One part of the mind is going to relax, tries to let go completely, and another part of the mind is going to be very sharp and awake, observing. Observing. When we start training, we cannot do it simultaneously.
So we first focus on the relaxation. Relaxation. And then when we feel that we are relaxing too much or that we have the tendency to fall asleep, we give more attention to that part of the mind that is very awake and alert. And then if we feel that the mind gets too tense, we focus back to the relaxing part. So we move our attention between these two qualities of the mind.
So when you focus on your abdomen, you can imagine that the movements of your abdomen are like the waves of the ocean. And you can imagine that you are laying on the waves with your body completely relaxing. So that image you can use to train the relaxing part of your mind. With every wave, you relax deeper. Every time you breathe out, you let go more.
You let go all the tension. You let go everything that you would like to think about. There is nothing to hold on to. So it is best if we can surrender to the waves and learn to go with them. Learn to enjoy them And then when you go deeper and deeper, you might find that the clarity of the mind becomes less, that it’s harder to stay focused, to stay away, and that your mind a little bit slipping away.
So then we’re going to focus more on that alert part of the mind. The alert part is like watching from above, seeing yourself laying on the ocean, not missing one part of the movement. It is checking if you stay relaxed. It is checking if you can flow with the waves. Your body moves subtle, supple.
And the part of the mind doesn’t miss anything. It’s very sharp. When you focus on the alertness, you might feel that your mind feels more light. If you make it too sharp, you might feel that distraction easily can come. And now you have to learn to play with your own mind.
When you feel that your mind gets too tense or that you lose connection with that relaxing part, you go back to the relaxing part. Let your mind completely open up. And when you feel that you’re going too deep in the relaxation, you go back to observing. And you switch from one to the other however it is needed for your mind. Your relaxation becomes too deep, and it’s difficult to concentrate, to remember what you’re doing, then sharpen the mind.
Observe every part of the movements. If your mind becomes too tight, allow yourself to relax, to completely let go. With every out breath, you go deeper and deeper. We’re now about halfway. And if you feel that you are happy in the meditation and you can stay another twenty five minutes, you just stay in the meditation.
If you need a stretch or a little break, slowly come out of the meditation and open your eyes. Try not to disturb your neighbor while you do that. And then when you feel ready, go back. First of all, find your posture again by checking all the major points. And your back is straight.
Your arms and hands are relaxed. Your head is bowed forward. The jaws are relaxed. The tongue is touching the palate just behind the teeth. And the eyes are closed and allow a little bit of light to come in.
Then during this meditation, you keep on bringing your mind back to the movements of the abdomen. Every time when your mind is wandering off, you bring it back. It is as if you tie your mind with a rope of mindfulness on the movements of your abdomen. Your mind stays with your abdomen as much as you can. You don’t push your mind.
You don’t suppress anything. You try to find how fast your mind can move back. When your mind is wandering off, you don’t beat it up. You don’t tell yourself that you’re stupid. But you realize that you have been engaging in this habit at least since you were born.
But in Buddhism we believe many, many, many lifetimes we have been engaging in this habit. So it’s a very strong changing habits, if it’s just from this life, even if it’s just a habit of a few years, can be hard work. So definitely this one is hard work. So you’re kind to yourself, you’re gentle, you have patience, and you don’t get tired of trying again and again and again. The mind wanders off, and you bring it back.
You refocus. The mind wanders off, and you bring it back. And then during the last part of the meditation, if you forget what we are doing, if you can’t follow what I’m saying, just stay with your mind, with the movements of your abdomen. If you somehow wander off and you suddenly come back and you think, where are we? First go back to your abdomen, refocus, and then pick up the meditation where we are.
And then reflect on what the mind is. And the best when we talk about the mind, most of the times we talk about our thoughts, our thinking. And some people say it is the brain. In Buddhism, when we talk about the mind, talk about every experience that we have and the one who is experiencing. So when you look into yourself, try to get a feel for what Buddhism means when they talk about mind.
Every experience means every thought, every feeling, every emotion. And we can be aware of these thoughts and feelings and emotions, or maybe we are not aware. All of that is mind. And then every time when thoughts and feelings and emotions arise, there is something observing this. There is something that is experiencing or someone who is experiencing the thoughts and emotions and the feelings.
That is the experiencer, that is also mind. And all these experiences and the experience are, they need a space in which they can arise. So that spaciousness is also mind. And if we think about how mind exists, we cannot see the mind. The mind has no color, no shape.
We can’t hear it. We can’t hold it. We can’t touch it. It is like space. The space in which all the thoughts and experiences and the experiencer arise that is clear.
We can’t see it. We can’t touch it. There was a clarity there. And then if we look how all the experiences exist in the mind, our thoughts, our feelings, our emotions, we become aware of them through our body. But in the mind itself, if you look how a thought looks like, an emotion looks like, There is nothing that you can find, nothing that you can grasp.
Although it sometimes feels concrete, if you really look, there’s nothing to hold on to. So there is a clarity in all our experiences. And if we look into how the experiencer exists, although that sometimes appears to be very concrete, if you start looking for it, you can’t find anything. There’s nothing to grasp, nothing to hold on to. So also the experiencer has a clear nature.
The mind itself is like space. And everything that arises in the mind has no substance. Although some emotions and some beliefs appear to be very concrete, it might feel very concrete. If you really look into it, you can’t find anything. There is nothing.
No substance. There’s nothing that you can point out and say this is a thought and it looks like this and this. The thought is something that comes and goes, and as soon as it’s gone, there is nothing left. It’s gone. It has no value in and of itself.
If we hold on to thoughts, it can appear as if they are really true, truly existing in and of itself. And sometimes we have the feeling that as long as we hold on to these thoughts or beliefs, we exist. It makes who we are. But even if thoughts can look very concrete, if you really look into it, is no substance to find. It’s clear by nature.
Try to see that clarity, especially where it feels most solid. And if it has no substance, then it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. We experience in every moment. There is an experience in every moment. And they both exist, but not as concrete substance. They are clear by nature..
Allow your mind to come back. And when you feel ready, can open your eyes. I hope that wasn’t scary. Was it? No?
Oh, when you realize that that when you feel as what is you, for instance, that feels so real, that you realize, oh, that’s I can’t find anything, and it can be scary. Did anybody have that or not? No fear? No? Scary bit for the other bit.
Which one? The like, seeing that you’re not there. Or Yeah. That was not scary. That’s nice.
Oh, good. Good. It’s a relief. Okay. Yeah.
Good. Thank you for coming. Thank you. Especially because it’s so cold. You all came out of your warm home.
I appreciate that.