From: https://youtube.com/watch?v=-n_aU35iHEo

Context: Throughout this transcript, Bhante Vimalaramsi is the speaker unless otherwise indicated.

so

meditation center

in missouri

in the united states

sitting next to him is venerable sister

kema and sister sudhamma

and on my left

venerable

bante vimala and bhante dhamma

are here to participate in the retreat

bhante vimalaransi

has established his own meditation

center it is a forest center in missouri

and it's about

108

acres area

am i right 100 103. 103. acred area

some logistics have to be changed here

and there

and

i have seen

many people from all over the united

states coming to learn under him because

his teachings

are very simple

and easy to understand

and everybody likes him because bhante

starts

by teaching you how to smile

how to practice generosity by giving you

a smile away

that is the first

technique of first teaching you will get

from him

you may have attended many retreats in

the past but still

from him

you will learn

a specific kind of meditation

that

includes how to cultivate

a brahma way of living how to cultivate

a brahma-chitta brahma mind

during this retreat you will learn from

him how to lead a brahma way of life

and bante vimera ranci has been

once i met bhante vimela ranci i stopped

looking for teachers that says that

he is the one i recommend to you

as my own dharma teacher

for any

guidance

of meditation

and he is traveling all over the world

when it comes to the winter in missouri

it's a very hard winter over there he

escapes the winter

and by that opportunity people in

indonesia in australia in

places in japan

they

get teachings from him and i have seen

people coming to listen

enthusiastically and with

there is a high competition to attend to

his retreats retreats

and in sri lanka this time this is the

fourth retreat we are organizing

and as soon as i

announce that we are doing this retreat

the retreat was full within two hours of

announcement

so this is how he became quite popular

in sri lanka just within

two years of a short time of visit

so i stopped there i think it is the

time for banter to talk

and i will

be the translator from my capacity

and please help us going with

a silent mind and silent

atmosphere

please turn off your mobile phones

and hand them over to me

so i will make sure that you will

get them back when you leave the retreat

premises

all the other instructions will follow

from bantes talk

thank you

so what i'm going to do is give you the

instructions in the meditation

yeah when you practice loving kindness

meditation you first start by sending

loving and kind thoughts to yourself

tony

when that happy feeling arises it's kind

of a warm glowing feeling in the center

of your chest

as soon as that feeling arises then you

make a wish for your own happiness

you need to feel the wish that you make

so if you make a wish for feeling

peaceful and calm

then you need to feel peaceful and

okay what i

suggest for people to do when there is a

distraction

is use what i call the six arts

that is you recognize that your mind is

not on your

this is

probably the most important part of the

meditation

that relaxing of the tension and

tightness in your head

let's go of cravings

right after that you need to re-smile

i say re-smile because you should be

smiling anyway

nevertheless

kindness and making a wish for your

happiness

and repeat staying with your object

meditation for as long as you can uh

okay you have you have a in your little

thing there uh

a thing on the six r's and you don't

want to be repeating what the six r's

are you want to do what the six hours

say

may watch you know then recognize

release re relax read smile return

repeat killer

foreign

so if your mind gets distracted 50 times

in your sitting and 50 times you use the

six hours and relax and come back that

is a good

when you're sitting in meditation please

do not move

for any reason

to look at it

which says don't move

sit with your back nicely straight

again

don't wiggle your toes don't wiggle your

fingers don't scratch don't rub don't

change your posture

now when you're sitting like this there

can be some sensations that arise in

your body

sometimes

want to cough

uh

heat vibration sometimes

so

the first thing you'll notice in your

mind when that kind of sensation comes

up as you begin to think about it

i wish it would stop i wish it would go

away

from

now you notice there's a tight mental

fist wrapped

but the truth is when a feeling arises

it is there

oh but i don't like it i want it to be

different than it is

every thought about that sensation makes

it bigger and more intense

that is the cause of suffering

so allow that to be there

don't fight with the dharma

relax the tightness in your head

smile

the nature of these kind of sensations

is they don't go away right away

so your mind will get pulled back to it

so you let go of your thinking about and

relax

gently come back to your object to

meditate

after about 10 minutes

then you start sending loving and kind

thoughts to your spiritual friends

a spiritual friend is someone

that you

respect very much and you wish them

for this training period you pick

and not a member of your family

members of the family we will do later

but not right now

so pick someone that you respect very

much and you sincerely do wish them well

against

so you put them in your heart and

radiate

is good sit

one of the things that people tend to do

is they'll be sitting for a fairly long

time and they get a pain and they want

now this is every bit as important as

the sitting meditation

i want you to walk in a normal pace not

slowly

at first the walking meditation can be

somewhat difficult because you're not

used to it

but every time your mind is distracted

use the six r's

let it be relax smile come back to your

friend again

again

stay

down six or eight feet in

is

as you get more and more used to this

meditation you will start sitting for

longer periods of time

so you need to walk a little bit more so

you get the blood circulating again

the first thing

that don't sit with your arms folded

please

nippa

the reason i i cannot give you a dhamma

talk if you're doing this

this is one of the favorite postures of

sri lankans

do you know what you're doing when

you're like this

is

so please get out of the habit of

crossing your arms on on your chest it's

not it's actually kind of rude

because you're thinking

while someone is talking to you you're

not listening to them all the way

again

so there's there's a reason for that and

that's one of the rules of a monk is i

cannot give you a dhamma talk if you're

folded like this

okay

so

i don't care if you sit on the floor or

you sit in a chair

the magic comes from your mind

she said i can only sit for 45 minutes

she said i'm not used to sitting on the

floor i can only stand the pain for so

long

so i told her to sit in a chair

her next sitting was four hours

because she didn't have to fight with

the pain

if you feel

after 30 minutes like it's time to get

up then get up and do the walking.

and tomorrow you're going to experience

what i generally call

the first day blues

i don't know how to translate that

first day sadness first day distractions

because your mind is used to being out

there and running here and running there

now you're going to start to get sleepy

because

your mind is

just going to start to get bored because

you're trying to keep it coming back to

the same object

as you take more interest in your

spiritual friend

you'll start to pick up your energy a

little bit and that will put your mind

back in balance

he also said you can pinch your earlobe

really really hard

but i've never found that to work

but one of the things that works very

well

is

you you have a space for your walking

meditation

i

and it does help with your sitting

meditation

but the thing that helps most is taking

more interest in your spiritual friends

the more you smile the better your

mindfulness becomes

now one of the things that bhante said

is if you practice other forms of

meditation don't mix those with this

some people have been doing mindfulness

of breathing and they want to put

mindfulness of breathing with loving

kindness no don't do that

one of the reasons that i like to teach

loving kindness meditation is

your progress in the meditation

is

very much faster with loving kindness

than with any other teaching that the

buddha gave

smile

your mind becomes

if you can't smile

then laugh

what happens when you laugh

oh

you go from i'm unhappy i'm sad too

it's only this unhappiness and only this

sadness

so you go from

very personal point of view to an

impersonal point of view because of

laughing

saturday

night

when i say laugh i don't mean

laugh loud and and disturb someone else

just laugh at

foreign

it's okay to be crazy because everybody

is crazy

every time you take something personal

and say this is me this is my idea this

is my thought this is my feeling you're

crazy

so when you laugh

then you just see it for what it is it's

only this thought it's only this feeling

it's only this opinion and it's easy to

let go

of

there are five things that the buddha

said that are hindrances

i

what does

craving is the i like it or i don't like

it

again

every time

you have a distraction arise

it's either pleasant painful or neither

painful or pleasant

right after that feeling arises craving

then you have your

habitual emotional tendency arise

and then you have the birth of action

and then you have sorrow and lamentation

and the rest

of

the

when a painful feeling arises it doesn't

matter whether it's

mental feeling or physical feeling

our habitual tendency is to try to think

the feeling away

the more you try to think the feeling

away the

and relax

say hello

it doesn't matter what pulls your

attention away from your object of

meditation it is a distraction

please don't sit or stand with your arms

christ

is there anyone doing that yes

now what's going to happen is your mind

is going to be on the loving kindness

and sending loving kindness to your

spiritual friends

if that doesn't pull your attention away

to those thoughts ignore them

uh

okay there's two more things i want you

i want you to make a determination what

time you're going to wake up in the

morning about the second

once again monday

the last wake up to the second to the

second okay

this will help later in the meditation

but it's good to get started

let's say you're going to wake up at

five o'clock

before you go to sleep make the

determination that you're going to wake

up in the morning

smiling and happy

about

7.50

the spiritual have friend has to be

someone that's

lanka is alive to have spiritual friends

there's so many monks and nuns

but if you have a friend that you want

to send it to send it to them

but for this training period not a

member

okay

you have a paper that

teaches you how to share merits please

take it out from your folder

where is it i don't know

i found it so this is that paper

there is

sharing merits paper in that folder

please take it out

those who do it in english please

uh don't

really raise your voice but they will be

doing it and you can just join him with

a very low voice and then we will do it

in sinhala as well

may suffering ones be suffering free and

the fear struck fearless be

made the grieving shadow of grief and

may all be finding

may all beings share this merit that we

let us acquire for the acquisition of

all kinds of

happiness inhabiting space and

foreign