From: https://youtube.com/watch?v=vGPBSkL3ofQ

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

member

you

hello my name is pont-aven lorenzi I've

been practicing and teaching meditation

for the last 35 years for 20 years I

practiced by Posada meditation Burmese

style of the plasma I was a attendant

for Lucille Ananda for two years I have

also been practicing loving-kindness

meditation for the last 15 or 20 years I

got real interested in how the Buddha

was teaching so I went to the souta's

and I saw that the instructions in the

mindfulness of breathing meditation were

very interesting it says in the

mindfulness of breathing suta that you

understand when you're breathing in and

breathing out long you understand when

you bring them short can you breathe out

short and the key word here is

understand it doesn't save to focus on

the breath it doesn't say to put your

attention on any body part it just says

that you understand when you're

breathing and how you're breathing then

the instructions for the mindfulness of

breathing really began it says on the

in-breath you experience the entire body

on the out-breath you experience the

entire body this is not the breath body

is the entire physical body the next

part of the meditation says on the

in-breath to tranquilize

the formation on the out-breath you

train collides a bottle a formation you

know what is this mean it means on the

in-breath you relax any tension and

tightness in your body in your mind on

the out-breath you rap you tranquilize

any tension or tightness in your body in

your mind the tranquilizing step is very

important and there are some tensions

and tightness 'as that arise in your

mind and in your head there's a membrane

that goes around your brain and when a

thought or a distraction arises it

contracts a little bit and it causes

attention and tightness that you don't

normally see unless you're looking for

it it's a very important step to include

in your meditation because craving

always arises as a tension or tightness

in your mind

in your body learning how to recognize

that craving and relax leads to the

sensation of the craving which is the

third noble truth so the mindfulness of

breathing meditation is a very important

aspect of the teaching and for many

people they preferred mindfulness of

breathing to other kinds of meditation I

personally by reading the souta's and

doing a fair amount of study in the suta

started to realize that the Buddha

taught another meditation even more than

he taught for mindfulness of breathing

and that was the loving-kindness

meditation in the Brahma viharas the

Brahma viharas our loving kindness

compassion joy and equanimity when I

began practicing loving-kindness

meditation in an intensive way I started

to look in the suit is at the advantages

for practicing this kind of meditation

and there are a lot of them one of the

advantages that the Buddha said about

loving-kindness meditation is that when

you practice loving kindness your

progress in your meditation is faster

with the loving-kindness than it is with

any other

kind of meditation the loving-kindness

meditation it is a feeling meditation

and it tends to show the meditator how

their mind becomes hard and how their

mind becomes judgmental or critical and

how this is a form of suffering so when

you practice the loving-kindness

meditation it really does make a

difference what kind of meditation that

you're doing now from the mindfulness of

breathing suit the step in relaxing on

the in-breath and relaxing on the out

breath is also the relaxing part is also

done with the loving-kindness meditation

every time your mind starts to move

where mines attention moves from one

thing

another there's tension and tightness

that arises in both your mind and your

body so all of these different movements

all of these different disturbances that

arise cause tension and tightness to

arise in your mind and in your body and

that needs to be relaxed for instance

you're staying with the loving-kindness

and you're practicing loving-kindness

meditation the way that I teach this is

first you start by sending loving and

kind thoughts to yourself you remember a

time when you were happy and when that

happy feeling arises it's a nice blowing

warm feeling in the center of your chest

as soon as that feeling arises then you

make a wish for your own happiness and

surround yourself with the feeling if

it's peaceful and calm you know what it

feels like to be peaceful and relax and

allow that feeling to be there and

radiate that feeling to yourself

whenever your mind has a distraction in

it

their words a wandering thought or

feeling arises in your body whatever

minds attention will go to that feeling

or to that thought allow the thought or

feeling to be there notice that there's

a tension and tightness in your mind and

in your body and relax then gently

direct your attention back to the

feeling of being happy and making a wish

for your own happy it doesn't matter how

many times your mind wanders away if you

sit for a half an hour of 45 minutes and

your mind wanders away 50 times then you

notice that your mind has wandered away

you let it be relaxed and redirect your

attention back to your object of

meditation that is the feeling of being

happy Henry

you