The Happiness of Meditation

The Happiness of Meditation

One of the things that I’ve always stressed about meditation is the happiness of meditation. It’s meant to be fun. It should be fun. Last night one of the monks told me a story about Ajahn Mun, which I hadn’t heard before. Ajahn Mun was a great Thai Meditation Master. A monk who had spent a long time with him, and knew him very well, said that the Ajahn had a great sense of humour, and laughed a lot, it was a great big laugh, an infectious laugh. I never knew that about Ajahn Mun. But it makes a lot of sense, because that’s what Arahants do, they laugh a lot and they smile a lot. I know this is a bit cheeky but sometimes they are called ‘Ha Ha harahants’. I’m going to get into trouble for that, but I don’t care. It was lovely to hear that story.

Happiness is an important thing in meditation. If you get happiness in meditation early on in your practise, you will always want to meditate. It’s not a case of getting up in the morning and saying, "Oh, I’ve got to do my meditation now. I must get this out of the way so that I can go to breakfast." You know how it is? 

You do your half an hour every day just like taking medicine. It’s not like that at all. If you really understand what meditation is, you love doing meditation. You just want to do it. Sometimes you have to get your breakfast out of the way to get to your meditation, or you have to get your work out of the way to get to your meditation. It’s just you doing it. You sit on your chair, or your stool, or your cushion, and your mind just leaps towards silence. The Buddha said that when the mind leaps, or jumps, to quietness, to stillness, to non-doing, that’s a great stage on the path of wisdom, on the path to Enlightenment.

Hopefully I’ve conditioned many of you strongly enough for you to realize how beautiful that silence is. 

So that in moments during your day, when you have nothing to do, your mind leaps towards the opportunity for stillness, instead of trying to fill those gaps up with stupid things, pointless things, which are just mindless distractions. It jumps at the chance; it goes into stillness, steadiness, peace and freedom.

This is the sign of a practitioner, someone who is on the path. This is the sign of someone who has sufficient wisdom so that their mind recognizes what’s in its own interest. So that in the mornings, or the evenings, the mind just leaps towards your meditation cushion. Your meditation is not medicinal, not some sort of punishment, not some sort of penance, it’s something you just want to do. The reason some people don’t go to church if they are Christians, is because it’s boring, they don’t like to go there. They don’t leap up because it’s Sunday and say, "Let’s go to church, let’s go there and listen to a good sermon". It has become boring and cold. That’s why people have dropped away from the churches in the West. People will also drop away from meditation quickly, and stop meditating unless they get fun out of it.

So developing fun in your meditation at home and here, wherever you are, is the way of continuing that practice. Little by little, as you continue the practice in the world, keep it up for the sake of fun, for the sake of peace, for the sake of a place of freedom. You’ve no other choice, you just have to. Some people say, and I understand this very well, because it was the same when I was a lay person, that if you don’t meditate for one day, it’s like not eating. Your heart feels sick, it’s got no strength, and you find yourself getting grumpy, getting angry, because you are not getting that feed of happiness. It doesn’t matter if people tell you that you are addicted to meditation. Great! Be addicted to peace, to happiness. Be addicted to freedom, it’s a nice thing to be addicted to.

Source: Practicing in the world

by AJAHN BRAHM

https://www.budsas.org/ebud/ebmed084.htm