The Emptiness You Can't Fill with Money. A Buddhist Monk on God, Karma, and Death - Ajahn Brahmali

Brahmali emphasizes that meditation on the breath is 'very real' and free from fantasy. It works via a clear progression: relax the body and mind → establish present‑moment awareness → take the breath as a constant reference → let the mind become calmer → joy and bliss spontaneously arise as thinking subsides → these pleasant sensations deepen → eventually, a nimitta (inner light) appears → you move attention from the breath to the light → the light leads to even deeper absorption → the mind experiences total unification and immense bliss. He notes that the experience of 'feeling like God' does not mean you believe you are a deity; rather, the mind feels overwhelmingly powerful, unified, and blissful, as if tasting what divine consciousness might be. This state is more real and fulfilling than any worldly experience, but is impermanent—you exit it after meditation, though you can access it at will with practice. The ability to enter such deep states is also the result of long‑term moral purification, as ethical living sets the mental conditions for meditative success. For householders, even 15–20 minutes daily can produce enough calm to make you kinder and more resilient; deeper exploration is best undertaken on periodic retreats of 5–10 days, where you can taste monastic‑like seclusion.

Brahmali points out that most people know they will die but treat it as a distant abstraction. By bringing the unpredictability to the forefront, you create a sense of healthy emergency. This is not a grim preoccupation but a lens that makes life realer. It was the Buddha's initial motivation—he saw that aging, sickness, and death are inevitable, and trying to find lasting happiness in impermanent things only multiplies the problem. Contemplating death thus redirects one's search inward to solve the root problem of death itself. The practice leads directly to deeper mindfulness and, ultimately, to awakening. He stresses that this is a universal practice that anyone can adopt, regardless of belief system, to gain immediate perspective and reduce mental noise.

Brahmali stresses that you can see the mechanism of karma directly: if you insult someone, you feel terrible afterward; if you help someone, you feel uplifted. Over time, these accumulate and shape your overall sense of self. The advice to gauge spiritual progress is to periodically look back over months or a year and honestly assess whether positive qualities (kindness, peace, compassion) are growing and negative ones (anger, greed, delusion) are diminishing. If yes, the path is working. Even for laypeople with families and careers, integrating ethical conduct—being kind to spouse, children, coworkers—is the real grind of the path. This transforms daily life into a continuous purification process that directly fuels meditation.

Brahmali admits the biological drives are strong, especially in youth. He describes that when the mind becomes 'inflamed,' you must ride it out until it subsides. The key is not to act out but to cultivate the higher pleasure through meditation and serve others selflessly. Monastic rules like not being alone with a member of the opposite sex are practical safeguards while the inner work progresses. He clarifies that the problem is not the woman or the man; it's one's own mind. As a mature practitioner, you aim to treat men and women equally, because anyone seeking Dhamma deserves to hear it. The ultimate freedom is when the drive no longer has power over you, which happens when you have deeply tasted meditative bliss and insight.

Brahmali recommends that people with families and jobs not try to force long meditation sessions, which can be impractical and even destabilizing. Instead, a short, regular commitment can bring tangible benefits. He points out that even such modest practice, combined with trying to be kind in everyday interactions, can produce noticeable growth in positive qualities. He also encourages occasional retreats (5–10 days) to deepen the practice, as the short daily session opens the door to those possibilities. This approach democratizes meditation for the modern lifestyle.

Brahmali mentions that there are many places for retreats in Poland and elsewhere. He especially notes the Goenka center in Poland (Vipassana retreats following the tradition of S.N. Goenka). He frames retreats as a temporary taste of monastic life—'to be a monk or nun for a short time and feel what this lifestyle is really about.' The retreat environment allows you to experience states you might never have thought possible, which he says are 'incredibly meaningful.' For a layperson, this is one of the most powerful accelerators of the path.

Brahmali explains that when you believe matter is the sole substance of reality and that mental or spiritual phenomena are mere byproducts, you eventually realize nothing lies beneath the surface of possessions, relationships, or status. Beautiful houses and partners become hollow facades if no transcendent meaning backs them. This leads to a feeling of profound emptiness that material success cannot remedy. He contrasts this with a spiritual perspective where inner qualities offer genuine fulfillment. The speaker sees this crisis as particularly acute in the West, where secularization has gone far, but he believes people are now seeking to reclaim spirituality, moving beyond the militant atheism of figures like Richard Dawkins.

Brahmali distinguishes between surface‑level improvement (coining 'look maxing' as an example) and genuine inner growth. He insists that when people truly reflect, they realize profound happiness emerges not from optimizing routines or appearance but from how they relate to others—with genuine kindness, compassion, and a spirit of service. Living a life devoted to improving conditions for everyone, including oneself, gives deeper satisfaction and meaning. This perspective directly challenges the narcissistic self‑focus common in self‑improvement circles. He sees the transition from instrumental spirituality (using meditation to feel better) to a more authentic, ethical practice that includes care for others as essential.

Brahmali explains that the key is not death itself but its total unpredictability. Knowing you will die, but not when, creates a healthy urgency. This uncertainty forces you to ask, 'What can I do now?' because now is all you truly have. By contemplating death frequently, you push aside the constant mental chatter about past and future and become grounded in immediate reality. This diminishes intrusive thoughts, reduces conceptualizing, and sharpens clarity, enabling more skillful responses to life. He even says that this contemplation is one of the most important things everyone should do to gain deeper purpose, and it directly led the Buddha to seek a solution to the problem of aging, sickness, and death.

Brahmali describes that all defilements (greed, hatred, delusion) depend on the false belief in a solid self. If someone insults you, your ego feels hurt; if you want something, it's for the sake of that self. Fully penetrating the truth of impermanence and emptiness of a permanent entity — seeing that everything is in flux and nothing can truly be grasped — removes the foundation for craving and aversion. This deep seeing is enlightenment. With no ego, there's no one to be offended or greedy; profound meditative bliss then becomes easily accessible, making worldly pleasures pale. He emphasizes this is not a mere intellectual idea but a transformative experience that permanently stops the cycle of rebirth. The path to get there is gradual, requiring persistent moral and meditative work.

He explains that as you practice meditation, you become calmer and notice a level of delusion falling away. With each successive depth, you experience more stillness and less thinking. Eventually, all thinking ceases entirely, and you encounter a state of profound peace, unity, and clarity—qualities far more real than ordinary cognition. He warns that thinking tends to loop endlessly, rehashing the same problems without resolution. True solutions and creativity arise from the deeper non‑thinking layer of mind. The process is like trying to remember a name: you struggle, then let go, and the answer spontaneously emerges. This shows that the deepest insight lies beyond thought, and meditation systematically peels back the layers of mental construction.