 The concept of meditation is a concept that right now is very prevalent among people who aren't even into religion because they see the benefits of how much harmony it gives to your mind. So obviously we know that the Buddhists are the ones most prevalent and famous in using this technique in terms of meditation. It's a big practice within their religion and many people who are not of any religion practice meditation because of the clarity and peace of mind it gives them. So there's a reality to this and the Qur'an is saying tadabbur, tadabbur, tadabbur, tadabbur. So there must be something to this and we must learn even Sheikh Bahjat. If you look, Sheikh Bahjat, before he reads Ziyarat Ashura, he says to get into the zone before you begin the Ziyarat. How? You sit down and you begin to say the word hosayn, hosayn, hosayn, hosayn, hosayn with every breath and you contemplate upon that word and slowly your heart softens and slowly you reflect over Karbala'a and slowly maybe you cry and then read Ziyarat Ashura. You know what that is? That's a mantra. That's a meditation with every breath. What is meditation? So just because I want to be very clear here as in the reason why some people think this is a taboo is because you're teaching things from other religions it isn't. That whole introduction was to show you that we have a form of meditation within our religion and this is a form Sheikh Bahjat right now is giving an example of that meditation. I spent last summer in China. I spent it in a Buddhist monastery and I studied Buddhism in that summer and there were many comparisons that I made in between Islam and Buddhism and I was very surprised to how much that there was in common and very interesting thing happened to me well many interesting things happened to me when I was there. A lot of them when I engaged in talking with the Buddhists and learning from them and then learning from us from our tradition because I was the first Muslim that many of them ever met. I was the only Muslim in the entire city and for many of them the first time they ever met one so they were very interested in me and I was still practicing my own religion. I told them that I have to pray and I read Quran and this kind of thing and they respected that but I engaged in meditation with them. What did the meditation consist of? They used to say that your mind is monkey mind because it's crazy and the monkey is always jumping around. So if you want to calm monkey down you give monkey banana and the banana what was the banana? They say to calm your mind down you can never stop your mind from thinking because it goes crazy stop thinking stop thinking when you're thinking about stopping thinking so in order to stop the mind from thinking you give it a banana what the banana is is one thought just one thought give it one thought and leave it there don't give it anymore and control yourself to have that one thought and over time the fragments within your mind will align and you will be able to consistently contemplate upon one thought and then you become a person of complete clarity which is why if one has a problem and then they meditate after the after they meditate it's almost as if they have received some sort of wahi because now they have an answer to their problem it's only because their mind is clear now many of us don't engage in this meditation salat is supposed to be this because what do we do in salat you think of one thing right that's what it's supposed to be all our lives we're told think only of Allah and ayyabah and the words that you're saying don't think of the chicken you're gonna get afterwards don't think of going to the gym don't think of going to school don't think of anything think of salat and so this is a practice that we have we're supposed to be this way what do you think attikaf is what do you think spending three days in the mosque is away from everyone it's not supposed to be this fun thing we're in playstations or whatever else so the masjid and attikaf and we spend three days chilling eating popcorn and everything no no get some yogurt come into the masjid by yourself three days contemplate read think attikaf that's what it's for this is in our tradition guys right neglected so you're supposed to be people of thought of reflection by the way very interesting just on a side note my interactions with these people were amazing amazing there was a one brother that i was with in the room his name was nick he was a german guy and he came to china as well so we shared the room together and nick was a mathematician doing his phd in mathematics and he doesn't believe in anything outside the brain and he tells him he doesn't believe in the immaterial world and nothing and he came to china because he's looking for something he wants to see is this real this whole immaterial thing so this guy is really trying like he went all the way to china and he told me i never thought that i would come to china looking for buddhism and i'd come up with islam because i would pray in the morning i used to wake up before everyone else to pray and he said you know when you pray and you know when you wake up in the morning and you sing sing loud i like it when you sing so i would start and he would wake up and so me and him would sit down and a lot of other people walla the way we would talk and they would ask about islam i told them we have someone called hussein ibn ali and he was surrounded by 30 000 and he was with his family and he had no water to drink and all he had to do was given to a tyrant but he stood by truth and power and when they came to slaughter his family you know what he did because all they kept talking to me about was you know buddhism is compassion buddhism is compassion buddhism is compassion i said this man hussein abu alayhi you know what he did i said he cried for them and they were shocked you guys have someone like that in islam this islam that wants to cut people's heads off everywhere and allahu akbar and all this kind of thing yes hussein ibn ali was crying for his enemies for what they're doing to their own souls and they're hereafter i said but we differ from you in the end once it gets past the red line we fight to the death that's the difference you might succumb on your knees with us we cry for the enemy because of what they're doing to their soul but we still stand by truth and even if he was won against 30 000 he took as many as he could out before he went that was the difference but they were mesmerized by a personality like that you have something in your hands and in your heart that the world doesn't know about and you're crazy about that you would die for do you know what it means to have something to die for it means you can never be bought it means you're too powerful for this world for anyone or anything and so this is prevalent in our tradition there's so much more we can say and the last thing last point just this one before i left the brother nick that i'm speaking about he said i don't know what is that you have we spent the whole summer together i don't know what you have i don't know if it's real i don't know but whatever it is that you have i want it and that meant more than anything he spent the entire summer studying buddhism and all i did was just live by my own tradition in this place by myself and he said whatever is you have i want it real or not real because i see how it makes you we have this we can go into a city by ourselves the only muslim person if we have firm belief in this then we can move mountains and so in our tradition there has to be this meditation this contemplation would say there's no journey without this he would sit at the end of each day and contemplate upon five things at least that made him remorseful that he regretted in that day and he would think of all the things that made him grateful and so he would do shukr a meditation of shukran lillah shukran lillah which is tasbih to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for the things he was grateful for and he would do istighfar astaghfirullah astaghfirullah for the things he was remorseful for every day why he would sit before his bed before he sleeps and do this because he's cleansing himself he's staying awake he's staying many of us think we're awake we're woke we're woke all of you are not woke because you can start the day awake and then you're asleep by 11 am inside you have to stay conscious if you're awake and then suddenly something happens and you snap out of it and you think oh my god i've been asleep for two months what have i been doing for two months this whole time i thought i was awake and i was looking at people outside like look at these people that are asleep when you were the one in heedlessness so you have to keep contemplating engaging in this muraqaba that's what it's called muraqaba and muhaasaba to judge yourself and watch yourself and to stay alert and to have those one dimensions of thought when you have one way of thinking in terms of you think of one thing so that our prayers are better that's what our prayers are supposed to be we're entering into the presence when you come and you say allahu akbar you're entering into the presence of god let salat be your meditation daily five times so you stay awake salat is what's supposed to keep you awake if you're going to ask right now tayyip okay i get it how do i stay alert and awake and conscious prayer prayer prayer the adhan is saying everything allahu akbar allahu akbar i shahadu an la ilaha illallah asha adhan muhammad rasoolallah it's saying everything that you need to know and it's saying it five times a day and you come towards it and you pray and that's what it's supposed to be if you're doing it mechanically then it's no benefit to you you're just getting rid of your wajib so that you're not punished how much of a shame is that we have this opportunity to go towards something glorious and we just we we take that we are not punished as enough as enough for us it's a shame it's a real shame you know when a friend of mine was teaching some children how to pray and the way he taught them was just amazing he would bring them and make them act in a play and he would say all right you're burglars and you are shopkeepers and the burglars go into shopkeepers and he says show me what happens and the burglars get their hands up do this and then he say freeze and the shopkeepers do this right and he says wait wait what are you doing he says well i'm putting my hands up why he said freeze so why are you putting your hands up well because like i'm submitting yeah you know when you come to Salah you put your hands up say Allahu Akbar he's submitting to God as we say right i'm saying i don't have anything dunya's behind me i submit Allahu Akbar done put my hands up that was just a really brilliant way to teach these kids how they're entering into the presence to show them that you don't just do this as a mechanical movement that you're meditating right now this is islamic meditation and we're using this word only because it's so popular we know it as salat it's prayer that's what it is prayer to give you clarity be a person of tadabur and tafakkur contemplation meditation and prayer this is what we're supposed to be like