3 Aspects of Freedom

3 Aspects Of Freedom by Ajahn Brahm Transcription For the savings timer talk. I wanted to talk on the subject of freedom in religion. So it's a great topic and it goes very wide and very deep. And one of the reasons why I wanted to talk about this was basically in Singapore at a concert, which I performed in as myself. I was sitting next to one of the ministers of the government in Singapore who does discussing many things in life and certainly the problems with religions and the idea of religious freedom. Her cake, and also the freedom from sound and disturbance. Okay, I would try that again. Sometimes when I mentioned religious freedom, maybe I thought there was some religious terrorists coming in the. But it's a problem in this world. And people cite religious freedom as an excuse for many things. And it begs the question of what freedom is in religion. And also the bigger question, what do we mean by freedom? And certainly freedom is something we all aspire towards. And sometimes it's good to understand what true freedom is. Certainly in a Buddhist goal of enlightenment, it is an inner freedom of freedom from the difficulties and suffering of life which we're aiming for. So certainly that nearly all religions are aspiring towards freedom. But sometimes what we call freedom is really another form of enslavement. This is what I want to try and talk about this evening. The real meaning of freedom, but is to start with the political and then go towards the social and then the personal and then the spiritual here in order. When you start with the, the political, that one of the things which I really objected to was what we call religious freedom in our modern age is just a. Uh, another word for saying religious indoctrination. Religious enslavement. Religious control. It's not really freedom at all when you really look at what the word freedom is and have a feeling for what that word is pointing to. Oh, the freedom is like the ability. I would say, you know, to make free choice without any intimidation, without any force, without any, uh, control from outside of you. It's the ability to, you know, go in which direction you feel you want to go in. You know, it's a freedom of choice, sir. And unfortunately, that in many religions, sometimes that freedom is not there for a person. What they call religious freedom is basically religious servitude where you have to follow other people. Say one of the reasons which I became a Buddhist many years ago, because that domination of you by religious leaders or by dogma simply wasn't there. In Buddhism you were allowed. And you are encouraged to question. You are encouraged to doubt. And how you didn't have to follow what other people were doing. In the same way that when people come in here of the evening, you're not all Buddhist and not all of you sort of bow when you come in here or bow when you go out, and that's fine. And you're encouraged and allowed to do that. There is a liberty here taking as much of this teaching or practice as you want, and doing what you feel is appropriate to you without any compulsion or fear. And when we have sort of that degree of freedom, it becomes very attractive, very comfortable, and it's pointing to something even deeper. Some the rites and the rituals and the external things we do are just a mirror image of just the way we look at our internal practice, because there's no control or there's no hierarchy. There's no, uh, domination by any party on you in the same way, that's how we meditate. Without control, without domination, without fear. We are creating externally a type of liberty which was going to reflect on our internal freedom later on. And I think that sometimes when our society doesn't recognize what real freedom is, that some organizations can claim religious freedom as an excuse for indoctrination, for enslavement, and for many, many abuses in our world. And I will point out that I have done my research in 2001. The French government enacted a law which limited religions. Any religious practice which clearly went against fundamental human rights and personal freedoms was made illegal. And I like to have more people know about that, because the Western government has done that without any problem with the religious groups in that country, simply because the main religious groups know the the old established religions. They also understand what religious freedom truly is, not the freedom to dominate and get your own way, but the freedom just to express your truths in an equitable way as possible, without having those truths being forced on a person. So a person can come into a religion, they can leave as well. I know that sometimes, uh, uh, especially being Chinese New Year, and because I go to Malaysia and Singapore quite often, there are some groups of religious people who go around to people when they're dying and they're trying to convert their parents or their grandparents by saying to them that if you don't convert to my religion, you will go to hell or something even worse. And of course, the time of her death or a time of a great sickness is a very vulnerable time for a person when they're not in their with their full faculties. And sometimes people do these silly things at the time of the end of their life. I know many people in Singapore and Malaysia have asked me, well, what should we do if that happens to us? Maybe our son, our daughter, and gets involved in one of these cults and they bring their pastor or whatever along at the end and they say, oh, we should convert, we should convert. What should I do? And I always tell her what the best thing to do, if that's happening to you, you're the dying person on the bed and it's your son comes wants you to convert from being a Buddhist to being Christian or something. Then convert. It makes them happy. Now, as soon as you converted, they go out of the room. They then you can convert back again. If they practice, you can convert one. You can convert the other way. What's the big deal? Because Buddhism is very practical about these things. You try and argue and never get anywhere. But if you just say, okay, I convert and Edison as I've gone, then he can convert back again. Yes, but unfortunately that some people just get so much suffering and problem with these people. And I think that any act, if it comes from a Buddhist, a Christian and Muslim, a Jew or whatever, any act which is like that, which is forceful, indoctrinating, aggressive, which doesn't really give a person the freedom of choice. And of course, when you are sickly again, that freedom of choice is not really there. Would you allow a person in such a situation to sign a will and have that will being legally valid? Of course not. There are no great physical and emotional pressure at the time of their death. In the same way, I think any group who tries to do that, that should be basically banned. For anyone who sort of forces their child to have this religion or that religion that also should be allowed disallowed. I don't mind being political here, but of course, no person in Australia under the age of 18 is allowed to choose a political party. And the reason why is because people are mature enough to actually to choose between the political parties available. So why are they able to choose a religion at such a young age again, at such a young age? They're not mature enough to know the difference between these religions. And so if they're not mature enough, they shouldn't be allowed to choose. Or rather, other people should not be allowed to choose for them. Otherwise it's not. Religious freedom is religious indoctrination. And it's the same with even the marriage laws. I think it's very wrong that a person who is one religion is forbidden from marrying someone of another religion. While you have to convert to their religion before you can get married. I am very, very proud. I remember meeting this as a part of some of the people I've met. I remember meeting this couple, however, in Singapore, and he was a Christian and she was a a Buddhist, and they were very happy together. And I said, wonderful. When you have a child, the first child should be a muslim, the second chance of virtue, and the third child to be a Hindu. Now, when I was saying there is that I can't we allow our children to choose for ourselves? Can't we just allow people to be themselves? Why is there have to be some force that you must be this religion or another religion? Why are we using emotional blackmail or any other blackmail to force religions or views on people? That is obviously not religious freedom. I think it's about time. That's how human societies reclaimed the word religious freedom. Who made sure it was not misused as a form of religious domination? Or extortion. So when we can do this, we have an understanding what really freedom is. And just like the French, we can actually have even laws in place which actually protect freedoms for all religions. And so we can discuss things without any fear of intimidation or violence. And we can sort of discuss, even in Buddhism, without fears of intimidation or violence. When people have argued with me, I've never beaten them up. They never beat me up, even more importantly. And you're never sort of we never have any any threat of excommunication. Sometimes I think it'd be a wonderful thing if I could do that. But no, it wouldn't be a wonderful thing. We don't have that at all in real religions. Who should have the freedom of debate, the freedom of inquiry, the freedom of choice, because that freedom of inquiry and choice is essential to finding the truth. I sometimes I ask, what are people afraid of with no honest debate and questioning and investigation? Why are people afraid that we can't allow our children to choose their religion? Of course, it doesn't make any sense to me. Just because your parents are one religion, you have to be the same religion. That is a sort of an idea whose time is long past. So real freedom of religion, I think, should be enshrined in our laws because we have to protect freedoms in the same way we protect other freedoms. And I think anything which clearly goes against fundamental human rights, such as the right to choose, the right to choose freely, and not being indoctrinated, not to be given false information, to be able to question, to be able to argue such a freedom, I think, is fundamental. And it's fundamental certainly to what I understand as Buddhism. The whole path of this character, as we call Buddhism, is always allowed to question or is allowed to sort of to argue or is allowed to disagree without any fear of being rejected, without any fear of being excommunicated, hurt or whatever. Which is why, again, when people have good arguments, we always welcome those. I remember that even my own teacher adventure many, many years ago. Uh, there was the, uh, the chairman of the English Sangha Trust, which was the organisation which was inviting Ajahn Chah amongst to the West for the first time when they went to England. And so he came over to see the great master, and he brought his daughter to him to have her 18th birthday was her 18th birthday gift to go to Thailand and meet the great Ajahn Chah. But this was an 18 year old English girl, really up herself. And so when she met Ajahn Chah, she started arguing with him and being totally disrespectful when someone actually told her no, you know, this is a great time, right? You're being disrespectful. You're not supposed to like you. And then that was when I turned to interrupt and said, no, leave her alone. This is good. And he welcomed no such arguments, even though there were sort of very cutting. Now that is a wonderful thing. To be able to have that, and certainly all the years I've been in Australia, it was very easy to actually to teach Buddhism in Thailand. But when you come to Western countries, that's when you really get tested, because that's when people ask you some very, very difficult questions and you never say, no, you can't ask that question. Of course. You know, you welcome those questions. And even if they think it's stupid, you're quite welcome to actually say that. And you're not sort of uh, uh, argued with you're not said you're evil or anything because you don't disagree with me. Perhaps the worst question or the most difficult question I ever got asked was when I was teaching in a high school, I forget which high school it was. It was a public school. Uh, it wasn't a, you know, a particularly good suburb because there's a 14 year old girl. When I asked the questions about Buddhism, she put up her hand and said, what's your question about Buddhism? And she said, it's about you. Do girls still turn you on? So you see a very good thing about here in Australia. People are free to ask any questions. I think my answer to is girls like you never turn me on when you ask silly questions like that. No, actually, I think what happened this is many years ago. I think one of her friends rescued me and said, I don't listen to her. She always likes embarrassing everybody. I think that's actually what happened. But it was wonderful that she that you could be asked. And people felt free to ask such questions. The reason why you welcome such questions, even at naughty questions, but even better, just deep questions, is because that field of inquiry is important to finding truth. Now, if religions are supposed to be worshipping truths and sometimes like, you know, people sort of ask me, as a Buddhist, who do you believe in? Do you believe in the Buddha? The nice question is no, we believe in the truth, you know, in reality and reason in finding out what was evidence based. And finding out the truth is something you worship much more than any being. And so when you are devoted to finding out the truth, which I hope many of you are, we have to learn how to ask those questions, how to free them of inquiry. And when we have that freedom of inquiry, the freedom to investigate, and the liberty to go into any area and discover these things for ourselves. That will obviously be finding something very important. And the the thing which I like most about, about the search for the truth, it was not just, you know, what is right, but what is right was also what was liberating, what was actually freeing. It was another meaning of freedom. The other meaning of freedom was actually the same. You feel, you know, when you know you have like a weekend off. You're free from the burden of having to go to work. Because what I found that that inquiry, which was going to lead you to truth, was also leading you to the truth of such things as like happiness and suffering. Now the freedom from pain and difficulties. Because much of my early life, like much of many people's lives, they feel like they're in a box. They're sort of, um, oppressed by all the work they have to do or the difficulties they face in life. And it's that freedom from oppression, which is not just the, you know, the freedom of inquiry, the philosophical feelings, but also what we call the emotional freedoms. And that was the second type of feeder, which I really enjoyed with practicing Buddhism. You know, you had the freedom for all these terrible emotions which create a lot of problems with human beings, so which create prisons for oneself. And of course, some of those freedoms. What I'm talking about is that not just the freedom from fear, but the freedom from guilt, the freedom from anger. What I was talking about, I think last week when the why can't we let go of the pain of the past, the difficulties we faced or the the bad things which we've done, the mistakes we have done in the past now because that there was this great liberty in Buddhism that you did not need to carry around the past and punish yourself. There was no so judgment at the end of time, which you had to make sure you're being a good boy or a good girl or a good monk or nun or whatever. Otherwise you're going into big trouble at the end of time. There's this wonderful sense of like, forgiveness and letting go. And that was one of the great freedoms which. We worship in Buddhism, which we want to achieve to protect the freedom to forgive. Because once we've forgiven somebody else, we've let it go. How do you feel? You feel this great burden which you've been carrying around for such a long time? It's no longer there. It's like your lie. It's like you've taken off a heavy rucksack. Or put down your suitcases or put down your shopping bags. And so often some of the things which we carry around with us are just really ridiculous. And it's not just what other people have done to us, how they've hurt us. It's not what we've done to others as well. And sometimes by coming there, that all go. The story which I again told in Singapore a few weeks ago, was a classic story of the how the two soldiers from the Second World War, two expos from the Changi P.O.W. camp meeting together. And one of them asks the other if you've forgiven the Japanese yet for what they did to us during the Second World War in that POW camp. Because I think we all know just what happened in that P.O.W. camp at Changi and on the death railways over in her Thailand. Those, sir x, those soldiers were treated abominably, and many died, and they were badly treated and treated. So there were first soldiers said, how can I ever forgive what I saw, what was done to my friends? How could you ever forgive that? You can imagine if you lived through that time and saw all that unnecessary torture and pain and abuse. You could understand why it was hard to forgive. So the first sadhu said, no, I haven't forgiven. How can I forgive? You shouldn't forgive. What about you? And the second soldier at this reunion said I forgave those guards many years ago. That's why I am free. And you are still in prison. He stood in that P.O.W. camp as a wonderful lesson. How? Unless we've let go and forgiven, we are in prison. We are in a prison of our past, of what someone did to us, why they did it, how they did it, or what we've done. Some years ago, I gave her a talk at a conference over in the Scarborough Beach Hotel. What's it called? Her. The big hotel. Her wonderful city or something. Observation city in observation City shows you that I don't ever go down there. I only go down there once, I think. And this big conference over there, and it was a conference on grief and loss. And there's many people there who were imprisoned by their grief. That was them, and they could not let it go. Their children had died. They were the parents of that, uh, one of those, uh, serial killers. Uh, I think it was Carrie Lennon's parents there expressing their grief after many years. There was another lady who came up who also had lost a son or daughter. I cannot remember which, and she refused to let her pain go. She was imprisoned by that event, even though it happened many years ago. She was still living through the sentence and such sentence of guilt, grief or anger. It is like living in a prison, but as a prison with a door open. You can walk through it any time, and only when you walk through do you feel freedom, which is like letting go of the past and that is impress me much about Buddhism. But this is actually, for me, it's almost common sense. Why? Why do you have to keep thinking and worrying and hurting yourself about the past in particular, if it's what someone else has done every time you remember that and think about that, you are allowing them to hurt you again. The very least, you shouldn't do that. Why allow people to hurt you again and again and again? Why can we just let it go? Forget it. Move on. What belongs to the past does not belong to the present. If we can do things like that, we feel a great freedom. That's one of the first freedoms which we feel in the practice of this dharma, this teaching, this meditation. The second freedom is also the freedom from fear of the future, from anxiety, from panic, from worry. It's a great being able to experience that freedom as well. Now, as a monk, sort of, you know, having to give talks in all sorts of places. I told us to the monks that just before I appeared on the stage in Singapore a couple of weeks ago, in front of people, it's very easy. I was just giving some talks, like I give here just a few stories, and one of the other actors so turned to me just about one minute before I was due to go on and said, how are you afraid? Are you excited? I looked to myself and said, no, of course not. You know why? Because I wasn't worried about what was going to happen next. I had no script. I didn't know what I was going to say. I never know what I'm going to say, but because you're relaxed, you didn't fear anything of the future. You felt so free. It's no wonderful thing to feel free from. Worry about your future, about what's going to happen next, and how can you achieve that? I already gave the clue a few moments ago. When we're teaching the meditation. Now is the time your future is made. So if you keep on focusing on this present moment more and more and more, I know that that's the best possible thing I can do to secure a prosperous, successful, happy future. So putting this in the context of this Chinese New Year, when people are wishing each other a prosperous New Year, I will not wish you a prosperous New Year. I will wish you a prosperous present moment, a happy now, for that's the only time you have. And the more you focus on making a prosperous, happy present moment. The more free you will feel free from the worries and concerns about the future, and you will find by that type of freedom, you are creating the best possible future imaginable for yourself by creating the freedom from fear and worry. And that's something which is encouraged, valued, praise, celebrated and encouraged. In this teaching, we're not supposed to be afraid of a final judgment. And sometimes when some of these people come and ask you what's going to happen to you when you die, are you sure you're not going to go to hell? What should you answer? Sir Alan died yet. Live in the present moment. I'm happy now. Oh, whatever. Something like that. Because all this idea of trying to create fear in us, as soon as people create fear in you, they have control over you. You're not free anymore. Here he is obviously noticed that fear is a way of control. Anxiety which is created in you, controls you. And freedom is something completely different. When you talk about how a person how a person prepares for death. Are you afraid of your dying process? How can you prepare for death? The only way you can prepare for death is learning how to live life. If you know how to live this moment well, today you will. This is actually where you practice. If you did listen, you live this moment well. Live it peacefully. Live it kindly. If it compassionately, live it with mindfulness. Put your effort into this moment. You'll find that that's the best preparation you can possibly have for death. And if you live this moment well, you have nothing to be afraid of. You are free when you know about how to live in the present moment. These are the great freedoms which we have. Freedom from anxiety, from fear, from guilt, from anger. I think any psychologist who found a person who was free from those things would think you are just an amazing, wonderful person. But too many of us in our world are just caught up, imprisoned by the past and the future. No wonder we don't have any happiness. And again, real freedom has to be the achievement of that happiness. That's a sign of freedom. You feel just bliss, at ease without any burdens. Not oppressed. At ease. Which is why that the path of freedom is a path of happiness is the path of calm. One of the other great freedoms which we celebrate in Buddhism is the freedom from having to think too much, because most of the thinking is about worry about the future or the past. The guilt, the anger, the fear which makes you plan too much about what's going to happen next. And you know that every time you go planning something. This is one of the great sayings of the Buddha. Whatever you expect it's going to be, it always turns out something different. I love that song when I first read it, saying, The Buddha, whatever you think it's going to be, you expect it's going to be. It would always be otherwise. What are you doing tomorrow? Why did down a piece of paper bet you don't do half those things you plan to do tomorrow, so why bother planning in the first place though, when you stop too much planning and too much thinking about the future, you've got nothing much to think about. That's a great freedom. So many people. Maybe they come meet me because they're excessive thinkers. Sometimes people gotta think so much. They get their brain in a knot. And if you use your brain too much at an early age, you've got nothing much left for you. Later years. And I think that's why you get Alzheimer's disease, for you used up all your neurons when you were young or when you're middle aged. No wonder you can't speak any more and your brain wears out. Yeah, she she agrees with me. Sir. It's great to be able to have that freedom from thinking as well. That's one of the wonderful experiences you have in meditation, and even just the little meditations you do here every now and again. Especially when I do that trick about letting you listen to the. Spaces between my. Words. Well, I had those pauses. You weren't thinking. And it feels so nice to be free of this burden of thought, just to be aware, alert and not having to do anything. Really. It is the freedom from having to always do something and go somewhere. Now, one of the biggest problems of human beings is they never know how to sit still. That's why I was Lou Pascale, one of the French philosophers, two, 200 years ago, said all the problems of human beings come from not knowing how to sit still. What he meant was not knowing how to stop and pause and enjoy this few moments of rest. If life is a journey, then sometimes that life is a constant journey for us who are always moving on to the next thing, always going somewhere, always doing something. Never just sitting still and doing nothing and being peaceful and resting. You don't have to keep moving on to something new. We can have the freedom to stop and not keep moving on. That is one of the delicious freedoms we have, especially as monks. The freedom just to sit down and do nothing, not go anywhere, not make anything happen. Just the freedom to stop and just to be full. How many of you have experienced that freedom this week? Even when you have holidays, we just have such a lot of list of things to do. It's important you do some things, but sometimes we get so tired. No, we don't do things well. I've told many people in business that one of the reasons why people get stressed out is because when they are working very, very hard, they get to a point where their brain is just not working efficiently, efficiently anymore. They're just simply not productive. And why can't you just sit down, stop and rest for a few moments? Because if you take just one minute of stopping and freeing yourself from the worry of all that work you have to do and all that busyness, just free the brain for one minute from that burden. You will find that the energies come back. The brain is pretty resilient and it does the energy still come back pretty quickly if you give it half a chance, and then the next 59 minutes of that hour, you will catch up with the one minute you spent is resting. In the same way that if you know how to sit down on a journey and rest, then you can walk much faster after you've got up, after you've had a rest. I don't know why people forget that. The thinking that their brain, they can force it to keep on working. Hour after hour after hour long hours and think they can be productive. It's obvious that when you're tired, your efficiency goes way down. You make lots of mistakes, which makes more work for you. So the ability to stop, the freedom to feel that you don't have to keep on doing something, you can stop and pause for a while and just rest. Or you can have a holiday and just rest. But there's so many things to be done. That's why that one of my famous favorite stories was about this monk in the south of Thailand. The Age of Buddha does a story. This is one for all of you to remember. On the weekend, he was building this hall in his monastery and it came to the the rains retreat period. The worst period. The pants are in Thailand, where the monks stop all the work. And we spend all that three months just doing meditation or studying. We pull all the external business aside. And so he'd only half finished his haul when he visited town, told his start of the retreat period. So he told all the workers, go home, come back again in three months. So they all went home. And a few days later, this man visited the temple and he saw this hall with no roof on. And he asked the monk, when is your hall gonna be finished? Now was the occasion when the monk said, sir, the hall is finished. To which the visitor said, what do you mean it's finished? There's no roof on, there's no glass in the windows is cement bags and pieces of wood lying all over the place. Are you going to leave it like this? What do you mean? It's finished? And this man gave this very wise reply, said, sir, what's done is finished. And then he went to have her meditate. What a wonderful word saying that is. What's done is finished. So the work you're doing this weekend, are you going to have a rest and stop and free yourself from all the duties and burdens responsibilities you have? Can you do that? Well, are you going to be working all weekend, cleaning up the house, doing this, catching up on paperwork or whatever else it is to it? Can you actually say to yourself, what's done is finished and have a break? Have a rest. Be free from the responsibilities which you have to carry for the rest of the day, while the rest of the week or the rest of your life. Otherwise, wherever can you find freedom. If any of you think you get everything finished, first of all, everything out of the way and then you'll have a break. You will never be able to do that. Look at the monastery where I live. But in the island monastery, 25 years, we've been building that monastery. We're still building it. But nevertheless, every now and again, we say, okay, that's enough. What's done is finished. We leave it alone. Go meditate. And that's what I learned to do. All that paperwork we have to do, all those letters, all those talks. Oh, what the heck? I'm a monk. What's done is finished. And I just go and hide in my cave. And that makes me very efficient. Because you're not lazy. You can find you get much more done when you know how to stop regularly. This is actually the freedom from stress. That's one of the great things which, you know, these teachings actually help you. You don't have to worry about anything. You can actually let things go. And one of the other things which is really worth freeing yourself from is freeing yourself from what other what? For freeing yourself from worrying what other people think about you. I noticed I was telling another monk, um, last night. So when I was young, he was always trying to live up to other people's expectations. They're trying to please your parents and be a good son, and trying to please your teachers and doing well at school and then at university, trying to get good degrees and then trying to please other people. Then you had girlfriends and trying to please the girls. That was very difficult to do. It's the same the other way around. You know, you girls, it's even harder having to please the boys. See what you guys you have to do to your bodies. I still remember, just with so much compassion, going to Melbourne at winter time. And the newest fashion was having these, these low arm skirts and just high tank tops. I think they were called. And if so, this exposed ring of flesh on his woman's bodies, they were going blue because he was so cold. So what you have to do to catch a boy is just not worth it. And I'm glad that men don't have that fashion. But would you do that for could you really consume other people's think if you're trying to sort of make yourself attractive and you find that that's a lot of you are still doing that, you know, trying to sort of worry about other people's interview. And that's such a pain. Isn't it wonderful, actually, to have some freedom of that and just be yourself? Whatever that happens to be. It's one of the great advantages of being a monk, you know, dressing up in sort of girls clothes, which is a dress. Now, it looks like that way for some people. And actually watching people look at you every now and again, unfortunately, that people got used to monks these days, but it was really great in the early years of hearing here in Australia because people didn't know who you were and that really that was really funny. Sometimes when you go to the toilets, people point you to the other direction. You know, the ghost Earth. But don't worry, not sort of getting embarrassed because you. Why are you so imprisoned by other people's comments? What they say about you, what they think about you? Isn't it wonderful to be free of that fear of that? Recently I was in Thailand giving some talks. I know I never really, I must say I like Thailand. I got a lot of, a lot of, um, gratitude for everything which Thailand did to me. But this occasion, I didn't really want to go to Thailand, and I was just busy and I thought, wouldn't I go to so many places and get so many invitations to go overseas? And I really like to spend time over here in, in Perth with you guys, with my monks and my monastery, big, all these invitations. So I thought, okay, I'm going to go to Thailand. And I'm going to give some talks. And I don't care what they think of these talks, because if I really upset somebody by being over the top, then they won't invite me back to Thailand again. And that was my plan. So I gave a couple of talks in Thailand, and I just was really sort of, you know, laughing and cracking jokes. And these are jokes having nothing to do with Buddhism. And I thought they'd get so upset they'd never invite me back again. But it was actually the opposite happened. They thought it was really good at that time. Monks talk like that. It was very, very popular. And so I made a mistake there. But it was a wonderful feeling. You know, when you can go and give a talk, you don't care whether people like it. They don't like it. So you completely relax. You're free of the concern for praise and blame of other people. Because I'd I've been in this business for such a long time. Sometimes I feel I've given a really, really good talk. And afterwards people said I was really hopeless and at other times I gave them the terrible talk, said, oh, that was really, really good. So I give up. Isn't that wonderful? Not having to worry about praise and blame not what other people think of you. Because really, when you look deeply, how can anybody else judge you? How do they know that what you've been going through and what what you've got to deal with, and how can they really assess you? No one can. Which is why when people sort of praise or blame me, I just don't listen anymore. How can they know exactly what I'm doing and why I'm doing it? What I said and why I said it, what I meant. I know what they know what they heard. But that's not sometimes what I meant. It's a strange thing happens with words. When they come out of their mouth, they actually change before they go in somebody's ear. So there's not the same thing which is said, which you hear. I've noticed that many, many times. So how can you be worried about other people think of you? So it's great to be free of that. Now, when you have these types of freedoms freedom from fear, freedom from guilt, freedom from remorse, freedom from worrying, what other people think of you. You don't become a sort of a pain in the ass to other people. That type of freedom makes you relaxed. When you relax, you're happy and at peace. When you're happy and at peace, you don't tend to abuse other people, so you don't tend to be a pain in the ass for other people. It's only when you're trying too hard that you upset others. When you relax, you allow other people to relax. When you are free, you become kind. You can see that in other people. When people try so hard, they always make mistakes when they relax. Life flows smoothly. So the more freedom which you can engender inside of yourself, you know the freedom from all this. Worry about the past and the future. The freedom from thinking, the freedom from worry about what other people think of you. You're actually growing as a human being. You're becoming more spiritual, more wise, more compassionate. The reason why you become kinder is when you're not so concerned about your own problems, about your own grief and anger, worry concerns. You have more space in your life for other people. That's why you become more compassionate and more free. You feel from your own problems. So freedom engenders this wonderful kindness and this wonderful virtue. Sometimes I wonder why do people lie? Why do people say those awful things? I think it's because they're in pain themselves and they want to share their pain with other people. If you're at peace and happy, then you don't want to sort of. You can't share, um, anything other than that peace and calm and calm and kindness with other people. That's the nature of things. But as one goes deeper in to the idea of freedom in spirituality, you fear that the thing which really sort of imprisons you, and this is the deeper type of Buddhism, is all of our cravings and desires, our wants and not wants. Which is why in my book Open the Door of Your Heart, I mention a very deep part of dharma that there are two types of freedom in this world. And the first type of freedom is called the freedom of desire. And that's a freedom which we think is a freedom and which we celebrate in our Western world. That's why we want the freedom to actually to choose whatever product we want in the markets and have the money to be able to choose where we want to go in the world and to do whatever we want. And that's one of those freedoms which I always think as a false freedom, because now I'm a monk, been a monk for over 30 years, and I can't exercise desires. I can't eat what I want, I just eat what you give me. I can't watch the TV or watch a movie or decide to go on a holiday somewhere. All of those so-called freedoms which you take for granted in your life. I have renounced them. And really, when you look at like a man's life, you say, wow, what do you do that for? You must be really to think like your monastery is a prison. The monastery is not a prison. Many of you have been down. It doesn't feel like a prison. He even noticed. Down the road is another prison. And people. People have so confused the two. Because we've got a war. Khanate prison farm hasn't got a wall. It's got a fence. And people are actually actually because they didn't know the place to go, they're actually gone to kind of prison farm and said, any monks in here? Fortunately. Fortunately there wasn't. But if you look at all the rules which we have to keep. Wow, is that really tough keeping all those rules? They kind of eat in the afternoon. Why not be free? You can't have alcohol. No, not a glass of champagne or something after you get enlightened. So that's something worth celebrating? No. There's there's so many rules. People think that that's really an imprisonment for you. But inside, being a monk, you feel incredibly free. And this was one of the strange things when I didn't understand why it was as a monk, I felt more free than I did in the lay life. And I realize it's because in the lay life I had to feed him love desires. I could do whatever I want. Go out with a girl. Go to the pub, go to a movie. I had a freedom of desire as a layperson. When I became a monk. I had the other type of freedom, what we call the freedom from desires. Those desires weren't there anymore. You know, one of the biggest problems of our modern life, that we have such power to have so many desires achieved, to go to so many places, get so many, uh, material things. See so many movies. Here's so many pieces of music we can actually have got such freedom of desire in our modern world. That's why we feel the modern world is a prison for us. Do you really feel free? Got so many things to do. Sometimes you go into it. I remember going to a shop to choose some glasses. There was so much choice there, I felt imprisoned. So I said, I'll take those and got out as soon as I possibly could. And that's when I was a man going shopping, you know, just for glasses. We don't actually go to supermarkets and shops, so it's much easier for us. It must be hell for you guys going this supermarket. And there's so many different types of muesli. I'd say that it's great because, you know, actually even somebody puts some muesli in my cup in the morning and that's I eat that. I don't even choose this. It's much easier, much more freeing that way. So it's an interesting contemplation there. The two types of freedom, the freedom of desire and the freedom from desire. Which one do you want? Those of you who've gone on retreats, nine day retreats, have gone to monasteries to stay for a while, people really enjoy that. Where there's no TV, there's no movies, there's no sex, there's no sport. Why are there? Why do you like that? To that time you can't. Your freedom is limited. Your freedom of desire is limited. But for this wonderful other freedom, you don't have to have this desire. Pushing and pulling you all the time. That's why the freedom from desire is the best freedom of all. We call it contentment. This is good enough. I don't need any more. It's a freedom of stopping. It's the freedom of choice. On this weekend to being able to sit in your garden. And even though the lawn is raking and all the flowers need watering. And there's so much work to do, so no tomorrow. The freedom of desire to have to do things, to have to change things. To have to make things. And that's for sure. External garden. What about your internal garden? Your heart? How many of you think, yeah, I've got all these defilements. You know I need to be changed. I got to stop this and I've got to change that about myself. Can't we actually say, yeah, there's so much wrong with me, but this is good enough. And just accept yourself as you are for a few moments. That's called resting. It is also called love, compassion, kindness. The door of my heart is open to me as I am. The unconditional acceptance of this moment called you. If you can do that, you see there's no desire left. That's why one of the highest happiness people have is unconditional love. But with unconditional love, if it really is unconditional, there's not wanting that person to be anything different. There's no wanting. There's no desire. There's a freedom there. Isn't it wonderful when somebody gives you that unconditional love? Why? Because you don't have to live up to anyone's expectations now. You're free of having to work so hard to prove yourself to another person. You understand? Know what freedom is so you can give that freedom to other people, maybe to certain people, by giving them unconditional love. And in your company, though, for this amazing freedom. And you can give that to yourself. No matter who you are, no matter what you've done, have no desire to be different. Relax. Be yourself. I tell terrible jokes. People tell me. Repeat them all the time. I enjoy them. That's why I don't care what you think. Well, I do sometimes, but not always. So you're wonderful. You can be free that way. Now, these are great freedoms which you create for yourselves. And they're not freedoms which are promised in another existence. They're not to say I believe in this person or follow that path. And later on you feel freedom in some heaven realm. You are creating a heavenly realm right now in this very life. By understanding what the freedoms are and this is not forcing you to do anything, because that forced that compulsion out of fear or control, of having to do this and having to do that. That is precisely the same things which stop you being free inside. It's not unconditional. You can only follow a religion if this condition and not condition in this condition and that condition and this condition and that condition. Reuven, somebody was asking me just recently because they wanted to join the committee and to be join the committee. They have to keep the five precepts and to keep the five precepts. One of the precepts is they're not supposed to take alcohol so. Well, you know, maybe a little bit of alcohol every now and again. And so as far as Buddhism is go, as long as you're trying and intend inclining towards that, then I'd be very happy to sort of sign you in as a full member, as long as you're inclining towards keeping his peace. If you're doing your very best in the situation you have, because you've got to give people a bit of freedom. And if you give people that freedom, they always live up to that freedom. They try hard, try harder to keep their freedom. But if you actually make all these very, very hard rules on people, it just becomes controlled again. And people get tired, they get tense, they're afraid. That's why that you know that story about my father telling me the first time the door of his heart is always open to me, no matter what I ever do. When he gave me that degree of freedom, I lived up to it. I've always found that in life I trust my monks saying the other day I travel her away so much. When the mice away, the cat will play. I put it the other way around. It's not the mice play. The cat plays. So nicely. You trust everybody. And when you trust people, people live up to that trust. And that's a very high minded sort of part of religion, of life. When there's no force for this trust. And when you do that to yourself, you don't force yourself. You trust yourself. You're kind to yourself, you're gentle to yourself, the unconditional trust yourself. Do you trust yourself? Isn't it wonderful to say, yep, I trust me. I don't need to force me. I trust myself that I will grow in my own way in time. I'll be able to keep those precepts after a while. If you do things like that, you're actually giving people the best possible way for growth and not only the best possible way. We are teaching what real freedom is not compulsion, but trust, respect, and valuing the human being to live up to the very, very best. And the more freedom we give people, especially ourselves, the more we will live up to the freedom given us to become more peaceful, gentle, kind, virtuous and more importantly, happy. Be people, because when we're free, we want to be here. So last little story about freedom. It's a great story that when we went to one of our monks, went to Casuarina Prison many years ago, and they taught, they asked the monk about what life was like in the monastery. I just do this briefly because many of you know this story. And when he described a life of burning near and a monastery in serpentine, it was much harsher than life. In Casuarina Prison and Casuarina Gaol. You don't have to get up at 4:00 in the morning. In Casuarina Gaol you get 3 or 4 meals a day. In prison you get to watch the TV and watch movies. Monks don't do any of that. And when this monk told him about the routine of my monastery, there was so upset that a monk they got to like and love had to live in such austere conditions. But one of them. One of them actually said forgetting where they were. That's terrible. In your monastery. Why didn't you come and live in here instead with us? He was invited to join people in prison because it was. They had a point. It is much more comfortable in Casuarina jail than it is in boating. The island monastery. Serpentine. But the point was that. Why is it that people try and get out of jail? They try and escape when no one tries to escape from body in the island monastery, but they like to book up to try and get in. There is a waiting list, usually for people wanting to come. Even just a week ago, I had to write to somebody. As Malaysia wants to come and spend the range between my monastery this year said sorry, it's full already. No one actually likes to come and stay in Casuarina jail. So what's the difference between a monastery and a prison? And the difference is in a monastery. Everybody wants to be there in a jail. No one wants to be there. And there is the definition of freedom and prison. Any place you don't want to be is a prison for you. Any place. If you don't want to be here tonight, you want to go home. This is your prison. If you're in a marriage relationship, you're not happy with, your relationship is a prison. If you're in a job you hate, your job is a prison. If you're in a body which is sick or ugly or old, your body feels like a prison. How can you escape from prison? You don't need to change your partner, nor your job, nor your body. Just change your attitude. Want to be here? Any place you want to be, you feel free again. The ending of desire. Of craving. Of wanting to go somewhere. It's a wonderful little teaching there. You can see how many prisons you make in life when you're caught at the traffic lights. You don't want to be there. You want to sort of get to work quickly. That traffic light feels like a prison. Oh, come on. Change. There's so many prisons you make in life where you don't feel free. And you know why? Nothing to do with the world. So anything to do with your attitude. Whether you want to be here or not. So is cancer a prison? Feels like it. If you don't want it. If you want to be here. Wherever that is. You'll feel free. Even in austere monastery. People want to be there. Always feel free. That's what freedom is. Not being told to be here by some authority, but being happy to be here. Then you know what freedom is. So that's the talk for this evening, going from the political freedom to the social freedoms to the psychological freedoms, to the biggest freedom of all enlightenment, the end of desire. Wanting to be here. So there's a talk this evening. I hope you enjoyed it, because that's all you're getting. So any comments or questions about the talk this evening? Comments. Questions. Oh, okay. It's amazing that when I asked for any questions and no one puts a hand up. But as soon as we finish, there's a whole line of people coming to ask questions. Well. That's life. So we're gonna have some announcement, first of all, and then we're going to actually break for a couple to go to the toilet. But at 930, if you can stay here for that time, the monsters are coming. The lions are coming to do the lion dance for Chinese New Year. So if you can stay with just announcements, maybe go to the toilet, have a cup of tea. But please stick around for 930 for the lions. So somebody's gonna go, oh my God, one day I'll be watching. So I can't talk a lot about more than my nana's army. So partly turned off by a white horse. I'm like a son of sun panda. Mommy.