Episode Transcript
Below The Mist by Ajahn Brahm
As our new president. Rachel said, I have been away from here for a few weeks, but it wasn't overseas that the three Fridays have been away the first two. I was just down in North Perth teaching a nine day meditation retreat, and just last Friday I was in Cambodia at an interfaith conference, followed by a trip to Bangkok and to Singapore, had a talk which I was asked to give at Singapore on Tuesday night. I thought I'd sort of recycle it. It's never exactly the same, but the grew up in Singapore where I which I support and teach. I wanted to have a talk, not like a question and answer, on just the relevance of the concept of enlightenment, because her Buddhist looks at that and says, well, that's really the goal, which I'm supposed to be aiming for. What is it really mean? And how relevant is it for me in my daily life? And you may have come here many times and know that my goal as a teacher is to try and bring those esoteric, exotic sort of philosophical teachings down to earth so they can give us meaning in our life. And that's basically how I taught. What enlightenment means to us, not as some distant goal or some other attainment which we can wear on our hats and say, look at me, I'm enlightened. And how many line people we've got in our group, because things like that tend to just be another expression of one's ego and self, as if enlightenment is just like getting a PhD from a university. And you get it from the Buddhist society of WA instead of the University of WA. And that's really not what these things are all about. So let's bring enlightenment down to earth. I gave a simile and one of those stories for my youth members when I was at university. I used to enjoy just as spending my vacations in the quiet places of nowhere, UK. So I used to just take a tent and a rucksack and just go hiking in the in the mountains of Scotland. I remember is compounded by myself for days on end, meditating, just enjoying, just being alone in nature. It was the nearest thing I could get to, like being in the bush. I even know that sometimes that people say, where did you grow up and say, I often say I was actually grew up in the bush, Shepherd's Bush. The suburb of London was still the bush we used to call it. But the first opportunity I'd always try and get away from that city or the city of Cambridge when I was studying, go to Scotland, where there was emptiness and space and freedom. I remember this one experience that just one day just there was a young man went with another fellow just to climb the nearest mountain, the wonderful time just taking up to the top. And he decided to go back to, I think, the youth hostel where I was staying. But I saw another mountain. It was a beautiful day, so I decided to climb up that mountain as well by myself. But just as I got to the top. The clouds descended out of nowhere and I was completely enshrouded in mist. Could not find my bearings at all, even just looking at my hand at the end of its arm, I could not see it. The mist was so thick, and the surprising thing it came so quickly. I realized just how dangerous those mountains can be. But you know. You know your directions. You know where you come from. So I just turned around and started walking back the way I was. I came from I was very fortunate because I don't have water for you. Uh, a few minutes, I was mindful enough to see that the mist actually did clear underneath me as I saw a vertical drop, a cliff going hundreds of meters down. If I'd have been a little bit unmindful, I'd have been dead, though I saw that and it scared me. Later on, I found out that where that cliff was on the map and I'd been walking in the completely opposite direction, I thought I was going in. That's what happens in the mist. Sometimes you lose your directions, but the illusion is you really think you know where you're going, but you don't. It's just like life, isn't it? Sometimes we think we know where we're going. We think we're going in the direction of wisdom, peace, happiness, freedom. But then we end up just no more enslaved, no less happy. And this peace seems to be more distant from us. That's like walking through the mist. Unfortunately, I had enough sense to figure out a way to escape from that dangerous predicament. I realized that the mist always is high, so as long as I walked down, eventually I'd come below the mist and be able to find out where where I was. And that's what I did. I just chose any direction which was downwards, not worrying whether it's east, west, north or south as long as it was downwards. And I could always do that. I always choose the downward path. And as I went down, down, down. Sure enough, after half an hour I came below the mist and I could actually see where I was and get some landmarks and get back to the place where I was staying. And I used that story as a simile of as a way to enlightenment, the way to peace, to freedom, to happiness, even though we can't see the final destination, because now the mist enshrouded us, still we can see what is leading. In my case, in the mountains downwards to freedom. In the simile. That means we can see what makes our life a little bit more peaceful, makes our heart a little bit more happy, makes us feel a little bit more free. And if you follow that path, that is a path which leads to enlightenment. Now that's a simile which I made up, but it is very, very close to how the Buddha taught the path of enlightenment, which he taught very similar things to the first bhikkhuni, the first Buddhist nun, Mahavira. And he also taught that to one of the great monks who Pali the barber. Who was a case of whatever leads to more peace, to big a sense of freedom, to more stillness, to more inner happiness. The Buddha said that that is the teachings of the Buddha. Those are the precepts. That's the path. When he was teaching us, was the way downwards, out of the mist of delusion, to freedom from the cliffs and the dangers of freedom from the pain. So instead of a person being so philosophical and talking about things they can't really see and can't really know about enlightenment or God or these other amazing things. I think it's much more practical, more useful to bring these teachings down to earth and to see what makes your life more peaceful, more free, more happy. And if we follow that path, we know that that must lead to the place we want to go. A place of freedom, a place of happiness, a place of peace. And it's that simile also works because in the path towards enlightenment, the path of peace, of freedom, of inner happiness. You just go so far. A little bit further, a little bit further, and most of the myths disappear. We call that the streaming experience. And then you can actually see the goal. You're below the mists and you then you can really understand what enlightenment is and how powerful and wonderful it is, but doesn't matter. Whatever makes you more peaceful inner happiness, true happiness and more freedom, you understand that is the way to enlightenment. So we know that there's certain things which people do in life. You know, that's not the path. That's not what we should be doing. Enlightened people don't get angry and don't shout at other people with hatred. Enlightened people just don't amass so many possessions in their life and sort of creates less sense of freedom. Even today. Some visitors came to my monastery and they wanted to see my cave again and see the local tourist attraction in serpentine, the ancient cave. I don't mind showing people that because that's almost better than a than a dharma talk. That's actually where I live and where I meditate. And this is a very small, I think is about three meter diameter cave and maybe three meter high like a hemisphere, and it's hardly anything in it. There's my clerk and a couple of bottles of water, three mats which I can lay out to sleep on, and a pillow. And that's my worldly possessions in that little cave. I do have other things in the office which is next door, but this is actually where I spend most of my time when I'm in Serpentine Monastery. He reminds me that even though you travel around the world and I invite you to complain to the federal government because of conference, which I went to in two days before I left, the airline ticket came and I was surprised that the Australian government refunded the ticket. Gave me business class. And that's your taxes. For now, I enjoy much more just that little hut than the little cave in which I sleep in. This more feels much nicer as a monk being in such a place, you feel that that's where you're supposed to be, and that's why people like visiting it because of its simplicity. And the people that visited today, I told them that it's so much nicer living in a place where there's few things to burden you. The very emptiness of that, and the simplicity of the place where I live, reminds me of the emptiness and simplicity of a mind in meditation. Were you not carrying so many possessions and burdens around with you? When you become a monk, you have to let go of so many things, but you do so, so willingly because you wonder why do people bother and carry all these things? Just look at all the things you have in your room, in your house. And sometimes, what do I really need? All of those things and kind of get rid of some more. You find this much more peaceful and much more free the less you have. And you think in my mind, can I let go of a few more things in my mind, my internal possessions and worries and fears? It's much more peaceful. The more free your mind is, the emptier it is. And to be have an empty mind doesn't mean actually, you don't really need to leave the world. You just need how just to learn how to let go of things. And it's that path of letting go, but is symbolized by a simple empty heart is what is a path towards enlightenment gives you a clue what it truly is, but it's not so much the possessions of the world, it's the possessions in your mind. That's what we really need to let go of. Just before I went to Singapore and after going to Cambodia, I had a wonderful experience in Bangkok. Which shows you that the beauty of learning how to let go. Because this was an experience. One of the disciples in Bangkok has been following me around for the last few years as a reporter for the Bangkok Post. And the reason why she started following me around was that she gave an interview and part of the interview. She asked, well, you know, what's the Buddhist for your euthanasia or mercy killing? And many of you heard me say this before, but I told her that. Well, let's give it a concrete example. Suppose your mother is in a coma in hospital for several months, and there's no real possibility of of any cure. And so I would ask you, should we turn off the ventilator? Should we turn off the life support system? And as a Buddhist, what should you do? Because that's your mother. As I said this, her jaw dropped and she said, wow, you're good. Because her mother was in a hospital on a life support system, in a coma, and she been like that for quite a while. I serve nailed it. But of course, the advice which I give, which is important for everyone to know, is that if that's your mother or anyone close to you, sit next to her, hold her hand, and even though she's in a coma, ask her if she's there. If she wants to go. He knows a lot of difference between a person who is just a dead body being kept alive by the machines, and a being who still in that body, just struggling to survive and live on. It's a lot of difference, sir. And if that's someone you love and know you can feel it. You can feel that there's somebody there. And if there's somebody there, keep the ventilator guy. There's one of the people I know. She told her story of what it was like being in a coma. It's a great story because she made a full recovery and goes around telling her story in in public forums about what it's like to be in a coma for many days. She said she went to a very, very dark black place. I don't know for how long. Timeless. I think it was actually for several weeks. I said, what brought her back? She said she heard the sound of temple bells. I Buddhist temple bells. That's how she described it. Where that came from. Who knows? But that brought her out of that darkness and soon into her body. And where she was in her body. She could not speak or move, but she could see, hear and feel everything which was going on around her, but not being able to respond. And after a while she saw her sons come to visit, which had caused delighted her, but she could not say that she was being delighted. She had no way of responding to what they said to their kisses or holding their hand, but she got terrified when the doctor came and said that their mother had no chance of coming out of the coma, and asked the children, the nearest of kin, for permission to turn off the life support. She heard them saying that and said, it's sinking now. I'm still here. Don't turn it off. But she couldn't move her mouth, nor any other part of the body. Being in Singapore, I could have been. Nothing was in Malaysia. So being a Chinese family, the children said, well, it's the eldest sons decision. And the eldest son said, no, don't leave me alone. I want your help on this. But of course, no one wants to make such a decision to turn off the machine of your mother. So they passed the back to the eldest son, and he had to choose whether his mother would die right there. And of course, she could not move her body, certainly not her lips, nor even her eyes, but she could certainly move her mind. And she wished and willed and concentrated her mind to say, son, don't, don't, don't. I'm here. And the son said, no. Give her another day. In that 24 hours, she was able to move her hand enough to show the doctor that something was happening. The recovery seemed to be happening. And of course, because you could tell that story, she did make a total recovery, and you wouldn't think that she had been in that situation if you saw her today. Many other people have had her source of experiences. She's not alone. The interesting thing is that sometimes the doctors look at that person. On the bed and the ice here and think. Shall we turn it off? And this is how you know. So I told her, no, don't turn it off if he thinks he's still there. So she went to see her mum, and she had a very strong feeling that her mother was still there. She kept it going. And of course, having sussed out the situation so well the first time, she was very impressed with me. And so I'd always go and visit her mother in the hospital. When I went to visit her last Saturday, Saturday afternoon, after coming back from Cambodia, one of the first things I did. But as soon as I went into the room, I knew that she was close to death. So instead of just going and talking to her even though she is in coma, he knew she was there. He went up to her and told her how to die. This family were quite shocked I was speaking like that. I said it in Thai and fluent enough in Thai and also understanding on how you really let go. I mean, this is what you do when you die, and you have to let go of your body and the physical feelings of pain and all the other things which you own, your family and everything else. Let go of your past. Because sometimes we remember when we die some of the terrible things which we've done, and none of us have always been saints. I've done my fair share of stupid things before. I was a man that was even in my early years as a mark as well. But we don't carry those with us. We can drop them. It's amazing thing when you know the nature of the mind and the nature of truth. There's nothing, nothing which you can't forgive if you really let it go. There's no terrible act which you have done in the past, or terrible speech which you can't, just through the understanding of the nature of the mind. Forgive yourself off. That's why we always say in Buddhism, you just acknowledge you got to recognize it and forgive it and then learn from it, move on, but never sort of carry it around with you, and certainly not into her death. You let it go straight away. So it's teaching her many ways of letting go, letting go her old body and letting go of her past, not worrying about the future. Where should I get reborn? What heaven should I go to? What happens next? What of that we should let go of just as we teach you in meditation. I taught her how to die. But there was a problem. So I turn around. She had her husband in a room and her two daughters. That's the only family she really had. Now a close family. The younger daughter, who was a journalist who was fine and been teaching her a long time. But the oldest daughter. She wasn't happy at all. She was so attached to her mother, though, when I told her your mother was about to die. Even the doctors hadn't said that. She started weeping. So I told her when I told many people. Please give your mother permission to go. You have to let her go. And I don't mean just half heartedly. Fully. Go up to her and give her your blessing to depart in this life. Because you are what's holding her back. And she accepted that and understood that. I was quite surprised at how easily that really got into her head. Into her mind. And after I left, she did go up to her mother, talk to her and free her. Let her go. She passed away 24 hours later. And I was fortunate enough to do part of the funeral service in Thailand. The funeral service is just so long and drawn out. But death only takes a couple of minutes. But the funerals take 100 days. And something very wrong there. But that's tradition. But fortunately I went to do the first part of the funeral service and as one of the most serves on Monday evening, as one of the most wonderful times to see the closest relations, the husband and the two daughters totally at peace. With their mother's death, because her mother had died well, had died beautifully. And there wasn't tears, there wasn't the sense of grief. There was a sense that I let go. And what a wonderful, freeing experience that was for everybody. And that's the sort of thing which we call a step downwards, out of the mist, going towards more freedom, more peace, right? This inner happiness, which is a taste of enlightenment or a taste of freedom. It's those taste of freedom which we have in those experiences, which give us the indication of what this enlightenment is. In the same way, when you have a new food which you haven't eaten before, you don't just gobble it all down, you just taste it first of all. The peace and freedom and happiness. When you taste it. Tastes delicious. That still I remember. Was the reason why. One of the main reasons I became a Buddhist. Was that the first time you meditated? Only 15 minutes. But it tasted just so nice. Probably the first real moments of peace I'd experienced in my whole life up to that point. There was something about peace. I mean real inner peace, which actually was addictive because to me it was the only thing which really mattered. The only real happiness in life ever know that he went to great universities? I know that sometimes people say, oh, what a waste of a life, that you got great degrees from a great university. I could have been a great scientist. I could have made nuclear bombs. And sometimes scientists end up doing such things. They could have done no other good things with your brain. And I sure did do good things with my brain. I became a monk. The best thing I could possibly do. One of the reasons I never carried on with research and saw all the other professors. And being a college system in Cambridge, you actually associated with his er with his lecturers. I remember one of them lived next door to me in the, in the college dormitories. He was living there rather than at home. So you got to know them personally. And I was very surprised just how they were just so much, so much so intelligent in their field. They were genius says in saying chemistry. Remember, our master was a Nobel Prize winner. So, you know, I had dinner with him every now and again. Having dinner sitting next to someone hasn't won a Nobel Prize in chemistry and realizing how stupid they are in life. Brilliant in chemistry, but got no understanding of what inner happiness, peace or harmony. They can't even live with their wife without having arguments. And he wondered, is, is that what I want to use the gift of intelligence for? It is to get prizes and become famous or just to get a good salary. And I realize that's not what intelligence is, but I want something more meaningful than that. So I chose a path of inner peace. So there was much more important than you realize that you were descending out from the mist, going to deeper states of peace and happiness and freedom, which is why the enlightenment is just with your partner in life. Learning how to forgive them. Even know that sometimes they don't deserve forgiveness. But every time you do this wonderful acts of letting go, of forgiving the past, you feel a sense of deeper peace and a freedom from that past. I like to mention that all those bad feelings which people carry around with them, or the pain of what happened to you and how unfair it always was. Why? Do you cling on to that? Why do you allow the past to continue hurting you? That's what's happening until you let it go. You are a prisoner of the pain of your past. When you put it that way, you're a prisoner of the pain of your past. You realize what you're doing to yourself. And in that prison of the past. The cell doors are always open. You can walk out whenever you want. One of the stories, which was told to me by one of the early members of this Buddhist society, who was very supportive over 20 years ago, I've lost track of him. I'm not sure where he is, but he told me of a wonderful story of his life. He was born in Sydney, and as a young boy, 6 or 7, I don't know, roughly that sort of age. He was praying with his best friend on a pier in one of the many bays of Sydney Harbour. Just two boys messing around. He pushed his best friend in the water for a joke. His best friend drowned. He'd killed his best friend and his best friend's parents lived next door. He had to see the tears and the pain of parents who lost their seven year old drowned, who lost her for his future. Even now, after a few weeks, the parents went up to him to know he was sad and said, no, you're just a kid playing around. No need to feel guilty. It wasn't your fault. How can you blame a 6 or 7 year old? You know, probably you've done that pushing your best friend in the water. It just happened. He drowned at that time, but he was never able to forgive himself. Having seen his best friend drown and seeing the pain in appearance because they lived next door, he couldn't get away from it. He had such a trauma inside of himself that he never did well at school. Had time? Difficult time finding a girlfriend because he had his terrible guilt eating him inside. But he told me that just one day, when he was about 17 or 18, he literally woke up in the morning. And if it's an inside realization, I don't need to feel guilty anymore. He said it was as simple as that. Just the realization that the cell door of his guilt was open, and he was allowed to walk out and let it go. They can imagine that story. Why does a five year old, or 6 or 7 year old feel so guilty? But you do know you may be 16 or 30 or 50 year old, but you all make mistakes. I make mistakes, so surely we should let it go. You can let it go. When the beautiful parts of the Buddhist religion, if you want to call it a religion, is that there is no sin and punishment. This is not part of Buddhist religion. If you want to sin and punishment, just go to the churches or whatever they and just if you want hellfire and damnation, you'll never get it here. But too often we just can't do that. And you come here and I've got to work on you condition. You brainwash you week after week, until finally you get the message, and you walk out of the pain of your past and become free. When you do that, you feel what enlightenment is like. You're having another taste of freedom, a taste of peace, a taste of the wisdom which liberates you. Now can you get an understanding of what enlightenment is? If you go further down that path? Forgiving yourself. Freeing yourself. How you look at life. And I went to this interfaith conference over in Phnom Penh. A complete waste of time. Just, you know, Buddhist ideas were not completely ignored. And we were just basically to serve as ornaments. But practically speaking, we were just off the agenda. And sometimes you do other things like that and a complete waste of time. You want to fix things up, you know? I just came back from work, looked in the newspaper on the plane coming home, and our premier of Western Australia piling carpenters in problems again. Our prime ministers or premiers, they're always in problems. So sometimes you think, is it a person or is it just a job? You know, it's a job, really, not the person. It's just life is a problem. It's not you. I understand just what life is all about. Yeah, you can sort of, you know, say your piece, write your letters, do your complaining. But yeah, it doesn't really change, does it? Your life just goes on. Every now and again as a monk, you go on retreat. This great going retreats, which are the long retreats. You know, like six months retreat. And you'd read the newspapers beforehand, and then you go in six months, but by, well, you don't know anything, which is going on for six months. And you read newspapers afterwards. Same stories. Just different names. Same walls, only different locations. Same corruption. Only different scallywags. This is something about that life. It's sometimes it's really fortunate being a monk because, you know, people tell you all their personal stories. And I always remember just when I came over here to Australia. And I see people telling me their stories because they come like fake out. It's great coming to see a monk. They come to see a monk and tell the problems. Get some nice advice. At the very least you won't get criticized. And that's why the nice things about setting your problems to a monk, you know, you never, ever will. I blame you or say, you stupid idiot. What do you do that for? I don't say that, but it was fascinating. The first problem I thought, wow, that's really interesting. You know, like married problems. And then the second person came along and told me their problems, and and a bell rang, said, I've heard that before. And then the third one comes along. Here we go again in the same problems. And you come and tell me about your kids not behaving or your husband not talking to you or your boss at work, you know, being rude to you. Oh, but I don't know how many thousands of times I've heard that same problem again and again and again. You know, it's a great test of my patience, but I'm pretty successful about being patience. When you tell me your problem, you all think it's just your problem, individual and unique rather than to a secret. It's been a long time since I've had a unique problem. You know what to say, and so you get the idea. This is actually life. So yeah, you try and fix it up. You haven't got much chance of fixing it up. So instead, you make peace with, like, prime ministers, premiers. This is what I like. Banks. That's what it's like. Okay, go on to start a new bank here. So you try a new bank. After a while, it's just the same as every other bank or job or whatever. So there's a certain, like, sameness about life. So after a while, yeah, you participate in life and try and make it better, but don't have too many hopes. Instead, how to make peace with life. That's the way you make peace with yourself. If you try and fix yourself up and make yourself a better person, it's such hard work. And sometimes that actually makes your worst person. It's a strange thing when you accept yourself as you are. Have a bit of make peace with yourself. You make peace with life. You make peace with the government. You make peace with the banks. You make peace with the airlines. Whenever. On time. Always late. It's interestingly because I. I've got lots of disciples in Singapore. So on the flight from Singapore to Phnom Penh, it was delayed for 2 or 3 hours. And I was told when I got to Singapore a few days later that the the person on the counter at Singapore Airlines sort of on the counter in the boarding gate, she told her friend and said, oh, you know, I saw this, this monk. So I don't know if I was your monk. You know, it was once that monk was me. He said, there is actually all the other people were complaining, getting upset. But he was smiling all the time. Sienna. It's me. Who cares? You know, when you saw that plane. It's late. No, no. No amount of banging the desk or shouting makes that plane get there earlier. So I actually quite enjoyed that because, you know, I could actually get another cup of tea. So it's always benefits to become when you're playing it's late. So it's interesting that I was noticed and I was reported. That's great though because yeah, the planes would be like you except make more peace with life. I don't say you don't complain afterwards. Actually, I did complain to Qantas when the plane was the day for 2420 five hours, but I knew exactly what I was doing because I was told about this by another business lady. Because we shared a taxi from the hotel, which they put us up late at night, and she told me, she said I should write a complaining letter because you'd probably get something back from Qantas, and I did. I got like a free flight to go to Sydney next time. That's all right to complain if you know it is a bit of fun. And to save the British society a bit of money because they didn't need to pay for the plane fare next time. So it actually says your donations can go somewhere else, but you don't take these things so seriously and get really caught up in it and get upset in it. And that way you have a feeling of peace. You can shout up there, say your peace, but it doesn't affect your heart. I remember I just made her the abbot of our monastery in England, teaching me that once he was visiting our monastery in Thailand because he'd already gone over to to England, and we had like a nun there. She was a French nun, very nice lady, but she was basically she was anorexic. She just would not eat. Not because she wanted to be beautiful, because he thought fasting was the way to get enlightened. You know, sometimes people get too ascetic when they become become monks or nuns. You know, I don't have that problem. But she was really just getting so thin. We were really worried about her health. It's very hard to force someone to eat, so. You know, this monk came along and said, you know just the matter. You got more wisdom. Can you. Can you do something? And he got up there and he was shouting at her and screaming at her. And I thought, my goodness, you know, this mark has lost it. He's got angry. And I really saw it in this monk. I really, really respect it. And I really thought it was, you know, really close to being enlightened. I thought, oh my goodness, what's he doing? And this nun sort of, you know, walked away quite shaken, visibly shaken, and then decided, that's the matter. Turned around to me and he had this big broad smile. So that told her, didn't it? And I know you just can't be angry. Really angry, and then suddenly smile and just be at peace. Because real anger is sort of makes an impression on your mark. And it's like a and it takes a long time for you to cool down. He was actually playing. I acting it out because he thought maybe that might sort of help this lady. So if you are very, very smart, I don't think many of you could do this. You can actually do that, but you're not holding it. It's not part of you. It's not a personal involvement in the situation if you can let it go immediately. And it wasn't very different to and was almost like an actor going on stage and doing that for a purpose. I was very impressed with that because it was just immediate as soon as that lady went. This man was as peaceful and happy as normal and real, and you just can't stop it like that. It lasts afterwards. So I was very impressed with that. That's just the way this world is. And so after a while, we learn not to carry so much around with us. It's that freedom, that letting go is what enlightenment is like. You don't have to read this in a book. You feel this in your heart now. You feel what peace is, what freedom is, and what inner happiness is. Even though the books confirm that. Which is why every now and again you read out suitors. And just so people know. Yeah, what you're actually saying is actually what the Buddha said. But, you know, I don't sort of say it in Pali like the Buddha said it in, but in English, the way of freedom and peace. If you keep following that path, you find the peace, and the freedom grows and grows and grows. Even just in the meditation retreat I taught. Now that was two Fridays when I wasn't here. These kids are making this point about what I call these days meditation. Karma. I like this idea of like the law of karma, because it's very useful for actually understanding what goes on and why things happen. And good meditation, karma means if you're being aggressive in your meditation. Yeah, I'm going to sort of force myself through pain. My knees ache. Who cares how much stronger than this? I'm going to be sort of super monk pain. Doesn't sort of really bother me. I'm much tougher than that. Well, you know, if you just say, well, my mind's all over the place. Come on, get your act together. And you say, yeah, this is it. I'm really good. I really want enlightenment. Come on, I really want what what what what what what if you're making that meditation come. Which means, like thoughts of ill will, thoughts of violence, thoughts of wanting something. We call that bad meditation. Karma. Ill will. Fighting never makes the mind peaceful. No more than Mr. Bush can create peace in Iraq by sending in the army. You don't make peace through battles, through fighting, through war. You all know that. They should know that in your mind as well. Bad meditation karma is actually fighting your mind, having ill will, feeling embarrassed about some of the things which go on in your head. Good meditation. Karma is making peace with it. Being kind. Being compassionate. Forgiving. Being gentle. That's what we call good meditation karma. That's also called right intention. Second factor of the Eightfold path. If you want to know, the Buddha taught that sort of kindness, gentleness and letting go. What I do, I'm sure I said, you don't meditate to get things. You meditate to let go of things, to be more free, to be more empty, or to have so much things in your mind. And when we make good meditation, karma, being kind, being gentle, letting go, the result of karma. If you make peace, you get peace. If you are a kind, you feel the the gentleness of warmth, of kindness. If you are non-violent and you feel healthy and free. So what happens when you make good meditation? Karma? What you're doing here is you're going down hill in the mist. You know, it's good. It's good. Karma, kindness, gentleness, peace. Letting go. You're not quite sure where it will lead because you're still going to miss. But it's good karma, you know it is. And the more you go in that direction, you have to go under the mess. You have to get to the safety spot below the mountains in the same way, as long as you keep making peace. Being kind, being gentle, then you know you are on the path to enlightenment. The more times you make peace with this moment, no matter what it is, the more peace you'll have in your life, the more you're kind to every moment which comes in your life, the more your heart will be big and beautiful. And what gentle you are with every moment, no matter what comes into your life. The more gentle you are again, the more freedom you feel. This is why no matter what happens to you in any moment in your life. Stuck in the traffic and done by a speed camera or whatever else happens to you in your life, you find yourself got diagnosed with cancer. You may not be able to get rid of the external problem, but you sure can make peace with it. This is part of life. Make peace with it. Don't make war with life. And if you can do that, you find that you are more of a peaceful person because you made peace in so many moments. You do that in meditation, but you can also do that in your life. And there are difficult things in your life. Things which you can't change. Please make peace with them. Please be kind. Your partner leaves you. Make peace with it. It's par for the course. The painful experience is in life. That's what we learn from. If I, John Shaw, I used to say. Because I hated the biscuits. Because they're always irritating you. And then my time. Mosquitoes, they wouldn't just bite you. Just like some of the Australian mosquitoes. They'd fly around in your ear many, many times to talk to you. Here. I'm coming, I'm coming. I'm going to buy it. I'm going to buy it. And that's actually, you know, psychological torture. Can't you just get it over with? Some mosquitoes? No, no, I'm going to come. When Sergeant Shaw told us to call them again, which means teacher mosquito, there are teachers. So you can say agent, husband, badger wife and teenage son. They're there to teach you something. And what they teach us, how we can make peace with anything. You know that it's a it's a big problem in the hearing professions. Because I was talking to this with some psychologists in Sydney last year. You know that sometimes it's so hard. You get sort of a client who's really, really suffering and they're in great pain, psychological pain. They won't let you help them. You can't do anything with them. I said, that's so frustrating. Just like a doctor, sometimes you see that patient, maybe a young person. So much life in front of them. But no treatment is possible. Are you even, like a vet? It seems like a well loved cat or dog can't do anything. They said, that's so frustrating. I said, what do you mean you can't do anything? The problem, I think, with many of those professions. If they don't make a distinction between healing and being kind, says sometimes you can't heal them. They're going to get sick that either in pain. But you can always, in every occasion, be kind. So that's what a therapist can always do. Be kind. So even if the person is dying, even if the animal's in great pain, even if the psychotic is going crazy, you can always be kind. And never underestimate that power of kindness. His good karma and good karma has good effects. And sometimes miracles do happen. Why is the power of kindness? So every time you are kind, your gentle you let go. You make peace. You are going towards enlightenment. You get a taste for it. You know what it is. And more you go down that path, the more you feel is is what enlightenment is. It's only an amplification of that which kindness brings you as the deepening of the peace, which you can feel every now and again in your life. It's a more intense and extensive and thorough freedom that you can experience every time you just let go of something. So you all have experience of a little bit of peace, a little bit of kindness, a little bit of forgiveness and freedom. Now imagine what that's like. If it expands, deepens and becomes rich and thoroughgoing throughout your whole body and mind. Now that's what enlightenment is. So you can know it not as a theory, but as some sort of description, not as some unattainable goal, which is saying, yeah, you have to be a man or a nun and specially born to become enlightened these days. No. Something which you could know in your heart, you can feel. Not only in this manner. Do you know what enlightenment is? You're so. Know the path. It feels the right way to go. And you walk that path whether you like it or not. Peace. Calm. Freedom. You feel your way there. You don't think your way to enlightenment. You feel your way there. It's an emotional maturity, not an intellectual achievement. And that way, you know where you're heading. And the reason I give this talk is because sometimes coming to a Buddhist society where alignment is the goal, is like getting on a bus, which looks nice. You haven't got a hell of an idea where it's going to. Sometimes you come here. Where is this going to lead to? If I keep coming here too often, am I going to have to let go of my husband? And I mean, no more sex. Does that mean I have to let go of my job and can't play golf anymore? Are. You know, at least some more peace. More freedom. Real inner freedom is beautiful happiness and intense inspiration. That's what this leads to. And enlightenment is just that, intensified. Taking it to the limit. Which means you no need to feel afraid of enlightenment and only be afraid of. It's taken that next step. It'll be more peaceful, a bit more happiness, a little bit more freedom. Why not? And that's also why we talk about this here. Talk about letting go of the problems of people's ordinary lives. That is not just second rate Buddhism. It's not just a sop to label this and, you know, talk differently to monk, to monks or nuns. This is all about the path. No difference. The essence making peace. Being kind, let incur. That's all you need to do. And it feels good. So now you all know what enlightenment is. You'll know how to get there and it's a pretty nice journey. So thank you for listening. Any questions? Any questions comments or complaints? Yes. Come on. Yeah. What is the difference between just letting go and being used by other people? I've let go so much. I'm used by people all the time. And I don't ride. Use me. I am used, I'm exploited, I admit that. But I think what you really mean is that sometimes people just are really quite cruel to you. And so that's why that sometimes I say you can stand up and you can shout, you know you can. That story, if you read it in the book, opening the door of your heart. Actually, there's a new edition coming out. So I got my first copy today. It's got a new cover. Same inside. It's like being reincarnated, I call it. Anyhow. So in that. Sort of in the sort of book, there's the story. It's a very classic story of the the bad snake and the bad snake basically got converted from being a sort of a Buddhist took the five precepts and kids went along and they, they sort of, uh, hit that snake, and the snake wouldn't fight back, who was just being exploited because of his kindness and his gentleness. And suddenly the thing that as a Buddhist, do you know, he's supposed to take everything which people throw at us? Are we supposed to take injustice, inequity and all these things? Why can't we have rights for Buddhists? It's okay to do that. I was joined in the, uh, some of the, uh, peace rallies for Burma. I missed the one for Tibet because I was actually, I was, uh, overseas and had another invitation when one was held here. So it's all right for for monks to and for yourself to stand up. Just like the bad snake is the. The teacher snake told us that. Bad snake. Look, you should never bite anybody, but it's all right to hiss. Because all the snake needs to protect itself is just to get up and hiss at you. If a snake came along in history, you'd run. So that's what they said. And that was Buddha. She can hiss, but just don't bite. In other words, he can be assertive without harming anybody. So if it's in your your family, an interesting thing. Suppose like a Buddhist force and others say a Catholic or a muslim. And they say, well, you know, you have to change your face and become a muslim like me. No way. If you love me, you should become a Buddhist. You hiss a little bit. And in the end, he said, okay, we've come to a compromise and I'll be a Buddhist. You'll be a muslim. Now why not? If we are going to be able to live together in a world, there's no way we can have this. All Buddhists in the world, all Muslims or all Christians. You have to learn how to live together. Notice his neighbors. There's husbands and wives. Why not? So he should be a little bit assertive and lovely to see some. So disciples in places like Singapore do that because they've got enough freedom there. And suddenly people think Singapore isn't free. But it's sometimes it's a remarkably free country in many ways. And because the government is very forceful, they can actually maintain freedoms and keep religions in check. And sometimes I think religions do need to be kept in check. And if somebody's over us to stop us going to too much extremes. But anyway, um. Yeah, you can always be. You can always hiss a bit. I did a fair amount of kissing at the conference in Phnom Penh. So any other questions or comments on enlightenment? Oh, you got two over there. My goodness. He's got one as well. These are husband and wife. Was it. Just this whole time that they know that you just don't kiss until they get to you? Oh, okay. So if you do that all the time, you're being exploited. You just hearsay. Find out because they read my book and listen to my talks and say, okay, now they're doing their history. They won't bite anymore. Actually, kissing could be quite effective sometimes. So you can not just hit yourself. You can get all of the other friends to hiss. So when all of our put us down together, we hiss together. We've got 2.11% of the population. That's a lot of hissing. That's amazing. Just what sort of peaceful but assertive action can achieve. Cry wolf. No, no, no cry wolf. You never pretending that you're gonna bite. So there's other ways of being, like, forceful, being assertive without being aggressive. And sometimes, I mean, you take the prime example of that is um, the Gandhi non peace movement in India, who, you know, he was he was responsible of throwing the British Empire out of its jewel in the crown. It's amazing just the power of that sort of moment in India at that particular time. I don't think no violence would have got rid of the British Raj in India for that did. That was an amazing story. So never underestimate the power of hissing. If it's done the right way. So you had a question to. Ask. And then right on on he hit in the same hand. You go in Hong Kong on. Now given an example. Yeah. It's just, uh. Oh, that's just in, uh. There was a supposed to be making peace and harmony in our region and basically Asean region, and also New Zealand and Australia. But just a little thing that our delegation from Australia had, say three Muslims. I was the only Buddhist. And you know that the demography of Australia is 2.1% of Buddhists, 1.7% of Muslims. So Dave and the delegation was skewed. And just what happens is religious alone have no one to support you. Sometimes you know, what you say doesn't really get hurt. So there's a bit of discrimination there. And they were talking about how a great interfaith work is done by, you know, schoolchildren of different faiths, schools meeting each other. And then I sort of came up and said, there is not one Buddhist school in the whole of Australia. In Singapore. The Buddhist high school in Singapore. This Holy One has many Christian schools and is now over 50% for this country in Singapore. But even the Buddhist high school there, Manjusri, is called a third choice school. So many and even in Thailand, these schools have Buddhist schools. In Thailand, you know, not the elite schools at all. They get very little funding. So and there's no Buddhist schools at all in Malaysia. So no, there's even like a lack of education and it's 30%, I think, Buddhist in Malaysia. So there's a lack of equal education opportunities. I just brought that up. But you know, it's not really interesting. So I was hitting up here. Yeah. So that's just an example. Okay. Well okay. One two questions. We have to finish afterwards. Yeah. That's actually an interesting one because when I saw those images I thought I can't support that. That's not Buddhism. And if that was a Buddhist monk, then, you know, that is really just going too far. I know he was Chinese. That's what I heard. So I was going to say that I got some message on the internet from a BBC reporter who said that that could have been sort of, um, Chinese bravery, obviously a smart thing to do to get sort of, uh, freezing, to get a rope, get someone to dress up, kicking the door and make the county canvasser. So I know that did actually happen in Burma when they had some violence. Is not this this demonstration, as many years ago they had some of the people dressed up as monks, but they didn't take off their shoes. And so people were caught on camera. And that said, so they have to find out they weren't real monks who were dressed up could have been there. But if there was real monks, I don't know. So how was romance stateless? Were not doing the right thing. So yes, Jesus said, love your enemies. Unfortunately, I have to go this far. Yeah its again. Love your enemies. The Chinese saying is love your enemies but at a distance. In other words, right away if they've got a god, you don't get half and then you get shot. It's different. It's a very hard thing to do to love your enemies. Verse. Oh, it's another talk actually. How to do that. First of all, you have to forgive your enemies. And before you forgive your enemies, you have to find something in the worthy of forgiveness to see some redeeming feature, some beauty in them. And then when you say the redeeming beautiful feature in them, it's much easier to forgive than got something to love in them. When you have an enemy, all you see is the the qualities in them which made you hate them. The pain and hurt which they caused you to see the bigger picture, to see them more than that is how we move towards unmitigated hatred and seeing a bigger picture. And I'm moving forward to love can be done with the incremental stage by stage. Moving away from just seeing the pain into seeing something bigger. That's another story. Uh, and I did say, too. But then I always give in. Go on. Did you ever see her? I think she did. Actually, we in the end, actually, we encouraged her to disrobe and move back to France. And there with her mum. And I think then she wrote back to say she felt much better. I think she was just getting too ascetic. Can I sometimes, you know that people get into that, especially with this. This is like a a new man or new man problem. They decided to have a monk. Now I'm going to get enlightened this week. And they just go for broke rather than being gentle. Said even when you have retreats, sometimes they say, oh, well, we retreat now. This is it. That's aggressive. And that's, you know, it's not what a Buddha would now put to us. This people got the ideas. Compassionate and kind and peaceful. Not so slow. Some tough guy. Not so much a superhero in the movies. It was beating up people. So very kind and peaceful. So sometimes we get into to a too much asceticism. But I'm about. One cannot be what they. So are cast off by combat and come on their own dark night, my son. So far cry. No, I have gone white. So shall I. With the sun glow I found 100.
