Buddhism and Sexuality | Ajahn Brahm

Buddhism and Sexuality | Ajahn Brahm [ Robot generate transcription - expect errors! } Hello. As usual, when I come here on a Friday night, I don't bring a talk with me. Usually I haven't got a clue what I was going to talk about, but this evening somebody just whatever's fresh in your mind, I suppose, what you talk about. The last question that was somebody asked me before I came in here was an interesting question is you may have seen in the newspapers there was in the Anglican church there was a person who's about to become a bishop, but he was a homosexual and he got knocked back. And so somebody was asking me if that happened in budhism, what would happen? And so it made some nice little start of a talk about Buddhism and sexuality. Should have mentioned that talk before budhism and sex and then wouldn't have gone out the door. Oh, this is interesting. But we start off with like sort of homosexuality. It brings us an example of how we apply Buddhist wisdom and budhist values to things of the world. And whenever we put Buddhist values, especially moral values, and the Buddhism has many moral values. The Buddhism is known for its morality, for its tolerance, for its peace, for its nonviolence, which are very strong moral values. It's known for its compassion, its kindness. But in particular, it's known for its wisdom, especially in the terms of morality. And that wisdom what's always guided me throughout my life as a senior monk, when people have asked me to actually pronounce on moral issues, first of all, I say I haven't got the right to pronounce for you. I've only got the right to pronounce for me. No monk speaks ex cathedral like a pope, not even sort of the senior monks. All a monk can do is actually to try and help a person make the decision for themselves on what is good and what is wrong. But in particular, there's one teaching which the Buddha gave to his son. His son was called Rahula, which was interesting, means feta. Imagine you call your son ball and chain. I think you could understand why he called him Paul and Shane. Because once you have a son or a daughter, then you're in prison for 1820 years, maybe longer. But once he sort of told his son that, never do anything which hurts yourself or hurts another person. And that was the basis of what we mean by morality. Why? What's wrong? What's bad? Anything which hurts another or hurts oneself. And so you can actually see whether it's with sexuality or with euthanasia or with, like, an animal who's sick. And you take them to the vet, that story. The person who took his big Labrador dog to the vet, he only had an eye trouble, and the vet picked him up, turned him upside down, had a look this way and that way, and said, I'm very sorry, you're going to have to put your Labrador down. What? He's only got a bad eye. It's not because he's bad. I've got to put him down. I've got to put him down because he's heavy. That's today's joke, folks. It. It. But sometimes we face these more these more problems of putting something down or the problem of homosexuality or the problem of euthanasia and always go back to harm is it harming somebody or harming oneself? And these are basic the basic two precepts which I ask people to keep. Sometimes people can't we have budhist five precepts sometimes people can't keep five precepts somehow they can't count to five especially the fifth precept, which is alcohol. They can't count that far. So I tell people at least keep two precepts and those two precepts are not doing anything which hurts yourself or hurts another person and from that actually you can draw out what's good and what's bad and it makes a reason why we have morality because what sensible, wise person would hurt themselves or hurt someone else? If you're wise and sensible, you never do that. But sometimes, because of what we call the defilements of the mind things like greed, hatred, ill will which sometimes obsess us or because of like drunkenness sometimes we do do things hurt other people or hurt ourselves out of craziness. So by checking am I doing this? Is it hurting somebody or hurting someone else? That's the basic check. And if you find it's not hurting, it's not harming, but it's actually helping somebody, helping the world, then that's okay. Go ahead, do it. That's basic morality, basic virtue in Buddhism. So when we come to something like homosexuality, you say, is it hurting or harming? And then it makes the answer very, very clear. It doesn't really depend on whether it's homosexuality, heterosexuality celibacy. It's not. The thing in itself is the problem. It's how people behave within that framework. And just homosexuality, heterosexuality celibacy. That's not the point. It's what you're doing with it is the point. As a monk. So before, as a monk, sort of, I was a heterosexual, not a homosexual at all. But having come to know this of homosexuals, it's interesting. It's like, as a man, most heterosexuals become afraid, first of all, of homosexuality. It's a barrier you have to go across. I remember one occasion early on in my life here in Perth. One of the anagarikas, the drivers, because in Mark I'm not allowed to drive myself. So we had one of the drivers took me into town one day. I had some business in Perth and we parked in one of the multi story car parks in HayStreet, I think it was. And the anagarika with me insisted on going to the toilets, but he refused to use the toilets in the a car park. He said they were dirty, but he said he knew there's one toilet in the foyer of one of the cinemas, I think. I'm not sure. It was in Hay Street or Murray Street somewhere. And so I said, okay, fair enough. I'm an easy going monk. So when he went in the toilet in one of these cinemas, I stood outside waiting for him to finish. I was standing outside there in my mug robes. He was taking a bit of a while and this young man came up to me and said, excuse me, have you got the time? I've been a monk a long time, and sometimes I'm very, very naive. And as a monk, you don't wear watches. So I said, I'm sorry, I haven't got the time. Then he looked at me in a very strange way and started walking away. And then the penny dropped. I realized that. Have you got the time? Is one of the oldest pickup lines in the world. I later found out that that particular cinema was a wellknown pickup place for gays. And there I was, standing outside the it, and I started to sweat as this man turned around. He looked at me and in the most effeminate voice said, oh, but you do look beautiful in that robe. The suspense was about to have a heart attack, and fate forced me. The anagarika came out the toilet and rescued me just in time. I really told him off. I'm never going to allow any anagarika to use that toilet ever again, especially with me standing outside. But that was my gay experience as a monk. So a lot of the time there is actually a fear which comes up and sometimes you can actually see where all of the problems come from and not facing that fear of something different, something which you don't know. And because of that, that some sometimes people do have problems when maybe their children turn out to be gay or turn out to be lesbians. And I've got many letters from people, especially in more what you might call conservative societies in Malaysia and Singapore, and saying, I've just found out that my son is gay. What should I do? And it's really a sad thing that we should even have to ask that question. And I said, as a Buddhist, you should always remember that the Buddhist loving kindness where we say that may all beings be happy and well. Remember writing this answer to this, lady, don't you chant every week? May all beings be happy and well. The door of my heart is open to all beings. Isn't your son one of those beings? Doesn't matter if he's a homosexual, heterosexual, celibate or whatever he is. The door of my heart goes out to everybody, no matter who they are. So I said, doesn't matter if he's a homosexual, heterosexual or whatever. Love your son. That's your duty. The point is that once we have that encouragement we realize that this is what our heart tells us. What sometimes society tell us or what conventions tell us is something that's wrong. We get embarrassed, we get upset. But that's going back to the basic morality of Buddhism. If you're going to be rejecting your son or rejecting somebody just because of a name, because of a convention, is that really kindness? Is that really helping someone or harming them? And straight away we find out that's actually harming somebody by not accepting them for who they are. When we actually have a child or a friend or accomplice not accomplice. We're not burglars. We have someone we know sort of who's a homosexual. It doesn't matter sort of what their preferences are. What is important is actually how they deal with that. Whether they're a good person or a bad person. Whether they are someone who's trustworthy, faithful, responsible. So as far as I'm concerned, my idea of that sort of morality, it doesn't matter if you're a heterosexual, homosexual or whatever you are, as long as you make use of that in a wise, compassionate, virtuous way, you're not harming others with your sexuality. Obviously somebody who is like a paedophile because it's quite clear that so children who've got not that much control and certainly there can be the problems with power, a person in power who's older, more mature, with somebody who's much younger and more immature, the older person can very easily have control over the younger person. That's not right because there's not a sense of fairness there. People might say it's consensual, but it's not consensual in the case of, like, pedophilia. And so that's some in which you can say is harming and it's hurting others. And we all notice the results of people who have been sexually abused as children it creates a huge amount of hurt and harm. So it's very clear that in Buddhism that is immoral, that's wrong. It's the same with, like, students and their teachers. That also is wrong because again, it's the power just makes your relationship sort of unfair and wrong. It does again create a lot of problems and difficulties. So that's why that you can actually make it very clear why these things are wrong, why they're immoral, because of the harm and the hurt which it gives in life. This is the same with a person who just runs around from relationship to relationship or cheats within relationships. That hurts the other person because in a relationship, we trust each other. We trust each other to be doing the right thing. That's one of the most important parts of a relationship. Now, maybe in the world, in business especially, people say they can't keep that fourth precept. They have to lie, they have to tell Porcupines every now and again because of business. But okay, I don't really agree with that. I think that even in business, actually you can be honest. And actually in the long term, that would do well for your business, for your career. You'll be like an honest person. Other people trust, and trust is important for business confidence. But at least if you think you can't actually be honest in your business, if you can't be honest with other people, at least be honest with one person in your life and that's the person you live with. Because if there's no trust between two people, then it becomes a very, very lonely life. You can't open up to another person and to have that trust in, like a relationship, the other person has to have that love and that forgiveness to actually to allow you to open up and to say things which some times you feel embarrassed about. It's one of those things in a relationship that you know there's one person you can actually open your heart up to and even admit to tell them terrible, terrible things which you've done and be understood and not be criticized. Sometimes you haven't got that person in your life as in the relationship. Sometimes you adopt a monk because monks are great. You can tell all sorts of things to monks and we never tell anybody else. And also, we're very uncritical about what you say. Because a lot of times that the monks understand, just like in life we do make mistakes sometimes and those mistakes, if we we keep them inside can become so great and so huge they cause us an enormous amount of suffering. We're guilty. We're afraid of other people finding out. A lot of times those mistakes which we make the things which we think are very terrible about ourselves are actually very, very small more but we keep them to ourselves. They grow to immense know. Usually I tell it's like the simile know the times as a monk. I don't think I told a story just a few weeks ago, but I'll tell it again. The time as a monk when he used to sit meditation in the jungles alone in the middle of the night when it was dark. And in the jungles in Thailand there are elephants. And elephants are not like the elephants in the zoo. The elephants in nature they sort of pick you up with their trunk and they bash you around all over the place. It happened to a monk in Sri Lanka who nearly came very close to dying attacked by a rogue elephant. There's also tigers which eat you. They look upon monks as dinner. So there's all these and it speaks snakes in Thailand, which also can swallow. You remember the hundred species? I was told this when I first went to Thailand by a very I thought he was a very, very kind person. But I changed my opinion of him after he told me this. He said there's hundred species of snake in Thailand. 99 are venomous. They bite. You in big trouble on the hundredth. One strangles you to death. They're all dangerous. So the forest in the jungle is a very dangerous place. And so you'd be meditating alone at night with no protection, and you'd hear these sounds, the jungle sounds, when it gets dark and you can't see anything, you can't see to the end of your nose. You hear these sounds of the animals walking through the jungle. You most of them would be small animals, but every now and again you'd hear the sound of a big animal. And sometimes that big animal will come towards you. You'd hear its footsteps approaching. And as it's approaching, you forget your breath and you start thinking about the animal. What is it? Is this one a tiger? You think, no, no, it's just too small for a tiger. Their footprints, you know, the footsteps are just too soft. But then you'll listen a bit more closely and hang on. That's not a small animal at all. That's a big animal. And you'd actually check it out. That's not even just a middle sized animal. That's a huge animal. If that's a tiger, that's a big one that's coming right towards me. And out of fear, you'd open your eyes to look at the tiger. You know how big the tiger would be? It'd only be a tiny mouse. Not even a big mouse. It'd be a tiny mouse. And you look at it and that was your tiger, because you'd exaggerated it. It's amazing the way the mind amplifies things. Small things become huge. Little mice become huge tigers because of fear, because of the negativity of the mind. It's the same way that small thoughts in a human being become huge faults. Which is why it's wonderful to be able to actually just talk them out with another person, to take them out in the open. Like opening your eyes in the jungle and you see it's not such a big thing after all. That's why we have relationships, to be able to open ourselves up to other people, so we can hear what we're saying, so we know what we're doing. We realize it's not such a big thing after all. But of course, we need that trust in that other person. And that trust in the relationship is most important. And that's why if we play around outside of our relationship, it hurts the other person. It's a breach of trust. It's a break of these two people who come together and say, well, you're going to be my partner. Not just a sexual partner, but spiritual partner, an emotional partner, a heart partner, somebody I can actually be with, who will never criticize me. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Someone who will actually listen to me and understand me. Someone who can actually say, there's those words which I keep on repeating. Here the door of my heart's open to you. No matter who you are, no matter what you do with all your mistakes, I'll always be your friend. I will never criticize you, put you down. I will understand you. I'll never measure you or compare you. I'll accept you as who you are. That's like the trust of a relationship. I think that's important to have that in any relationship. Which is why when people actually break relationships and they sleep around with other people or do this and do that, I don't think it's really. Something which helps, but I think it's something which harms it harms this trust until sometimes people become so mistrustful they don't open themselves out to anybody in life. They keep everything inside and they fester as a result. Because of they fester, they get all these terrible psychological problems lack of self esteem, guilt, fear, all this whole wage of difficulties which stops them being happy and being free in life. So if we have any sexuality, it's very good. So keep it with a person we can trust to make it much more than just simple getting pleasure out of life, but having relationships. And that actually brings me up to the other part of Buddhism and sexuality, the pleasures in life which we have, okay, that's part of the lay life to have those physical pleasures. But actually, after a while you start to investigate those things, to know those things. And after a while sometimes there's a sense of bit of boredom comes in, a sense of being there done that comes in. And this is actually important as a Buddhist, actually, to realize that there is another way other than that sexuality. First of all, we have to restrain that sexuality because it comes unrestrained. It just creates more pain and difficulty for us when we do restrain it. From time to time, we find a sense of like peace inside of ourselves and. Because there's one thing which the Buddha said about sexuality there is happiness there, but the happiness is very short lived and there's lots of problems afterwards, difficulties in the sexuality. And sometimes we think, isn't there something else in life other than this? And there is something more than that. So after a while with people messing around with sexuality, sometimes they want something more in life, a deeper happiness, a deeper sense of peace. Which is why, after a while, the people start to do meditation. And anyone who actually goes on a meditation retreat, have you ever noticed that one of the things you have to do on a meditation retreat is keep these things called eight precepts, which is celibacy for the time of the retreat? And the reason one does this is because it actually helps put all that energy, which you'd usually waste in sexuality, into some other place, into the mind, inside rather than outside. And. It's a way of developing a deeper happiness. We all need to restrain our sexuality. When you're married, you have to keep your sexuality within your marriage. As a young man, a young woman, you have to restrain yourself. Otherwise you get into big trouble. So there's always a sense of restraint. In a retreat, you take that restraint a bit further of like no sexuality, to see what that is like. Sometimes when we want to know sexuality, sometimes we want to know its opposite of no sexuality to get a perspective on it. This is all the time when we need to know things. We need to know sometimes when those things aren't there, to get the perspectives. And so after a while, if one just restrains that sexuality for a little one and has no sexuality, no one understands what sexuality is all about. Which is why Monks can actually talk like this, because we've taken ourselves out of the game. We're like the umpires who neither play for Fremantle Dockers nor the West Coast Eagles. We're the umpires. We stand in the middle outside of the game. Which is why you can actually see both sides. And as you take yourself out of the game of sexuality, you find there is another way, which is like the peace of the mind through meditation, which is why, like, monks are celibate. But if monks are going to be celibate, you have to have some support for that celibacy, which has to be like the meditation. Which is why that sometimes when you see especially like, Catholic priests who have to be celibate I remember many years ago, I used to go and teach in a prison in Bunbury, and the only way I could actually do that was actually to spend a night in Bunbury. And the Catholic priests in Bunbury were compassionate and kind enough to actually let me stay in their parish house. So for a couple of years I used to go there once a fortnight, I think it was, and stay overnight with the Catholics. I used to joke at the time I'd infiltrated the headquarters of the opposition in Camp Bumbury, but they weren't the opposition. They were my friends used to have some good fun there. Remember one time that all the other priests had gone out that night. Because they have to be on call if anyone needs any special attention. And I was the only one in the house, and there was a knock on the door because somebody needed a priest in emergency. So I answered the door, and this poor Catholic lady, they saw me and just went into shock. I told the priest after I said, please never do that again. Just let a knock on the door. And they've respected a Buddhist monk at a Catholic next to the Catholic cathedral. Well, I had good fun then. They're very kind, very kind to me. But I also had some good chats with them, especially after I finished off, finished teaching in the jail and come back in the evening just about what it's like to be a Catholic priest, what it's like to be a monk. And I thought I was very actually moved with compassion that as a Catholic priest, they never had any support for their celibacy. They had to be celibate, but they never really knew why or how they could remain celibate. They were always out there with the people, never have any time really in retreat, never have any meditation to really get them something which was much more deeper than sexuality. So it was a lot of endurance, which they had to make, I felt, sort of a lot of compassion. And for those who actually made it, I thought, well done. It's something which is very hard to do. But especially for a Buddhist monk. Not only do we have, like, rules which help us with the celibacy, we have the beautiful meditation which actually takes away the need for sexuality. It's a different way of living. The reason is that after a while in your meditation, like what you were doing just a few moments ago when you were meditating here, you get some peace and a quietness which is so beautiful and so lovely that it's better than sex. And that's one of the selling points which we have for meditation these days, happiness better than sex. With none of the problems in meditation, never have babies. And actually, a lot of people, actually, even though they may not get into the very deep meditation, they can actually feel what we're meaning. There it is, a very, very beautiful happiness, a beautiful peace which gets more and more, which gets into no real big bliss status. And the reason is that you're letting go of one happiness to get a happiness which is much more, much deeper. And. It. So when a person is actually celibate, especially as a Buddhist monk, you're not doing this out of frustration, out of tension, out of trying to subdue the natural urges in the body. You're fighting some other natural urges which are still right there, but even actually more profound than, like, sexuality. So it's not a suppression. It's a joy in celibacy, a joy in something else, which gives you the perspective. And what that sort of perspective means is actually you can be with people of opposite genders without any of that sexuality interfering. And it's not a repress, it's not playing games. It's a reality. It makes it very helpful as a Buddhist monk to actually to be beyond that sexuality. So you can actually talk to all sorts of people. And it's not that sort of that sexuality interferes with the exchange too often, especially if a woman is talking to a man, they never know whether that's a possible sexual encounter there, whether it's a partnership maybe happening there, whether the relationship possible. And so because of that, sometimes the opening up towards one another is done on different levels. If it's like a monk, an asexual sort of person, an asexual friend, then there's a different type of relationship possibility, a different type of opening up, a different way of talking with each other. It is knowing that the person is like the umpire, the referee. They're not playing on either side. Also, the things you can say you won't be able to say to others. And I find it very wonderful being in that situation where you can actually talk to people and then realize there's not a potential sexual partner there that makes it much more free, much more rewarding. It's like as a counselor, as a friend. That's one of the advantages of actually that type of celibacy. But also it's the advantage of being able to share one's kindness out not just with one person, but with many people, without the problems which one can have in the lay life. With that sort of sharing, there's actually like a trust can be built up with many people rather than just with one. A relationship with many rather than just with one. A love which can go to many, many people rather than just with one. Because sometimes when there's sexuality, we have to have a sense of commitment to one sort of person rather than just an involvement. And because of that, that all of our energies are focused on one person. With celibacy, because that's taken away, you can actually focus on many people and. And so that's why we have this beautiful ideal of love in Buddhism, like the door of my heart's open not just to you, but to everybody, whoever you are. So it's in the sense of like having that love not just towards one particular partner in the world, which is what happens with sexuality, but actually spreading it out to many, many people and without the problems of sexuality. So that way, in the celibacy of monasticism, it has many, many advantages there as long as it's becoming natural, obviously, that if that meditation doesn't really gel for a monk or for a nun, and they don't get into the deep meditations. If they don't get happiness from their meditation after a while, you find that people who join monastic life after a while believe simply because that their happiness in meditation is not there. So they go back to the happiness of the world and sexuality. And it's much better, as you all know, that if you're going to be an unhappy monk, it's best not to be a monk at all. If you're going to be a nun who's not happy, then best to go back to the laylife. There's no sense of failure or a sense of blame if a person does this. In fact, usually there's a sense of, oh, well done, you've given it a try, you've really given a few years and you've done quite a lot. That's good karma, well done. So there's no sense of like, judging or putting a person down because of that. And it's one of the nice things about particular type of Buddhism or monasticism which we practice here, is one of the things which actually attracted me to become a monk in this tradition. Because when you become a monk, you don't have to become a monk forever. You can become a monk however long you feel comfortable being a monk and you can disrobe whenever you like. And because of that, it meant that people weren't going to stay as monks because of some vow they made many, many years ago, which now doesn't really make sense for them. And so because of that freedom to disrobe whenever you want, it means that you only stay as a monk if you're enjoying it, if you're having fun, if you're having satisfaction with your celibacy, not only with your celibacy, but with other things which you're doing a monastic life. So because of that, that we have like a happy monk would. And a happy nunhood. And that's actually quite fascinating in this world to have that, to have examples of people who are not sexual at all but still having very, very fulfilling lives. Because what it does, it takes away this idea in the Western world that sexuality is necessary and that you have to be sexual. What it's doing is that those people in this world or in this hall right here who feel that sexuality is not so important for them. It shows you a group of folks, a group of women at Damasar Monastery who are saying, well, if you want to be sexual, go for it. If you want to be celibate, go for it. Both are possible. So often in this world, we tend to be compelled by the fads, the fashions of our society, the fashions of our world, people who say, if you haven't got a partner, something's terribly wrong with you. That if you can't have a relationship, then you're some sort of deviant, that you're not the right in the head or whatever it is. And because of that force of fashion, force of what we're expected to be, what we expected to live up with that causes so much suffering in ourselves and. The point. What I'm trying to make is actually by seeing people who are celibate happy, it's giving you another opportunity. If you feel like being celibate as well, you can actually also be happy as well. You don't have to actually follow what people expect of you. When you see a much wider range of possibilities presented before you, you can actually choose whichever one you feel appropriate at that time in your life. So if you want to be celibate, you can say, well, there's a Bukham monks over there. They're having a great time, so it can't be all that bad. If you want to be sexual, fine. There's a group of people in our Buddhist society and with their wives and with their husbands who are doing a lot of good work, that's okay too. What you're doing is actually freeing up the parameters of your life, giving yourself more options and being proud, being happy with the option you've taken in life. What it's actually doing there is giving people responsibility and be given pride in their lives, giving themselves self acceptance, which is what really Budhism is trying to do for each one of us, whether one is homosexual, heterosexual or celibate. To be proud of that, to be accepting of that, not to compare it, not to say it's better, it's worse, it's the same. We have a teaching in Buddhism about the word conceit. And it was a very powerful teaching which the Buddha gave about conceit, about pride. He said what pride is, is not just thinking I am better than the person next to me or that person over there, but pride is also thinking I'm worse than that person or even I'm the same. All judging and comparing of yourself with someone else, the Buddha said, is called conceit because if you actually look at actually how it works in your mind, as soon as you say I'm better than that person over there, you also think you're worse than somebody else. That's probably why you even think I must be better, because you also at times think you're worse or you're the same. Well, the Buddha was saying we don't compare ourselves with other beings. We don't say I'm better, we don't say I'm worse. We don't say I'm the same. Because how can you compare yourself with somebody else? Instead you accept yourself as you are without that comparison. If you are homosexual, be at peace with yourself as you are. You're not better than anybody else, you're not worse than anybody else, you're not the same as anybody else. We don't even actually any of those things. We don't accept you're, just you, that's all. When you actually allow yourself to be, you give yourself immense amount of freedom. And when you're not comparing yourself with other people, straight away you're undermining this terrible thing we call lack of self esteem. Inside of us, guilt, fear, all these things coming. When we compare ourselves with other people, when we compare our sexuality with other people, when we afraid because we go against the conventions of some dogmatic people in the world, we're not allowing ourselves to be we're not loving ourselves, we're not allowing ourselves to be free. And because of that we have lack of self esteem, depression, sometimes even suicide. So one of the wonderful things about Buddhism is actually giving oneself a sense of acknowledgment, a sense of acceptance, a sense of peace. As long as you're not doing anything which harms another person or harms yourself, be at peace with yourself as you are. Don't compare yourself with others. Don't judge and. Even as a monk, you don't judge. I'm the best monk in the whole monastery. I'm much better than a monk sitting over there. We don't do that. We don't judge at all. You know what it's like sometimes in life. You're always competing with others. That competition is one of the terrible things of our society. It's so bad that even in school we compete with our fellow students to try and get the best marks, to get the places in university, to get the best jobs in life. We all know that competition sometimes does not help the school, does not help the business, does not help the society we're in. That's why, a long time ago, because I was a school teacher myself and I saw that in the schools kids competing against each other, trying to get the best marks. And in organizations, maybe in Buddhist societies, competing to be the best, which means, like, stabbing each other in the back, wasting a lot of time when you could be working together. I always thought that if ever I had any influence in education we should have a way of examinations at the end of the year. Year or testing a person, grading them the end of the year. Maybe sort of 60% your own personal efforts. And the other 40% averaged over the whole class. So if the whole class did well, you did well. If the whole class did poorly, you did poorly. Because that way it would be in the students interest, actually for the strong ones to help the weak ones, for them to have not just competition, but cooperation. It because we all know that in any organization, it's not just competition, but cooperation is also important. To be able to succeed in a business, to succeed in life. Without that teaching our kids cooperation, when they go into the workforce, they're just thinking about their own career, what they want, what they need. That their needs. Never think about the other people in the office when you go into a family. Just my needs. Never thinking about the other people in the family. We learn not to cooperate, but to compete all the time. Because competing is all about being the best. I'm better, I'm worse. I'm the same. Conceit again, cooperation is lovingkindness. Door of my heart's open to you. Come in and we can work together. Which is why that sometimes that we need much more like cooperation. Working together with homosexuals, heterosexuals celibates with Buddhists, Catholics, Jews, Islam, Muslims, whoever. Working together, cooperation is important. We have time for competition as well. We see who's the best religion. But that's only half of it. A third of it, a fraction of it. Because sometimes I think that's good in our present society, when all the different religions have to come together, when we're all, as it were, competing on the spiritual marketplace of our world, then every religion has to get up their game, as they say. And because there was only just one religion which was available in our society, then there wouldn't be that need to actually what I call market forces to really, actually get your religion together, to present it well, to meet the needs of the people and to do a good job. I think it's one of the great things of our society that in one city we have all the different religions, even in Buddhism, many different Buddhist societies. So if we can actually keep the Buddhist society of West Australia in this place full, we have to make sure we meet the needs of the people. That competition can be very important, but we also need a cooperation to work together. One of the things which I have seen with religions in this world that people will not tolerate anymore, people putting down other religions they will not tolerate anymore. Just no religions putting up barriers against each other. They want people of religion actually not being hypocrites anymore. If we talk about love, we should start practicing it, which means we do say not just to fellow Buddhists, but to everybody. The door of my heart's open, really with meaning. So not just playing around, but actually finding those bridges, making those bridges. Once those bridges are made, actually walking over those bridges to meet people on the other side, to be friends with them. When religions start to do that, when we start to teach not just by words, but by example, when we show people of different beliefs can work together in harmony. We can cooperate, we can be friends. We're also showing the different sexualities of the world. We also can be friends. We can cooperate, we can work together. Are that everybody is included in in the one religious family. In the one sexual family. Homosexuals, heterosexuals and celibates. Sometimes you understand what homosexuals feel about being rejected, because even more deviant these days than homosexuality is celibacy. And it people think the monks must be really, really deviant. Can understand about a man looking for a girl, a girl looking for a man. I understand men are men and women are women these days having no sexuality at all. Wow, you guys must be really frustrated. That's what actually they say celibacy is the most deviant of all. I'm very proud of being the most deviant. We deviate from this enjoyment of the sensory world, but what we're actually saying is that bring everybody in together so which we can cooperate rather than compete. We can live together in peace and harmony that way that we can actually do something for this world. When I see that, whether it's celibates or whether it's homosexuals or any portion of the society being rejected like that, it sort of hurts my heart. I actually was hoping that the Anglican Church could make a strong stand and say, it doesn't matter whether you're a homosexual, whether you're from Mars or you've Planet Zog, wherever you're from, if you're a good bishop, come in, you can be a good bishop. So in Buddhist monasticism, even if you're an alien, if you're a good monk, you can come out of space actually saying that it's like an inclusiveness. And I think people can actually understand that that is the way we find peace and happiness inside ourselves as well, because it's part of ourselves which sometimes doesn't fit the standards of society. Part of ourselves now, which if we brought out into the open, we might be very embarrassed about. Part of ourselves which needs outing, as they say in Gay language. And the part of ourselves which we hide from others our secrets which we're afraid to allow other people to hear those are the parts of ourselves in which there is much pain and much suffering. It's wonderful for one day to feel that there's one person or two people or many people or the whole world would accept even that part of you as well to accept you as you are, the whole of you with your faults. Because in that acceptance, in that peace in that acceptance, there is that peace who's that sense of coming home, that acceptance of I'm okay. Sometimes you may think you're weird. Sometimes that people have actually come up and told me of their weirdness. Sometimes they come up and say, but you've never heard this before. And I say, Listen, sir, I've heard that so many times. We all think we're different. We all think we're unique. We all think we're original. It's one of the things which I found out when I was a monk and people started telling me their problems. First time I heard that problem, it was unique. The second person who came up, I've heard that before somewhere. Third person. Here we go again. The same problems. Maybe dressed in different clothes, but the same problems. Something about oneself which one rejects, one doesn't feel at ease with, or rather, which you feel society doesn't feel at ease with. The idea you're trying to live up to some ideal of a society. And you can't do that because part of you is rejected by society, rejected by your parents, rejected by your loved ones, rejected by somebody or other. So you can't feel free with yourself. Because this part of you which you feel if you'd really express would not be acceptable to others, you have this war inside of yourself, this tension. This is how I am. This is how I can't be after a while, that's of war. That tension inside causes immense psychological damage, immense psychic hurt. After a while, there comes a time when you let go, you let yourself be. You allow yourself to be. And that's called love. That's called freedom. That's called contentment. All these words are coming from this pointed to the same object, the same thing. This is why I love these three words contentment, love. Letting go. Love is where you say the door of my heart's open not just to a person, but to a state, to a thing, to a mind state, to part of you. The door of my heart's open to this thing inside of me which I'm afraid of. Come in. I'll embrace you, I'll be with you. You can be my friend, I can be who I am. The door of my heart's open to me. That's called love. Letting go is stopping all this. Trying to be different. Trying to be the great monk. Trying to be the great wife. Trying to be the great father. Trying to be the great president. Trying to be the great this or that. How much time and pain have you had in your life? Trying to live up to somebody's expectations, or even worse, trying to live up to your expectations. You never you never reach those expectations. After a while, you let go, allow yourself to be as you are. That's why I'm never tense when I give these talks. I'm never afraid when I give these talks. This is who I am. I tell silly jokes. I'm not afraid of doing that. If you don't like it, that's who I am. I can't do anything else. That's that's me. Those of you who've known me a long time, you know that. That's all I am. So you relax with yourself. You allow yourself to be. You let go. People like it, don't like it. You're not doing this to try and live up to somebody's expectation. You're not doing this to please others. How much of your life have you spent trying to please others? You now the time to let go and be, to take off all those barriers, all those force, and just be. Let go. Let yourself be, which is being content with who you are, being at peace with who you are, when you can be content with who you are and. Then you can be content with others. When you're content with others, you can be content with life. When you're content with life, then you're enlightened. You're not craving for something different anymore for those people. Homosexual, be content. If you're sexual, heterosexual, be content. If you're celibate, be content. Learn to be at peace with yourself. Come home. Don't worry what other people think of you. Don't worry what you think of you. Don't measure yourself against others. Better, worse, the same. And that way we can all find our place in this world, a place of peace. And as Buddhists, try and have a wide heart. Which is why the Buddha said that may all living beings be happy and well. Not just the human beings. Even those beings which irritate you to the cockroaches in your kitchen, the mosquitoes are landing your arm. May all beings be happy and well. Because those beings, even the little mosquitoes, are only looking for a bit of blood, something to eat. You've got plenty left. They don't take it all. They always leave you some mosquitoes, being mosquitoes. That's all. One of the things I found as a monk in Thailand, if you just leave them alone, they just take a little bit of blood. And also if you leave them actually to drink properly, then they actually take all that little stuff they put in there and it doesn't itch so much if you disturb them, they leave some of this chemical or whatever it is stuff in your blood and it itches much more over if you actually just try and disturb them. They just go and sort of go and bite you somewhere else. They bite somebody else. They'd like two bits of suffering rather than just one bit of suffering in life. So just out of compassion for others, say, come bite me. Bite me, please bite me. Come on, bite me. And that and that way they're irritating mosquitoes. Cockroaches. They're troublesome. That's why we love them. That's why we accept them. Your husband is troublesome. Your wife is irritating. That's why we love them. It's just too easy to marry and love a perfect person. There'll be nothing in that at all. That's why we're testing out ourselves. This is life, this is growth. The great university of learning just how much we can love and tolerate and accept and cooperate rather than compete. So if you got a very difficult husband, a very hard wife to live with, you are very lucky. You got the opportunity to learn the best. You got the best teach is you're in the best class, the far stream to nibbana. So what we really mean there is, like, we have this wonderful sense of acceptance, encouragement of ourselves, to be at peace with things. And this is actually what I meant with just the rejection of some people in society or the rejection of some part of ourselves all coming from the same place. It's hatred and ill will rejection judging long ride, the monk the harder it is to judge others so hard for me to say anyone you're evil or your good I never actually met anyone who's absolutely evil, never met anyone who's absolutely good. I just met people, that's all. Just met cockroaches, mosquitoes and kangaroos. Can you judge a kangaroo for being a good one or a bad one? They're just kangaroos, that's all. Just people are the same, that's what you are. So that means where we can love ourselves and we can forgive ourselves, we can be at peace with ourselves, we don't reject ourselves. When you can be at peace with yourself, you can be at peace with the world. And then there'll be none of this silliness anymore. This guy cannot be a sort of a bishop because he's a homosexual, or because he's heterosexual, or because he's celibate or whatever else. If he can do the job, then do it. It's a good person. Let him be the bishop, let him be the monk, let him be the wife, let him be the husband or whatever else it happens to be. If it's a job description, great, go for it. So we don't go around judging people just on silly things. We don't go around judging ourselves. I think that's the way we can get some more peace and harmony in this world and stop all this silliness where we reject some people because of their gender, because of their age, because of their race, because of their religion. Surely that religion should be wide, is enough, should be far, seeing enough to overcome all of that. Religion should be spreading love, not hate. Creating more harmony rather than divisions, bringing people to be at peace with their neighbors. Religion says in the Bible to love your neighbor as yourself. If your neighbor happens to be a homosexual, well, that doesn't matter. He's your neighbor. Love him as yourself. No more, no less. Whoever it is you're living with, be at peace with them, whether it's your neighbor or whether yourself. Allow all these things just to disappear and fade away so you can be at peace in your life, in your work. We can cooperate rather than going around always judging all the time you so I've run out of time now, out of speaking about all sorts of things. I don't know if it really was about Buddhism and sex and sex, or Buddhism and sexuality, or about homosexuality, or what it was, but I enjoyed the talk. I hope you did too. Thank you for listening. Bye. Okay, has anyone got any questions about the subject? Yeah, we've got one from the back. Yes. Go. I remember meeting a fellow in UWA a couple of years ago who started a therapy group called Racist Anonymous in the United States. And he put an advert, any racists, please come up. And all these racists would meet together and said, I'm a racist. Who are you? So I'm a Jew. I hate you. But it was interesting. Many of the people who are racists, they were racist. They were acknowledging it as a problem. They didn't want to be racist. We didn't want to hate people. And so those people actually are racist. I think there's a part of them which would acknowledge that they're not at ease and at peace with that state of affairs. It's like a person being a drunkard, being an alcoholic, or a drug addict. They realize inside themselves there's a problem there. They got to fix something. And. And this is actually, I suppose, appropriate way to deal with people with closed minds. All those closed minds are because of conditioning and actually to open those minds up with wider conditioning for people of all walks of life and to make friends with each other. The only thing I can actually say is maybe my own upbringing, because I went to a very poor my family were very poor in West London, and West London was supposed to be the rich part of London, but not part I grew up in, and I went to, like, a very poor, you know, just the local school. But there was people from all different ethnic backgrounds there. It was like a migrant community. There was Chinese people, Pakistani people, African people, people from Eastern Europe, and you played soccer with them all. And I didn't care what colour their skin was or where they came from, if they were a good center half or a good right winger, they were my team and. And I became colorblind because of that. By colorblind, I mean, you couldn't really see any difference between sort of the nature of a human being because of their gender or because of their race or their religion. And that was actually a marvelous conditioning for me. I think one of the things which we could do is to lease no stop no single religious schools. So not all the Buddhists don't all hang out together. All the Muslims don't hang out together. All the Catholics don't hang out together, but we're forced to live with each other, work with each other, that we deghettoize society. By that, I mean, once you start to play soccer with people from other races, religions, with gays, with lesbians, with whatever, I don't know, that way all that conditioning of somehow they're different than us disappears. So I think that's one sort of practical way of trying to stop all of this. Remember after September the 11th, it was a beautiful article in the Guardian. I know you read the Guardian about and so was it declassing or taking really, in outer schools for. Because there was too many times that one particular group, one particular religion, would just go to their own church, go to their own school, marrying within the religion, and they would never have any sort of broad idea of what happens outside of their religion, outside of their class, outside of their country. And because of that, there did become that racism and that tribalism. You got a marvelous opportunity now of our present age to be able to travel, intermarry, go to each other's churches, meet with each other, enjoy each other's company, play on the same soccer team with people from all different races and religions. I think that's marvelous, because when we meet each other, we can't have that same prejudice. It oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. If you get angry at racist, actually, you're buying into exactly what they want. You should put a little sticker on your car. Love a racist. Today it. No, it doesn't say. It completely undermines a good example. This one of the monks in England, he told me he was on this train journey and he was going to give a talk some about three or four hour train journey. He had like a born again Christian came up to sit next to him to try and convert him. Which really sort of laying it on hard about Buddhism being evil. You're just a child of the devil. You're going to go to hell if you don't believe in Jesus. Really giving it hard. And this poor monk could hardly say a word because this got harangued the whole journey. It was time for the monkey to actually get off of the station. He just put his arm around this man and said, didn't Jesus say to love each other? I love you. And that completely flawed. The born again Christian. And so he didn't know what to say after that. So people who want to convert you change you. It's all the politics of hate, of ill will. So if you love a racist rather than hating them, you're completely undermining sort of the fuel of their racism. They can't handle that. They get confused and they think again. They feed on hate. If you give them hate, they get stronger. Okay, so I think that's enough for this evening. So please go out and laugh. A racist this evening. Okay, so any announcements this.