Buddhism & Homosexuality

Buddhism & Homosexuality by Ajahn Brahm Okay? Okay. Welcome, everybody, to, uh, Buddhist Center here in Alameda. And first of all, let me say with full sincerity how privileged I feel to be invited to give this talk, uh, from the gay community of Western Australia, the gay, lesbian, transgender community, on Buddhist ideas about homosexuality. Uh, it is because none of he's here today. But, uh, one of the leading members of the, uh, gay, lesbian, transgender community in Perth, I think he comes here mostly on a Friday evening. I met him once, uh, when I gave a talk at Mercy Hospital, and he came and listened. And what he said afterwards was one of those moments which really went right into my heart, made me feel very sad, because when he said that religion has been very cruel to the gay, lesbian, transgender community and I was it remember that saying and always felt like crying afterwards. Religion should never be cruel to anybody because the whole idea of spirituality, as far as I understand it, is that giving peace, harmony, kindness and love towards people of all genders and even a part of my life as a monk, especially in the middle years of my life. When I first came over here, I spent a lot of time going into the prisons of Western Australia and talking to murderers and rapists. And if you cut a lot of people like that who actually have hurt others. Why on earth kindness sort of love? Gay and lesbian transgenders who have done no harm to anybody whatsoever. So because of that, I'm very happy to have a crusade, a jihad against. Gender discrimination, but obviously a non-violent one. And today I'm going to be talking a little bit about the Buddhist attitudes to homosexuality and other such issues and what is actually strike. First of all my qualifications, I've been a monk for 32 years and well known as a as a teacher, not just in Australia but in other countries as well. But it's not just my training in meditation. I've also done a lot of scholastic research, especially my, again, early years as a monk when I learned parley, which is a language of the Buddhist scriptures of our tradition, Pali, is like a dialect of Sanskrit. So you can go back to the original sources and actually find out exactly what the Buddha said, especially about, you know, homosexuality and what you find in there. Was that the stunning silence. In other words, it was not an issue for Buddhism at all, even though it was, as you all know, everybody knows that homosexuality, transgender, lesbian issues have not just suddenly appeared. There have been part of all of our cultures from time immemorial. And in India where Buddhism started, there, certainly there were mentioned there, although mentioned as just a human beings like any other beings and not discriminated against in any which way. The only time in the ancient Buddhist scriptures, which they were really mentioned was when it came to ordaining as a monk. Now, I think that when I was invited to, I think last year, the Gay pride, a gay pride breakfast at Curtin University, I mentioned there that actually I am more deviant than any of you. I'm celibate, and that's actually more deviant than being gay, lesbian or transsexual in our society. And because of celibacy, I'm saying deviant because a lot of people don't accept, sort of know the asexuality of a monk or a nun. And interestingly, uh, in Thailand, where I spent my first nine years as a monk and Thailand accepts homosexuality, there's no problem there at all. Part of part of the community. No discrimination whatsoever. I don't know if you saw that movie, uh, which was um, uh, I think that Iron Lady is I remember what it was called in Thai about a gay. Was it basketball or volleyball team? Like his. Sorry. Volleyball team. Okay. You saw it. The volleyball team in Thailand who was so good. I think they won some championship. And that really sort of surprised people. But they obviously that they were really good and it did. And I think a film was made of it afterwards just to show the tolerance, which was in Thailand then. But the only time the Buddha mentioned this was if a person becomes a monk, obviously, if they have sexual attraction to other men living in an all male community which is supposed to be celibate, there can be a problem. But my monastery, we have some monks who have lived a gay lifestyle. The thing is, once you become a monk, obviously you can't be sexually active. That's the only the only difference there. And so in our monastic rules, they say a gay person can become a monk, a lesbian can become a nun as long as they can suppress their sexual urges to live a life of celibacy. And that's the only mention there in Buddhism about any restrictions whatsoever. Like about the gay and lesbian community, simply because it's just impractical to have sexual relationships if you're supposed to be celibate. And we do have a, um, a separation there between the genders in our monastic tradition. As you may know, that we have a nuns monastery over in Ghana. Our monks monastery is over in serpentine. Uh, the reason we have a separation there is because a lot of people think that monks and nuns, if they live together there, when everyone goes home, they're at each other's beds. And the reason one of the jokes, which I remember hearing from my father, who was from Liverpool, and this was about 40 years ago, he used to come along and say, what fan does a monk have? No, the answer none. So because people think like that now, you have to. If you're a monk, you are really celibate. And so we can't have nuns in the same place because people think what happens in the evenings. But obviously, if there's a person who has lived a gay lifestyle before, they too can become a monk. As long as they can show themselves they're not going to be as sexually active when they're celibate. In the Buddhist tradition, if you are a monk. You don't have to be a monk forever. So any monk, whether they are straight or whether they are gay, that if they find they cannot handle the celibacy. Now. It's too tough for them. Then they leave and there's no problem there at all. So just because you're a monk, you're not a monk forever. You're a monk as long as you find it useful and rewarding. So whatever vows you take, and never for life, because people change, we allow that change to happen. I mention that because that's the only thing which is I talked about in Buddhism, and because it's not talked about there and because it's uh, obviously there was, uh, mentioned knowledge of homosexuality. It was the best non-discrimination. Not even talking about it, not because of fear, but it wasn't an issue anymore. And the reason it's not an issue anymore. And I think the reason why it never has been an issue in the Buddhist religion is because the way the Buddhism is organized is without any hierarchy. And I think it's whenever there's a hierarchy and people in power, then that is usually the problems where people get into dogmatism, power trips, fear, oppression. And I think that's what many in the gay and lesbian community have experienced over many, many hundreds of years. Because when the Buddha died, passed away before he passed away, that people asked him, said weren't sure, passed away and gone. Who will take over from you? Who will be the leader? And one of the most amazing for me anyway. Answers were no one will be the leader after me. Just let the truth be your teacher from now on. What that meant was there was no hierarchy. People tried to establish hierarchies. And now and again, you know that we have like, a Dalai Lama, but he has no power. Only the power which the Tibetan tradition actually gives him out of respect. But no, he is not a leader. He's not a supreme pope or a patriarch. And he can't be, because every tradition knows those last words of the Buddha. You can't establish a leader, a boss. And the reason is, is something fundamental. Why the Buddha said that? Because the truth is not what you're told. The truth doesn't lie in books or in leaders or in some external authority. In the very beginning, the Buddha realized the truth lies in every individual. Basically, you know what's right and what's wrong. And any religious leader, all their job is, is to clear away any misconceptions so people can see the truth for themselves. Not to tell you what to believe, but to show you how to trust yourselves. And that empowerment of those spiritual traditions, I think, is one of the wonderful things that we can offer to all people, no matter what your gender preferences are, no matter what your race, no matter what you do. It's an empowering of you to say, I'm not going to tell you what to do. I'm going to not I'm not going to tell you what not to do, but I'm going to help you if you want to find out how to understand how you feel. And what is, uh. Something which will create happiness for yourself and happiness for others. Because basic Buddhist morality. And it's a fascinating concept, the ethics of Buddhism. We do have precepts with a Buddhist tradition. We have five precepts. And the sexual precept is number three, and it's no sexual misconduct. And sexual misconduct does not mean you can't have anal sex or oral sex or genital sex or whatever sexual misconduct is just so you're not harming or hurting the other person, especially by breaking the trust of the relationship by going having a sexual relationship with somebody else. So the only part of the Buddhist virtue further, like immunity, is to make sure that you don't abuse the trust of your partner. And if you do abuse that trust by sleeping with someone else, by having a relationship with someone else, then you do break your precepts. It is gender unspecific, and that's the basic precept. I said it's not the basic, basic precept is the secondary one. Because underneath that, there's a principle which underlies Buddhist virtue and helps people understand what's right and what's wrong, which is never do anything which harms another human being, never do anything which harms yourself. A lot of the time people think those are separate rules, but really they are exactly the same. Because what harms you harms the people who love you. What harms other people? It does harm you when you see you're creating pain. And I was straight before I was a monk. Now I'm celibate. Uh, I've been fortunate since I became a monk to have many friends who are gay, lesbian, transgender. And I really respect them. And they've taught me a lot, and I can't. There's no harm, you know, you're not harming anybody by being a gay person or being a straight person. So basically, for me, it's what's the big deal? However, whether you are straight or whether you are in a gay lifestyle, the most important thing is don't create harm. So if you have a partner, please care for them. Just as you like to be cared for yourself and respecting your lifestyle, respecting my lifestyle, respecting other people's lifestyle. I think it's very important to make a statement, to give freedom to people, to follow their lifestyle, know without harm, even when people do create harm. For example, you know, you do find another guy you like and you sort of have a quick relationship with them. Even so, the basic laws of compassion and kindness, which is the heart of all religions, is also an incredible amount of forgiveness. So if you have a partner and he strays, please forgive them because otherwise what actually happens is that you had a wonderful time together and you do one stupid thing and you break this relationship. But the idea of a relationship is something which allows the other person to make mistakes. A good example of this from a straight relationship lady over in Kuala Lumpur, after I gave a talk, asked a question after I finished my talk. She said her partner, she was in a straight relationship. Her husband had lied to her and said I can't trust him anymore. I said, I get divorced, she said. So I asked her, number one, how long have you been married? She said, three years. Number two, what do you do? What's your job? And she was actually a lecturer in maths at the university. So I saw my opportunity to teach her. I said, if you teach maths, you should know some statistics. Now, let's do some statistics together. You've been married to your husband for three years. That's about a thousand days. Let's assume that every day that your husband has said 20 things which could be right. Which could be wrong. That's. No, it's an assumption, but it's no reasonable assumption. So since you've been together, he said 20,000 things to you which could be right, could be wrong. This is the first time he's lied. So according to probability theory, the next time he opens his mouth, there's a 20,000 to 1 chance he's telling the truth. What do you mean you can't trust him? Now, I can understand the logic of that. Why is it in a relationship? Somebody makes a mistake once. And that's all we remember. We don't remember all the times that they've been committed to us, kind to us, gentle to us. Sensitive to us, honest to us. So don't break up your relationship just because 1 or 2 faults, your relationship is too precious for that. And this is actually what we mean by non harming and having a bit ability to forgive. To accept. To embrace even the mistakes of others. And if we can do that, we have a solid idea of what forgiveness is all about acceptance and embracing, which is more than just virtue. More than telling you what you shouldn't do, what I'm telling you, or I'd encourage you what to do in your life. So we can actually have a much stronger relationship between each other. And basically, that's as far as ideas of virtue go in Buddhism. So we don't say this is wrong. That is wrong. You can't do this. You shouldn't do that. It's basically we say if it's going to harm someone or harm yourself, then there's something wrong with that. You're creating more hurt and pain in this world and understanding that you can actually gain lifestyle. Who's that harming? Who's that hurting? Answer no one. So what's wrong with it? Nothing. And so I use that criteria and I teach that criteria. Buddhist use that criteria to any type of lifestyle, any type of actions. Is it harming. Is it hurting? And this is straight from the mouth of the Buddha. When he told this to his son in the Ahura Wada Sutra. So whatever you do in your life, understand? Is it hurting? Is it harming? Which is why people I've talked to have been living a gay lifestyle. They think, what's the big problem? There's nothing wrong with this. It doesn't feel wrong, does it? And a lot of time, if you actually go to your feelings inside, you know, if it feels wrong, if it feels right, if you're honest inside of yourself. And this is, I think, one of the big problems, which I may be wrong because I'm talking as an outsider. A lot of people in the gay community feel very frustrated because they know there's nothing wrong with their gay lifestyle, and they're just being themselves. But a lot of our community outside says there's something wrong, and they feel this either guilt trip put on them, there's tension put on them, and they say, what's the problem? No, people want to do the right thing. You know, it's right for people to tell you it's wrong. That's a conflict there. So one thing I can say is nothing wrong with the gay lifestyle, but it's up to people like me to keep up, talking, promoting, telling people that. Listen. Stop pulling your trips on people who've had enough pain already. No. Give everybody a break in this life and stop trying to control other people according to your own bigotry. When it comes down to it, religion should be giving freedom to people. As I said at the beginning, freedom, even if people do harm others as their decision. In the end, you have to trust people to try and encourage and teach them to do the right thing. A lot of time to trust that in a gut feeling. Uh, one of the moving anecdotes, uh, which really meant a lot to me and was very, uh, illuminating because I was born about 55 years ago, and I was in Thailand during the Vietnam War. That Vietnam War was an important part of my history. And I do remember I never served, obviously, in an army because I came from England. They weren't part of the Vietnam War, but I went to the United States. Many, many people who were in the front line and many of my friends who were monks also did fight in Vietnam. And obviously it's a very traumatic time for them being in an army, being ordered to kill. But the anecdote, which I found very important was something which happened, an atrocity, a war crime called the My Lai massacre. Many of you may remember those words, My Lai. The officer in charge was a guy called Lieutenant Calley. C l e I still remember his name. I don't know if he took orders from above, but he was the officer in command. And they ordered that all the troop of soldiers, maybe 100 or more, to go into a village in Vietnam called My Lai and to indiscriminately kill every man, woman and child without any exception. There was no order. Everybody was to be killed. And they did that. I think 1 or 2 people survived, as you always do. I ran away, actually, to tell people what had happened. That was like a war crime. You can't do such things and get away with it. There's always somebody who lets on. What happened? And obviously that was a very big scandal for the US government. Hit the newspapers. And I think Lieutenant Calley was put in jail. But 25 years afterwards, there was a TV documentary made where some enterprising reporter traced as many of those soldiers as he could find to find out, the aftermath, 25 years on, became some very interesting discoveries, he said. Most of the soldiers who had participated in that atrocity could not have a relationship with anybody there into drugs and alcohol. Socially, they were very dysfunctional. Imagine carrying that pain in your heart of what you've done, something you can never remember. You never forget. There's always a couple of exceptions, which are the most interesting part of any research. And the most prominent exception was an African American soldier. Who'd refused to go in. Who stood his ground and said to his commanding officer, no, I am not going to do this. As a result of disobeying that order, he was put in military jail for 2 or 3 years. Now, many of you may have seen in documentaries or read books about American jails. They're far more sadistic than Australian tales. And military jails are even worse. This African American soldier, when he was interviewed, he knew what was going to happen to him by refusing 2 or 3 years in a tough, hard jail for just standing his ground and not doing something which he thought was wrong. But as a result of that, he was the only person and one of the only people who had a good relationship, was happy, was at ease with himself. And when the reporter asked him, how could he do that? How could he refuse an order knowing the consequences are going to be so tough on you? Are you some sort of philosopher? His background was someone born in the ghetto who joined the army just to get out of that terrible lifestyle, as many American soldiers do. There are no hopers who join the army as a way out of their poverty or their crime based communities. That's what he joined. He had very little education. But he said when the order came in to go in and shoot men, women and children, he said he just couldn't do it. His gut told him it was wrong. He never been taught this. He wasn't particularly religious. He just knew it was wrong. You need a religion to tell you that that's wrong. Of course. Now he knew it was wrong. He trusted in that feeling. He did suffer for 2 or 3 years, but he's been happy for 30 years. So that's the sort of person I respect. He's got his just rewards of happiness and well-being. The point is, you don't need a religion, not even Buddhism, to tell you what's right and wrong. You don't need Christianity to tell you anything. Buddhism or Islam or whatever. You know what's right and wrong. The job of religion is empower you to trust that feeling. It's not to treat you like slaves or children and say, do this and do that. You're not sort of primary school kids. But why is it that people treat you like such? Job of religion is to empower, not to order or tell. Unfortunately, that if you empower people, you lose the power of your hierarchies. So hierarchies don't like to give people freedom. They like to have dogma, and they like to have rules which they can punish and induce fear in people to tell you, if you don't do this, you'll go to hell. And that way of fear is something which certainly I rebelled against as a as a teenager. I can't, if any God or any higher being is kind or compassionate. How can you ever send anybody to any hell or punish anybody? I know from experience now, as a monk, that punishment just has no place in the growth of a human being, but actually restricts their growth. It stunts them. You don't punish anybody for faults. You reward them for their successes. I was a schoolteacher for one year before I became a monk. As I tell people, teaching in a high school is enough to make anyone become a monk. But while I was there teaching, I learned a lot. And one of the things which I learned was something called positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. Unfortunately, in our communities, especially schools, you know how it works. You've all been in school. If you make a mistake, you're punished. You do something right now. That's okay. It's just passed over. That's why people get stunted. Another way of education, which was proved again and again and again. But people just don't take the time to follow. It is you never punish when someone makes a mistake. You get the question wrong. You never give a black mark or detention or whatever. You make a mistake. Absolutely. Forgiveness completely ignored. When you make it right, you do something good. You are rewarded. You give them positive reinforcement, which means the qualities you want to see in somebody else get encouraged. So in your relationship, sir, never blame your partner if they make a mistake when they do something kind and good, which you really like and appreciate. Give them a big hug, whatever it is, to reinforce that behavior which you like to see in them. Even recently when I was in her US last year, at the end of last year, someone told me that a guy over there was making a fortune. Potty training young pets. Because if you ever like a small little dog or little cat in your house, you know you got to train them to sort of poo and wee in the right place and not on the carpet, not on the couch. So over in New York, they were trying to take what he did. He guaranteed there was quite a lot of money in three days. I'll potty train your pets to always poo all the way outside. And what do you do? You take the pet outside, or these other workers take them outside to the park or to the nearest tree. They'd wait there until they did their poo, the shit, or their urination on the tree. As soon as I did on the tree, he'd do somersaults, jump up in the air, be exuberant, sing a happy song just to make the dogs realize they'd done something good. And it worked a treat in three days. Those dogs or those little kittens would only poo. Only shit or pee outside. This positive reinforcement and this kind of business is making a fortune. But apparently I also heard that later on I heard this in New York, and someone told me in San Fran that the guy was actually having a bit of problems now because some of the pets which he trained in this way were in the house when the owners were watching the football on the TV and suddenly their team scored a goal and they shouted, hey, you know what the pets did? But it does actually show the power of positive conditioning. And so that I've taken that on board, certainly in Buddhism and it's part of Buddhism, we don't have punishments in Buddhism. We don't even have guilt in Buddhism, it's a word which is just not in the old Sanskrit. It's like almost like an English word. We feel guilty about it anyway. Does that really help? You've done nothing wrong. Even if we have done something wrong. If you feel guilty about it, you're liable to repeat the mistake in the future. If you forgive it, it's gone. And you're not likely to make a mistake in the future. So we don't have punishment in Buddhism. Even there was a postulant like a trainee come to my monastery some years ago, and he'd made a mistake. He'd broken a rule. I think he'd ate something in the afternoon. We're not supposed to do that as monks. We developed quite an austere lifestyle. So he came to me to confess like I was the abbot. So, normally in charge, I often get outvoted by the other monks, as you know. So because it's like a democracy, if we have a decision to make, we take a vote on it. And if my side loses, it doesn't matter if I'm the abbot. I've been there for a long time, I get outvoted. So I'm not really the boss. It's no power trip. This is the. I'm the slave. We just had a three month rest period. You know what a rest period means? Means the rest of them do nothing while I have to do all the work. But anyway, this one. This one. Training monk. He came to confess this terrible thing he did was only a small thing, for goodness sake. But, you know, he felt terrible about it. Let's have a look. Forgive yourself. Just don't do it again, that's all. A good person. He wouldn't take that. He wanted some sort of penance. He demanded a penance. So I had to do some quick thinking. Because, you know, we're not really into punishing. But, you know, I thought this is Australia. What's a typical traditional Australian punishment? I've just been reading a history book, so I thought, okay, I told him, right. And he was sitting right in front of me. I said, okay, if you want a punishment, I'll give you 50 strokes of the cat. He went white. He thought, my goodness, I'm going to get whipped. But then I explained what 50 strokes of the cat is in the Buddhist tradition. In our monastery, we've got three cats. Find that cat and stroke it 50 times. Learn some compassion, you stupid person. Because when you learn some compassion by stroking a cat, maybe you can have the same compassion and kindness to yourself. And don't be so hard upon yourself. Have a bit of forgiveness and kindness. But I've always noticed that such forgiveness and such openness. You only find that in traditions which don't have hierarchies. It's a strange thing when there's a hierarchy, there's power trips, and people want to impose their power through fear, and the only way you can impose it through fear is how some system of punishments. And obviously, being a sort of a bit of a amateur sociologist there, but I think there's some truth to that. So hopefully even in the gay lesbian community, keep it loose, don't have a hierarchy, don't have the the head gay of WA. If you have that there's going to be problems for sure. So keep it loose. And if you keep it loose, you'll find that there's no even means to actually enforce these power trips. And when they have power trips, there is fear, there is punishment, and there is all the worst parts of religion. And I think that as soon as like religions, whether it's Christianity or Islam, stopping the power trips and are there not to tell people what to do, just to serve, to help, to be friends, to lead the way in peace and compassion and kindness? I think we might have a much better world. And a freer world. I know that one of the things which my father. This is actually some of you have read the first book which I wrote, which is called Opening the Door of the heart. And the title of that book came from one of the most meaningful stories of my life. And it's a nice little story to end this little talk and then start to open up for questions and answers. One of the things which changed the way I looked at life was when I was about 13 or 14, my father took me aside and said something which was about to change my life. My father was a very poor man. He was born in Liverpool, and after the Second World War he just hitchhiked to London to get a job. But he was always very sickly. So because of that, no, he never actually could really hold down a job for very long. So I grew up in what we call in London, a council flat, the small apartment which was owned by the local government and in a poor part of Acton, west London. And that's where I grew up. So it was a very poor man. But he is actually abused as a child. His father, who was a plumber in Liverpool during the depression years. Any money he got from his job he spent in the pub. Come home drunk, take off his belt and whip any kid who came in his path and then start on his wife. My father's mother. Whenever I talked about my grandfather to my father, my father just ended the conversation by saying that guy was a bastard. If you could imagine being born and living in a household like that with a father who was always whipping you for nothing. And the worst thing? He said he could take the beatings himself. But seeing his mother beaten like that was almost too hard to take. But he said that whenever he was on the end of that belt, he always thought, if ever I go up, get married and have children, I would never do that. He never did. He just could not beat as if he did something wrong. Do you remember what it was like? So it's an interesting case of someone who is subject to really gross domestic abuse or child abuse, not revisiting it on his kids, but actually learning from it, understanding it, and becoming just a completely the opposite. Being kind and gentle. And this particular occasion, he took me aside when I was about 13. He said, son, whatever you do in your life, always remember this. The door of my house will always be open to you. What was most important was whatever you do, wherever you go. As a 13 year old. That meant something to me. But I didn't really understand it. I needed years as a monk to remember that. I knew it was important. I didn't know why I started thinking about it. As I said, his house was a small council flat. In fact, we were so poor that my father would often leave the the door open would lock it. You weren't afraid of burglars. In fact, we hoped burglars would actually come in, take pity on us and leave something. So he didn't mean the door of his house? What he meant? And what really changed my life? Just say whatever you do. Wherever you go, the door of my heart will be open to you. And that will see the amazing explanation of what love really means. To say to another person, whoever you are, whatever you do, there's something which is much greater than judging or criticizing you. Wherever you go, whatever you do, the door of my heart is always open. I'll always be your friend. I'll always be your lover. Even. Whatever you do. Wherever you go. That was something which really moved me. Which showed me something really spiritual and divine, if you like. You know, in what a true relationship is. The father's love for his son was completely unconditional. And that unconditional love should be at the heart of all religions. Not a critical love. And saying I will love you is. The love which has no boundaries, has no demands, has no expectations. Who will love you no matter what? I know at least 1 or 2 people here have yet to come out to their parents. Isn't that a sad indictment that parents still don't understand what love is? Wouldn't it be wonderful if parents would be able to say to their kids, you mean that you're gay? You're not gay? That doesn't matter. You're my son. You're my daughter. That's what's important. And I say to you, no matter who you are, no matter what you do, even if you're a rapist, even if you're a murderer. I don't like that. But still, the door of my heart is always open to you. There's something bigger, something greater. That was actually what changed me as a man. Made you more open. So I don't care who comes in here then, no matter who I meet on the street. Even the dog barking deer. Dog. The door of my heart is open to you as well. Been barking very often here. Now, that's like a spirituality, which I really respect. And I think that's what I invite any member of the gay, lesbian, transgender community to say to your partner. Whoever you are, wherever you go, whatever you do. Two of my heart is always open to you. What a wonderful thing it is to say. But there's more. Because one thing which I only understood much later, when I was a monk, was always to say those same words one day to yourself. Whoever I am, whatever I do, whatever anybody else says about me. I don't care that all of my heart is open to myself. To love yourself, who you are. Don't try and change. To accept your beauty as you are. And if you have faults, that's actually what makes you nice. If you were perfect, your part would never be able to stand it. So the little faults and all the things. That's what makes you human and lovable. So be able to say that to yourself. Don't try and get rid of your faults. Embrace them. Love yourself for who you are and then you find they're not faults anyway. They're just features of yourself. And then you feel at ease with yourself and you can spread that to other people. They'll be at ease with you and spread out to our society, so they can be at ease with all the different lifestyles which people live in this great big world, whatever religion, anyone who wants to follow, whatever philosophy, whatever path. So we are not really harming other people or having a self. Just go for it and always say I'll be your friend. So that's in essence I try to say, in essence, you know, Buddhism and homosexuality or spiritualism and how much sexuality or spiritualism and everything I think is encompassed in those words. The door of my heart is always open. To me, to you, whoever. No matter what you ever do. Where you ever go. So spoken for over 50 minutes already. There was a time for some questions and answers. Has anyone got anything they'd like to ask? Do I have to? I almost said this. I think I did say this last night. The talk I gave a lot of talks in many places to different groups, and sometimes it's hard to get the first question. So I tell the following story from basic Buddhism. You know that Buddhists believe in karma and reincarnation. That's the basic Buddhism. And in one ancient teaching of the Buddha, he actually gave you gave us an answer to certain things about reincarnation. He's asking, why is it that some people are born wealthy? Well, you know, they work and they just make money easily. And other people, you work so hard and you're still poor. You work hard on those rich guys, and you still don't make it. Why is it that some people have bought a wealthy and some people aren't? What's the karmic cause behind that? And also the board actually said, why are some people born beautiful and other people born ugly? As I said last night, you may notice when I say ugly. I always look at the floor. I never look at anybody because once I did that and she said, Edinburgh, why are you looking at me when you said that word ugly? The big trouble. But more importantly, what I said, why it is that some people are born intelligent in the next life. What other people will be reborn? Stupid. And the Buddha said this is the Maha camel with Banga Sutra in America. I quoted to say, I'm not making this up. The Buddha said, the reason why people are born stupid in their next life is because they do not ask questions in this life. Any questions? You got a chance. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. I hope you looked in the West Australian newspaper because I wrote a letter to the editor there criticising the Dalai Lama. Said, you can't say that. Basically, I think I opened the letter by saying the Dalai Lama's out of line saying this. There's nothing in Buddhism which is critical of homosexuality. He's made a mistake. But I forgive him. But the point is, I also mentioned the Dalai Lama is not the pope of Buddhism. And so what he says may be interesting, but it's not an authority. And interestingly, I got into big trouble with that. Many in the Tibetan Buddhist community were very upset with me for saying that. But I'm going to still carry on doing that because there's no authority in Buddhism who you should not criticize when it's worth the criticism and even criticize me if I make a mistake. I'm not a pope or a Dalai Lama. And so with your partner, if you make a mistake, you get criticism. That's part of life. And sometimes you listen to criticism. I could have made a mistake. I'm sorry. But the Dalai Lama, apparently is going to be coming to Perth in June. So, you know, being like a leader of the Buddhist community here, I will obviously have an opportunity to speak with him. And I ask him, see what he's doing, just to tell him how much such comments hurt. So I shouldn't say things like that. There's no justification for it. And they put the scriptures. Not only that, but it's a sloppy way of speaking. And you've hurt a lot of people. So basically, it's not that I disagree with it, but I'm actively fighting against that one because I'm a Buddhist and it's not what I believe. It's not what the Buddha said. It's out of light. Yeah. No. It was. I've heard of some of these statements before, but there was an article I think was in March or April in the West Australian. It was a reprint of an article from the Daily Telegraph in London. So the authenticity of the States statements, you know, is not really questioned. The Dalai Lama obviously said that otherwise the Daily Telegraph would be sued for everything. And he said that if you want to be a Buddhist, you cannot be a homosexual. And I was so full stop. I think he said he was wrong. Yeah. Correct. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. And so you look at that, what he said, what justification have you. There's nothing in the Buddhist scriptures to support it. And if you want to sort of say, well, maybe they didn't know about anal sex, that's obviously wrong because that's certainly mentioned in the scriptures. This is for marks for monks. It is wrong to have anal sex with a man, with a woman, with a dog, anything because you are multi celibate. So it's rules of celibacy. But that's only because you've taken a vow of non sex. It's not a one for life. If you don't like that, disrobe and do whatever you want. But to say that applies to non monks or non nuns is is not true. And you ask yourself, you know is that harming or hurting. But it's obviously not. And it's just the way as an a gay couple, you can express your intimacy together so you know yourself is okay. So whoever tells you opposite, if it's me or any authority. Trust yourselves. So this is actually what religion is supposed to be about. Not telling you what to do, but empowering you, encouraging you, freeing you. Religion should be about liberation and freedom, not about putting people in more boxes. And I found that the more you liberate and free people, the less they harm each other. You tell people that this is an old story, that in Jerusalem, I don't know. About ten years ago, the doctors went on strike for more pay. So people actually they walked out of the hospitals and it was only like a few nurses, a few strikebreakers actually were looking after the patients. But in those two weeks when the doctors went on strike, the death rate in those hospitals plummeted. More people survived. So much for doctors and nurses and doctors here. But to me, there's a little bit of a swing there when you don't intervene and leave people alone. A lot of the time, obviously in emergencies, you know, people will die. By the time we just stir things up. We make things worse too often. And religion is famous for stirring things up, getting involved and making things worse. The real religion, real spirituality should be freeing people, liberating them toward my heart's open to no matter what you do. That's not putting you in a cage, is it? Lets give you freedom, and whatever you do, you'll always have a friend. What does that do to people? That makes people live up to such friendship? I don't want to kill anybody. When you hear things like that. So the Dalai Lama was out of line. And actually, that's what he's what he said. But he's obviously wrong. He's made a mistake. That okay with you? Is that okay? I think it's. Is it on the web because you're a webmaster? Is it still on the website? No, sir. Okay, then I guess. Okay. So complicated. But, yeah, it's coming in June. So maybe if I ask him if he gives any public talks. Whoever you ask him. Go up there and say no. This is right. So we have two intention people for the next five. Number three. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That looks. Pretty good. Correct. It is. Sometimes the traditions have imposed a hierarchy. That's the type of Buddhism which. Which I followed was that the Theravada tradition was in Thailand entirely. However. Sanga Raja. But he hasn't got. He's only got the power which the government gives him. But many of them aren't. So according to our basic monastic rule, you know, it's up to us to to do this or to do that. You can't have any power at all. In fact, it's a community has the power, the community of monks. So we can outvote the the head monk of Thailand very easily. And actually, that said next week, I'm sorry. You've been ordained for two years now, haven't you? And, uh, just you've seen times when I've been outvoted in the sangha. On books, I said, yeah, because when we have any vote on things that, you know, we have 22 monks at our monastery. Now, we've put up something, a suggestion, and say, what do you want to do? Even simple things, you know, these are winter robes covering our shoulder and we're about it's coming warm now. So we actually changed our robes over to summer robes when we actually changed them. I don't say right from today or we change, we have a vote on it. And you know the winner. Most monks actually win. And there has been times when I've been outvoted. Many times I remember those, perhaps because I was outvoted. I remember them more than anybody else. But when we have Buddhism, I think in Vietnam, because it was colonized by the French. And sometimes the Buddhism adopts the colonial model, especially from Catholicism, because that was seen as powerful, maybe to say modernized Buddhism. They imposed hierarchies. That's actually where the Thai idea of a songwriter came from. It was from King Walcott 100 years, 120 years ago, who wanted to modernize Buddhism on Western principles. And he had this hierarchy where many monks said, no, you can't do that. And the rights were right. So we don't actually have a hierarchy. Yeah, yeah. You have the the father is an elder brother. That's the Chinese, um, sort of culture. But that hierarchy is not authoritarian. Well, I suppose it is, in a sense, but original Buddhism was un hierarchical. Many people don't actually know that democracy did not start in Greece. As Western historians want to say. But the time of the Buddha, the ancient scriptures, are very clear. There were many old democracies in India 2500 years ago, the contemporary with Athens, Sparta, all those democracies. We're not quite sure because there was no geographic. There's no connection between those geographical, um, separated states. At that time, there was no pre, um, Alexander the Great that actually created a connection between those two great civilizations. And still the Chinese were still over the mountains and weren't connected. The silk trade hadn't really started yet, but there was democracy, apparently an ancient democracy in India at the same time as in Greece. And the Buddha modeled his, um, monastic organization around the democratic model. And in a democracy there is a sort of a hierarchy in a sense. You know, there is a leader like an abbot, but the abbot hasn't got absolute power. But there's no real strong hierarchy. And that's always been the case, sort of in most Buddhism. So we cannot impose things on people. And certainly being a Westerner and finding that model, I was very comfortable with that and perhaps even enhancing that old model here in places like Australia. You find that's far more liberating. It's more difficult. Firstly, speaking, especially for those who've known me a long time, it's much easier being an anchor in Thailand, in a place where there is more understanding of hierarchy than here in Australia, because the monks argue with me no end. They'll never do that if I was in Thailand. But I'm not happy with that sort of model. Yeah. Has many different types of Buddhism, as there are Buddhists, obviously, because everybody has their own little take. Generally speaking, there are three main types. Usually this is the tradition. There's a Theravada which is closest to the original Buddhism Mahayana, which grew up later in China, especially Tibetan Buddhism, which was supposed to be a branch of Mahayana. But because Tibet invaded by China and all the Tibetan monks came over to the West. Tibetan Buddhism is quite so well known in the world. The Chinese hadn't invaded. Tibetan Buddhism would still be in Tibet and wouldn't be so well known here. Same with Vietnamese Buddhism. The reason why Vietnamese Buddhism is probably the dominant Buddhism in Australia is because many Vietnamese migrated here after the Vietnam War, but the Theravada Buddhism, that's the Buddhism which grew up, uh, in Sri Lanka and Burma and Thailand and places like that. And I always say that now China is probably the purest form of, um, Theravada Buddhism because the country was never colonized. So I never actually had the, um. Cultures of the West imposed upon it. If if you go to Thailand, you know, it's a very liberal country now, almost anything goes there and it's very non-violent. The last coup, which was in Thailand a couple of weeks ago, was a case in point because no one got killed. The tanks came out on the street, and that very day, all the tourists were out getting their photographs with the tanks and all the soldiers. They're supposed to be, you know, fighting a coup or posing in front of the cameras. But the story, which really, I always say, just shows that the Buddhist attitude to such things was told to me by a friend who was in Laos 35 years ago during the Vietnam War. Actually, I'll tell you a couple of stories of this. This is really funny. And he was a English man, English guy, and he was married to an American girl. You know, this Western capitalist there in the town of Luang Prabang, which is the second city. They've been in there a while, actually, you know, he confessed to me he was a drug runner. He'd made a bit of money, and he was actually living a nice life and investing some of his money in, uh, all sorts of stuff and living in London, having a nice time, basically. It's a third world country, a very nice country. And he thought he'd settle down and have enough money just to hang out for the rest of his life. But then the war came along and he said it was in one of these old cafes, you know, like bamboo and thatch, but so no really delicious food. I was in there having lunch one day. He noticed. On one of the other tables were the government troops. They're also having lunch now. The government, the royalist soldiers. And he almost dived under the table when he saw the communists come in with their guns for ten. Now, these were having a war together. But before he could dive under the table to protect himself from the shootout, he saw the Communist troops go to another table, put their guns against the wall and order their lunch. Because in Laos wars stop for lunch, which is much more important. So there's no fighting. This is lunch time, for goodness sake. And he said he stayed on after the communists took over. But he said that one day this he caught like a little burglar in his house trying to steal things. This young boy. And coming from a British public school, he thought the thing to do was to put him over his knee and give him a spanking, which he did. But then the boy complained to the major, who was the head military man in Luang Prabang, or in that district of about. And he was summoned to see the Communist major. And he was really scared because, you know, he was a Westerner. This was a communist government, and he thought he could get shot or something, but he had to go there. And the fellow said, look, this. That might have been okay, you know, in a public school in England, but this is communism. This is Laos. You can't do that anymore. He said, I've got to give you a punishment, I say, about punishment. And he braced himself for something terrible to happen. And the communist major said, you will have to hold a party for three days and pay for it for everybody. And he said, really? That's that's okay, I'll take that. But can I come as well? So now you can come as well, but you have to pay for it all. And that was his punishment in communist Laos, where the communists or whatever they like fan want anything else. And they knew he was wealthy. So he said, okay, the excuse for you to hold a party. So for three days they all got drunk. And you know what else they did there for three days? But he had to pay for it all. It's not exactly a panacea that fits the crime, but it was just an excuse to get someone to pay for a party. Yea. Yea, yea. It's a hard thing to do, but the only thing to do. There's an old Chinese saying to love the tiger but at a distance. So sometimes some people are just so hard they can be kind to them. But you've got to withdraw so you don't go up to them and say that I'm gay. Love me. You just withdraw. But now never take your love away from them. They can take it away from you, but you never take it away from them. You wear them down as you have done. And that's I really praise the gay and lesbian community for working so hard to get to where you are. There's many sacrifices. What the. The gay pride breakfast. I'll always remember that the guy who was the gay activist from Tasmania who repealed the gay anti-gay laws over there. Those of you don't know that story. This fellow, I forget what his name was now. That's right. Yeah. Rodney, there was a law in Tasmania. If you had a homosexual relations sexual, it was against the law. It was an impeachable offense. So I think he did some activism to try and repeal the law. But the government said, oh no, we don't want to repeal. It's just too hard. You know, what governments are like. So they decided to have some affirmative action with his mates. They all had sex that night, and they listed exactly what they did in detail, and they all went to the police station the following morning to hand themselves in. With the press behind them. So the police will put in this this embarrassing position. They'd done a crime which was on the on the the books. But you know that there's a prosecutor's. Come on. And I remember him saying this. He was just really scared when he went in there because he didn't know whether he would actually go to jail. He put himself on the line with many, many of his friends. But the press were there, and eventually it was passed up to the government, to the Premier there. And the Premier knew if he authorises prosecution, him and the whole of the people in Tasmania will be completely humiliated. So within three months, the prosecutions were never carried through. Within three months the law was repealed. So what a beautiful story that was. How someone actually they worked hard to make a better world for other people, put themselves on the line. So I really respect him for what he did. And I thought it was very funny the way he told the story, the way he went into that police station. And this did in graphic detail exactly what he did. Took about half an hour to read it all out or something. That's brilliant. But if you are rejected, I always know you have other people who don't reject you. So never allow one person to spoil your day. And that's obviously in a country like Australia. You've done the hard work. You're on the way up. It's the other countries I'm afraid of, and those are the ones we really have to work hard to change people's attitudes. And it's my responsibility because I'm supposed to be a religious leader. I give a lot of talks in many places. I'm doing pretty well in thinking in Singapore now because, uh, the previous, uh, Prime Minister, Goh Chok Tong, he came out and said, gays are welcome in Singapore. Which is brilliant because he has some authority. And just afterwards, someone asks the question, I use my clout to say, yeah, Buddhism and guess Buddhist, which is the majority religion in Singapore, fully embrace his case. No problem at all. And you should never discriminate. That's anti Buddhist. So I use my reputation in Singapore to really make a strong statement. They're backing the Prime Minister. He's actually wife was there when I was saying these things. So obviously got back to him. But he's now just a senior minister now. And uh, Lee Kuan uh, whose son is now the Prime minister. But little by little, sir, you know, give that freedom to people because you know what it's like, you know, you don't know how long you've been a guy in Australia, but you know how it was ten, 23 years ago. And in many places, they're not even that close to freedom. Yeah. So it takes a while. It should never take a while. Sooner the better. There's a freedom for everybody. Any other questions or comments? Any of you have? Yeah. But his take on war. Obviously a big mistake. And there is an alternative. And Buddhists have. Buddhism has never gone to war for their religion. And that's actually one of the wonderful things which made me proud to be a Buddhist. There has never been a crusade or war to spread Buddhism, and I was probably summed up by Gandhi's attitude. He said, I can see a thousand reasons to give my life for a cause. I can't see one reason to take the life of another, and that's basic Buddhism. But sometimes people say, yes, but that's impractical. And I usually quote the following story, which I wrote in the book Opening the Door of the heart. True story of what happened in Thailand after the Vietnam War. China was a Buddhist country. Sometimes it acts like a Buddhist country, often it doesn't. But in this particular case, after Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam fell within days. All the governments in Bangkok thought that Thailand was coming next. It was called the domino theory. So I was in Thailand at that time when Laos and Cambodia, Vietnam fell. As a young monk, the place where I was a monk. If you draw a line between Bangkok and Hanoi and you go two thirds away, that's where my monastery was. Much closer to Hanoi than it was to Bangkok in Ubon. So the embassies contacted us about 4 or 5 years. It was an evacuation plan. They expected the communists to come through. The government did. But by that time I was fluent in Thai and in Laos, and my teacher was becoming famous, and many senior politicians and generals would come to him and ask questions. And very often I'd be there listening and overhearing exactly what was going on. I had like a inside knowledge of the situation. The generals in the command of the Army weren't at all worried about the communists in Laos and Cambodia surrounding Thailand, because they knew they had exhausted all of their resources capturing those countries. They were regrouping, uh, getting themselves established in those countries. They didn't have enough energy or resources to invade another country, or they were really concerned about the big worry. And it was serious. Well, there were many Thai, especially students who were disaffected with the government who had left their universities and their villages and towns were in the jungles. In an indigenous Thai communist army. The insurgents and many areas of China were called pink areas controlled by the communists. And these weren't Laotian or Vietnamese or Cambodian. Uh, Khmer Rouge. These were Thais. They were getting their training and their armaments over the border from the communists. They're getting their food from the local villagers. And now that really was a big problem. And it was touch and go for many years whether their insurgency would grow and take over the country. That's what the generals were worried about. And at that time, I used to go wandering in the remote areas of Thailand because as a monk, you go to the mountains, in the forest to meditate. And I had to really be careful because if I ran into those communists, they would kill me. Usually after torturing. That's what they'd done to many monks. So when I was wondering, you'd meet the, uh, the soldiers. And yet asked him where the communists. Because everyone patrol in the jungles and they point them out. The communists are over there. That mountain is free. You can actually meditate up there and then know some nice caves over there. So they're really, really helpful. I was wondering if you know where they are. Why didn't you go and do something? That's what you'd think that they would do. But that was not the policy. The policy for many, many years in Thailand was nonviolence. Even though they knew where the communist bases were, where they were doing their training, where they were living, they would never go in with their superior armaments, with their jets, with their artillery and bomb, because they knew if you kill one communist, you make three, 4 or 5 more friends relations who want to avenge the death of someone they love, and you made the others more committed. They had nonviolence even though many soldiers got killed, ambushed by the communists. The soldiers would never retaliate. Forgiveness. Nonviolence. Actually, the forgiveness was something more because they had an amnesty and no questions asked. Amnesty, which was lasting for many, many, many years. If you want to give up your guns, it doesn't matter if you kill somebody. Give them up. Go back to school. Go back to university. Go back to your village. No questions asked. So there was an honorable way out. You always have to give your opposition an honorable way out if you want to stop the problem. If there's no honor for the other person, then they'll always keep fighting or keep sticking their heels in even an argument you have with your partner. Please give them an honorable way out. The only way out is embarrassment. Then they're never going to give in. And lastly, the old story the root problem. I know that sometimes that word has been used overmuch, but that is important. Why were these young people, these ties, fighting the government? While the most obvious reasons was poverty. So the government went in to solve the problem. Simple solutions like putting roads into the village. With the roads came electricity and easily a clinic and a school, but also not just bringing resources in. It meant the villagers could export their produce to the nearest market and get some money. The same time. The king of town in particular spent a lot of his personal resources putting in irrigation schemes. Now little dams and reservoirs, and using the water in the fields so the villagers could grow a second crop. So those areas started to become prosperous. Villagers realized that people cared in Bangkok for them. And one soldier I always remember meeting when I asked him, how's it going? He said, look, I'm on patrol at the foot of the mountain. The communists are up there. Know who they are? They come down every now and again to get some rice and food from the village. I say hi. I never shoot them. I know exactly who they are. What I do, I show them my new watch and my new ghetto blaster. He said. That's, you know, the bullets which I shoot. Prosperity. And it weren't nonviolence, forgiveness or amnesty. Addressing the root problem. Three pronged solution. One by one, they gave themselves up, gave up their guns, went back to the village or universities, and carried on until there was so few people in the jungles that even the leaders gave themselves up. The insurgency just withered away. And I remember being reading a copy of Bangkok Post, and some bright entrepreneur was actually taking Thai tourists to the caves where the headquarters of the insurgency was making a tidy profit. But the best part of this story about what really inspired me was when the leaders gave themselves up the top generals, the ones who organize this, the treason makers. And I sort of wondered, what would the government do to these guys? Does forgiveness go all the way to the top? Answer was, you can't just give forgiveness in the ordinary way to these leaders. They're given amnesty. They weren't put in jail or shot. But instead they were offered very senior positions in the government civil service. The Thai government realized these people were highly committed, very organized, hardworking, self-sacrificing. Why put them against a wall and shoot them? Let's make use of these people having worked for us. Get their ideas in our government. So the leaders were given top positions. When I left Thailand, that was the end of the story. A few years ago, I told that story in Sydney and the Thai consul of Sydney was in the audience listening, and he stood up afterwards question time and said, all you said is true. But there's been later developments since you left Thailand. He said. Two of those radicals, he called them leaders of the communist insurgency, he said. And now serving ministers in the Thai government who've risen to the rank of a minister and are now using their energies to help their country. That's how you stop a war. So what I think the way to stop al Qaeda is to invite Osama bin laden, give him full amnesty, and invite him to say, be the treasurer of Gay Pride Week because he's got a lot of money. Nothing should. Get people on board rather than keeping them out. As President Lyndon Johnson, sometimes the American presidents say some wise things. One of his favorite sayings, and I really remember this. It's better to have your enemy in the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in. The grate saying that they don't have the inner tent pissing around outside. The tent pissing in. So bring your enemy inside your tent. Okay, it's about 630, and I think that many of you got other things to do this evening. I know that you're not monks and nuns, so you're not going to be like me going back to the monastery this evening. It's Saturday night, after all. So, again, thank you for inviting me to give this talk this evening. I hope I haven't said anything at all. Any which way, which is offensive to anybody whatsoever. I tried to present Buddhism in a way which I understand it traditionally and also personally, and wish you the best of luck and have a great time. Very good. Okay, so those of you want to have a cup of tea or something that's available next door, hopefully, isn't it then? Okay. In other words, have a great night. Have a great, great pride week.