Buddhist Attitude Towards Sensuality

Buddhist Attitude To Sensuality by Ajahn Brahm Just so people know that we are beginning to video stream these talks, and even those which weren't actually video stream live. My president told me a couple of weeks ago that, you know, we think maybe about 300 people and never really count. People here listen to these talks live, but about 17,000. Listen to it on the internet. It's a huge number. 17070. In places as far away as Iceland. So to the group in Iceland. Good evening to you all. For this evening's talk is going to be on the Buddhist attitude towards sensuality. Now we live in a sensual world and sometimes some religions. They have a very eccentric response to the sensuality which is around them. And we see that with the people enforcing the women to wear burqas, or even saying the Amish community, asking people to wear loose fitting. No, not and sensual clothes. And you look at the monks and nuns in front of you, and this is our idea of a burqa, or is it? What is it? And what is the Buddhist attitude towards sensuality in this world? Certainly that that's an important question because some of, uh, people's motives, people's, um, ideas about the problems of sexuality and the joys of sexuality have a huge impact on the way that they live their lives and the way they act upon other people. So this is what I wanted to talk about this in Buddhism. And certainly you see from all the people here, though, we don't sort of ask people to come and wear a non sensual clothes. Uh, sometimes there are some of you here were saying, oh no, we have some very young monks here. We don't want to, to lose those monks. And it has happened in the past. There may be a simply clad a young girl comes in and I sit outside. And please don't do that simply because that's going to offend somebody. And you should have more confidence in your monks. And you wouldn't do that if there was a hunky man came in here when Sister Ajahn Yama was giving a talk. So the point is here. You seen Buddhism? We don't have anything like veils. And there's a good reason for this. Certainly that sensuality is there. And sensuality can cause problems in the world. You know, we do have problems with paedophiles. We do have people with problems with sexual predators. We do have problems with even rapists. We do have problems with other addictions, not just sexual addictions such as overeating, or people who are addicted to pornography, or people who eat too much or gamble too much. There are many addictions in this world which are concerning sensuality. So, you know, there is a problem there, but sometimes there is a problem if we try and suppress it just too vigorously, because that impinges upon our freedoms and our wishes to enjoy the world in which we are born into. And so that, you know, what is the Buddhist attitude towards these problems, so that we can live and enjoy our life, but at the same time try and avoid as best as we can some of the extremes of sensuality. And I think just the way I've defined this talk tonight, I think you've already got the clue that the Buddha was always talking about a middle way, not to go to extremes, and it's the extreme parts of this which have caused the problem. But with sensuality we can actually understand just when we watch our mind, especially, that it's not so much sort of what's out there, but the way we respond to what's out there, which is the biggest problem in life. And one of the key stories which I grew up with was coming from my own teacher, Ajahn Chah, who being a monk, obviously you have a different value system when it comes to sensuality. Now monks and nuns are celibate and to live a celibate life? No, in the world, obviously, the monks and nuns cannot really escape from the central objects out there, whether it's food or whether it's sex or whatever. It's movies or whatever. So how do you how do you deal with this? And, uh, one of Ajahn Chah stories was that when he was a young, lusty novice, you know, 18, 19 years of old age with all the hormones running through him. He wanted to become a monk, but obviously he saw young Thai girls and he would have lust towards them. And so for three months, during a period of like what we call rains retreat, the time when I don't come here says the lama, doesn't come here. Now, those of you who've been coming here for a long time now, for three months, we always go back into our monasteries. He was staying in a town monastery, so for three months he decided he would not look at any girl at all. He would keep his eyes down and not even look at anybody, thinking that that type of restraint would overcome his lust. And so for three months, he refused to even look at her, a girl. And he said, what happened for those three months? He was fine. But after his resolution was completed, the first girl he looked at, he went crazy with lust. And this is one of the problems that just not looking, not facing up to the problem is actually not not overcoming it actually makes it much worse. And that's why that asking people to cover up also. So the so the nuns don't see any of you to cover up. It doesn't really help the situation because as soon as the covers are taken off, people actually go crazy. It's actually almost just suppressing something. And if you suppress it and don't understand it, usually that there's a bigger explosion later on. Uh, the simile which I've often given, if anyone here is meditating, you feel like coughing, please cough straight away. Because if you don't cough straight away and you suppress it when you do cough, it's like a volcano going up off and you just disturb everybody. And sometimes that type of suppression is typical of just some of the ways which we deal with the problems in our world. And so that in itself we live in such a world, we have to instead of trying to cover up the triggers with burqas or with veils or with people dressing up in sort of, uh, loose fitting clothing and not accentuating, you know, your bodies and not wearing scents and makeup and goodness knows what else. That won't solve the problem. But the problem has to be solved actually in one's relationship with the sensory world. And that certainly is the Buddhist attitude. This and again, not just with sexuality, it's with food. Sometimes people come to our monasteries both to get up and to Bojana monastery in serpentine. And so, my goodness, look at all the delicious food that you monks eat. We had complaints in the first years when I was a monk, because sometimes we had these Thai ladies married to Australians and had come and bring food to the two monks who were there. This was before Sister Shyama came. And sometimes that the Australian men, the husbands, would complain. They say, my wife never cooks anything like that. For me this is unfair. And the Thai said, well, you should become a monk. Then I'll cook for you. And we got the most delicious food. And so sometimes people would complain to the mouse. You're supposed to be monks. Why? Why are you, uh, eating such delicious food? You should just eat ordinary food. Just like bread and water. That's probably the best for you. Then we respect you even more. But sometimes I tried that my first year as a monk for a practice. I put all the food together, which was disgusting anyway, and I got the spoon and mixed it all up, and I only had one meal a day. And so it was a sludge. It was a slop, and if you saw it, you'd actually pour it out straight away. It wasn't even fit for pigs, let alone for monks. But the trouble was, it was an interesting experiment, which I did. Every food doesn't matter what it was, the sweets, everything in one bowl and stirred it up. So it was absolutely consistent. After a while actually started to taste nice. It was a weird thing, but the way that sensuality works. Now, after a while, no matter what it is, you start to like it. It starts to become attractive, delicious and tasty. So what it made it very clear to me was not the food which was the problem. No matter what food you have there. After a while it becomes delicious and you crave it. Doesn't matter what sort of a as a man is a male monk. What women you see after a while, even if in the burqas, after a while, the burqas start to appear sort of, uh, attractive, whatever it is. So the attraction is not in the object out there, and you can like anything after a while. So it's quite clear that the reaction to the dangers of sensuality should never be sort of be concerned with the triggers of sensuality. Even in Singapore, there are just going to be, um, opening up a couple of casinos and obviously that the sensuality is a sensuality of gambling. The thrill of it, the excitement of it is also problematical. But we don't solve that problem by banning all the casinos, because what happens when you ban the casinos? Then you have illegal casinos. It's not really the thing outside, which is the problem. It's not the way we react to them, it's our attitude towards these things. And so I was actually quite, um, glad that I had had, you know, because I have a group in Singapore and they showed me some of these documents and they asked me my opinion about those casinos in Singapore. And I told them, and I'm very glad the Singapore government was actually following. Well, that didn't really follow. The advice was really I understood what they were going to do anyway was actually not to stop these things, but actually to actually to contain the worst parts of gambling. By having legislation in place which can stop the addictive gamblers, and for other people who are addictive actually to show some restraint. And that is actually what's going to be happening in Singapore. So that loan sharks, you know, the money lenders, they can't be in those casinos exploiting people's addictions, nor if a person is going to that casino to often their family or even themselves can voluntarily ask for themselves to be banned. If it's going to be causing financial trouble or social trouble, they can be put on the blacklist and sometimes they volunteer themselves. It's a way of actually dealing with the the worst parts of gambling, because other than that, I remember as a kid that I would sort of, uh, have a bet on in England, it was called the Derby or the Grand National, two races, horse races. You would bet on every year. And it's only like, you know, two shillings or whatever. It was for fun, and you never expected to win anything. If you did, you just shared it with your friends. And that to me, never seemed to be like a problem. But of course, that sometimes the addictive gambling is the problem in the same that the sensuality which ordinary human beings have in the world. I'm not talking about Marx now. I'm talking about lay communities. Now, having a partner in life, you know, having relationships, having sex, the ordinary type of stuff is usually not problematical, except if you get too far and get addicted or get to too far, uh, under the power of one sensuality. And this is, this is actually where we have to have. Ways of not dealing so much with the trigger out there, because you can't really control that trigger out there. But dealing with our attitudes towards these things. And so as Buddhists, sometimes people think we're so tolerant, you know, you can have like say in Buddhist countries like Thailand, nurses have lots of prostitutes, you know, having Singapore like gambling or have like people wearing skimpy clothes or whatever. And, you know, anything goes. Sometimes they said in Buddhism, I think that was, um, Tina Turner when she became a Buddhist. Why'd you become a Buddhist? I think she was quoted as saying, because you can do anything you like in Buddhism. That's not quite true. I hope I didn't misquote her, but. It's the triggers outside we're not so concerned with. So the Buddhist response is actually to try and work in one's attitude towards these things in life. And in order to work on those attitudes, we have some we call like mindfulness. We are aware of how these things affect us. And we also understand with some wisdom about the dangers in these things. So they're like gambling. It can be fun, but it's obviously a danger there. And we use our awareness, our mindfulness, actually to know how far we can go and what the danger is. The same with relationships and sex, the sensuality of lust. We know what the advantages are. We know what the dangers are of it, and also whatever else, whether it's eating, whether it's watching movies, whether it's watching the internet or whatever. We know the dangers which are there, and this is not stopping the things out there. It's actually stopping the way we relate to them when it gets too far. And obviously, like no sexuality, we we know there's dangers there when we're talking about dangers. There was never, ever in Buddhism. It's one of the reasons why I was inspired to be a Buddhist. There was never anything like no evil or sin or, you know, your bad boy because, you know, you had sex with a girl or something. That badness and evil, that ultimate, a bad thing was never there. Instead, it was always this is almost like a precursor of utilitarianism because the Buddha would say the basic ethics. And I repeat this many, many times, it's not just anything goes in Buddhism, but is is what you are going to do or say or even think. Is it going to be harmful to others or harmful to yourself? If it is, it's called not bad, not evil, unskillful. It's a great word, unskillful, because it doesn't have any like moral judgments, as if it comes from some absolute, you know, this is bad and this is good because if it says this is bad, this is good, and you're told it by someone else, you don't have to think it out for yourself you believe in. Because of those blind beliefs. We get into terrible troubles in this world. We don't even think it out for ourselves. And so, because we believe that blowing ourselves up is going to send us to heaven, we do such stupid things well, because we believe that safe sex is bad. We get these uh uh, puritans. But what we actually say is what is skillful in these circumstances. By skillful, I mean, is it going to be conducive to the goal we're searching for? Is it really going to help? Is it going to be purposeful, what the consequence is going to be for ourselves and other people? That's what mindfulness has. That behind it is that you think what's the consequences? Where's this going to lead? And so that if we say with sensuality, there always has to be some restraint. You know, whether a layperson or a monk, we have light restraint. So we're not going to have any partners or any sex. That's our restraint, because we have a goal of developing very deep meditation or maybe come up to that later on. But it's a lay person in this world. No, your restraint has to be. I would hope, just with your partner, because, you know, you should know that now if you have if you're already having a relationship and you have sex outside of that relationship, now, that's going to really hurt someone. And I don't think you. Well, I may be wrong here, but I don't think you can actually say the other person would say, oh yeah, go ahead, go and do it. Go and sleep with my best friend, I don't mind. I think that most people would mind. I could be wrong there. But please, no, tell me. But most people would mind if you cheat in that relationship. So that's obviously an example of like harming someone else. So if our aim, you know, is not to harm another person, certainly if there was like an underage child, you know, we know that's going to harm that person. I mean, these sort of psychologists, sociologists know that sort of paedophilia, which isn't like, you know, having sex with someone under age, you know, is going to be harmful in the same way that, uh, misusing your position of authority as a teacher or as a counsellor, you know, with your students, there's just too much transference going on there. It's not a very clear relationship to complicate with any sexual or, uh, emotional or other entanglements. So that's usually a low note as well. Why is it a no no, not because it's evil or because it says in some sort of book it's an abomination simply because it's going to be harmful. And against that, on the opposite side, where Buddhism talks about like homosexual relationships and sex, we ask, what's the harm in that? And of course there is no harm in it, or at least no harm, which I can see. And therefore. Okay, off you go. Enjoy your relationship together. So when we actually see that there is no evil, no bad. But it's not that we can do anything you like. We are wise about this. Is it going to harm another person? Is it going to harm ourselves? What's going to be the result of this? It's the same if it's like unprotected sex, you know, if you're obviously wanting to have a baby, fine. But if you don't want to have a baby, no. Have protection. So now the idea of, like, um, you know, in some religions or condoms being bad or, or, um, sort of any type of contraception being evil, that certainly is not allowed in Buddhism because it's not what you're doing so much, but why you're doing it and what the effect is. You're not harming anybody. You're not harming yourself. It's for the greater good. Fine. That is called skillful. Just like a carpenter is skillful because they're making a piece of wood and they make it well with little effort. And they make a beautiful piece of furniture afterwards that's skillful and skillful. And so they don't know what they're doing. They'll take a piece of wood and make a big mess of it. So not good, not bad, but skillful and unskillful. So, with a way of sensuality, we always have to have some restraint because we know it's going to be harmful. So first of all, we should be wise to know what's harmful, what isn't harmful to us. And obviously just, you know, under age, sex or sex outside of your relationship, you know, that probably would be harmful. So what happens? How can we have some strategies, you know, to actually to stop that harm or limit that harm? And this is where the Buddhist idea of mindfulness comes in. Because with mindfulness, when you're aware of what's going on, you find you do have much more control in your life. And it's just like the carpenter learns more about their tools so that when they're sawing, when they're playing, they're much more sensitive. So they don't make so many mistakes. And that sensitivity, you know, to your inner world, to your mind, to your lust, to your anger, to your desires, to what you want is an important part of Buddhist practice. So don't just say no. Don't do it. We don't say that's bad or that's unskillful. One of the nicest things about Buddhist practice is we help you actually find out what you're doing, why you're doing, and how to to lessen the problems. Which is why that when we have these trainings of the mind in meditation to increase your mindfulness awareness, you start to see your whole mental processes and what happens, you know, where does lust come from anyway and what actually is happening there. One of the problems is, is that when a person does, you know, you might be in a nice relationship when you do see some other person, always be people who are attractive. Wow. She's nice. He's hot. Whatever it is, you know, there will be an attraction. Of course, that's natural. You can't stop that. And just the thing that I'm not going to look at another girl now. Now I'm married. Only you, dear, I'm not going to look at anyone else for the rest of my life. You know that's a lie, isn't it? You can't do that. Well, I'm not going to like anyone else. Again, that's a lie because you have lust for other men and other women. Once you get married, once you have that relationship. So, you know, be realistic and then say, what are we going to do about this? And obvious that mindfulness is very important because the mindfulness says that whether it's lust or whether it's anger, whether it's any other addiction, there is a whole train of mental activity, a process. It's a mindfulness which can interrupt that process at any time and stop it before it gets too bad. What mindfulness does is like trying to stop a train. Well, if a train is left, the station is going 110km an hour down the track with so much weight behind it. If the train driver tries to stop and put on the brakes because there's an obstruction on the road or on the rails in front of it, sometimes you just can't do that. It's going too fast and momentum is too strong. A train going that fast takes maybe half a kilometre to come to a halt, which is why that, you know, sometimes there is these terrible crashes when a car, you know, crosses the, uh, the railway line. The driver sees it, but it's going too fast to stop. This is what happens when we try and catch our last or whatever in our anger. When it's a bit too late, it's gone too fast, the momentum is too strong. We can't stop it straight away. And many of you know that now when you're in the power of lust, you can't stop just straight away. Can't just say no, I'm going to stop now. And it's like a train just trying to pull on the brakes and stop immediately just cannot be done. But the best time to stop a train is just when it's first moving out of the station. It's only going up maybe one kilometre an hour, and then if you put on the brake, it's easy to stop it. So one of the great things about mindfulness is actually you can see the whole process happen. You can stop it earlier. If you think it's going to be unskillful, it's not going to help you. So a man who's got a nice wife, instead of just allowing the whole process to get so inflamed that you're just under the power of lust and you can't stop it anymore, you try and stop it earlier. And that way if you see this really, really nice girl and she's really amazing, you see that whole process happened. Stop it now before it gets too late. It's called just as simple restraint. To be able to stop that thing. Obviously you have to want to stop it, and that's where the wisdom comes out. I mean, just don't be stupid and think you're in control of these things. Once you get too far, you are out of control. Which is why I've told many women who've had problems with their husbands that when a man gets lost, they literally are crazy. There's not a joke, but you are mad. One thing you think you never get caught. You do get caught. Now your wife is no idiot. She knows what's going on. She knows the signs. It's amazing just how many men have an affair. And I think, you know I'm in complete control. It's only a bit of fun. My wife won't ever even find out. And when does find out? And they come to me and I have to sort out all this, no problems and try and give them another chance. Or maybe no other chance and divorce and all the problems comes from that and custody battles. There is a danger there. So don't let it go so far. You go crazy and you lose your common sense. You know you will get caught. So are you willing to to to have that problem in your relationship and do that to this other person you live with and your kids? So this is actually our mindfulness and our wisdom. Don't allow us to go to such a point. And we get crazy and we'd lose the sense of, you know, of reality. You don't always think that you're in control of this, this stuff, because you know that sexuality is such a strong force. Most of you can't control it when you get so far. That's it. And relationships just keep going on and sometimes, you know it's going to hurt. You should have known earlier. So please learn it's not a guilt trip. We're not saying are you bad boy and you're terrible girl. You shouldn't have done that. And you're excommunicated from the Buddhist society for life. Guilt, again, has no part of this. Because if we have guilt, then we running through fear. We should never work through fear. We should always work through just the wisdom, understanding the consequences, and being wise and being sharp. So in sensuality, everybody has to have some sort of restraint. In other words, this is not just some free lunch, so we can just eat at the table of sensuality as much as we want. And thinking nothing's going to go wrong. We have to balance our diet with sensuality. Not too much, not too little according to our means, and how we make that decision of how much. And also now the best way is restraint for your partner, that is, for her or for him, and keep it that way and also understand the dangers there. And again, that because I'm a man, because we draw the line as monks having actually very little sensuality, especially sexuality with the opposite sex, because again, that was going to really help our deep meditation even much more. It's one of the great teachings of the Buddha. He said that when you lessen the sensuality, your concern for the outer world, especially in sexuality, food and entertainment, literally your mind goes more inside. It doesn't get drawn outside so much, and so it much makes it much easier to get into the deep meditations. And, uh, that might, uh, uh, interest some of you and might sort of confuse some of you, but it's one of the reasons why, when you go on these, uh, nine day meditation retreats, we always ask people to keep eight precepts, which means no sexuality for those nine days, in order that you can actually focus more on the inner world rather than the outer world, because the sensuality we're talking about there draws you out. And for the time you meditate, you want to go in and actually you do get another type of happiness when you withdraw from that sensuality. So monks and nuns sort of usually are nonessential and because we're non-essential. But sometimes people think that all Buddhists should be like that and they start complaining, what if everybody became a Buddhist? Then we will not have any more people in the world. And that's a stupid comment, because only some people were going to be monks and nuns, ordinary Buddhists. They have families and they go to the casino. But if you go to the casino, be careful. No, don't go too far. Know your limits and. If you get too far, like the train stop before you know it's irreversible. It's the same with sensuality, sexuality. This is where we draw the line, but we don't go too far. But as I said, the monks, even they get into food as well. One of the things I noticed when I was a young monk, as soon as I gave up sex, I really got into food, right? Food was incredibly delicious. It was almost. If you give up one thing, you get another thing, get up another thing. And I was very fascinating to see that actually, when you go through puberty, actually there comes a stage before that, actually the sexuality where you really get into food. Also as if I was going backwards in my development. Now as a young man, you get really into food and then you get into the girls. And I was going backwards, gave up the goals of going into food again before I actually go back again to sort of not being involved in that at all. But even actually with food, I mean, it's delicious, it's nice, but obviously you can't eat too much. You get stomachache, so you actually have to restrain yourself. So with all the sensuality we have, you know, it's almost like it has to be a voluntary restraint when we see the, the problems and difficulties which it might give us. And the, the mindfulness actually gives us a sense of moral control. So those people who have addictive addiction problems in this world, whether they're addicted to sex or addicted to pornography or addicted to gambling or addicted to having one partner after the other, sort of. If they realize it's a problem and they want solved to try and restrict it, then the mindfulness practices helps them enormously. Of course, once they have to realize there is a problem and then how do we solve it? The mindfulness awareness of what's happening in your mind and get different responses so that we don't go through the same old habitual reactions. What mindfulness is, is just like, you see, there's three exit doors at the front of this hall and two at the side. What mindfulness is, is you see it as more than one doorway. So you can go through other doorways, because in life we're creatures of habit. We think we always have to do things exactly the same way. We literally go through the same doorway every time it's habit. We don't even look to see if there's any alternative. So it's the same reaction, you know, you see the beautiful girl, the same reaction over and over again what mindfulness does. You actually see other ways you can deal with this problem or, you know, with this not maybe a problem or maybe something you want to do, but you've got more alternatives. An addict has got no alternatives at all. They're in a rut, a habit which is so ingrained they just go there and they cannot stop themselves. There are other alternatives all the time, but it's we need the mindfulness training data to see that. So what mindfulness actually is, is actually when you come here on a Friday night, never sitting in the same place. I am accepted here because I have to sit in this place. That's where the microphone is. Well, why is it that people always try and sit in the same place, or they park the car in the same way? They always eat the same food when they go to work in the morning, they always go the same way and they go back the same way. Become creatures of habit. When you become creatures of habit, that's called no mindfulness. And it's a wonderful thing to be able to change. And I will challenge you tomorrow morning. One of my first examples of training in mindfulness is when you wake up tomorrow morning and you brush your teeth, which side of the mouth do you start brushing your teeth? The left or the right? Or in the middle? Above or below? Tomorrow morning I challenge you. Start somewhere else. Start a different part of their mouth every morning. Come on, live on the wild side. That's a very simple example. But it makes the point that, you know, we're habitual. We always start the same place. There's no reason to start at that place. But because we start at the same place, it's a creature of habit. We don't need to even think about or be aware of what we're doing. He just goes and does it without any mindfulness awareness at all. You literally are dialing your mind out and become a creature of habit. And it's a habit. Habits which cause the addictions, whether it's with gambling, with food, with sex, other sensuality or, say, pornography. Why do people want to watch pornography on the internet so much? After a while it has become an addiction. We get drawn in there and after a while we can't stop ourselves. Okay, you can stop yourself. There's other doorways you can go through. Well, maybe I had the windows on the net. So first of all, you're going to notice a problem and then do something to stop it, obviously. One of the reasons why people get addicted is this also, there's a pleasure to it as well. And I was very fascinated to see the way the Buddha looked at sensuality by saying, yeah, it's a pleasure there. But there's also a payback afterwards. And, uh, the Buddha's this is 25 centuries ago. He compares no such sensuality like, to borrowing money, taking out a loan, which is actually very deep and profound, because when. So you are so watching pornography or, you know, getting into some sort of sensuality. There's a lot of joy there at the beginning, but often we have to pay it back afterwards. And sometimes, like alone, the only way you can pay it back is by taking out another loan to pay off the original debt, and the loan gets bigger and bigger and bigger until one gets into a such a great financial mess, there's no way that you can actually pay back your your loan. And that is actually just a beautiful description of addiction and actually how it happens, because we get sort of some pleasure back in the first and then touch it to get some more pleasure, we have to do it again. But even more intense and then more intense next time until the pleasure. The only way we can get that pleasure is taking bigger and bigger doses of the drug. And so we're really, really in a great depth. It's a very profound description of actually what addiction is and how it happens. And so the understanding that please don't get that deep into any addiction that you get, uh, caught into such a, uh, debt trap. But it's also understanding that there are other pleasures in this world, not just the sensory pleasures. And it's true, the pleasures of just know your family friendship, know romantic love rather than sexual love. Those other pleasures should also be recognized and should be emphasized, because it's the other pleasures can be used as a substitute for the instant gratification of some sensuality. So if you are addicted to some types of that sensuality, not just mindfulness, but give yourself another reward, another thing which is a bit more, uh, skillful than the one before. So that way that we can actually we're not, um, condemning sensuality, nor are we, you know, trying to prohibit sensuality by covering everybody up in a book or by saying it's evil. We're actually dealing with it in a wise way so we can find our middle way. We don't go to extremes, so we have a means of stopping ourselves, going to those extremes. We have gone to those extremes. We try and maybe learn a little bit of meditation, so our mindfulness becomes more clear, so we can actually stop ourselves before we get to that point. So, for example, if someone is addicted to pornography on the web, the mindfulness actually tells you, look, as soon as you sort of press that button and enter that site, you're lost. You know, it is like in AA or, uh, people addicted to smoking. It's once you've picked up that first cigarette and it's in your mouth, that's too late already. You can't put it down. Then you have to actually stop before you pick the pick the cigarette up and be able to do that. We have these wonderful techniques which we call programming mindfulness by programming mindfulness, what you do when that trigger is not in front of you, when you feel comfortable, when you think it's actually no problem, that's when you put the suggestions into your mind, you know, say cigarettes. I will not pick up that first cigarette. I will not pick up that first cigarette. I will not pick up that first cigarette. Because as a meditator, I noticed how the mind works. It is conditioned. Now you are susceptible to suggestion. And if you keep saying that to yourself again and again and again in the quietness of, say, your bedroom, when you think it's not a problem, you say it. Then when it's not a problem, it's not in front of you, but it's in front of you. It's too late. And after a while what happens, say with a cigarette smoker? Normally they would actually trying to give up, but they see a cigarette and it's in their mouth before they even know it. Because it's habit. It's just like brushing your teeth. You don't even need to think about it. You've done it so often. But what actually happens when they develop that degree of mindfulness and they conditioned themselves? I must not smoke that first cigarette. I must not smoke that. I must not pick it up. Sorry. I must not pick it up. I must not pick it up. What happens just before they're about to pick it up? The mindfulness actually kicks in. It's like an antivirus, not a Norton antivirus or Buddha antivirus, which actually stops the habitual process. And the thought comes up now won't pick it up. There's a very, very effective way of actually stopping addictions. And because it actually the mindfulness is actually pre-programmed in there to say, danger, you're going to pick up a cigarette or, you know, you're going to sort of start another affair when you're married or I'm going to, uh, you know, bet too much at the casino or whatever else you're doing. And that programming is very powerful because that picks up the signal. It's like a little red light starts to, um, flashing in your mind. Danger, danger, danger. You're maybe going too far, and then you have the opportunity to stop yourself. A lot of times you can't stop yourself because you don't know what you're doing. The mindfulness isn't there. It's habits. And so that way we can actually stop ourselves. There's other ways of stopping yourself also to remind yourself of the dangers. What happens when you've done that before? Because some of you know you have had affairs outside of marriage. Sometimes you may have, uh, even sort of had sex unknowingly with, uh, say, a 15 year old girl or whatever it is. You didn't know she was that young or whatever it is, or you're being attracted to somebody at work who's, uh, you know, uh, you're their boss. All these sort of very, very dangerous areas of our life. Be careful if you made a mistake once. Be careful. Prepare yourself. Don't go and create that pain and problems for yourself and others again. So you proclaim yourself. Danger, danger, danger. I want you to have the program. Danger, danger. You have all other ways of dealing with this. Obviously, that moving away from the stimulus, if at all possible, move away from the cigarettes, get out of the casino prisoner, move out of that office or whatever else there is. If there's somebody there who's really sort of, um, attracting you too strongly, you have the choice to do that. So you're actually taking control of your sensuality if it's going too far. And again, throughout this talk, you see that I'm not saying sensuality is bad. I'm just saying the extremes of sensuality. And no, it's quite so wonderful and fine. You're having a wonderful relationship, enjoying sex with your partner, homosexual, whatever. You know that. So whatever is creating that bond between the two of you, that's wonderful. That's fine. But be careful not to take it to the point where it harms yourself and harms another person. And that sort of sensuality which you even see on the TV or you see on the movies. And that's not really the problem at all. Because, you know, it's a long time since I've seen the TV. The scene sort of, uh, people actually tell me what goes on on those TVs. And but I remember, like, I was I went to visit my mother in London about what was it, about 15 years ago. The first time I'd seen TV in about seven years. And it was like a cop and movie show. I forget what it was called The Knot Defenders or something. Anyways. Half an hour. Um, TV show repeated every week. And as I was watching it with my mother, known for giving her company, I couldn't believe that how many people died in about half an hour. I was actually counting them. And I got about a dozen or something. Got shot and killed. I couldn't believe this because before, when I was. Before I became a monk, the TV was so tame because I had seven years, I hadn't seen the actual progress you know, of, actually, you know, violence on TV. The contrast was so strong inside of me because the police show I remembered as a kid was a police show. Anyone old enough might remember this Dixon of Dark Green. And Dixon of Dock Green was his London Bobby in the days when they didn't have guns and when any. If he caught a burglar, the burglars say, ah, Sergeant Dixon, it's an honor to be called by you, sir. And apparently they didn't do that anymore. Things have changed and no one got shot. And if they did ever get hurt, if there was a bullet, they'd go, oh, oh, oh, you wouldn't see any blood at all. And they'd just fall on the floor without any sort of gore or anything. But apparently things have changed enormously since then. But of course, you know, if you try and censor this, what happens if you say, okay, so no sort of lewd speech on the TV or no naked flesh or no sex, what happens? It just goes underground. And of course, when it goes underground, that makes it even more interesting. You know, when it's sort of an illegal video or when it's something which it is, that's not obviously the way to deal with sensuality, to prohibit it. You know, whether it's porn movies on the internet or whatever. It always has to be some sort of restraint. And that restraint is done from understanding. Is it going to harm me or harm another person? It makes it sensible. You can understand why that's the only real way of dealing with this, with its oneself. Once kids, once part or whatever. Now to appeal to their wisdom and encourage that wisdom and get you to see the reason why these things were popular and actually give strategies to deal with addictions or with problems, but without the guilt trips, because just the guilt makes things even worse. What happens with guilt? You're saying that you are worthless, you're a mistake, and people who are are made to feel guilty or are punished. They have low self-esteem because they're low self-esteem that you look for harming themselves. Now, obviously that's a great generalization of a very complex process, but that explains it almost in a nutshell. You make a person feel guilty. They want to punish themselves. They don't want to be happy. So this idea of not harming themselves and not harming others, why they deserve to be harmed, so they actually the addiction carries on. So that the guilt trips are actually counterproductive to actually having some sensible happiness and good health in a world of sensuality. But also that people ask no why amongst celibate and why a nun celibate anyway? Why do we actually reject sensuality? And are we somehow weird depraved? I sometimes have good fun as a monk. It was over a year ago that I was invited to the Gay Pride Breakfast, which was at Curtin University. It was a year and a half ago, I think, and I when asked to give a little talk, I just went up there and say, I am more deviant than all of you, all you gay lesbians and transgenders because I'm celibate. So I got one. I'm what? I'm the most deviant in the whole room. I'm just making a little joke about that. And I was. So I respect people of all, all genders and all, uh, sexual. Um. Preferences, but the point was that my preference being celibate was even more, um, threatening to many people because what a monks and nuns doing giving up. Are we afraid of sex? Is it the case we were hurt when we were young? Many people think that way. I see that I mentioned a story a few weeks ago, but this was actually. There was a monk. There was a monk, uh, called, uh, as a Jungian, he was one of the old Thai monks who lived in his beautiful monastery. Pu talk is like a top hat mountain. And, uh, some of the Thai people name is a very famous monk. At the time I went to visit him. And this lady came from Bangkok and and asked this monk, how did you become a monk? Because you had a failed love affair. And he said, no, of course not. He said, ah, she said, that makes sense. You're ordained to forget and you have forgotten by now. It's logically consistent, what she said. But that's not why she ordained as a monk. And I never ordained as a monk because I got jilted in my love affairs. Now, the reason I became a monk is because I know I had sex. I knew what sex was like. But you know, when I meditated, once I got this incredible experience, which was better than sexual orgasm. And that was just really shock me. What's going on there? And so I decided to become a monk, just for a couple of years to find out what meditation was really like. And being a monk, you know, you have these rules of no sex. I didn't really understand what that was for at first. That's just what a monk does. But after a while, when you understand the nature of the mind, you understand that no sensuality actually does draw you out into the world. And the meditation is actually going deeper inside. So actually, the more you limit your sensuality, that's the easier it is to meditate. And you don't get drawn out. So much so that when I became a monk for a couple of years, sure, it was, you know, hard to restrain the the mind looking out for the beautiful girls and the the nice food and the TVs and the movies and all these other sensual things that were missing in the world. I also had some interesting experience, as I mentioned, actually going to visit my mother and seeing the TV after seven years. But I also remember just the first time that after seven years, I've flown an aircraft now from Bangkok to London. I got a cheap flare on Philippine Airlines, an economy class, and this was over 25 years ago. You know, I couldn't believe just how sensuous and luxurious economy class on Philippine Airlines was. It was my senses, which are amazed because I've been in a forest monastery which was very, very austere. Well, I realized from that that sensuality is also is very relative to other people. Cramped in the economy class of an aircraft 25 years ago that was just so tough and just such an ordeal. But for me, who'd never sat on a chair for seven years being served like food, which was hard, which was West to which I could eat. I even got ice cream. I remember the ice cream. In a tub instead of on my boat. They're just melting into my rice and curry and. And and even the Muzak, you know, the Muzak on the plane there was. I never heard music for seven years. I was amazing. I was just so sensual. I was couldn't get that out of my head afterwards. So. So you see, that's obviously a joke for you because you go on an aircraft and the music on there just looks yucky in the food, aircraft, food. People sort of just think it's disgusting. And economy class is sort of so cramped up. But for me, because I've been living a far more austere existence in these forest monasteries now, those items in the aircraft wasn't even any mosquitoes. First time in seven years I was free from mosquitoes for more than an hour to. That was, to me was luxurious and sensual. So you can see sensuality is also relative and the sensuality which you're experiencing now. So ten years ago, that would blow people's minds. The houses you live in. The cars you drive. What you see on the TV is his nature. So the point is, the sensuality is going to get more intense in another ten years time. We can't really stop. We can't sort of have some great sense of somewhere saying, no, we're not going to have we're going to go back to Dixon of Dock Green. We're not going to have any violence. We're going to have the presenter of the 6:00 news wearing a burka. I don't know who that is, anyway. Some floozy on the channel nine or channel seven. But you can't. You can't do that. The point is that, you know, we live in a sensory world. If you want to, you know, get out of the sensory world and come into a retreat center, a monastery for a few weeks to get some sort of idea of a perspective. And if you want to do meditation, sometimes you just have to leave that sensory world outside instead of being drawn outside, drawn inside. If you really want to go into deep meditation, it's an interesting thing to do because you actually do get incredibly joy of actually not being caught up in that sensory world. What actually you do is you say, I can stop looking if I want to. And one of the great things of being about for so many years, you can actually look at a beautiful girl, an ugly girl, and look at them exactly the same. Not many men can do that. I know one story. I forget who this. I should actually find out who this lady was. But she was some TV star. I think she was in water rats or something. And I don't know her name, but somebody told me this is really, really famous. If I told you her name now, I think you'd all know her. But I went to teach her. Uh, it was just an afternoon meditation session in Sydney, and this fellow had a little group in, uh, Darling Point, you know, like a really top, affluent place of Sydney. And so he's in this little group about sort of 20 or 30 people. I was talking about meditation. This lady was kept on looking at me and smiling, and I didn't know this. She was acting very strange. Not like an ordinary girl. And and in the end. And I just took it in my stride and taught the meditation, etc.. And afterwards I mentioned to the person organising, they said that lady was acting really strange, and he told me that that was a famous TV actress. And I figured out she was looking at me strangely because I didn't recognise her. What she was actually saying. See? It's me. I'm the famous TV star. And I didn't know. It's crazy. That was a great experience. Where you're sort of a monkey. You don't know who's who. So. Because. Because of that, you know, she's obviously must be some sort of very beautiful girl and sort of an ugly girl. And what is beauty and ugly, anyway? Why is that? To attract us? When you're marketing, meditate a lot, you don't see that anymore. I love that being an MC, having that opportunity to see a beautiful girl sits here and ugly girl sits here. You spend the same amount of times with both. You don't. The ugly girl. Go on, get off of. Because that's where sensuality starts to disappear. So it's great being able to. If you can resist that sensuality, you can be more fair to other people. So that's why we do it as a monk. And we know we do lots of meditation. So it's great actually doing a little retreat because you understand sensuality much more. You can understand, you can restrain it. So it's up to you. You can take it or leave it. Sometimes people think they want to be free. In the free world, it's been able to enjoy our sensuality. We should have no limits. Whatever we want to watch the most violent movies or the most sexual movies, the most deviant sex or whatever. You know, let's have a free world. Let's allow people to do this. But the point is, if people aren't free, sometimes those sensory desires actually captivate us. We become a prisoner of our sensuality, which is why that we have to have that sex. We have to have that drug, we have to gamble. And sometimes people get to the point. They have to have those relationships outside of their marriage, and they hurt and they realized they weren't in control. After all, there wasn't freedom. So it's a great thing actually, to investigate, you know, is it the freedom of sensuality or is sensuality God? It's limits. Where you're in the prison of sensuality, you have to have it. So it's great for putting a little bit of mindfulness and restraint because you find you can. Almost like control your sensuality. Go as far as you want. If this thing is going to harm another person. Harm yourself. You can say no. You can stop it. That's what we do with mindfulness. Built of meditation with wisdom. Taking away the guilt. Taking away the evil and the bad. And putting in the word skillful. And understand what that word skillful truly means. What is really going to be serving our purpose, serving our interests. What we really want to get out of our life. We understand that. We understand the Buddhist approach to sensuality. Not to deny it. Not to cover it up, but to deal with it and deal with it, with wisdom, with mindfulness in a way which can create the best happiness for ourselves and all other beings. So that's a talk on sensuality this evening. Thank you. I think no jokes this evening. I have to think of one pretty quickly. But last week I didn't have time for questions, so I tried to keep it a little bit shorter this time. Just under the hour for some questions. So has anyone got any questions on the talk about sensuality tonight? Yeah. Okay. I can't see the lights. Yes. You need. To say something like. Come on, friends. Um, and I. Email you. Okay. Thank god. Oh, God. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. What can you say? A level of violence. We might even say pornography or even gambling or whatever else, uh, is, uh, such a degree that, uh, it's good for the powers that be to ban it, uh, because, uh, people can't handle it. I think the history has shown that banning things never works. When you try and ban something, you have to enforce that ban. And that's where we get Taliban from or Taliban. And not only that, but in banning things, you know, we get where do we draw the line and people are clever enough. You'll always get away around the ban somewhere else or whatever. And so instead of actually banning things, instead of saying that, you know, that people can't handle this, teach people to handle it. So I think, I think the resources should be going in. So like banning things, teaching people how to handle these things better, even actually to say no to them, to turn them off rather than actually be, uh, you know, have sort of a blanket ban on things. It's a difficult one because obviously that sometimes it's good to have some restraint, especially with kids. You again haven't got the emotional maturity to exercise such self-restraint. But it's a difficult question there because who has such emotional maturity to exercise self-restraint? Should we give everyone a restraint class and an exam and say, okay, now you are free to be mature and make your own decisions, but other people can't. Such a difficult decision with censorship. But what we have seen in history, people always find a way around it. If we ban no. When the American government tried to ban alcohol in the prohibition years, all it did was fed a, uh, an underground criminal element and people drank anyway. When people try and stop no pornographic movies, there's always a way that people, if they really want it, you can get it. So isn't it much better, actually to try and encourage people to be more self-reliant? Self responsible? Otherwise, I don't think it will work. So in Buddhism it's very much the responsibility is on you. Calmer. We're the owner of our deeds. So now we take responsibility for it. So there you are. You know, you have all those things in the world. How much you want to go, what you don't want to do. It's up to you all the. What are some good teachers to be wise, be discerning, understand what's going to be of help and what's not going to be of help, what's going to harm, what's not going to harm, and also teaching strategies so you can exercise a little bit more wise control over your decision making with a bit of more mindfulness. So please, anyway, tomorrow morning brush your teeth in a different part of your maths. So beginning in training and restraint. Thank you for that question. It's a great question. I'm not sure if I could answer it adequately. I don't know if anyone can answer adequately how to answer it yourself. Any other questions you have? Okay, I know that sort of. I've just taken a joke to end up with. I know that, uh, the quote from Groucho Marx was one of my great heroes when he asked during the sexual revolution, when the radio reporter asked him what he thought about sex, he said, I think it's here to stay. There's a lot of wisdom. Humor is good because it's wisdom behind it. You can't stop it getting out the bottle. So how are we going to deal with it? Okay, let's put it some sensuality. Up some. Some Buddha. I go full time, I go one time. Happy one day me. So of course, I go out of the mall on my side. So party people are going to sort out a single song, Kong Naman.