Building a House of Peace

Okay. So are people settling down now? Um. Stressing. Is someone giving talk after talk after talk? Sometimes I never know what I'm going to speak about next. There's a whole catalog of experiences and understandings of Buddhism life. But as I mentioned before, we started the meditation this evening for us. Was it eight days since beginning before? Good Friday? I've been teaching a meditation retreat just a few kilometres south of here in the Redemptorist Monastery retreat house. And so when I teach a meditation retreat, I really get into it myself. So my mind is just full of the peace of meditation. So let's see how we go with the talk on what meditation is and how it works. And sometimes that as human beings in today's world, you get so much information and so many people are telling you what to do and how to live your lives. And sometimes that's what we do here on a Friday night. So you'll give you some advice. Ones like how to solve the problems of your daily life. But sometimes that becomes endless. You solve one problem, another problem comes up. And very often people want to find the bigger picture, the deeper understanding. You know the answers to such things as the meaning of life and who you are, and what are the central things of Buddhism has always been meditation. For those of you who know anything of the history of Buddhism. It started by a person meditating under a tree. It was always there from the beginning and has always been a central part. And if there's any holy book in Buddhism, it is the holy book of meditation which you read in your own heart, in the stillness of your mind. Rather than any scripture, you always say the scriptures are secondary, let alone the commentaries about these scriptures. The ideas of monks and nuns such as myself. The experience must always be first. And so a lot of times that we try and encourage people who will come in contact with Buddhism not just to listen and believe, but to listen, to follow and find out. On this beautiful path, the inner search for what happiness and peace truly is. Because there are too many arguments in this world and too many differences of opinions. And people argue and are they just quarrel with each other? And sometimes that you're in the middle of this and think, you know who's one? Who's wrong? Is it the Christians or Buddhism? Muslims or the atheists and even the Buddhist is so many different sects of Buddhism, and even one sect has so many different forms of Buddhists, and one monk says this and another might not says that sometimes it can become so confusing in any way. Is that what we're really here for? Or is it really here to find some peace of mind, some stillness? I remember just a few years ago, just going to put one of the tickets for was on my flights overseas to go and teach and serve other places. And at that time I traveled agent was Flight Center in Mira Boca, just around the corner from here. But unfortunately, I was right in the middle of the shopping center. And night for a monk who lives a very simple life. Shopping centers are like going into hell. Because they're so peaceful and so quietly. And you go into one of those places and you get these sounds and noises coming from all directions. I used to really dislike that we could change the change the travel agent now. So it's just in West Perth, not in the shopping centre anymore. But every time I had to go in there, I remember standing at the doors and sort of getting my energy up and looking down and making a run for it, head down, go, because I found it so unpleasant that you do have all these sites and the sounds and the smells when you have a very peaceful, quiet mind. All these things are like putting hot water in a cool glass. It tends to make you uncomfortable. And sometimes I remember going into that shop once with another monk, and the other monk was accompanied me, just sat down on a chair, closed his eyes and started meditating. And the person behind the counter stopped serving me. I looked at him and she said, I wish I could do that. Now she really meant it. She saw that just the quiet, peaceful person in the middle of a frantic shopping center was like a promise of something which she knew was worthwhile, but she couldn't reach herself. And that promise of that peace inside that stillness amongst the confusion of our life, is such a wonderful thing to experience. This is why we meditate, to be able to feel a bit of peace and stillness in our life. Because that peace and stillness has two great benefits for you. Number one, it feels good. And number two, it gives you a perspective on what life is all about. All the wisdom which you hear from here on a Friday evening. I think many of you have found this out by now. It doesn't come from books. It comes from the experiences. And how does a monk know all these things? I was saying last night that some of the weird experiences I've had as a monk in my life here in Australia, number one was going to a a transport forum. It was in the Duxton Hotel run by Alana matera. When, you know, she was Minister of Transport at that time and going there because we had some trouble with clay trucks past our monastery and actually going to the forum there, and while I was there, somehow or other, I stood out. And so a journalist approached me and asked me what I was doing there, and then interviewed me about shipping. Now one thing, my characters, I'm going to do anything. So I gave her the Buddhist idea of shipping. And of course, as usual, I was making it up as I went along, but they published that article. And they actually wasn't her. It was a him. I'm sorry. It was a him who published this article. And I saw him about a year later when he came up to me and he said, you wouldn't believe how popular that article was. It was syndicated to every shipping magazine almost in the world under the under the title Zen and the Art of shipping. And all his fellow journalists came up to him. Not all, but many emailed him and said, I don't know who the atom bomb is, but he certainly knows what he's talking about. And of course, I have no idea about shipping. But it wasn't that I struck lucky. There was something else going on there. And the second experience I mentioned this a couple of nights ago in the retreat in North Perth, I think it was last night I mentioned this was when that after a Friday night talk here in Ottumwa, I went over to the studios of 6PR because there's a few people I know in there, and they had always invited me to come and do one of these evening shows or talk shows. And so now I'm going for anything. I said, okay, I'll give it a try. So I went in there just now after finishing here and get into the studio because, you know, you finished here about nine 3945. Well, no, I made sure it was 930. So I got to the studios in the end of High Street. Yeah, I think it's High Street in East Perth anyway. And got up there into the studios and because I was, you know, pretty late and it got straight into the studio, headphones on in front of the, uh, the microphone. And then sort of they introduced me to the other people in the show, and there was a lady sitting next to me and she said, this is Doctor Gabriel Morrissey, who is the most prominent sexologist in Australia, who writes many books about sex. So as only then when I asked, what show is this? And it was a show on adult themes. And so for the next two two hours, I was in a ridiculous situation of a Buddhist monk who's been set up for 33 years. So long I've been a monk answering personal questions. On your sexual performance. And I did very well. Because after half an hour is a two hour show and they had breaks for sort of, you know, music and adverts and after half an hour all the questions, because when you do a phone call, apparently on his, uh, radio station, say, I have a question for, you know, Gabriel Morrissey, Doctor Morrissey and on this show, because I don't know why they couldn't get their their tongue around Adrienne Bram on that show. They call me Mr. Monk says a good bit of party games and so had all these callers coming in. We got a question for Mr. Monk. We've got another question for Mr. Monk. And I was handling all the questions. And his sexologist, who was supposed to be the, the biggest expert in Australia, was being completely outwitted by a celibate Buddhist monk. Now that's again one of those other true stories. And how on earth can a mark know about such things? Now, why is it that often people come up to the monks and to Sister Shyama talking about their marriage problems? I think about it. What do I know about marriage? I've been a monk for 33 years, but people come and ask those questions and they get great answers. Where is all that wisdom coming from and where that wisdom coming from? Why you can't talk about shipping and it makes sense. You can't talk about sex. And people listen and think, wow, that's interesting is because you have such still mind, you can see much deeper than other people. It's in that stillness that you see very clearly. You see the nature of your mind and other people's minds. This is the power of deep meditation. The still seeing. Which is why that this is one's authority to sit up here and teach the Dhamma every Friday evening. It's not what I've learned. It's not any degrees which I have got. It's all the power of the still mind. Because what happens in meditation is the mind gets so tranquil that an interesting process happens. And this is the process of the empowering of mindfulness. Sometimes we have an idea in Buddhism about awareness, mindfulness, being alert. But how alert? How mindful are you? Sometimes you go around in a fog. But if you've always been in that fog, you take that for the bright sunshine of life. But what happens when you learn how to meditate properly? The mind becomes very still and is. A process happens. The process is the energy of your mind, of your inner being is no longer wasted on fruitless thinking and controlling and managing and complaining and all this struggling and striving which occupy most of our lives instead. As I said in the beginning of the meditation, it's as if we've been going on a long journey and we're so tired because we've been walking and travelling incessantly, always going to the next thing. And now we find a bench or a seat. And it does not need to be a comfortable bench. A simple stone slab might be enough, or we put down all our baggage and we sit down and rest for a few moments. And when we rest from our journey through time, through life, going someplace, getting somewhere. Always going to the next thing and we stop. What a relief. And the longer we stop. The more we recover. The more the energy. Start to build up. The natural energy of our mind returns and the mind becomes energized. And their energy when it builds up becomes powerful. Mindfulness and alertness, which sometimes surprises you when that mindfulness gets strong. Life becomes more beautiful, more interesting, more delightful. One of the first times I realized this in my practice of meditation was the very first meditation retreat which I gain, which I have participated in. I was still a student only 19 years of age, and a few of us hired a boarding house, about 2 or 3 boarding houses in Cambridge. It's amazing when you've got good meditation. It was in Bateman Streets in Cambridge. That's maybe 39 years ago and haven't thought of that name for such a long time. It's amazing. When you meditate, your memory gets incredibly strong. You remember details a long time ago, clearly in those boarding houses of Bateman Street. We meditated for nine days, but before I went on that boarding house retreat, I did it with some trepidation because I like my food and I knew as a fact already the cooks in England were somewhere in the bottom of the league and European cuisine. Apparently cooking in UK has improved since those years. But the English were not known for their cooking. Now, at the bottom of the pile of cooks were those who worked in boarding houses for poor students who couldn't afford to complain. And I knew from experience that these cooks would usually every evening cook a three course meal. Starts, stops and starts. Doesn't matter what vegetable it was, it was boiled so long it tasted the same. And if you know England in those years, you would know what I'm talking about. So I thought, I'm going to have a terrible time in this retreat with food. It's just going to be really awful. But I was surprised. During that period of retreat, every evening, the food was delicious. It was very tasty. At the time, I thought I'd just must be lucky. My good karma has meant we've got the best boardinghouse cook in the whole of England. Now I know much better. The food was this ordinary food. But because I was practicing meditation, because I was becoming still, my mind was increasing in energy. So much so that the small amount of taste which was left in there, I could pick up. And now I know for a fact that whenever you go on a retreat, the food always tastes better than normal. Doesn't matter who the cook is, because it's not the food or the cook is your mind. So what that means is those of you who learn to be stood in your meditation and get more powerful mindfulness. When you go out for a meal one evening, you will enjoy it even more. So if ever you go to an expensive restaurant, always remember to meditate for half an hour beforehand so you can get your money's worth. Now that's actually something which is true. You become more awake and alert and sensitive when the energies of your mind improved. And it's not just that the food tastes better, but your whole surroundings look more beautiful. There's a million meditation, which I've gave overseas many times, but it's been a while since I gave it here on a Friday evening. And it's a simile of protein yarn. A monastery at serpentine where I live. Many of you who've been there, and, you know, it's up on top of a hill, two kilometers. For the first nine years I was staying in that monastery. I'd always go up and down that hill in a car. But I remember on one occasion it was early in the morning, a nice spring morning. I had the time. I told the driver to stop at the bottom of the hill. I wanted to walk up and that's what I did. I walked up the hill, but a strange thing happened going up that hill. I could not recognize my surroundings at all. The hillside looked completely different than anything I remembered, and it was so surprising. I stopped and I stopped and stared in bewilderment. Am I up the same hillside? Again it changed. And this time it became so beautiful that I stopped and enjoyed scenery which I never realized existed. And then I pondered what was going on. Why couldn't I recognize her surroundings? If you don't believe me. If you always go to your house in a car up and down that road one day, stop at the corner and walk to your house and you too will see things you've never seen before. Because what happens? I figured out when you're looking through the window of a speeding car, it may be only going 40km or 50km an hour, but if you're looking out through that window, the light does not have sufficient time to form a proper image on the back of your eye. Before another image comes up, dislodges the old and you have to attend to that. And then another image comes up. The details don't fully form. The colors are enriched because you have to keep moving on to the next image, moving on to the next image. When you slow down, which is what I was doing when I was walking, I started to see details which my senses couldn't pick up because it was going too fast. I saw rocks and trees and bushes which I never knew existed, but also because I was going slower. The physical process of seeing the light forming through the chemical reaction of light on the back of your eye, the colors became richer. Literally, the greens became brighter. And when I stopped and stood still. It was only then that my eyes had all the time they needed to form the full picture, with all its detail, and you could see all the lichen on the rocks, and you can see the texture of the rocks, the different shades of gray, the different grasses, bushes, trees, everything. Goodness, it was so beautiful because even the texture of the tree was now fully formed and the colors were bright. Looking at the same tree through the window of a speeding car, the colors were washed out and like pastel, like, you have a bright colored t shirt and you've been washing it so many times. All the color is gone and it's sort of pastel and dull. But when I stopped, the colors were bright and brilliant, and that's what made it so incredibly beautiful, simply because I had slowed down and my senses had time to see, and my mind had time to know. In that stillness, my mind had energized and I could see more of what was going on and was far more beautiful. So also what happens if you send your husband to learn meditation? When he goes back home, he thinks his wife looks far more beautiful than she was before. Because you could see more beauty. All that wonderful stuff which was in the husband and wife all along, which you were going too fast to notice. Now it's there. My goodness darling, have you had a makeover since I've been on retreat? No, I just had makeup made over my mind so I can see more and appreciate more now that similarly actually is very, very profound because this is what we mean by waking up. We strengthen our mind. So actually, when you start to meditate, remember it's all about stillness, allowing things to stop and be still. And in the stillness you build up energy. And in that energy build up you see more clearly the mindfulness increases in its strength, which means you can perceive more deeply than other people, but also as you perceive more deeply, you can perceive more happily as well. Meditators become happier people. When I was in Hong Kong a couple of weeks ago. Also teaching meditation was the French monk who was the subject of Professor Davidson's experiments, and I think the University of Wisconsin, who was doing functional magnetic resonance scans of many people to find out who was the happiest people. And this monk, a meditator. Think Michel Foucault. I think Richard Ricard, Michel Ricard, he came out top of the top of the scale. So he goes around now the happiest person in the world. It's a nice acronym, isn't it? I seem to be known as. And that's not a subjective feeling. He was scanned. And found out. Yeah. He really was happy simply because of his meditation. Now you know why the energies go up. Do you feel tired? You feel you dragging yourself through life. Life is such a burden because you're not steady enough. You don't know how to recharge those energies. So when you have a strong mind, you have an energetic mind, a happy mind. You can do things, and you can also see very deeply what's going on. There's another thing I've been teaching doing our retreat over in North Perth, because other strange things happen when you start being still. Few years ago, a person in the retreat in North Perth came up to me and said she had a very strange experience during her meditation. She was getting quite still, but her back became very hot. It was like on fire. Not unpleasantly so, not painfully, but like an information was occurring there and she did not know why. So she came and saw me afterwards and said, what's going on? I was meditating, then suddenly got really warm and hot. So I asked her, when did you have your accident? And she looked at me at her brow. She read my mind. I had a car accident a few years ago. Yes. And you injured your back and shoulders? Yes I do. You know, look, it's not psychic powers. It's just you told me. Because this is what happens. Strange thing about the body is that it has its own innate healing processes. The trouble is, we get in the way too often because of our stress. The way that stress works, we block things from occurring. We don't give them time. We don't actually relax the body long enough. The energy flows to go to where they're needed. In Indian medicine, in the time of the Buddha, they called it winds which have to flow through your body. Energy flows. And you all probably know the Chinese version of that. The tea energy going through your body and sicknesses are interpreted as blockages in the energy flows for your body. And I remember reading an article in a Whistler Buddhist magazine some years ago where they had a traditional Tibetan doctor who had only just came over from Tibet as a refugee. But he was one of the famous doctors in Tibet, couldn't speak any English. I don't think he could even read. And they took him into a hospital in the US just to test him out. They showed him patience and asked him to diagnose what was wrong with him. And I think he tested the pulses like in Chinese medicine. I think I don't know, he said nine pulses, I think. I forget how many it is now. He checked all his pulses and then straight away he said, that guy's got a blockage around his heart region. He had congested arteries around his heart. I was going to do a bypass, so that was one example. I remember this guy got it straight away, but the way he interpreted it was like blockages and energy flows. The doctors in the US using the scan show do us a blocked arteries close to his heart exactly the same. He could see the similarities there. So there's a lot of truth in this idea of the blockages of energy through your body, and what happens when you really relax. Those blockages are released when you get out of the way. The body knows what to do. In fact, it knows what to do much better than you do. And so she was getting out of the way, relaxing, getting into her body and into her mind. The body really relaxed and the energy started to flow to where they were needed. Her back injury hadn't fully healed, so all this energy came wrapped as she felt really hot and afterwards she felt so good. This is what the health benefits of meditation are, but you can't force it. You have to relax and let go and allow things to happen. Our problem is, and the reason why people can't get to such deep stages of meditation is because they are control freaks, and in meditation, no control. For those of you who are Buddhists, you should know that there are two types of meditation being taught. And don't think that is we partner in Samata. That is wrong. They are the same. Just to go on a side line here, Samata meditation means calm with passion, no means in sight. Once upon a time, Mrs. Samata, that means calm. And her husband, Mr. Insight. Mr. Vipassana decided to go on a walk up a hill. Mrs. Samata, Mrs. calm went up to the top of the hill because it was so peaceful. On top of that hill. And Mister. We partner her husband, Mister Insight. He went up there because he had a beautiful view on top of the hill. Now they both went up there for different reasons, but when Mr. Samata got up to the top of the hill. Do Mr. or Mrs. O'Neill know what I mean? I had a sex change halfway up the hill. Probably. But when Mrs. Samata go that way, Mrs. Samata. Mrs. Pease got to the top of the hill. Oh, she enjoyed the peace. It was so calm on top of the hill, away from the town and the city and the roads. But it was not only calm up there. She saw the view as well. And when Mr. Wee passenger, Mr. Insight, when he got to the top of the hill, or he enjoyed the view because that's what he went up there for. But he also experienced a beautiful peace, because on the top of the hill the peace and the view always coexist. There is no difference between those two types of meditation. So the two types of meditation in Buddhism, we call those second noble truth meditation and third noble truth meditation. For those of you who don't know basic Buddhism, the Four Noble Truths. Second, noble truth is desire leads to suffering. The third noble truth is letting go. These two. Enlightenment. Ultimate peace. So those are the two types of meditation. Desiring. Wanting. Wanting. Wanting. That leads to suffering. So whenever you meditate and you want something, you are going to suffer. You are going to get frustrated. You are going to get restless. You'll never find peace through wanting things. The other type of meditation, third noble truth meditation, is letting go leads to Nibbana peace. So when we do meditation, remember there's two types of meditation. Wanting. Wanting. Wanting and letting go. Letting go. Let him go. If you aren't going to be still, you have to do. Third noble truth meditation. Shh. Stop doing anything. Stop controlling. We ever heard the explanation of compassion in this retreat, in this place here. The usual way I explain compassion or loving kindness is saying, the door of my heart is open. No matter who you are, no matter what you've ever done. My love for you is unconditional. That's also letting go. Meditation. This moment, whatever it is. Pleasant. Unpleasant. Restless. Sleepy. The door of my heart is open to this moment unconditionally. No matter what you are. Compassion and letting go at exactly the same things. Compassion is when we don't control the object of our kindness. If you really love your partner, you will never try to control them. You'll love them for who they are. Your love gives them freedom. If you love yourself with the wise compassion of loving kindness. You don't love yourself and say, I am hopeless. I should be better. I should be a better parent, a better mother, a better father, a better partner, a better nurse, a better monk. Loving kindness is saying to yourself, the door of my heart is open to me. No matter what I've ever done, no matter who I am. Come in. You make peace with yourself. That's exactly what you're doing. Meditation doesn't matter what you're aware of right now. What's happening to you? You say the door of my heart is open to this moment. To my mind, to my body, to my consciousness. Unconditionally. Whoever you are, whatever's happening, come in. You make peace with your mind. With your heart. That's how you meditate. You don't meditate trying to get somewhere, trying to be different. That just is another striving. That's why it makes you so tense. Some people meditate and they go out more angry than when they came in because they're not meditating correctly, who meditate properly a letting go, a calmness, a kindness. All those problems which were once in the mind tend to disappear and vanish. In the book which I wrote, Opening the Door of the heart is a wonderful story which applies to life and meditation, and it actually comes from the word of the Buddha himself. In some of the scriptures called Udayana, he taught the story the well-known story of the anger eating demon. The story begins in a palace in a land a long time ago. And in that palace the emperor was away on some other business. And while he was away, this monster came into the palace. This demon who looked so ugly and so terrifying that all the soldiers and the guards froze in fear, which allowed that monster to stride right through the palace and enter the throne room and sit on the Emperor's chair, at which point the guards and the soldiers came to their senses and they shouted, get out of there! Who do you think you are as the Emperor's chair? Get out! And at those few unkind words, that monster, that demon grew an inch bigger, more ugly. And the stench coming off him got worse. And so did the monster's language. They got out their swords and clubs, and they threatened all sorts of horrendous injury to that monster if he didn't get out. They threatened and bullied and tried to scare him. But every unkind word, every unkind deed or unkind thought. That monster just grew an inch bigger. What ugly was merely more offensive. This had been going on a long time. When the Emperor came back, and when he came back and walked into his palace, this demon was huge. Taking up half of the hall. And he was so ugly. If you think you've seen something frightening in aliens, you've never seen anything as frightening as that demon. And he smelled so bad. As I wrote in my book, his stance would even make a maggot throw up. That his language, the language, was worse than you would hear on a Saturday night in female. Fremantle after the Dockers lost to the Eagles. Terrible language. Now. The reason this guy was the emperor was because he was smart. He knew what to do. Soon as he saw that demon, he said, welcome. Thank you so much for coming here. Oh, it's been such a long time since we've enjoyed a visit by you, monster. Has anyone got you anything to drink? Yes. Would you like a cup of tea? We have English breakfast. We have Dilmah, straight from Sri Lanka. Or would you like peppermint? It's good for your health. Look at those few kind words. The demon grew an inch smaller, less likely, less smelly, less offensive. And then everybody got the message. So they asked him if he wanted something to eat. Do you want a pizza? Monster size? Of course. Would you like a foot massage? It's very rare. Monsters get foot massage. And reflexology was so nice. So they gave this monster a foot massage. And someone massaged the scales on the back of his neck. With such a big head, no one had a shoulder pain. And they were so kind to this monster that every kind act, word or thought. The monster grew an even smaller, slightly less smelly, less offensive, and it took almost no time. And he was back to the size when he first came in. But did they stop there? No. They carried on with kindness until soon. That monster was at a size when he first came, and when he was so small that one more act of kindness and that monster disappeared completely. He vanished. The Buddha told that story. He never mentioned a pizza. I made up it up. But he called that an anger eating demon which feeds on anger. The more anger and ill will you give it, the bigger and uglier and smaller it becomes. And what a great insight into many things of life that was. Because there are so many anger eating demons in this world. Sometimes when your husband comes home from work, he's an anger eating demon. You look. You get angry at him. He gets a little bigger. He said he gets uglier. And it gets worse in his backwards, anger eating demons. But the angry eating demon I'm talking about here is your state of mind. How often is it that you are with yourself and you say, I don't like this. Get out of here. You don't belong because it's ugly, smelly, offensive, whatever. You don't like it. So many of the states of mind we live with are anger eating demons and why we don't like them. The worse they get. So the way of meditation, whatever you're looking at, whatever your experience, you say welcome. Thank you for coming to visit me. Is there anything I can do for you? And the act of kindness will make the demon of depression, the demon of lack of self-esteem, the demon of fear, the demon of even anger itself get less and less and less and less. And with that kindness, all those demons which plague human beings in our time vanish completely away. We feed it kindness, acceptance. We make peace with these things, not war. That's what we call third noble truth meditation. Making peace, not war with our own mind. How many people are aggressive, even violent? Not to their body, but to the body as well, but also to their mind. The violence of the body is not giving yourself enough rest. Not sleeping enough. Not taking time out. How hard do we work? And with the weekend, we push ourselves even harder. That's called doing violence to your body. You only have to go to Charlie Gardner's to see how many people are sick in cancer wards. How many people have heart problems, let alone all these other sicknesses which seem to plague our modern world? Where do they come from? From violence to our body. Pushing it to heart. But more than that. All the mental difficulties which people have in our modern world, which fill the rooms of psychologists and psychiatrists, are all come from violence to the mind. You've been so cruel to yourself. Instead of being kind to the mental states which come from time to time. Until those demons get so big, they take up more than half of your mind. Instead you say welcome. Be kind. Be gentle. Make peace. And the demon grows smaller and smaller and smaller. So whenever you are meditating, then able to get peace of mind, you can't get peace of mind by making war. As Mr. Bush has found out which everyone has found out, there's no peace through war. This is all saying which part of a poem by William Blake. When I read this, I always remembered it because it was. It was so true. I think William Blake was in the, I think, 17th century, 16 or 1700. So about 2 or 300 years ago, when he said, vengeance to the tyrant fled and caught the tyrant in his bed, and slew the wicked tyrants head, and became a tyrant in his stead. So obvious. That by slaying the tyrant, you become the tyrant. By making war, you never get peace. You just make war. War? The same with your mind. Why do we make war with our mind instead of making peace? Sometimes I call meditation the house of peace. And a house, especially here in Perth, is made of bricks. And if you ever watch a builder or the bricklayer, they lay every brick one by one in sequence. And then you get your house. And it's the same as a house of peace meditation. Meditation is made by so many moments of peace laid one after the other after the other. You make peace with every moment, and the next moment you make peace with it, with compassion and kindness and gentleness and non-aggression. You accept this moment for what it is. He left this moment with a compassion and care. I mention that I'm a monk, so I don't know about kids, but every now and again, someone brings their babies to our monastery for pissing. And sometimes I even have to hold them. And sometimes they just pooed in their nappies and stink. And when I give them back, I think, oh, what a wonderful life it is being a monk. And to me. To me, it's one of those weird and strange things which I can never understand. How can anyone love such a stinking, ugly, screaming baby like that? How? Being a man. But a mother just loves that kid and just stares at them and they just don't smell the poo. And they cause the screams, which will drive me crazy. Oh, isn't it sweet? Isn't it lovely? It's amazing what you can love. And if a mother can love that, surely you can love your mind. Sure your mind goes crazy, but it doesn't scream as much as a baby. Well, sometimes it does. But if you can love the baby, sorry. Love your mind with it. Screaming when it poos all over the place. When I was saying is that the compassion and kindness is amazing. What you can accept to make peace with and if you can make peace with every moment. Not making war, not trying to make it different, not trying to get out of this or get rid of it or go somewhere else, but just to make peace. You find you have this amazing peace build up. You are building the house of peace, the great stillness of the mind. You make that by making peace in every moment. That's how we meditate. And by making peace, a peace builds. Peace is what leads to stillness. When you're at peace, you can rest. Sure, there's much of the journey to be done, but not now. Instead of looking at what needs to be done, you look back at what has been done. And that gives you permission to be at peace. Sometimes I tell people when they go home on a Friday night after listening to a dharma talk for so long, and you go home late, you've been working all day, and you look at all the dirty dishes in the sink in your kitchen and you think, oh no, do I have to wash those up? My advice to you. My advice to you is look at all the clean dishes on the shelves. And if there's more clean dishes than dirty dishes, you're ahead. So go to bed. Don't look at the dishes which need to be cleaned. Look at the dishes which have been cleaned. Give yourself permission to take a break. Otherwise, whenever will all the dishes be clean? Whenever. Will all the work be done? Whenever will you be able to rest in peace? You get it? Where do people rest in peace? In our world? In the cemeteries? Yes. So don't wait till then. So grant yourselves these moments of peace. Make peace is important. And a great thing happens when you make peace with every moment. The mindfulness builds up because of peace. Because you're rest. Because you're still, still energy starts to rise. Your food starts to taste better. Your wife looks a lot more beautiful. Life looks more happy. But more than that, you can see deeply into things. You can appreciate things more. Do you appreciate life? Really? Does it give you fun in every moment? Too often we're racing around. Life is not enjoyable anymore. It's not fun. It hasn't got the sort of beauty the the umph to it. If you really go into that dullness, that's cool. Depression. When life is just so great. Great great great great with mindfulness. Depression disappears. Can't happen. You just so bright and bubbly. You remember all these jokes? And I said I was going to tell a joke today. This is put in. It's completely out of context, but who cares? Guy goes to go to the doctor and the doctor said, sorry, sir, you got terminal cancer. Oh, gee, that's bad news. But the doctor says, well, I've found another disease. You have as well. You've also got Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's? Ah, that's not so bad. At least I haven't got cancer. It's one of those jokes where the smart people laugh first, then eventually everybody else gets it. But anyhow, so you're bubbly. You have fun in life simply because you got more energy, but also you start to see deeper. So all that wisdom. Then you can go. You too can go on radio shows and talk about things. You've got no idea what you're talking about, but unless you come across in, it's really deep what you're saying. You tend to see more. And the whole idea of like wisdom teachings, like Buddhism is learning how to see the truth for yourself. What is this life all about? What is the nature of human beings? Find out for yourself, for goodness sake. And the Buddha went so deep in this meditation. His mindfulness got so strong and so blissful. You really start to see very, very deeply into the nature of life and the nature of how to live your life, about the importance of giving yourself a break, but also how you can work hard, as well as the importance of not being so negative about life training. Actually, the importance of learning how to help people by never focusing on yourself, never focusing on other people. But focusing on what's between us all. A great little insight in a relationship, in a family. It's not about you. It's not about your partner. It's not about your kids. It's about us. In a community. It's not about the monks. It's not about the nuns. It's not about the laypeople. I can't exist without you. You can't exist without me. It's always about us. Personalities disappear and relationships become prominent. Wouldn't be wonderful if politicians realize that it's not about personal power. It's about working together. For goodness sake, we're all in this together. We have to all row in the same direction. When people get married, I tell them that before you get married, you were a two legged animal called a man. You were a two legged animal called a woman. Now you're married. You're joined together. Your elephant with four legs. And the important thing about elephant with four legs doesn't matter which is the back legs and the front legs, as long as they all go in the same direction. His the front legs of an elephant going one direction and a back legs into the elephant go in another direction. What happens to the elephant falls down. When elephants fall down, it's very hard for an elephant to get up. It's so fat and heavy. So it's all about learning how to pull together, work together, really understand that, you know, through the, you know, opening the mind and becoming awake. It's very easy now to find common ground with the Christians and Muslims and other people and to learn how to work together, because the arguments in life, the differences of opinion and putting other people down. If you put someone else down, you're putting yourself down. When you're arguing, you're creating a conflict not just in that person, but in you as well. I always used to say, when you get angry at someone else and you shout at them, it's like throwing a coal at somebody, a hot coal, hoping you're going to hit them. But you always burn your own hand. Sometimes you hit them, sometimes you miss and be always hurt yourself. Whenever you get angry. So a lot of the way we relate in this world is, to me, stupidity. We're just not seeing clearly. We're not awake enough on mindfulness hasn't strong enough. When you wake up and become strong in the mindfulness, you see more deeply. Why do I want to hurt that person I married? Does that make any sense? Because I'm hurting me. I'm hurting us. I'm hurting the kids. I'm hurting. I'm hurting everybody. I'm just creating hurt, that's all. Why can't we create? Why do we create so much hurt in this world? Because of stupidity. That's why when someone asked me years ago, is there such a thing as evil in Buddhism? There is no such thing as evil. In Buddhism, it's just stupidity. People being dull and not seeing clearly. And because of that, there is always a solution. The solution to evil or stupidity is not destroying the evil of stupid people, or putting them away in sort of prisons and executing them. The solution is opening their eyes. Let me see clearly. That's what we do here. Not through listening and learning and having more ideas and concepts, but through waking up through meditation to be having this wonderful mindfulness. So many of the problems are solved. You see clearly. Which is why we gotta finish soon. You know what the word Buddha means? The Buddha of Buddhism. It doesn't mean the Enlightened One has made it. The marks in my monastery pointed out. It actually comes from an old Sanskrit padi world called Chatti, which means the awakened one to someone who's woken up. Doesn't mean you just got out of bed in the morning. It means that you've got strong mindfulness. You see things clearly as through seeing those things clearly that we solve the problems in ourselves, the problems in our life, the problems in sex and the problems in shipping. That's why when you wake up, you can answer all those problems and it's amazing just how effective you are. I'm finishing the talk now, but on Sunday I'm flying to London. You know, I'm flying, therefore, because the next wheeze, which I've got myself into is actually teaching at a human resources conference. So now I'm not teaching about sex, not teaching about shipping. Now I'm teaching about business. And I'm giving a masterclass in this. So invited me all the way from Perth. Pay my air tickets. Give me a hotel room so I can teach CEOs and managing directors on how to run their companies. And I'm a Buddhist monk who haven't got any money, no business experience. And I selected for me. Me for this. They've gone around and. Yeah, we want this guy. Why? Because you woken up. And when you're woken up, you can teach anything to anyone at any time. And that's one of the great fans of being a monk. So may you two, one day wake up with meditation and mindfulness and have a happy life and go all over the world at somebody else's expense. Have a great time. Thank you very much. Okay. Now. Are there any questions about this evening's talk? Well, waking up and I'm glad that no one went to sleep during this talk. Now, going. Going. Okay. Going okay. Oh, Holmes de la sombra de la Armada. What are you are they. The like the by Dudamel. The on Amazon. Sir I did not know what was on a song. Sorry. I'm on.