Conflict!

Conflict! By Ajahn Brahm Transcription Uh, as you will all be aware, even I'm aware. Living in a monastery. It's getting close to Christmas time. It is otherwise known as Buddha's Time. This season. This season of peace and goodwill. So I thought an appropriate topic for tonight's talk was conflict. Because I still remember once going to visit my family in England, but I went there. If it is a Buddhist monk with feelings of peace and kindness and goodwill to all beings, no matter what religion they are, and how wonderful it was to meet your family members you hadn't seen for many years. And it was true. Everyone was just so kind and was so welcoming and so happy for about five minutes. And then the argument started. Then G is this how people live their lives in conflict with their relatives? And apparently they do. So why do we have so much conflict? And can we find a way of lessening the conflict and easing it and not making conflict? Because, my goodness, we have to live in this world together. It doesn't matter where you go, mobile phones can still reach you, so you can't escape from your relatives. They're easy these days. Nor can you escape for your enemies. Which is one of the big problems. Which is why that sometimes we've made these announcements like I will make an announcement pretty quickly in case anyone goes through in the middle of the talk that on New Year's Eve every year for I don't know how many years I've held here in this premises at John Brown's New Year's Eve party. And the reason why we hold this party over here is because it's a beautiful way to welcome in the New Year with no alcohol. In other words, it's a sober evening, but you still have lots of fun and enjoyment, and you don't have any conflict with anybody. And you're also after the New Year's Eve party on New Year's Eve. Here we have a few surprises and other things. People like to get in their cars, and as they drive home, you look for the booze, buses, you try and find them. Because it's good fun. On the early, just after midnight on New Year's Eve, getting stopped by the police. Where they ask you. Sir. Madam, have you been drinking? It's a silly question to ask on New Year's Eve. And you, like everyone else, say yes. Blow into the tube, madam, and you blow into the tube. It's zero. What? You've been drinking orange juice capacity and you can see the face of the policeman on New Year's Eve. I said, ah, you must be one of those Buddhists. Whatever. It's good fun. And so I usually tell people on those days on New Year's Eve, please don't just bring your friends. Bring your enemies as well. They need it more than anybody else, because it's the enemies in this world need to actually lessen the conflict, and you need to lessen conflict. So you don't have so many enemies. And why is it that we do create so many enemies in this world? First of all, because we're unskillful in the way we think, the way we speak, the way we act, we make enemies and never think that the conflict is because of her fault. Because of his fault. With my parent's fault. Because of the government's fault. Because of the monks fault. It's no one's fault except your own. And those of you who don't know, this is his standard Buddhist teachings. If you find fault with someone else, you say it's their fault. You are someone, in Argentina's famous phrase, who's got an itch on their head and is scratching their bum. Anyone, anyone who has said it's on their head and scratches their bottom gets two itches for the price of one. The itch never goes away. That's like blaming somebody else. You're scratching in the wrong place is something you can do to solve the conflict. And so that's trick number one to solve conflict. Don't think it's somebody else's. For you can do something. And what you can usually do is to change before you even change your speech and your actions change your mind. Change the attitude, the way you look at these things, because a lot of times we have this conflict because yes, we're looking at the wrong thing. In other words, somebody is upset you, someone has done something wrong. Someone has done something idiotic. And when they do something idiotic, you think that's an idiot? And as you know, the basic Buddhist psychology, there's no such thing as an idiot. There's just people who do idiotic things. There's no such thing as a liar. This is people who tell lies. I learned this when I went to visit prisons in Western Australia and overseas as well. I've spent more time in jail than you've had hot dinners. That's what I used to say. Some of these prisoners, and I often say that I kept a log of all the times I visited prisons during service, and I kept a record of the hours spent inside jails, teaching meditation and other things. To use as credits in case one day I'm sentenced to jail. I say I've already spent about two months there all the time. Teachings that should be taken into consideration. But that's not the main point. It was strange whenever you went inside a prison and you expected murderers, rapists, thieves, these rotten people who caused so much problem in society. But it was strange when I went into the jail the first time. And everyone has the same experience. Who goes visiting prisons? They don't see thieves. They don't see rapists. They don't see murderers or cheats. They see people. I never once seen a criminal. What I've ever seen is a person who's done a crime. I mention this because this is almost word for word from the arena. We bungaku to buy the Lord Buddha 2500 years ago. He said to stop conflict. You never criticise the person. You never say that they are the unfaithful husband. Their husband has been unfaithful. And there's a huge difference there. You're seeing a bigger picture. You're seeing the person rather than the crime. You're seeing the individual who does many, many things in their life. I don't know how many of you knew that Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian and just terrible. People can sometimes do wonderful things. In other words, they're not all bad. I even mentioned this, you know, in Australia, in politics, people were really upset with that racist Pauline Hanson. And I went on record as saying, look, anyone who's owned a fish and chip shop can't be all bad. Because I'm English, I like my fish and chips. So she ends. She had that part of herself, which was nice, which was wonderful. The she probably got other parts of her, which is nice, but why is it we demonize a person? Because of, you know, some things we disagree with or some immoral actions, which they do. And when we actually demonize that action and identify with a person, that's where we make conflict. I would have said, forget about the person, focus on the act which is causing you problems and difficulties, which is wrong. So when you do that, you're not attacking the person. When you attack the person, people get very defensive. They say, you don't like me, you hate me, you're criticizing me. And of course they will defend. There won't be a solution. There becomes of ego battle and a lot of conflict comes from that. And so be much more wonderful according to the teachings of the Buddha. Then never criticize a person. Always criticize the act. It's not a good thing you're doing. I don't agree with that. But it's not that I don't like you. I was talking to someone recently that I remember one of the tricks of the the Dalai Lama. Whenever he met anybody, it doesn't matter who he who they were, he'd always look upon that person, almost like, see the Buddha inside of them and see them. Buddha nature. Something which was though, a Buddhist monk. You know, you really respect and you love. So even in some really obnoxious people who might come up to someone like the Dalai Lama and sort of start telling them to get a proper job instead of going around the world as a Buddhist monk and being fed by other people and whatever. Sometimes, no matter who you are, you always get obnoxious. People come around and try and test you out. In fact, as monks, we actually invite obnoxious people to actually to test us out, to see how strong we are. I remember this as I went out and I went to England the first time when he went on alms, ran through the streets, that some of the things we have to do as much as carry our ball wearing our lives as walking down the streets or whatever city we're in just to ask for alms, you know, to put food in our bowl. And as sometimes in those early years, people didn't know who we were, and sometimes we'd get some very, very rude criticisms. And I remember this one guy. Apparently, Ajahn Chah said, this one guy in Hampstead, you know, in a very nice suburb of London where Nat and Chas was passed and he threw a punch at him, just missed his nose, kicked him, but just missed his shins on purpose. Just trying to test him out. And afterwards, that sense, I said, wow, I'm going to send all my monks to Hampstead just to test them out to see, you know, what they're really made of, because it's great when you have an obnoxious person come along because, you know, it's much more of a test to see, you know, how developed you are, whether you really are compassionate and soft than getting all you nice people over here. So really, you should be more obnoxious. No, I don't mean that. But what it really means is there that sometimes that, you know, when you see a person who is obnoxious, giving you a hard time, giving you a lot of difficulty? The Buddhist method is try to see something in them that you can really respect, something which you value, which you can laugh. And when you see something in that person is being obnoxious, giving you a hard time making life difficult for you. For you, something which is beautiful, which is lovable, which is wonderful, it changes your whole way of looking at them. He realized that, well, yeah, they got a few faults there, but there's something worth working on. There's something in the other person you can respect and love. And I'll do him in love. The first thing in creating a bridge between you and your enemy, so that some sort of reconciliation can happen, is seeing something in the other person which you, in your worldview, respect and care about? You've got something to work on. It's not that hard to do because human beings, we all do stupid things. We also do some wonderful things. And there's always something in every human being which is worthy and lovable. Otherwise, there'll be some people who have no friends at all, and everyone has somebody who loves them, even if it's your dog. You either don't look at a dog and it doesn't matter what sort of type of bastard you are. You come home and the dog always wags its tail. Is very pleased to see you, and that sort of dog can see something inside of you, even the worst characters. Now, if the dog can do that, and they're supposed to have much less intelligence and you have, can't you see something to wag your tail for when you see somebody? And if you can start to look for this in the so-called enemy, you can find it. Once you find it, you've got a bridge. Once you've got a bridge, you've got something to respect in the other person. The problem is not the whole person, it's just part of their behaviour. You respect the other part. Now you've got something to work on. And once you've got something to work on, it can be. There can be a solution there. Too often in life, when we try and settle a conflict, we don't respect the other person and they don't respect us. And they we put huge barriers up between us. And there's no possibility that a bridge has to be made first of all. And that's the bridge of respect and value. And once you start to do that, there's all sorts of possibilities are open. First of all, this is a possibility of forgiveness. Letting go of that past behavior which caused the conflict in the first place. I don't know how many of us or how many people in our society still carry on the past. They carry around, and they use that as a huge barrier to stop the resolution and the friendship between the peoples of our world and who did what to who and when and how and why. And sometimes we kind of remember what we did must be something bad, but we don't really know. But isn't it? Is that the real reason? Is that important? Isn't it more wonderful, actually to forgive and let go of the past? People keep saying, oh, we will have to learn from the past. We have to resolve the mistakes of the past, first of all, before we can move forward. But you all know that famous story and I don't know, I'm going to say it again now, just one of my favorite stories. I don't know how many times you've heard this. The two chicken farmers, those who haven't heard this story before. This is a humdinger of a story. And it deserves being said again, because I don't know how many times people keep collecting the shit of the past. The two chicken farmers, chicken farmer number one goes into his shed early in the morning to collect the produce of the night before he takes his basket into the shed and fills it full of chicken shit and leaves the eggs in the shed to rot. Chicken farmer number two takes it, takes the basket into the shed, fills it full of eggs and is a shit to rot like you're supposed to do. So he takes the eggs back into the house, makes an omelette for his family, and sells the rest of the eggs in the market for cash. That's a smart chicken farmer. The meaning of that story. And this was actually coming from Atlanta. The meaning of that story is when you collect the pass. What do you collect? Are you a shit collector or an egg collector? And how many people? When we think of what happened today, last week, or, you know, in the history of our race or our culture, how many of us always collect the shit? We should leave the shit in the shed to rot. And when it actually changes, it becomes fertilized, which is actually useful. In the meantime, we should take the eggs because we learn much more from the successes of life than we ever learned from the mistakes. But when we focus on the mistakes of life creates conflict. You did that. Yeah, but you did. I did the same. I did something worse. And that never ends. The conflict which we have because we can't change the past. All we can do is forgive and let go. But why don't we remember the eggs of the past? The beautiful success stories of the past. Sure, we made mistakes, but there's more to the person than that. There's a Buddha nature. The beautiful part. The lovely part of them is a lovely part of the part. Past the beautiful part of the past. Or wonderful things which happen. Why don't we focus on that? And then we fired. Yeah, there are mistakes and not as painless trouble. But why are we always focusing on what causes us the conflict? Why can we just let that go? Bury it. Leave it alone and move on. It's only when you see something of value in the other person that you can give forgiveness. If all you see is the terrible things they've done to you the stupid, heartless, selfish, cruel acts and speech which they visited on you and giving you such a painful, hard time. If that's all you see, they can never be forgiveness. You can just turn a little bit and see something beautiful in them. Then you can find that forgiveness again. One of those classic stories. It comes up now because sometimes these tours get put on a cassette tape. And even though I just repeat myself, I'd like to make like one talk on conflict, like compared with all these stories from different talks together. And this was that story which I read many years ago, and a funeral service somewhere in the world where the widow got up to stay, the eulogy for her partner, her husband who passed away, and she began her unity by taking out and and holding up half a sheet of paper. And she told a story of this half a sheet of paper which her husband had kept in his wallet throughout their married life, which would always give him a sense of peace and hope and love, even the most difficult situations. Her husband told this her his wife, that he got this piece of paper when he was still at school. There was an argument in the high school in the class where he was studying, and the argument was so fierce, was about to be a fight in the classroom. The teacher told everyone to sit down and take a sheet of paper out of their books. Well, draw a line down the center of that piece of paper. Put the name of their enemy on the top of that sheet of paper, and on the left hand side, the left hand side of that vertical line down the middle of the paper to write down all the things they detested and hated and disliked. All the terrible, cruel things the enemy did, which they filled out very quickly. And then, said the teacher on the other side, the right hand side. Put something you like and respect and value about that person, which took a long time for them to do, but they had to do it. So they put down something they liked about their enemy. Then the teacher told him to tear that sheet of paper down the middle. She came around with the wastebasket. The left hand side thrown his basket. Which they had to do, and the right hand side with what you respect, like and value in your enemy. Go and give it to them. As you said, this was a sheet of paper which my husband's enemy gave to him, pointing out what the enemy respected in him. And he carried that around with him all his life, ever since his teenage days. Because if that's what his enemy thought about him and valued in him, he could see those beautiful things in himself as well. And he could see those in his enemies. He taught him how to see deeper than those acts of body, speech, and mind which had caused him pain. He saw the other side of life. The right hand side of the column. If we can only do that, we have the respect, the compassion, the value in which can get that bridge to the other person so we can actually listen. To how they're feeling and connect with them. So once we have that value in the other person, then we have the bridge which creates the listening. And once we create a listening, it's amazing just what we can hear and how conflicts can be solved. There's a classic story which I read a long time ago about these two ladies who are fighting over an orange. One of the ladies wanted the orange and said, you had the orange last time. It's my turn. No, that's not correct. You had it two times before, so it's my time to have it two times. This time they're fighting over an orange. And so they decided to have a compromise. They cut the orange in half, and one lady took her half of the orange. She peeled it through the peel away and ate half an orange. The other lady took her half, peeled it, threw the flesh away, and used the peel because she wanted it to bake a cake. If only they'd have talked to each other. Why they wanted an orange. The First Lady could have a whole orange of flesh, and the other lady could have a whole orange peel to make their cake. Why is it that in most conflicts we never talk to each other? And find out what we really want in the beginning. So a lot of conflicts can be solved by going deeper and asking, what do we want? And remember, it's not what I want or what you want. It must always be what we want. Because in these situations of conflict, we're in it together. We can't escape from each other. Unfortunately, even if you got a husband or wife, you get divorced, you've still got the kids. And so you've still got a connection there somewhere. Even if you haven't got a connection between the kids, you got your lawyers. Keep the connection going somewhere or other, but you can't get away that easy, this life this time. So if we can only listen to each other and find out what we truly want and value the other person, and then it's amazing just how a conflict can be eased. What do we truly want? You know, sometimes that we have like conflicts in religion. This stupid things having conflict in religion. What other religions want? Peace on earth. Love between everybody. Some compassion and some social justice. You know, if somebody says that, I said, I'll put my hand up for that. The Christian should put their hand out for that. The rabbis should put their hand up for that. Why is there so much conflict between religions some months ago? Or is that a meeting, a nice breakfast? Because it's amazing being a man. You get invited to all these, um, invitations. If it's a breakfast, I usually accept. Because it might be better than the breakfast I get at the monastery. So I got a breakfast, and this was in, uh, the Bishop of Perth, the archbishop's house, Roger Hurford. And one of the reasons was they had the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, who's number two in the Anglican church, you know, just down from the Archbishop of Canterbury. And who knows, he might be the next Archbishop of Canterbury, the leader of, you know, one of the biggest, uh, Christian denominations in the world. So I thought it'd be a great time, sort of, you know, having a chat with this guy. And so when we're having a chat over breakfast, you know, just to make it interesting, I said, you know, I don't believe in God. That's always nice when you start saying things like this. This is sort of as a conversation starter, not a stopper, not a group of religious people. And anyway, so we started getting talking, but then I sort of, you know, to make to make it sort of more interesting, I wanted to make a bridge. And I was telling the Archbishop, John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, I said, but nevertheless says, I remember a time when I was having a nice talk with the Abbot Placid. He's the abbot of the Benedictine monastery in New York with great friends, and we are literary friends. We're not just saying that. And when we were talking together now, he said, one day he said, now. I always think it's been a fundamental belief ever since I was a small child that every human being is searching for God. And I took that seriously because I felt that friendship. I don't just say I it's rubbish. There is no God. Don't you to stop the conflict between our two great faiths. I said, well, let's take that on board. What can that mean? Instead of using it as a conflict, I valued his thoughts. I thought they were valid. So I said, what am I? What do I search for in my life? And whatever I search for, like as an abbot, as a monk, as a teacher. That must be what this guy means is God. So straightaway I said, well, I really search for this truth, kindness, peace. You know, the real fundamental joy, not the happiness of, you know, when your football team wins or the happiness of when you win the lotto or the happiness of, you know, when you hear a good joke, but now the real deep happiness, he said, that's what I searched for, you know, joy, happiness, truth, love. And I said, why do we call that God? And that's actually what I told Archbishop Sentamu at this sort of the, the, the breakfast table at Roger Hough's house in his in, uh, in Mount Mount was about Bay road over in West Perth. And straight away they said, oh yeah, we can agree with that. And even the rabbi chirped in to say, yeah, I can. I put my hand out for that. I don't say that God descended on earth. I say that peace, joy, love, truth descended upon us. I say, well, I'm on board, then I'm with you. And that way there was an example on how it should. We can stop the conflict by actually valuing what each other's saying. So turning it around a tiny bit and making it more meaningful, going deeper into the meaning of the words, which we use. Because I have a fundamental belief that doesn't matter whether you're a Christian and Muslim or a Hindu or Buddhist or whatever, a girl or boy, old or young, we still had the same sort of, if you like, motor inside of our minds, the same sort of, you know, type of human being and the same, uh, aspirations and joys and pain. We all sort of cry the same type of salty tears. We also laugh the same way. And understanding this other commonality between human beings, it must be something which we share together. When you call that God, you say, yeah, okay, I can actually put my hand up for that. And so straight away around that table, which I specifically started a little bit of a conflict just to actually to end the conflict and maybe to show by an object lesson how we can solve these things. We had agreement with all these people of different religions. Which brings me up to today's joke. Thanks to Martin, who sent me this in the post today, because it was this Buddhist monk and this Christian priest and this rabbi who doesn't like myself. Now, I've got some great friends with rabbis and Christian priests, and they were best of friends. And so they had coffee one day, one morning and just they were just talking with each other. And I say, you know, it's, you know, we all try and increase our flock, you know, make some more Buddhists or Christians and Jews in this world. But, you know, it's really easy converting human beings. But the real test is actually converting maybe animals. Why don't we see if we can go into the forest and convert a bear? That would be a real test. Don't even know who's got the best teachings. So they all decide to do this. And so and a couple of weeks later they met together and they just compared notes and the Buddhist monk, first of all, I said, yeah, I went into the forest. I found me a bear. And, you know, I really shouldn't have started giving him the five precepts. That was a mistake because another bear thought, oh no, I can't kill any, any fish. I won't have anything to eat. So the bear started stacking me around. So I realized that was the wrong thing to do. So I started doing my metta chant, loving kindness and spread loving kindness to this bear. And it worked. You know, the power of loving kindness. And just with a few minutes of bear was pacified. And now that bear, Mr. Bear, he sits meditation every afternoon and every evening. And he also eats vegetarian food now, and he's even asked me to shave his hair. So I can convert it a bear. But I shouldn't have tried with a five preset. That's a mistake. So don't do that. So then I asked a Christian and a Christian. Actually, I forgot to say that the the Buddhist monk had, you know, had his arm in a sling because when the bear slaps you around, you know, he does a lot of damage and a few bruises and cats went to the Christian. He was in a wheelchair with an IV drip and bandages on his head. See what happened to you? He said, well, I went into the forest to. I found me a bear. And, you know, I started. Uh, I started asking him for 10% of his income. I shouldn't have done that. That's the wrong thing to do. Because the bear started slapping me around and wrestling with me. But I wrestled with the bear, and the bear wrestled with me, and he said, that's how I ended up in the wheelchair with all his injuries. But we managed to roll into a river, and as soon as I was in the river, I had my chance. I baptized him and it worked. And now that bear goes to church every Sunday, uh, during the week, he knocks on the doors of other bears caves to tell him the good news. And on a Saturday, he plays the guitar in the, uh, in the shopping mall, telling people the good news. He's a good Christian mouse. They cost a lot. I just shouldn't have asked for the 10%. That was my mistake. And then they asked a rabbi and the poor rabbi. He was actually in the ICU in the hospital with that IV drips on all his monitors. Who's really sick? And the rabbi said, I shouldn't ask the bear to be circumcised first. First, thank you to Martin. But tell him of that joke. That big conflict with a bear. But anyways, as it shows that religious people can have fun and games together and we can get on together. And it's important that religions actually lead the way in solving conflict in this world. Because without the conflict solving between religions, I mean, we've got a fractured world. And this is not something which is just theory, because I still remember there was one prime minister of Thailand who was known, Doctor Sonya Thomas. Psycho. I got to know when I was in Thailand as a man because he was a very devout Buddhist and come and see her grandchild sometimes, you know, come and see the Western monks. I remember chatting to him, and one of the things he said to me once was, he said, even when I was a prime minister of Thailand, a big country. Now this was that the head bloke of the country, the one who made all the big decisions. He said there was never a conflict I could not solve at the time. By going to see my adversary, he said. By putting my hand on his knee, which in Thai culture is a symbol of friendship. And I was such a moving thing, he said. And he meant it. He wasn't a prime minister very long, but he was more like a caretaker prime minister. But he still had a responsibility there, and he solved conflicts by making friendship his first goal, making that connection, valuing the enemy, being friendly to them and then starting to see what the problem is and working out a solution. Have to have that connection there, that valuing the other person. And then you can find solutions, which is why the religions, our job should be finding something in the other which we value and respect, and working from there, first of all, and then the differences we can work out afterwards. But what we have in common, first of all, so we can stop some of the conflict which we have in this world. And that is not just worldly conflict. That's also conflict with people you live with in the office or anywhere else. Sometimes the people say, because they spend so much of their life at their workplace in the office. Sometimes we have so much conflict with the people we work with. How can we actually solve that problem? Because it's a pain. Going to work with these people and you always feel tense, upset. You're, uh, um, very panicky when you see these people. How can we actually stop that sort of conflict? And again, it has to start with a bit of kindness, compassion, first of all, which is why in Buddhism we say love the tiger, but at a distance, that's just the the metaphor. They love the tiger at a distance. If you go and hug tigers in the jungle, they can bite your head off because they don't know what you're doing. When you grab hold of them around the neck and give them a kiss. But it's silly thing to do, but at a distance means, you know, when they're out of striking distance, then you can actually give them loving kindness in the same way that any enemy you have at work, when they're right in front of you, when you're there in that situation, it's just the old habits is what you actually act out. You can't actually solve the problem there. So loving the tiger at a distance means that when they're not around, when you're at home, when they're a long distance away from you, and when they're not right in your face. Then you send them kindness. By sending them kindness, you look at something in them which you can value and respect. You focus on that and realize that not such a bad person. After all, they're a person who maybe says unskillful things or does selfish things, but they've got another part of them as well. When you remember that when you're at a distance, it's easy to do because they're not in your face, it's not sort of an immediate problem. But when you're home relaxed, it's not that hard to do. And if you keep doing that many, many times, what happens is when it's time you are with them and confront them, you're there with them. All of that training, conditioning, brainwashing, if you like, comes up and you look at them in a different way because you've trained to look at them a different way, you've almost, um, created a new habit of reacting with them or relating to them. And then it's amazing what happens, because that you have trained a little bit of loving kindness at a distance, at home, when you're not at work, when you meet them, you see, say, the Buddha inside of them you can see something you can value. And when you see something you can value in someone else. That tends to be what they show you back. It's almost like a law of nature. What you see in somebody else is what they show you back. If you see their force, if you see their anger, if you see their cruelty, they show you more of that. But if you look for their kindness, their gentleness, even the smallest part of what's good inside of them, that's what they present back to you. Certainly that was the case when I went to these prisons, and there were some very violent people in those prisons, and it was dangerous for me to go in those prisons at those days. But because I saw kindness and gentleness in some of these big blokes, it's amazing to see that's what they showed you back. They were so kind and and helpful and protecting. That's because that's what I saw in them and they showed it back. But more than that, when I saw it in them, they could see it in themselves. And they found out that they weren't criminals, even though they were in prison Greens. And they had the label murderer or thief attached to them because I saw something wrong in them. They saw the same thing inside themselves. And they liked what they saw. And that began to grow and they became better people. Again, one of the great compliments. My probably the best compliment which I've ever had, was for a prison officer who rang me about the Iron monastery in serpentine one day, said, when are you coming back? He said, I can't remember now. I've got too many things to do, so please come back. And those other monks know we want you. Why? And he said that all of the prisoners. He'd been in the prison system for a long time. All the prisoners who went to your class never go back to jail again. Now, I love that, because that was actually from not from the psychologist, from one of the prison officers who had been in the system for such a long time. And I felt so pleased. And I wondered, why did that happen? Why did they not go back again? And I really think it was because I saw something inside of them which was beautiful, which was kind, which was gentle. And that's what I focused on. And that's what they saw inside of themselves. And that's what grew. So they never needed to go back to jail again. They felt good about themselves. They realized they weren't a criminal. They were just a person who'd done a criminal act. And there was more to them which could grow, which could develop. Now you can actually see how we can stop a bit of conflict if we focus on the violence, on the anger, the cruelty, it will keep on going. If we focus on something else. And maybe that person gave us a cool, hard time. If we can see it, maybe they can see it themselves, and maybe that's what they will grow, because it's much more pleasant being a good, kind person. When they see that that's inside of them, they like that, and that begins to grow. Now, before I run out of time, there's also the biggest conflict which you have in your life is, of course, with yourself. And that's the source of all conflict. We must not forget that, because conflict is not just between the great governments of this world, or between the religions, or between the people you work with in in your office or between the people you live with at home. The biggest conflict of all is the one you have with yourself. And the reason why it's the biggest conflict is because you can actually forget about governments. Turn on the TV and go live in a cave in my monastery. Or you can forget about work and just, you know, become a monk or just go on holiday as many of you will be doing so. Or you can even leave your wife or husband. You can get away with those from those people, but you can never get away from yourself. That's why between yourself is the biggest conflict. And how many of you are at peace with yourself? You know why? Again, because we focus on all the things which are wrong with us, all the terrible things we've done, and the guilt which people have in this world is really, really sad. While the wonderful things which I learned from Buddhism, you don't have to feel guilty. How wonderful thing is, you don't have to feel guilty. That does a terribly stupid things in my life. I remember just when I was young with my mate, we made a bomb. There's only about ten years of age because, you know, his elder brother was into chemistry. He was one of his chemistry whizzes. And I supplied the Tin clan. He supplied. I don't know what he put in there. We went to our local park, lit the fuse and went bang. I thought it was really great guy. He really went bang. And then the park keeper caught us. That wasn't so much fun. And the other stupid thing I did when I was young. I mean, it was my mother's birthday, and I must have been about 7 or 8 years of age. And at that time there was a fashion in London for pie and eels. I know that's right. It was like meat pie with a bit of mash and like eels. It was really gross. But, you know, that's what the fashion was. So it used to be pie and eel shops and one opened locally. So I went to the shop with a box and said, can have an eel, please a live wipe. And I, I put it in the box. I wrapped it up in nice person, perfect paper. And I gave it to my mother. Happy birthday. Mother says their eyes did sweet for my little baby boy. Only 6 or 7 years of age. She got a nice present. I wonder what it was. Look at me. The screen was all over the acts and the supper which I lived. When she arrived, I could see you're reared up at her. I ran for my life. So I wasn't always sort of a well behaved. But let's say you all got stupid things you did in life. I was only a six year old kid. So no, she forgave me very quickly. And of course, that's what I learned from what I did. Don't have to carry this past and all this terrible things you've done and feel guilty about it. Because people who feel guilty, they know shit collectors of the past. And of course, they smell like shit when they sort of collect all the shit. You don't have many friends, you know, who wants to be around somebody like that? You get negative, you get depressed. And the great thing is, you don't have to do that. You don't even need a Jesus or God or some other big figure up there to forgive you. You can forgive yourself at any time. When I read that and learn that, that was just such a relief. You can let go of your past and the conflict you had with your history was solved. You were free. No more. Did you need to punish yourself or fear some punishment for some authority figure while God or Allah or whatever? You're completely free. I didn't need to be punished anymore. I could forgive me. What that did was give you this huge sense of relaxation. You started to learn to love yourself, to be at peace with yourself. And the conflict. You had faded. And all you saw was the beautiful stuff you did in your life. The difficult things, the stupid things you did are you laughed about them. You know you learned from them. That's the old, uh, excrement which becomes fertilizer, which makes the mangoes taste more delicious. But you actually learn and grow from these things. And so the conflict you have with yourself goes. You see something beautiful in yourself which you can admire and respect, and that grows and grows and grows. What a wonderful thing it is to be at peace with yourself, with your past. So you're not burdened anymore with all that happened to you. But you can even go further than that. You don't need to be in conflict with your present. I don't know what. Pain. Difficulties. Sickness. Trouble. Trauma. Which you go through right now. What? The problems you face. Not in the past, but right now. But all these problems which you face in the present moment, it's not the cancer which is the problem, or the insomnia, or the legal problems, or the relationship problems or your old age or whatever. The problem is always what you're doing with this, how you're dealing with this, whether you can make peace, be kind and embrace whatever you experience in this moment. And now as the deeper teaching of Buddhism, which I thought, wow, this is truly liberating. I don't have to be healthy, rich, beautiful, successful to be happy. I could be happy with whatever I'm experiencing. Which is why I wrote in my book. Don't allow other people to control your happiness. What other people do or say or what they've done. Why do you allow that to control your emotional state? Take it further. Why do you allow the health or lack of health of your body to control your happiness? I seen this taught this actress. Sometimes people who are sick have a wonderful time. It may sound strange to you, but I've seen that happen during one of the great examples. San Lorenzo, Saint Lawrence. Those of you who are Catholics, even of Buddhists who listen to my thoughts, he is one of my heroes in history. Even though he was a Catholic, the reason he was my hero was what he said when he was being burnt alive because he said something wrong which upset the Pope or something. You know what happened in those days? He said something like that. You end up being burnt at the stake. But apparently he was roasted over a grill. I barbecued a life. So, will you have barbecues in the next few weeks? Imagine San Lorenzo. But the reason I really respect this guy was his last words before he passed out into unconsciousness because of the pain, and then subsequently died. His last words before he lost consciousness was. Turn me over this side. Stop. He cracked a joke while he was being burnt alive. No guy like that I could really respect. But now that's historical fact. He was a person who said even though he was experiencing excruciating pain, he could let it go. And whether you've heard stories of, like, say, Tibetan monks being tortured or maybe Burmese monks now being tortured. They can say, I'm not going to allow. They can torture my body, but they won't torture my mind. I will not allow this to stop my kindness and compassion for those people torturing me. That's actually what the Buddha said we should do. In one of his great teachings, he said, even if people taught you by sawing you, sawing your limbs off one by one, not with a chainsaw, that's too quick. But with an ordinary sore, maybe blunt. He said, if any of you he's talking to the monks, if any of you feel even one thought of ill will towards your torturers, you're not a real disciple of the Buddha. Should always maintain thoughts of compassion and goodwill to the people hurting you. To me that when I first read, that was impossible. But actually people do that today, maybe even now. And to see that possibility opens up this huge, uh, beautiful, uh, scenario of what you can do. Now, maybe you're not being taught to, but maybe it hurts. Maybe you are sick, but still you don't and need to allow that to control your happiness. You can be at peace, happy no matter what. This is a possibility. Gives you enormous sort of hope. Ways of working so you're not in conflict with your sickness and health or pain. Instead, you embrace it and be at peace with it. And this is what the Buddha said, he said. So this was one of his old disciples. Even though your body is sick, don't allow your mind to be sick. There's two paths so the mind can still be healthy and peaceful even though the body is aching. If you know how to train your mind, you can do that. If you can't do it yet, at least you know it's a possibility. It can be done. And maybe you've seen people doing it. What an inspiring thing that is to see. It means you are not in conflict with life anymore. Don't be in conflict with the aging of your body. As I see many people say, they say, oh, I'm not old, I'm only 60. Come on, get real. 60 is getting old. 50 years old. Ask any teenager. 40 is age. But why are we in conflict? Or why do we wear all these creams? Nor his makeup, nor his Botox and all this other expensive stuff. Come on, just get old and enjoy it. Why are we in conflict with the aging of our body? Why are we in conflict about death? We're all going to die anyway. Why not enjoy it? Have fun dying. Laugh all the way to your coffin. I see people doing this. It's wonderful to see that. So when we're not in conflict with life. Though we made peace with our existence. Making peace with your existence is what enlightenment is all about. Being someone who has no conflict, who is, uh, engaged in the world. Embracing this world, having fun in this world. Stopping the conflict. You see something you can value in sickness. You can see something that you can value. Even in pain. You can see something you can value in death. When you see something you can value, you can connect with it. You can be kind with it, you can learn from it. And when you value something, you can forgive it, allow it to be. And there conflict ends. So with all of your sicknesses, which you have, your problems, your diseases, these are something which are not necessarily sources for conflict with yourself or with others. Since the world being the world, it is bosses being bosses, women being women, men being men. They say women are from Venus, men are from Mars. Have you ever actually looked? What actually, Venus is made out of? His atmosphere is strong. Sulfuric acid is high pressure and extremely hot. That answers many of your questions. Now I understand why we were the limit. As for Mars is very cold, very hard. Insensitive. Hardly any atmosphere at all. Now you know why men are like bed. The point is, I don't know where bugs are from. But I just pay for the paper. Banks of monks and nuns and nuns. Politicians and politicians. Policemen and policemen. Cancers and cancers. Death is death. Old age is just like this. Can we make peace with it? Why are we in conflict with the dog which barks? Why do we expect out of a dog? It barks. Why are we in conflict with our partner in a marriage? Where do we expected a marriage? How many jokes have you seen about marriage? And you think your marriage is somehow different, that you're special? Sometimes when we understand the rules of the game, we understand the nature of people, the nature of these institutions. There were no longer in conflict with them. As I said, I used to say, being in conflict is like looking for the the tortoise with a mustache. You're looking for something which doesn't exist when you understand what tortoises are. You won't waste your time looking for one which has a mustache. Or like the great Sufi teacher Nasrudin sitting in front of a pile of chili peppers. This was my predecessors favorite story. Sitting in front of a pile of chili peppers with his eyes streaming, with his nose dripping with his face red. He'd eaten so many chili peppers so far. And his friend came and said, what are you doing? Why are you eating so many chili peppers and hurting yourself? And he said, Because I'm looking for the sweet one. There is no sweet chili pepper. They're all hot. There is no sweet woman. Or sweet guy. They're good enough. Sometimes people are actually this nice. So get real. What do you mean? You're not in conflict with the nature of life? And I think that is seeing the nature of life. Understanding what life can give you and asking no more. But being grateful. No for what your wife is, what your husband is, or your children are what your life is. If you're single, what single life is being just grateful for where you are, what you have. Seeing the value in that and then at last, you're not in conflict with life anymore. Had only those who stopped the conflict with life itself can say they're at peace. That's the nature of enlightenment. Stopping all this inner conflict. It shouldn't be this way. They shouldn't have said that. They shouldn't have done that. That's conflicts that causes the pain. So see if he can make peace and have peace and goodwill on this season of peace and goodwill to all beings. Not just men, not just women. Remember the gays. Remember the transsexuals. Remember the animals. Especially remember the turkeys. I want to tell what a thing we do to these turkeys. They don't get much peace and goodwill this year. Something is a goodwill to all beings over this Christmas period. Maybe a period of non conflict, especially with your family and relations. So if you're going to have to face spending Christmas or the New Year with your family, remember love them at a distance. First of all, see their Buddha nature, something beautiful inside of them. Otherwise you'll have a terrible time. And that way you can have a peaceful life and have a happy Christmas. All the best. Thank you. Thank you for the traps. Okay. Any comments or questions about tonight's talk? Any conflicts about what I said, especially about women being sweet and all that sort of stuff? I did actually correct myself by saying men aren't sweet either. Otherwise I'd have been in big trouble. Any comments about the talk tonight? Going going, going? Yeah. Okay. Well. Go on. Yeah. Hell ask forgiveness. So I'm terribly sorry I stuffed up. I was really stupid. Shouldn't have done. It's really nice. Well. Forgive it. So sorry. Again. Yeah, as many as you need. Can I give yourself a break? Cut yourself some slack. Because you find that if you ask forgiveness and you make light of it, you don't tend to repeat it. The more you try not to repeat it, the more times you'll keep stuffing up those. Relax. You're naturally a nice person, but when you try too hard, that's when you become a terrible person. So just relax. You've made a mistake. You're stuffed up. Let everybody know about it. Because they can laugh too. It takes snow. Yeah, well, there we go. Just, you know, just my conditioning. It's just how I've been taught. You haven't been coming here long enough, so you can't. So you can't blame yourself. So I've been coming here sort of many, many weeks already. So some of you have, and you're still doing bad things again. Don't blame yourself. Blame me instead. But. And then I'll blame him. I mean, some other time. But all I want for the dark matter. What are you hiding? So I control my light. A dark, more dark. Mine and my song. Sobriety partner. I love how like a single song on a muggy.