Contemplate - Don't Think

Contemplate Don’t Think – Ajahn Brahm So just before I came in, someone asked a very wonderful question and it gave me a nice topic for this evening's talk is actually on the Buddhist practice of contemplation. Exactly how do we do it? Why do we do it and how it works, and the different methods of contemplation which we can use to actually enhance our life, to get deeper wisdom or peace, more happiness, because the Buddhism was never meant to be like a religion of study or religion of scholars. And actually one of the comments which I got in Adelaide a couple of days ago when I gave a talk on terrorism, and people said that maybe it's because that too many religions are led by scholars rather than contemplatives, because the scholars who just read the books. Sometimes you can misunderstand the books, and I misunderstand what I've been saying for a long time now. The difference between the container and the contents. The books are containers inside this messages, but they're sometimes hidden. You've got to unwrap some of the metaphors to discover the meaning and where we understand the difference between the container and the contents. We can make use of the books, but we make use of those books not as authorities, but just as signposts. You know, there was a very famous saying in Zen Buddhism about the person who was pointing to the moon, and someone saw him and thought the finger was the moon, rather than looking to where the finger was pointing. So the signposts are there for us to look, to contemplate, to see, and then not the truth themselves, their descriptions. And I think the ones we understand, the difference between the container and the contents are signposts and the destination, the map and the territory, the menu and the actual food itself. And I think we'll become much wiser, more peaceful, more tolerant human beings. When someone asks, as they often do, just how do we know what's truth and what's false? And this is saying of the Buddha, where the Buddha said that you can tell the truth, the Dhamma, by what it does, where it leads its effect, because truth has to be something which creates peace, harmony, freedom. Which solves problems rather than making more problems. So if you have any philosophies or dogmas or any ideas and it causes more disharmony in the world, more conflict, more pain, more suffering than you know, that cannot be the truth. This should be quite obvious to people. So how can we actually discover that truth? Which leads to peace, to non conflict, to harmony, to freedom, to real happiness. We do that not so much by studying the books, not so much by listening to again. Imagine why you are more attentive tomorrow. Whoever else comes here on a Friday night. But to actually to use what is being said and to contemplate it, to understand it deeply, to find its meaning. Because sometimes I'm quite, uh, surprised. I've been teaching here for, I don't know how many years, and there's some people who keep coming back week after week after week after week. Imagine if I was a school teacher and people kept on coming back to my class year after year after year after year. When will ever they graduate? So I've often said as a teacher, my job, my aim, my hope is to get rid of you all. And when I come here and teach to an empty hall, I think, ah, my job is done. Everyone has understood. They don't need to listen to the instructions anymore. However, it takes a while to really understand the truth. But this evening I'm going to say how to. It's not the what, but the how. And this is all about contemplation. Now, a lot of times people misunderstand or confuse contemplation with thinking. And many of you have been great thinkers, and we always remember there is in the Western culture, there's a sculpture called Rodin's Thinker, and it's supposed to be one of the, uh, best works of art. And certainly you see it in many books. And many of you may know that sculpture, Rodin's Thinker, because the poor fellow has got his fist up like this with his head on the fist, Thinking so hard his head becomes so heavy you have to use your hand to support it. And that's actually what it's like when we think so much does. The head gets very heavy and we can't really understand anything. So certainly through Buddhism you don't get to truth by thinking, thinking, thinking. All you get is headache, headache, headache and you never get anywhere. Many of you have tried that, trying to think your way through problems instead of using the method of contemplation. An important part of contemplation in the Buddhist tradition is that before you even begin to contemplate, you have to get sufficient peace of mind, sufficient silence, to actually be able to halt the restless mind so you can focus properly. A beautiful story. What I mean by this is one of our ten chakras. Great similes. And to understand this simile, I have to describe some of the, uh, situations of my early life as a monk. Because in my early life as a monk, I was living in these forest monasteries of Thailand and in these forest monasteries, which were in like remnant areas of jungle, there are many wild animals, especially like the qualities the snakes and the, the, not the elephants. They were just too far away, but the scorpions and the centipedes, all these things which regarded a monk as their dinner, as a legitimate right to eat. So they're all very dangerous beings, but also they would very rarely kill you, but they certainly would hurt. And in order for the monks to be able to come backwards and forwards from their hearts to the horse or the kitchen or wherever they needed to go, the villagers would cut paths through those jungles. And it was our job as monks to keep those paths well swept, because when they were well swept, we could see actually, if there's anything across those paths, you could see if there was a snake there coiled up, or if there was a sort of centipede or a line of ants, whatever was there. And the pulse in this part of Thailand because the soil was very sandy, very fine white sand. After you swept the parts, you'd have these white ribbons streaking through the jungle. There were the paths which would lead you from place to place. This was AJ and cha. Similarly, he said, if you wanted to contemplate a leaf which was in the forest floor and you looked upon it, there was just too many leaves and twigs tangled up there that you couldn't really understand or learn about that leaf at all. It was just too much going on. But when a leaf fell on one of those paths, it stood out, especially after you just swept it. But when it stood out in the white sand background of a clean path, you could see it so clearly. You could see all its colors, its shape. You can get to understand it. He was saying. It's the same with the things which happened to us in our life. Sometimes there's too much going on. The life is just too complicated. And when it's too complicated, with too many things going on, we can't really understand anything. It's like a tangled forest, like a jungle with so many leaves and twigs and branches all over the place. We can't make head no tail off very much at all. And so this is why, in our journey, similarly, we have to make the mind simple. First of all, before we can contemplate and know what's really going on. And that simplicity is what we do in meditation. We slow the mind down so we can focus on 1 or 2 things rather than many things. You know what it's like. Sometimes people think that, ah, they've got so many things they've got to think about and we get so confused. We never think of anything properly, which is to too many things at the same time. But with our practice of Buddhism, we learn how to rest the mind, to calm it down. So there's not so many things going on in the mind. You don't need to do so many things at once. It's just a case of the efficiency of the mind. I was talking to some big businessmen in Adelaide during the last few days, and he was saying, there's no time to sort of meditate these days. Life is so busy. And I asked him sort of, why didn't you come to my talk? He said he was watching the cricket because he was a swell Lankan. What do you mean? You've got no time. And actually, there's a lot of Sri Lankans here. I told them, look, if you don't come to my talk, that's bad karma. And now you know why Sri Lanka cricket team lost somebody so that kids didn't come to my talks. Well it's true. That said, we do have the time. And I was telling him at length, if you are a busy person, then you need to meditate more than anybody else to give yourself some clarity so you can contemplate even what you need to do in your business. Otherwise, you make too many mistakes. It's well known that when you. You train your mind in stillness. You become so sharp you can see deeper than other people. You can contemplate with more effectiveness. You just know more. You can feel more. You get better insights and more intuitive, and your business becomes very successful. Our meditation retreat, which we're going to be building soon, I really want to get a grant from Mr. Costello, because it's going to increase the economic productivity of our state, and our country is going to make people, especially CEOs, more sharp, to give them the competitive edge to fight in this market driven economic world. I think I could put a good case for this. But certainly the more quiet you are, the more effectively you can contemplate. And that's one of the first things that we should do is to calm our mind down, first of all, and then we can start contemplating. And there's no end of things which we can contemplate. So we should choose wisely. What are the areas which are the most important? And obviously we all have our problems in life. And when we sort of face our problems in life, sometimes they are so hard to contemplate because we get so emotionally involved in it. So close are we to our problems that we can't get that perspective. That's why in that book, which I wrote, Open the Door of Your Heart, I gave this simply for contemplation to have another understanding of what it means. And this was that. Similarly, from my experience as an 18 year old when I went to the United States, was really bored with the United States. It was just like some other European country. It was culturally just the same as what I knew, and I wanted to experience something different. So I went to Central America where there were real jungles, indigenous peoples going in fishing boats and trucks up these jungle rivers, where in dugout canoes you see naked Indians coming in the opposite direction. Living in a in a culture which hadn't been touched by the West. But one of my destinations were these Mayan ruins, his ancient Indian ruins in the. Old temple complex of Tikal. This was in 1969. At that time, there was no tourists who managed to get to that place. There's no way there. You had to travel for days. And so when I arrived there that I could clamber over whatever monument you wanted. There was no signs that these were protected monuments. Obviously, if I really wanted to, I've got to take in anything I wanted there. But I was a very good young man, and I wouldn't steal. But certainly I did climb up to one of those pyramids as a young man, as a boy, saying, that's what you do. You see one, you want to climb to the top of it. I remember going to the pyramids in in Gaza, once in Giza, sorry, in Egypt, with a full intention of climbing on top of one of those pyramids. But if you look at how high they are, as soon I thought, no way. But these pyramids in the jungles in Guatemala, Central America, they weren't that high. So I climbed to the top of one and it was actually climbing to the top when I realized what the purpose was. You know that sometimes if you know too much, if you read all the books, sometimes you don't understand anything. Your mind is not free from all those ideas which other people have, so you can't really see for yourself. Because I was a novice, I knew nothing about archaeology or those ancient civilizations. I had an open mind. It was obvious what those temples were for, because as soon as I got up to the top, it was above the tree line. Now, for 3 or 4 days I've been travelling in the jungle in. If you've ever go to a virgin pristine jungle, you'll find if you do, cut a road through it after a few and maybe a month or two months or most. The jungle is so, uh, active, so alive. The paths get covered over very quickly with branches, vines, other growths. So you're always going through tunnels. You can't see the sky. It's only like dappled light coming through the holes in the leaves wherever you go. So for three days, I hadn't seen the horizon at all. And after three days when I went up the first pyramid, it shocked me. But now, for the first time in three days, I could see infinity in all directions, with nothing between me and the infinite. It was space all around. Only an 18 year old young man straight away that hit me. The symbolism of being so in contact with infinity, with space, with emptiness. And I imagine what it must have been like if you take, like a young man or woman who had been born in the jungle, raised in the jungle, have never actually gone out of that jungle. Basically, you would not have much experience of great distances, of horizons, of infinity, of space stretching out forever. And imagine what it would do to a young man or young woman who's taken up on some sort of initiation up that pyramid for the first time. The first time in their life they were above the tree line. They could see in all directions. It's the way I like putting it. Nothing between you and the infinite in all directions. The symbolism is just too close to a religious experience. But as well as that, on top of that pyramid, I could look down and I saw all the paths which I'd come, which taken days because it was such a tortuous trek to get to this place, and I could see the way the paths stretched through the jungle. I could see the rivers we crossed, and I could see the town in the distance. The town of Flores. In an island, in a lake, in the middle of this jungle. In the Yucatan Peninsula of Guatemala. I could see my world of the last few days stretched out before me like a big map. I could see where everything fat together. Now, this is a wonderful simile of contemplation. You may see feel that this is very similar to some of the stories of these astronauts or cosmonauts who have gone above this planet Earth, going beyond and from a distance high above this world of looked down and see just what this world really is. To see, like a map for territory of the world in which they lived. But being outside and beyond it, to truly contemplate, to see how things all fit together, to see the map of the thing we call life. We have to somehow get above and beyond so we can see fully how it all fits together. When we write down in the jungle, which is too many things there, we don't get perspective. We don't get the full view of the full picture. And that's why when people contemplate just by thinking they're just too close to things they haven't actually escaped from, the world got above it, got the bird's eye view. In order to fully understand exactly what is going on. We've got to get above, beyond, stand back to be able to contemplate properly. So that's what contemplation meet needs first of all. And we have to contemplate those things which are most important to us, especially, first of all, instead of contemplating the meaning of life and these great philosophical truths of the nature of a God, or the nature of a self, or reincarnation, or the meaning of love or whatever else you want to contemplate, first of all, that is necessary to contemplate those things which create problems and difficulties in our life, because those are the pressing business of your day. The arguments, you know, the fear, the loneliness, the depression, the anger. And that's why that we should contemplate these things first of all. And when you actually contemplate these things, the Buddha gave us some very interesting ways of doing that. One of the beautiful ways of actually contemplating these things in order to move away from them, to get that perspective. So you're not too close to the actual thinking. Is actually to contemplate your body, and especially to what happens in your body when you have these emotions. It's a very effective way of therapy, or actually understanding just how you can actually move beyond the problems of life. For example, when you're feeling depressed, too often, when you're feeling depressed, you get locked inside of your head, in your emotional world, in thoughts. And so often when we actually watch the depression inside of our minds, we get so sad at being depressed. We get what we call depressed about being depressed. It's called double depression. And then we get depressed about being depressed, about being depressed. It soon troubles, quadruples, increases exponentially. And that is actually the journey down the spiraling hole, the bottomless pit of depression. The more you think about it, the more that it gets power over you. But there is another way, and this beautiful way of the way the Buddha taught. I've used this several times when people get really upset and fed up and it's incredibly effective. Whenever you get sad, depressed. There will be a corresponding feeling in your body somewhere. Somewhere in your body. It just feels sort of different. And if you can actually associate the physical feeling, which is, uh, there alongside the emotional feeling, then you are starting a contemplation which will actually lead you beyond the emotional trap. It's this thing where whenever you feel angry, there's a tightness of tension in your body, whenever you feel in love. There's sort of a there's a warmth around your chest whenever you have anxious, when you have anxiety, there's a corresponding anxious feeling and feel things tighten up around you. You can feel sort of your inability to somehow speak. The throat tightens up. Now, the point is that too many of us, we're not really conscious enough of our body. We just in our heads too much, and we never really that aware of what our body is doing when these emotions are dominating our awareness. So it takes a little effort of we're a little bit of trained to become more in tune, in touch with the physical feelings of the body. All you really need to do is to ask whenever you get upset. So going back to depression, you feel depressed. Ask, what is it like in my body when I feel depressed? Where is that feeling? What does it feel like? And contemplate that feeling. Get to know it. Get familiar with it. In the meditations which I've been teaching recently, in each of the stages of meditation, whether it's present moment awareness or silence or the breath or whatever. I've been using the framework to be able to get people into these stages of recognition, familiarity, and now basically relaxation, contentment with these things. Because whatever you do, first of all, you have to recognize what it is so you know what you're doing, and then you become familiar with it after much recognition. And then if you become comfortable there, you can relax in there. You can hang out there. So when you actually start doing bodily contemplation, you have to know what it is. First of all, that's why you have to keep repeating it when you give talks what body contemplation actually is. And if you go to an emotion, ask where in the body is this manifest? Next time you have that emotion, where does it manifest? What does it feel like? After a while, you recognize the feelings in the body which were associated with emotional states. Once you recognize, you become familiar with those feelings. And one of the great things with this method is that if you have a depression, you can see the corresponding physical feelings, and it's much easier to work with the physical feelings and the mental feelings, the mental feelings. As soon as you watch it, you get a negative reaction, the physical things, you can actually see it, and you can relax the body because you're more used to relaxing parts of the body than you are to relaxing the mind. So you use this little method. If you're really, really depressed, what does it feel like? How does it feel? What's it like? And you get to know that area. When you get to know that area, you relax the physical feeling. When you relax, that physical feeling is not that hard to do because you're used to relaxing parts of your body when you go to bed at night, or when you sort of go into the pool, or when you just lay by the beach or whatever you do. You put your feet up to watch the cricket. If you're still anchored or whatever else you do on the weekend, you know how to relax the body, most of you anyway. And when you can relax part of a body, you can learn how to relax another part of the body. When you relax, that part of the body which is has a corresponding feeling, you find the emotion disappears. Instead of working directly with the emotion, you're going on a bike route. You have the emotion go to the feeling. Relax the feeling. You go back to the emotion you found. It's almost disappeared. It's a great way of dealing with bodily with with emotional problems. You always tend to get anxious. You have anxiety or panic attacks sometimes. Find out where in the body that's happening. One of our marks a long time ago, because he was in the Vietnam War, got shot in the back of the head, uh, survived. But he had epileptic fits every now and again simply because of the damage to the brain. And epileptic fits. Obviously, we're very, very, um, uncomfortable. He didn't want to take medication, so instead he used this mindfulness. He managed to notice the corresponding physical feelings which happen before the epileptic fit actually came on. He recognised and was familiar with them. And so that whenever he saw those, uh, first signs arriving in his body, he could actually take action to go into his room to rest so that epileptic fits never came up again. It was a wonderful little method. By noticing the physical feelings which are corresponding to that whole process, and working with the feelings, the physical, rather than working with the emotions, the mind. He managed to do that. So if you say have grief because you've lost someone who's very, very dear to you, sometimes you might say, I'll contemplate the grief. You can go to my stories. You know, we're always dying. You've done it many times before. Now, the symbol of the concept, it's just a concert ended. It'll be wonderful. Grateful you had that wonderful concert. Be grateful rather than mourning the death. See what you've had rather than see what's lost. Given all these stories and other talks. But when you feel grief, why does it feel in your body? How the muscles or the organs feeling there see the tension there? The tightness goes straight away. You move away from the problem in the mind. Moving on to the body is easy to work with. You're not getting lost in the mental stuff, which are not very used to dealing with. You can contemplate the physical feelings in the body and you can do something there. You can relax those feelings. When you relax those feelings, it takes a while. Then you find the grief. If it hasn't completely gone, it's certainly got much less panic, fear, anger. How do you feel when you get angry at somebody? How can you let that one go so you don't shoot your mouth off and create a problem or even kill somebody? If you can do this bodily contemplation whenever anger starts to come up, how does it feel in your body? What's going on in the body? A lot of the time with anger, the reason why the anger overpowers us and creates stuff which we regret for a long, long time is because when you get angry, you're just focusing on what you take to be the cause of your anger your husband, your wife, the boss, or whoever else sort of caused you or you thought caused you to blow up. When you get angry, you're never really looking at yourself, you never really contemplating what is the true source of anger. It's not that person. It's not Mr. Howard or Mr. Bush. It's you. There's no reason why anybody should get angry. As I said once in the book. Why allow anybody to control your happiness? Why allow someone else to make you unhappy? I refuse to do that. If the aircraft is late, I'm not going to let as it was this morning. I'm not going to allow Qantas to spoil my day. I'm not going to allow Thai Airways because they were late last. In about two weeks ago to to make my my day really miserable by getting upset and worried by thinking why are they late? They shouldn't be late. This is a modern airline. Why are they always late? This shouldn't be happening to me. Why allow these things to make you unhappy? I refuse to be unhappy. But the point is that you can do that. That's why that some of these monks. You can see there's no way in the world you can make them angry. Actually, it's fun to try sometimes. It's just a test of our. Really get angry at them. Oh, you know, shout at them and call them idiots and then blam! That's the worst talk I've ever heard in my whole life. You're really hopeless. Why did he go back to Adelaide? Never come back here again. Whatever. I don't know. But anyhow, the point is that when you get angry, you're always looking at something else. Bloody sewing machine or bloody lights or bloody this or bloody that. You never look at bloody me. Because this is the one which is creating my anger. So when actually you do get angry, it's great doing a bodily contemplation. It brings the attention back to the source. You're not to that person. The wife, the husband, the kid, the parent, the minister or whatever brings it back into you. And actually you start to feel the physical sensations in your body when you're angry. Anger is a very prominent physical feeling in the body. And once you actually do feel it. Number one is very unpleasant. It's not nice to be angry. I mean, not physically comfortable. And once you actually can see that, relax of physical feelings. When you relax the physical feelings, the anger will lessen. And when it lessens, you tend to be your anger problem is solvable. This beautiful way, the anger, the emotion over there. Bring it inside. Feel it in the body. Relax the body. The anger is good. So contemplating the body in this way is a great way for people to solve many of the problems in their daily life, which create suffering and trouble for them. If you're like a young person, I mention this because too often people say that. Why don't we have you more young people getting into religion, into spirituality, into actually, um, organized or sort of major religions? There's a reason is because religious teachers don't speak to the young in things which really concern them. So when you're going out to a dance or a nightclub and you want to talk to somebody, you see a nice girl there, a nice boy there, whatever you want. Now, why do some people get anxious? If you want to get over the anxiety of finding a partner, a boyfriend or girlfriend in life. When you go up to speak to them. Feel your body. And if you get anxious, feel the feelings in your body. Relax your body. And then when you actually speak, you won't be so nervous. It's a beautiful way of actually dealing with the anxiety of kids saying, if you're doing an examination, just feel how that sensations appear in your body. With those feelings, you can relax them much easier than looking at your fear and trying to deal with that. When you look at the feelings in the body, relax us and then the problem will be lessened if it doesn't disappear altogether. Not only that, but when we start contemplating our body in this way, we get more in touch with the feelings in the body, with the tensions in the body which can create diseases for us in the future. For example, you can feel your heart, your physical heart and see how it's going. People get heart attacks. Not it's not a shot out of the blue. Your heart has been telling you a long time now that something is going wrong. You can feel it when you get contemplating the body. And it shows you you're working too hard. Rest. Don't try so much. Don't worry so much. Come and learn some meditation to relax or just don't do so much. So waste of time. Being the richest person in the cemetery, as they say. And you've got to live a long life. Pace yourself. So as such, the body is always telling you. But a lot of times we're not contemplating. We're not aware of the body enough so we don't see the signs. And sometimes people can't sleep at night because the body is too tense. Because when you're worried. Bodily feelings happen as well. So find what those feelings are. When you're worried at night, you can't sleep. Feel your body do a bodily contemplation. How my feet, how my thighs. How's my bottom? How's my back? How's how's the reason why my chest? How's my head? When you actually go to the body straight away? You're not getting into this thinking, thinking, thinking business. Which means that the worry is you're bypassing it. So one of the first things we do is body contemplation. In order to lessen the problems in our life, in order to get better health, but also understanding our body, what it is. When we truly contemplate our body, we realize our body. It is not beautiful, it's not ugly. It's just a body, that soul. So we don't have all this body business. It's amazing. We have like a body shop now. And why? Why do we have a body shop? Because we have to paint it out, make it look all nice and wonderful. One of my jobs of being a monk is to actually to perform marriage ceremonies and being a a bit of a, uh, a cheeky monk. I was going to say Naughty Monk, but not really. I'm not naughty. I do keep my precepts for being a bit cheeky. I take great pleasure during marriage ceremonies. A sprinkling holy water on the happy couple. But when I start sprinkling this holy water, which is part of the Buddhist ceremonies, from marriages and auspicious water that bless both of you, but when I actually sprinkle it on the bride, especially, then I really go for broke. It's not just a tiny sprinkle, it's a shower. And then I done this many times. I know it's a bit mean because I'm. I'm not a romantic, but when I do this, sometimes these poor women who just spent about 2 or 3 hours on makeup in the morning, very expensive, all that makeup starts to drip. And I do that for the sake of honesty and truth, so that the groom could actually see what he's really marrying. But fortunately. So they'd take it in good spirits, though I don't say hit me yet, but I come pretty close, I think, a few times. But the point is, why do we actually keep on sort of denying the truth of this body? Because this is a body again. So when he gets aged, we get wrinkles, we get fat. It's just the nature of the body, that's all. So you can actually be at peace with this body when we contemplate it. It's just a vehicle for us in the same way we have a car, and when we lock up the car and we put on the, uh, the security system, we can leave it in the car park knowing it's safe. Why can't we do that when we meditate, sit down, make the mind body nice and comfortable, and then leave it alone and forget about it for half an hour. You know why? Sometimes because we're attached or we're worried about this body. We took concern with it. Wonderful to be able to leave it alone. Put it down and allow it to disappear. Because then we know it's just a body that so and so. Whenever we find a boyfriend or girlfriend, we're not worried about the body, right? About the person inside. Which means that all of you girls who are ugly, that you don't worry about being ugly and all your guys are getting old, you don't worry about getting old. This is not the important part. We're living in a world where the body is so important. We give it too much importance and that gives enormous suffering to people. Now, how many of you just get so depressed or a bad self-image because you haven't got the best body? And it's a terrible thing for people to go through, especially young women or men. They think they're ugly, just they get so much suffering. And if we could actually get a culture which doesn't really, you know, depend upon the body so much, but depend upon the person. That's why an old Chinese saying is for your you boys never marry a beautiful girl. I think that was written by an ugly woman, I think. The reason why you do that is because as his girls grow up and just, you know, they have you develop personalities, you develop character traits. And if you're just a person who just relies on your good looks, you don't develop the other part of your your repertoire. And this is wonderful. If you're an ugly girl, you have to develop not being kind, being caring, being so gentle, being a good cook, a good listener to be able to attract a mate. So all these other qualities are enhanced in ugly girls. So it really is a great deal to get an ugly girl as a wife. All the ugly women here are going to come up to me afterwards. Oh, thank you so much. Actually I'm from. And all the pretty girls are going to save a lot of money on makeup and beauty treatments. Because now why are we so worried about the body? So when we contemplate these things, we actually get these wonderful insights. Just the body, that's all. And when we start contemplating things like the body, we don't get upset when it gets old, when it gets sick, even when it dies, it's just a body dying, that's all. So actually, when we get some perspective on these things, I was saying we just stand back. It's just like a leaf on the on the path, just this little body. We can look upon it and it's not such a big deal anymore. So we're not so worried when somebody dies. And I've been to many funerals, and I've actually viewed all these bodies in the coffin. When you see a body in a coffin, it's always smiling. Have you ever noticed that? They're always smiling when they die. How many of you witnessed a birth? They're always crying when they're born. Why is it when someone is born, they cry, but all the relatives are happy and laughing? Why is it when somebody dies, they're smiling and all the relatives are crying? We get it wrong. We should look at the person. The person is the center of the attention there. If the baby is crying, we should cry as well. Have you got any sympathy for this poor kid who's just come into this world? And when you see somebody died there, they've got a big smile on their face. Shouldn't that make you happy? Why are you crying for? Interesting, isn't it? Now, when we actually start contemplating bodies, this is the body that. So? No big deal. We can leave it alone. We're not so concerned about it. And we don't spend so much time preening it. Washing it. How much time do you spend combing your hair or going to the hairdressers? What do you do like I do, it's much better. I don't have to spend any time combing it. Don't go to the hairdressers. Don't have to worry about the latest fashion in here. Don't have to go and dyeing it a streak of pink and a streak of green and a streak of something else that must take a long time. People say they haven't got any time these days, and you understand why they're spending too much time in their hairdressers, in a beauty salon, in front of the mirrors. That's great. Being a monkey doesn't care about these things, but also when we actually get some perspective, we can contemplate life and death. What do you mean by life and death, anyway? This body being born and body getting old and body dying. Is that all there is to a person? Just a body? If there is, when you do get get old and ugly, it really hurts. If you think that's all there is to you, just a body. If someone does die young and you think it's just a body which dies, this is really awful. It's very sad when you understand there's something more to that. That's when we contemplate this thing we call mind. What is this mind? The only way you can contemplate the mind again, if you have the leaf on the path, get the mind alone with all this other stuff, isn't there? That's actually why we meditate. To get to some mind alone. Pure mind. Nothing else around. No body. You go inside yourself, forget your body, forget all these other things, all the duties and business of your life, and focus on this one thing which is hearing this, which is knowing this, the one in charge, the one who wills and chooses. What actually is that? Isolate that. Just like a chemist. Isolate some metal or some element and investigate these properties. When you isolate to get the pure form, you can actually understand what it really is. And this is the important deep contemplations of life. Who are you now? What is this mind? Is there such this thing as reincarnation? How does it work? To be able to understand all of those things is a waste of time reading the books. If you read one book, it says one thing, another book says another thing, and you get the religious leaders to take their book, and the other religious leader takes their book, they fight up with the books, bang on the head with books. And I never understand anything because no, they don't contemplate what's actually inside the book, since what's inside the books tells you how to find out what's going on. So just recently, I think, yes, recently when I was in Singapore, I was actually quoting the Gospel of Thomas, a contender from the Gnostic gospels attributed to Jesus. I was actually having some Christianity in my talks where it says that he who knows themselves knows the truth of all things. A nice little saying that. So now you know who you are, and then you know that all the truths. That's exactly what we mean by that is actually contemplating this thing which knows this thing which does. I don't mean thinking about it because you're thinking about it. You just go around in circles. Philosophers have done that for the last 2000 years. Where have they got? They got tenure in universities. But that's about all. But they don't relate to anybody. But actually, when you start contemplating these things, what is knowing? What is doing? What is the will? We have a great fun as amongst contemplating these things. You are so deep in meditation. You just got the world right in front of you like a leaf on the path. Still and for contemplation, you need to maintain your focus on something for a long time, not thinking, but is gathering data what I said earlier about recognizing what this thing is, becoming familiar with it, and then you can rest in it and get to know it. When you go to a new job, you know, sometimes you don't know people. You've got to recognize them. First of all, after a few weeks, you get familiar. You can rest there, you feel comfortable there, then you get to know what's going on. It takes time to know. It takes depth and peace and stillness to be able to contemplate. So if you want to contemplate these deep truths of life, you have to develop the still mind, which can hold something long enough to see what it truly is, to see it deeply. At this point, for the camera, I usually give a demonstration. I haven't given this demonstration for many years. I usually give it just on meditation retreats. I pick up something and I ask the audience, what is this? Contemplate it now what is it? Somebody says a glass, somebody says a water. Somebody says the situation is inches high. Sparkling in the lights? Yes. What else is it? When you keep on investigating, after a while, all of the words and descriptions are all used up. And then you can start contemplating because. Is this a glass of water? Is that all it is? When you can keep something still in your intention for long enough for all the labels to disappear. At that point, contemplation begins. It's the labels which stop us seeing the truths. The labels are the signposts. The labels are the menu. It is not the destination is not the food. And I said this many times about the man who went into the five star restaurant. The maitre d gave him the embossed menu. He ate the menu, paid and went away. What a stupid man that was. But that describes many people who go to churches and temples and follow religions. They may have a Koran, or a Bible, or a Dharma pada, or the Bhagavad Gita or whatever holy book it is. All they do is they eat the book and they're never sort of satisfied. They're never peaceful, wise and compassionate. Because the book is there to tell them something. The labels are not the thing. So when I hold this up, it is not glass of water. That's just a label. Contemplation means we look at something to all the labels are gone and then we start to see it. I sit with a glass of water. Now who are you? When you look at yourself, you have all the labels. First of all, man, woman. Asian, Caucasian, old, young, Buddhist, Christian, atheist, agnostic, follower of the great white land. Whatever religion you are. Liberal. Labor. Green. Communist. Old. Young. Intelligent. Stupid. All of these are labels. I told this old story a couple of days ago and added, it's a great exercise here. The people in this room. A probably a very average cross-section of the society in Perth. We don't attract some intelligentsia or dummies. Everybody is is welcome here. We're so desperate. Anybody can come in. So this is an average cross-section of society. Now how many of you you can put your hand up if you're wrong? How many of you think that you're above average intelligence? How many of you think you're above average intelligence? If I ask you honestly, if you really put your hand up. Most of you would think you're above average intelligence, if not all of you. Half of you will be wrong. Because half of you has to be below average intelligence. But why is it that we always think there's other people? They're stupid. But I am above average intelligence. We don't contemplate properly. Because to contemplate, we also have to overcome fear, denial. The labels come because of fear. Deny. We don't want to see deeply into things. We just want to keep the illusion. Now, actually, when you get through the labels, you can see who you really are. This is why we have to take some things in stillness and just watch it. Even these days, if I've got ordinary problems in life, you know, just know who to invite to this global conference. How can I get this problem finished? Because I'm a I'm a manager as well as a monk, as a teacher. Now, where should we build our next hut? Sometimes when we contemplate a problem, if you think too much, it never gets a solution. You've got to put all the information in and stop and put the problem up in front of you and just leave it alone and just watch. When all the solutions, the ideas, the words stop. Then you find your solutions. There's one lady. I'm not sure if she's here tonight. When she came on my last, the last retreat which I gave here in Perth last year, and she had all these problems at work. She was a manager of a particular department, I'm not saying which. And she left work on a Friday evening just with all these problems, unfinished business to come to the retreat. She was a smart lady. She knew Buddhism. She knew how to contemplate. They're all in her head, but she's just stopped thinking about them. He meditated for 2 or 3 days, not worrying about them, not thinking about them, not doing anything. And she came to this interview after 3 or 4 days. She came, you know, as I was meditating, all these amazing solutions came up in my mind the great answers to these problems. I could have never got those answers through thinking about them. Only by stillness is in stillness. You see deeply. That's why to contemplate even the problems of your life, make the mind still put all the information in. First of all, make the mind still. It's incredible how well great answers come up. Sometimes you think it's intuitive. It's not intuitive. It's just a process of wisdom happening. The problem of human beings. When they got a problem, they just think too much. Thinking is okay and doesn't say don't think at all. They don't think too much. Which is, you know, what you're thinking now is already too much. So just put the the information in there and leave it alone and let the whole thing grow, develop, mature until the answer comes up. This is actually how we do contemplation in stillness, seeing clearly, not getting lost in the labels, being able to see deeply into things. Which is why that's sort of, you know, traditionally, you know, Buddhists, especially monks and nuns, are supposed to be wise. Now, all this old teachers have come here. You think, oh, wise, where did their wisdom come from? Sometimes it's amazing just what you can get away with as a monk. What was that case? I was at this transport seminar arranged by Lambert Taylor when she just became minister for the first time. And at that sermon was held in a Duxton Hotel. So I went there, and because I was a monk, there's only a monk in this, uh, big meeting of suits and skirts. Actually, I suppose I was a skirt. Ah. But anyhow. This guy came up to me, and he was, uh. He was a journalist working in sort of transport magazines, especially in shipping. So he gave me an interview about sort of transport issues, and I would I'll speak to anybody. Just but apparently that that interview, he wrote it up, he actually called it sin and the Art of Shipping by Jan Brahm. And that was actually syndicated. He came and told me a year later, I was syndicated to all the major shipping journals in the world. And one of his friends, one is experts, you know, in shipping transport. The emailed him back and said, I don't know who that agent is, but he knows what he's talking about. So of course, I don't know what I'm talking about. So. But how can you simply don't be able to answer those questions? And experts in the shipping field think you're wise. Just as I saw Dennis in the corner over here got me involved in this grief and loss conference some years ago in the Observation City Hotel. And no, sir, I'm not a psychologist or a therapist. My degree was in theoretical physics, not so much in psychology or psychiatry, but I sort of rolled up there, gave the little speech, and afterwards had question time. And there was this woman organizer, she's supposed to be the expert in Australia. And a question time. Someone asked her a question. I always remember this, and she referred it to me, asked the monk. And the person who asked the question said, you're supposed to be the expert. No, no, the monk is the expert. Well, that time when I went on the 90, it was 96 FM or 6 p.m.. I forget now. And it was that that adult themes show on relationships. I forget what it was called now. And there you are. You're a monk. And from 10:00 till 12:00, I was fielding all these calls on adult issues. What do I know about such things? But nevertheless, you know that it's wonderful. All the calls were coming to me after ten minutes. It was the other person who was actually manning the phones was Doctor Gabriel Morrissey. He's written all his books on sexology. She's the expert. But no, no, I, I sort of overpowered her with, you know, my my celibate wisdom. So how come all these monks and nuns who come here? How come they're wise? Where does their understanding come from? It comes from the contemplation, which is based on stillness. When you're still, you can really see deeply. You think too much, and you only see the surface. Superficial. See it as glass. You don't see what's really deeply in here. So to really contemplate, we train the mind to be still. When you train the mind to be still, you just penetrate so deeply into the nature of things that whether it's shipping or whether it's sex, or whether it's grief or whether it's dumb that you become a wise person. It's not what you thought makes you wise. It's what you see, makes you wise. That's what contemplation is. So now you know how to be wise. And once you're all wise. You'll put me out of a job. And I'll be so happy. Thank you. So thank you for the talk tonight. So is anyone got any questions, comments or complaints this evening? Any questions? Comments and complaints about tonight's talk on contemplation. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. When's the best day? To the best ages now. Whatever age you are is supposed to. The best days. No, I mean, kids are great at contemplating their goals. Sometimes you see them playing, they think they're playing. They just got a rotten and they're just looking at it. Many kids have got these amazing minds they can see so deeply. And now what was that saying? That out of the child's mouth comes such great wisdom. I forget what it's something, something like that. And because they just see things freshly, they see things in a different way that sometimes the kids, they come out with amazing pearls of wisdom. So any age and then our education system is amazing. If you can actually give kids quiet time. If you haven't heard it here, I said it before. There was one of the disciples she was in. I don't mind saying it rolling Stone Primary School and she was doing quiet time in year sixes, starting off in them in the beginning of the term five minutes and moving out to 15 minutes first thing of the day or after the seventh or whatever. Not quite sure, but early in the day doing quiet time. And I met the principal of that school, uh, and when I had tea with him, he said, look, I am not a Buddhist, but I've seen over the many years this lady has taught this does that class does so well. It improves their ability to learn, the ability to retain information, concentration. But she says some other things happen as well, which were quite unexpected. So all the kids are not in that class. We're more sensitive to each other. When I saw someone had a difficult time, I have had a problem at home that morning. They'd actually all go and help out. They were being compassionate and it became a problem solving device as well. There's any any argument or fight about to start with the boys in the class. Someone put their hand up and say, can we have quiet time now, miss? And so all the kids would stop what they were doing and they sit down, close their eyes, do meditation for 5 or 10 minutes, and the problem would be just sidetracked. And the headmaster was full of praise for this. So yes, the wonderful thing to actually to include in our schools, as I mentioned in the book, it was a French philosopher, Louis Pascal once said, all the problems of men come from them not knowing how to sit still. And that goes for women to. Thank you for that.