Control and Freedom

Control and Freedom by Ajahn Brahm For this evening's talk that I'm going to expand on a talk which I gave last night to the monks at the monastery over in serpentine. And I talk about the the problem between control and freedom, because many of you are, like all of us, sometimes feel the are being pressed between how the people wanting to control us, life controlling us, our governments controlling us, even religions trying to control us, but also the the fear of freedom and misunderstanding what freedom is and should we actually control others? Because sometimes we have children? Should we be controlling them, should be controlling our diet, should be controlling the world. What should we do? How should we interact? And the whole idea of control becomes a very important thing we should truly understand, because control is the opposite of freedom. And especially in Western worlds, but not just in Western worlds. We worship freedom, and quite rightly so. And we try and resist no control. And because of that, we always have a sense of, um, of contradiction in our lives between controlling and freedom. This is what I want to explore in this evening's talk, especially exploring it from a Buddhist perspective, where we're supposed to be letting go and liberating ourselves from cravings and attachments and taking the no control. So very, very powerful and deep levels and actually seeing what happens when you do fully let go. But to start from the ordinary lifestyle of human beings in this world, though, we live in an age where there are many groups and powerful beings, powerful people, powerful religions, powerful forces of nature which you feel are trying to control you. And some of those who recognize some of those who don't recognize. And I'm not quite sure about you, but even when I was young, I would like to resist those controllers. And what right have they to tell me what to do? And I'm sure that many of you that know is then having speed cameras and speed limits, especially if you don't realize why they're there, why should they tell me what to do? It's an open road, it's quite safe. And sometimes you read in a newspaper about food, which you like is supposed to be fattening for you. And so why should I listen to what they say? I'm going to eat what I like. Why should people be trying to control me? And then you go into relationship, and sometimes you feel your partner is trying to control your inner relationship, and then it's your mother trying to control you. And you say, look, I'm 50 years old and I'm married. I'm not a baby anymore. But still, that mothers try and control you. Even fathers try and control you, and governments try and control you, and the media tries to control you, to make sure you listen to their programs or buy their products. And sometimes we just feel like we're in this battle between other people trying to control us, trying to possess us, trying to make us do what they want to do. And sometimes that we control. Even when we go to places like airports, which are frequent, very often you have to board at a certain time. You have to go with certain things. You can't carry this and you can't carry that, and you can't bring this into the country and you have to board at a certain time with people sitting in the back rows. Please board first. And sometimes we feel that there's an assault on our freedoms, and the worst assault on our freedoms comes from life itself. When I want to enjoy myself, I want to be free. But I got a bad back. I've got a bad knee, I've got a headache, I'm getting old and I can't do those things which I want to do. And of course, the biggest control of all is the old age and death when I don't want to die. Yet sometimes that we rebel even against the controller of this life. And so that there is. And I think it's a wonderful thing, an essential rebelliousness in the human spirit. And I celebrate that rebelliousness. And I tried and made my life, even though I'm part of an organized religion, or it's supposed to be organized. But any of you who join our Buddhist Society committee will know that Buddhism is not an organized religion, at least not the Buddhist Society of Western Australia. It sort of gets by, and sometimes I like it that way. If it was running too smoothly, sometimes I would think that's too inhuman. There must be something wrong there somewhere. But we get by and we're quite successful getting by. And there's a reason for that, which I'll bring up later on, I hope. But sometimes that we forget the rebellious spirit of human beings, which is so important in our life. And at this time when we're supposed to be concerned about terrorists, when we last week bombs in Thailand. So you're not supposed to go on a holiday to Thailand, you're not supposed to climb up ladders, which are too high sometimes that. Do you feel that this is too many things that I'm not supposed to do? And what the hell, I'm going to do it anyway. Sometimes that we rebel and sometimes rebellion is very good. However, you should learn how to rebel properly, because I remember when I was a school child in the hippie era, when we were supposed to be rebelling against authority and to be rebellious, I decided to buy my first pair of green velvet trousers bright green, and I thought that was being really, really sort of rebellious until I went to my first, um, was it this, uh, blues rock concert? I think it was in the Isle of Wight. No, it was actually it was a lovely at Woburn Abbey in the 1960s. And there I went in my rebellious green velvet trousers, and I found about 10,000 other people also had green velvet trousers as well. It was another uniform and my rebelliousness was not really being rebellious. I was being controlled, but by other forces. And sometimes that you wonder what is this controlling all about? And sometimes you feel what it's like to be controlled. And sometimes you go around controlling others. How many of you would rebel against your parents? No. Because. No. You were young. Your hormones were raging. You wanted to go out. You wanted to sleep in. You wanted to have your boyfriends and girlfriends and experiment. But you're told not to. And now that you are parents yourself, you're being big hypocrites and you're telling your children not to do the things which you wanted to do and probably did, too. There's something in that which, you know, which really rankles me now that for one year I was a schoolteacher. I remember just having a big conflict inside of myself. Should I sort of discipline those children in this school for doing things which I would have done by 2 or 3 years earlier? I remember these kids coming down. It was a nice day, and I went for a walk down this lane. In this summertime and late afternoon, I saw a lunchtime in the county of Devon. It's a beautiful day. I went down a lane. I saw a couple of the sixth formers when I was grade 12, or probably the, uh, the equivalent of the first year at university in Australia coming down the road. And as soon as they saw me, a teacher, the hands went behind their back. I know what that was because that's what I used to do. That's when you're smoking and you're trying to hide a cigarette. A dead giveaway. And there was a narrow lane. They couldn't miss him. They couldn't turn around. So they're very, very embarrassed. And I told them, look, that's not the way to hide a cigarette. There's no way I would discipline those kids, even though it was against the school rules, because I felt being a hypocrite, I was rebelling against those rules. And why should I sort of impose those rules on others? But then again, you know, he's supposed to be trying to, uh, nurture these children and to respect sort of authority structures. And there was a big conflict inside of me. How much should you should give liberation? How much should you control? And that is a dilemma which many parents feel. And it's a dilemma which many couples feel. And it's a dilemma which any person in authority feels. How much should you control and how much should you liberate? But so to investigate what actually is this controlling thing anyway? Now when you actually start looking inside, what really controlling is and it is always trying to sort of thinking a basis on the illusion. The number one I know best and I'm in power to make something much better. And some of those delusions which people have. Is this an arrogance to think you know best? I don't know if any of you ever read the report on the Stolen Generation, but there was an arrogance there of other people. Many was it 40 or 50 years ago who took Aboriginal children out of their families? Imagine that was you and you happen to be born Aboriginal and people came in the day or the middle of the night and took your kids away, saying it was much better for the kids to take them away from their mother and father. That's what they did. You can see there that they assumed they were going to do something better. This was in the public's interest. This was good for you. And too often the reason why we start controlling is the delusion that we know best. And you can see it as how many, especially religious people. To try and exert control over the others based on the assumption that we know best. And I've seen that in some forms of Christianity. Fortunately, all forms of Christianity. I'm talking about evangelicals. You see that in fundamentalist Islam. And that's something which I never want to be part of. And as a religious leader, because I see that, number one that I say, you know best. It's one thing if you do know something, one size fits all is not accurate. And number two, very often that you are imperfect like other people, you make mistakes. And what right do you think that you know and you've got the best idea of what other people want, but you can actually see that in fundamentalist religions. But can you see that in the way you look after your kids and try and control them? Sometimes there's something called fundamentalist parenting I know best. This is what you should do. You better do it. Or else. And just like a fundamentalist parent, a fundamentalist person in religion, you use all sorts of jihad against your children. To make them do what you think is the best. But that's not just with children. Sometimes that's in a relationship, in a marriage. Sometimes there's a controlling partner. And again, they use all sorts of means to try and make you into what they think you should be. Now remember when it was a child, how did you feel was that really function or did that really make you a better kid? In a relationship, a partnership between two people, is that going to really make you into sort of a more loving person? Is that going to make the marriage really hold? Or if you're in a teacher student relationship or like a religious leader, is that going to really make any sort of sense that's actually controlling? So first of all, that one should really look at the fact that that one really know what's best. And number two, is that the best way of going about it. And the other thing is that the best way of going about it, you know, just controlling people. I've seen a lot of people who have had this incredible courage to give another person freedom to trust them. And when they stop the controlling or even lessen the control and give a person more freedom. Usually the case is in nine cases out of ten, the person actually lives up to that freedom and they blossom and they grow from that freedom. And all the fears which we have are, if I let my kid go to that nightclub, if I let my wife just come home by her own, if I let my husband just go out for a meeting with his friends at some sort of father, all those fears which one has. If one doesn't have that trust, those fears usually get fulfilled. But if you trust somebody and give them that trust and they know you're trusting them, usually there's some other psychology at work. If you give a person freedom very often, and if up to that freedom, that's what I found. There's something there with that trust and that sort of trust. There is an opposite of controlling. It is what we mean in, uh, in Buddhism by Mehta, toward my heart, open to you no matter what you ever do, I trust you, I love you, I respect you. Because I gave her that love and respect. Now, I hope you do the right thing, but I'll forgive you if you don't. Because where there's control will always be fear. Fear from the controller of the not doing what you want and fear from the person being controlled. And what might happen if I don't do what I'm told? And again, many religions, many political parties, many, um, bosses, they work on that fear. No. To control a person. And that's a very, very unpleasant world to live in. In places where I've had people in authority trying to control you and making threats. If you do something wrong now, this is what will happen to you. Or like, you know, when I was in school, if you break the school rules, you'd get the cane. All that taught me was not to get caught. That's what it taught me. And that type of control, which was allied with fear, was completely dysfunctional. I never learnt no anything much from that except being very skillful to try and get out of having to go to the principal's office. And that's actually what would happen in a relationship. If it's a controlling relationship, the other person being controlled will eventually rebel, but they'll be afraid, and all they will learn is how to be more skillful in not getting caught. In other words, there's no trust there. There's no love. There's no sort of real humanity there. And so that is wonderful to be in a situation where you feel you're not being controlled. To have this sense of like freedom and independence, but that freedom and independence, you should look very carefully at. Because even though that sometimes we think we're in this bubble of freedom and our partners, our bosses, our religion or our company, whoever is in authority over you seems to be giving you freedom. Sometimes there is some more subconscious or surreptitious controlling going on. And of course, people have become more and more smart in how to control you without you realizing it. And of course, advertising is one of the greatest means of control, the greatest successful control mechanisms, because people see advertising and they don't understand or realize that they are being totally controlled. Your hairstyle, your clothes, just where you go at night. Where you go on holidays and what you eat. How much of that is your free choice? And how much of that is that? You've been told what to do by the advertisers. And sometimes it's frightening to know how much, though. We are controlled by advertisers, by the billboards. If you weren't controlled, there would be no money in advertising. And that surreptitious thing about advertising is we don't realize how we're being conditioned and brainwashed. This is one of the more difficult things about control because you ask, you know, what is actually freedom is freedom to do what I want. But do I really want to do this? Or has this been conditioned by my culture? And why do people actually just go to, say, Subiaco Oval or the Waca and just watch a few people just kick a ball around shouting backwards and forwards and then sort of your team loses anyway and you go home miserable. When you look at this now the the Australian sport of AFL, I think there's 16 teams in that league. Every year 15 teams are disappointed and upset and only one team has any happiness that year. So whatever team you support, you've got 15 to 1 chance of being miserable for one whole year. But why is it that people do that? Because actually it's almost conditioned to. It's our national sport. Now we have to do it. Why is it? For example, one of my experiences as a young man is being like 14 years of age, being rebellious. No being with my mates, a bit of peer pressure, but also being rebellious. Going to take my first glass of beer. The drinking age was 18. I was only 14. Sneak in there and take a glass of beer, thinking how clever I am, how rebellious, and taking my first glass of beer. I couldn't believe just how disgusting that tasted. I did see in the newspapers there was a suggestion of actually Perth drinking recycled wastewater from your toilets, and that's what I thought. Beer was somehow recycled from the lavatory because that's what it tastes like. Even actually people do call it piss in Australia. So that wasn't me. That must be recycled from somewhere. But it tasted awful. But because my culture this was in London said that beer is fine, beer is good, beer is what you're supposed to enjoy, and you spend a lot of money and many evenings drinking this stuff. It only took me about 3 or 4 months to start to like the taste. And once I became a monk and I looked back on that experience, I thought, why did I like that? Because I had to. I completely reconditioned myself to go against my natural instincts of disliking the taste of beer, to actually think it was delicious. And being a monk, when you stand back and you watch these things, how much more are what I think I like has actually been conditioned into me, because I have to like it because my society says I must like it. How free are you? Or how much have you been controlled? I know some girls, they don't want to have a boyfriend. They just want to be free by themselves. But sometimes society. You've got to get a boyfriend, your mother and father, you know. When are you going to find a boyfriend? When are you going to get married? We're going to have a child and the pressure is on you. And sometimes that because of that pressure, we get conditioned into doing what other people want. And this is a big problem for human beings. The pressure to conform, the pressure to do what other people want to please others. How much is that feeling? Like you're being controlled. So much so that a lot of people get into frustration, anger, depression, simply because that is a stress coming from outside. In the book, which I wrote, Open the Door of the heart, I made a very powerful quote in there. And the quote was, never allow other people say to control your happiness. I've extended that since. Why is it why other people say you allow them to control you? And that's a powerful means of control in our world. Is called now learning your weak points, pushing your buttons. They find out what upsets you. We speak to each other a lot in our society. We find out what really upsets you. And once we see the reaction there, we can keep using that again and again and again. The weak spot of a human being. And that often happens in relationships or with friends. We tease each other. We know exactly how to harm and hurt the other person. And that especially happens in marriages where you see people have been married a long time. They say these snide remarks to each other again and again and again. And when you hear that so often, no wonder there's a divorce just coming soon. You hear that with so-called friends putting each other down. Now, why do we say such rotten words to each other? Because we want to control the other person. You know what it's like when people find your weak spot. And so the advice is, doesn't matter what a person says, no matter what they call you. The my favorite word of abuse now, because I read this in a book and I mention this, I think, uh, in uh, Malaysia a few weeks ago was about a person who say this is a curse from the Middle East. He said, May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits. It's quite neat, isn't it? So there's somebody else with a freezer. A thousand camels in your armpits. So when you go home today, do you upset at your husband or your wife? That's what you could call this stuff. And, you know, you got it for marriage. It doesn't matter if someone says that. What are you going to do if someone tries to abuse you with words like that or something worse? Why do you allow other people's words to upset you? And you will keep on now until they find the right words, which really get deep into you, you know, find your weak spot, and then they'll use that again and again. So it's great not allowing other people to upset you. If somebody says something mean and horrible, that's their business. Nothing to do with me. They call me an idiot. Lazy. Just an idiot. Or one of the the favorite comments was walking through the streets of, um, was it, uh, Doncaster in the north of London, many years north of England many years ago. And, you know, wearing our robes. I was with this monk tomatoes about 20, 20 years older than me. And this a guy came up in his suit, a business guy on his way to work early in the morning. And he looked at us, you know, really with disgust. But he turned on his attorneys and made him look to him and said, you're old enough to know better. I know I was young enough to be stupid, but this guy was now 40. Another great comment. But why? Why do you allow yourself to be upset by these people? And you don't have to. You don't need to be controlled. This is the first place of rebellion. I'm not talking about wearing green velvet trousers or men wearing skirts or whatever. I'm talking about rebellion. Rebellion. Wisely not allowing other people to control. If you want to get angry. Fine. I'm going to get angry. When I get upset. That's my business. I decide to get upset, but I won't make an automatic reaction. When you start to do things like that, you get an incredible amount of freedom and also wisdom because you are starting to break the habits. And so often, no, we are controlled not so much by other people, but we control by our habitual reactions coming from our society. And as a monk, as a meditator who reflects his mindfulness alert. It's amazing just the sort of habits which I uncover from time to time. One which comes to mind is why we will not allow ourselves to receive praise. And this particular incident happened just over a year ago when I went to Curtin University. I had to go to this medal ceremony, the John Curtin Medal Awards, because the year before that was in 2004, five for 2005, I was awarded this John Curtin Medal for community service. And at the time I thought, my goodness, they must be desperate to give the award to me, you know, because this is my job. I'm a Buddhist monk. What am I supposed to do? You can't give people an award for what they're supposed to do. It's like giving an award for a fireman, for being a hero. That's what they're supposed to be. That's what they're paid for. But then when I went there just now, I went up. You had to give a little acceptance speech. And I said, well, you know, it's very nice, but, you know, I try to make a joke about it. It was given for for vision, community service and leadership. And I said, well, if it can't be for vision because I have to wear glasses, and community service is what you usually do when you release from prison. So that can't be me. So there must be leadership, I suppose when I made a joke about it to try and put it down, and it was a year later when I saw these other couple of people being given this medal because they came to see my medal service, I thought the least I could do was go to their medal service. And I went there, and these were two really inspiring people, and I listened to the service they have given to society. I thought, wow, those are great people. We should have more people like that in the world. One of the people was the I think it was Doctor Joffre. I think his name is. He started the Browns um, Alternative Medicine Centre in Charlie Gardiner's hospital. So if you have cancer or you have some bad diseases, you can go there and get a foot massage, a reflex. No, this is the same as foot massage, reflexology, reiki, all this alternative stuff which is really wacky but works. And he managed actually to to use it. This guy he was ahead of haematology. Charlie Gardners managed to use his influence, put his reputation on the line and have this in the middle of the hospital. And it's obviously incredibly powerful effect it has. And, you know, when I heard the battle he went through to actually to get this going and how, you know, being a hard scientist, he had to actually to front up to people and say, I want this to happen and put his reputation on the line and seeing it work. And I noticed these things. They really do work, and they're seeing the good which is given to people suffering from cancer. And I thought, wow, that guy really deserves this. And of course, when he went up, he went up and say, I don't know why they're giving me this medal. There's many more important people in this world. And that sort of I saw myself up there a year earlier. Why is it that when actually people say thank you or give us some praise, why is it we can't just be objective and say, yeah, thank you, I deserve that. Because you did. Why is it we reject this praise? Because we are told from the time we're very small that we're supposed to not accept praise, criticism. Yes, we're supposed to accept criticism. I hear you, I will think about it, I will change. But when we're praise, no, we're not allowed to accept that. Oh, it was nothing. Oh, everybody does that. Oh, I don't deserve it. Your control by your culture. And in that particular case, it is a very dysfunctional response. It's much better to receive that praise and feel good about oneself. Feels that one's self esteem builds up one's confidence. Whatever you praise or get praise for, you will repeat. You don't get a big head because that's what I was told when I was small. You do get a big heart when you're praised. And big heartedness is very, very important. So that's controlled by your culture. It is great to be able to see that. Once you see that you can stop it, you can do something different. Not only controlled by your culture. Sometimes you're controlled by life. Why allow sickness to spoil your day? This is one thing which I was very, uh, surprised, but impressed to see a saying of the Buddha. Just because your body is sick doesn't mean your mind has to be sick as well. The change that around him means just because you're dying of cancer does not mean you have to be unhappy. That was actually incredibly rebellious because what I was actually saying, even this body sickness does not have to control your happiness. You can be free in spite of pain, in spite of dying, in spite of everything going wrong. I refuse to be controlled by my sickness. I refuse. I'm not trying to get rid of my sickness. I'm talking about your reaction, your mind. Just the way you deal with this. Your inner world. Because it's in the inner world. It's where you have freedom. The outer world. You can't really control that so much. People who try to control those sicknesses, who try to control the outside. You're just like being the mother who tries to control their child. The child is 50 years old. They're independent now. Your body is 50 years old. You try and control. Your body is getting old. That's what it does. Why not give it some freedom? What a funny thing. Tremendous thing happens when through wisdom, one is not controlled by these external things. It's not only you get freedom, but you get this incredible power and happiness. This is why that part of our training, what you do here when you first come here on a Friday evening, is actually do a little bit of meditation. And that's all from non-controlling. You're letting be you're not trying to control your mind for half an hour. The rest of the day you're going to control your body and mind. But for half an hour you completely let go. No control. Whatever happens, happens. Make peace. No one's going to judge you. You're not going to get a report card. One of the nice things about Buddhism. We don't have excommunication. I don't even know most of your names anyway. So how can I excommunicate you? So whatever you do, you're always welcome back next week. Isn't that great? You're free. But when you meditate, you have this beautiful opportunity for freedom. But don't control. For the talk I gave to my monks. Because they find it sometimes hard to let go like you do. So easy to say, isn't it? Just let go, let things be. But why are you controlling? What's the mechanism of controlling? And this gets into the deeper philosophy of it. The reason why you control is because you judge. As soon as you start judging, control follows next. And this insight about the link between judgment being judgmental and controlling, that actually came from here one day when somebody asked me a question must be about 5 or 6 years ago. After the talk, they asked me this beautiful question what do you think about this saying by the British scientist and philosopher Lord Kelvin, who died a couple of hundred years ago, one of the founders of science and also technology, Lord Kelvin, who once said before you could control nature, in other words, technology. You have to learn how to measure her accurately first. And so early science spent a lot of time devising systems of linear measurement, getting this standard meter, which actually is in Paris somewhere, and a standard meter length, standard time atomic clocks, which actually can measure time so accurately, and other ways of measuring things because without measuring things, how on earth can you control the world? And that was a brilliant insight, which actually was part of the development of our modern world. Measure first and then you've got control. And from that I saw that. Well, what happens if you don't measure? You haven't got much control, have you? All control starts from a measurement and judging. That's why you try and control your children. Say you're measuring them. You're judging them. You have them trying to fit some sort of judgmental scheme. Especially if you're a parent and you want your kid to go to university. A lot of it is pride and conceit. Jealousy even about what the kid next door is doing. When the people next door, your friend say, oh my child got to UW and study medicine, what about you? He's only on tape redoing his TV. And it is pride that saw that poor kid that maybe just know where he is in life. So why is it a snowy beard? Judging people is the child who does medicine at UW any better than the person who's learning bricklaying at TAFE? You ask him a few years later on now, when the doctor sort of turns to drugs because he's stressed out and the bricklayer is happily working with a nice family, making a lot of money. I read in the papers, and I get a lot of information from the papers that if you want your son to do really well, apparently this was happening in UK. They said, do not send your sons to university. Stop them doing their A-levels. He said apprenticed them to a plumber because plumbers were earning more money than lawyers. Because there was a great shortage of plumbers. And when your house leaks or your your plumbing starts to leak and you can't have a bath and you can't sort of turn on the taps, you need a lawyer or a plumber straight away, and they can charge whatever they like, especially on Saturdays and Sundays. And his plumbers were making a fortune. After about ten years as a plumber, you can retire with a Rolls Royce. Actually, I saw these builders in UK and they were driving Rolls-Royces and they were just builders. So perhaps if your son hasn't done well in t well done, you may have this very wealthy plumber in the future or this great builder. And what a wonderful thing to have in your family, because whenever you want a builder to build a house or your friends, you've got one. It's your son. How hard is it to get a builder or a handyman these days? How hard is it to get a plumber to come at any time? And that's your son. You're set for life. So the reason I'm going on that, that angle there is judging, which we make, that if your kid gets to university or gets to UWA, they're somehow better than the kid who doesn't. Is that fair? Is that reasonable? But because of that judging, that's why we are controlling our kids. You work hard, you pass those exams and you try and control them. Influence them to whatever you like. To try and make them pass. Have you been? Have you been in that place before? Or similar places in your life? And what happens to you when you feel under the pressure because people are judging you is unfair. It's not right. It's not wise. So why did you lie to other people? One of the great things about real religion. I'm not talking about the false types of religion or the stupid types. And that's in Buddhism, Christianity all over the place. Real religion doesn't judge. How can you honestly fairly judge another human being? They're not the same. They're not better than. Not worse. It is different. And that lack of judging of another human being is called metta. Loving kindness. The door of my heart is open. No matter who you are, no matter what you do. You've heard that before. There's a title of the book, but do you understand it? What it really means is being non-judgmental, loving, and respecting a person for who they are, not trying to make them something different, not judging them, and therefore not controlling them. How can you control them? Controlling them as wanting to be something different? They're good enough as they are. So how can you control? And you can take that further instead of just like loving kindness for this being or that being, loving kindness for yourself and your life. With all the tragedies and difficulties it's gone through. How can you judge your life? You've been to court because of some sort of accusation. You've been in business. You've lost the business. You've had this disease or that disease, that trouble, that success. Jesus, judge. Sometimes I've had a bad day and another day was a good day. This has been a bad year, 2006, but 2007. I want it to be a good year. Why do you. Do you really fairly judge? Is it really accurate assessment of what happens? Because as soon as you start to judge the good and the bad, the success and the failures, then you actually start to divide society. You start to control when you don't judge. It's amazing how free you feel. I'm good enough. Last year was good enough. The fact that my son died was good enough. I don't judge that to be a tragedy. I don't judge the birth of my first son to be a wonderful success. Why do you say those things? It's society. Just puts those pressures on us. If you really rebel and look upon it more closely, these are just events of life. This is just what happens. It's nature. Can you judge nature? You can say it was too hot today and we got the weather Bureau to complain. I mean, I did read that. So sometimes people actually do bring up the weather bureau in Perth. Say, look, you said in the paper it was going to be sunny today. And I went out for a picnic and it rained. Now you're a royal. You should not do that again. Okay. Don't do that again. They complained to the weather bureau. Why do you complain to yourself or complain to life again? Why allow life to control your happiness? The ups and downs of life. Success and failure. Health and sickness. Life and death. Praise and blame. This is right down the line. Teachings of the Buddha who call these worldly dharmas worldly truths which we all have to share with more or less. Shares of praise. Shares of blame. Successes and failures. Sword of wealth and losing your wealth. All these things which we have. Health and sickness. All these things we all have to share. Why do we judge that this part is good. That part is bad. When we have that separation, we try to control what we do in meditation. No good, no bad. Complete. Let go. Nothing to do. No measuring. No peace, no restlessness, no clarity, no sloth and torpor. I was teaching that to my monks and its incredibly powerful way of meditating. If you have the guts to not measure in your meditation, there's nothing to do but nowhere to go. Because there's nowhere to go, nothing to do. You naturally become very still. For those of you who heard my teachings are trying to get into jhana. You think John is better than where you are now? That's judging. And you'll always be controlling, trying to do something you never get anywhere. As soon as you let go. No judging. Nothing to do. There's nowhere to go. Therefore craving stops. Stillness happens. And this is a powerful experience of the inner Buddhism, the esoteric Buddhism, if you like the meditation part of Buddhism. When your mind stops. You're stopping judging. You're stopping control. And what you found is everything you wanted to control. For every purpose which you craving was supposed to give you. You get when you stop all of that. Or the peace, the stillness, the energy, the freedom. You'd never feel as free from control as when you let go in deep meditation. Strange thing. Freedom. Look, I'm a monk. 32 years. Over 32 years I've been a monk. And some people ask me, what are you a monk for? And are you still old enough to find a nice partner in life? I'll help you. I know this old lady who's lost her husband. You can just go somewhere and be somebody. And then you can start watching movies again. You can start now. I'll take you to the Waca to see the test match or whatever. So why do you put yourself in this little box of being a monk? You can't do this. We got all these rules. If you look in the library, there is like six volumes of the rules which I have to keep. And those are the main rules. You've got the commentaries, which I don't know how many volumes. That must be so difficult. But you never feel as free as when you're a monk. Like people come to our monastery for retreats they're going to keep. They can't eat in the evening. They can't watch movies also. They can't have sex in the monastery. And they go there and they feel so much freedom. Strange thing. That's freedom. What it is, is a freedom from another thing is another controlling force inside of you. Call your cravings, your inner controller, the inner control freak inside of you. And you know that more than anybody. And that drives you insane sometimes. You're trying so hard. To get somewhere. What are you trying to get to? What is your goal in life? There's only one place you're going to end up. What are the two places people ask me sometimes. What happens to you when you die? So you go to one of two places Kolkata or Fremantle. You can actually there's another one. You can go to three places you can go to. That's your goal in life. So sometimes we ask ourselves, what? What am I crazy? What? What am I trying to do in life? What is the meaning of life anyway? The meaning of life is actually to have no more control, to control enough to get where you want it to be so you don't have to control anymore. So it's actually control is the opposite to the goal of life. We think it's going to fulfill that goal, but actually it takes us away from the goal. And freedom is the opposite of control. When nothing is controlling us at all, we want for nothing. We are completely happy where we are. Life can be pleasant, unpleasant. We get praised. We get blamed. We're healthy, we're sick, we're alive, we're dead. Who cares? We're completely free. Now you know that inner controller. Because that inner controller is called your thought. Why is it you can't shut up when you close your eyes and meditate? Why is it even when you go to sleep at night inside of you? Are you enjoying a nice time? Why is it you can't shut this thing up? That is the controller that is now the we call even in Buddhism the evil one. Because that drives you crazy. And when that gets very, very strong, that actually causes madness. Psychosis. I remember seeing that happen once in this fellow who I have a space of 4 or 5 days when I was a young, woke and tired and maybe 1 or 2 veins as a monk, two years as a monk, who would come to the monastery every morning and he could see he was going more and more crazy. There's no way, nothing I could do about it. I didn't know what I was doing, I just observing at the time. And he started talking and he wouldn't stop. And the talking got more and more quick, more rapid, more incoherent, and eventually just completely lost it. You can see that that thought was just going completely out of all bounds. The more he tried to control it, the worse it would get. It's amazing thing, just the power of letting go and just how that completely undermines the madness and psychosis. Which is why those people come up to me and said, are they really depressed? I say, what's wrong with being depressed is not against the five precepts. Against the law demands your right to be depressed and stop allowing people to stop you being depressed. What's wrong? I demand my right to be depressed. Depressed? I'm not going to be controlled, but I'm going to enjoy my depression. Nothing wrong with being depressed. When you stop judging depression, it's not depression anymore. You can be undermined it. Depression feeds on negativity when you actually give it. This acceptance is love. The door. My heart's open to depression. It disappears very quickly. You're not trying to control it. You can see how these things actually, they they come from control. Control, control. And when we sort of get controlled out of our. Out of our minds, we just give up and we just get this depression and we try and control this depression. Fascinating part of your life is to stop controlling yourself. In other words, to open the door of your heart to yourself as you are. And the only way to do that is by not judging. To say that I am okay as I am. I don't have to be healthier. I don't have to be more successful. I don't have to be more beautiful as a monk. I don't have to be wiser. I don't have to be more peaceful. I don't have to give better talks. I don't have to make new jokes every week. Take off the pressure and as soon as you take off the pressure, you're free. It's a great realization to know you don't have to please anybody. Just do whatever you like. So that's what I do when I come here on a Friday night, just for an hour. People like it. Fine. If they don't, that's even better than they can. Leave me alone. I said, you know, I go all over the world talking. I said, I work my tongue to the bone. I'm not like that today. So obviously when you do your jobs and your duties, you have to sort of do your duties. But even my duties as a man, I suppose to be the output of a monastery. But I try not to control. I try to actually to show the way by kindness and compassion and love much more than anything else. Try me not judgmental to the people I live with to try and show them the way. That way. You may see I'm showing I'm controlling by not controlling, but it's more like not demanding anything of anybody. It's actually what I call empowering other people. It's not controlling. That's what I love to do here. Now, whenever anybody asks me some of these questions about euthanasia or abortion, you don't say that's wrong. And this is right. This is what you should do. That's not what you should do. Now, the job I feel as a teacher, you know, is teaching loving kindness and wisdom is actually to empower you. In other words, to help you make your own decisions. That's what I'm doing here now. You just let go of this terrible control. This is right. This is wrong. What will people say if I do this? What will happen? How have I trusted to give you more sense of freedom? In that sense of freedom. You know in your heart what's right, what's wrong. You're not controlled from externals, nor you control by fear, nor you control by what other people are going to say about you. You understand inside of yourself what feels right, what feels wrong. I always trusted that much more than anything else. When I trusted that, I understand that that is the source for all. These precepts and rules come from. When I go to that, it's not controlled by the external. It's like directed by the Dhamma. We call it the truth, the truth from inside. And that is like a force which so drives the whole life. It's not a controlling, it's a freedom. Now your being, if you like, driven by freedom, understanding why, but not telling other people what to do, but even telling yourself what to do. But being, I suppose, naturally good. Naturally. Why? So when I'm a monk, all these rules are so easy to keep because I don't even think about them. You just do it because it makes sense is as being free as being natural. It's just going with things rather than against things. It's like being unconditionally aware. Non-judgmental. Freeing. Imagine if you can do that to other people. That's really showing you love them. That's why in Buddhism they say just like a mother loves her only child. It doesn't matter what your child is. You love them unconditionally. You don't judge them. That's why if you go into prisons and you see this, multiple rapists, don't judge them for goodness sake. Otherwise, you can't love them. You can't show them freedom. Because when you start judging. There's lack of understanding why they did that or the forces behind them, why they know their upbringing. There's a situation they happen to be in, maybe the drugs or the alcohol. So there's an awful thing which happened, but can you really judge? When you don't judge. Then you can laugh when you love. It's amazing when a person, you a person has done some terrible, terrible act and they come up to you and you just are kind to them rather than criticizing them. When you're not judging them, when you're laughing them for who they are, no matter who they are. I think when I went to prisons. That's one of the reasons why the prisoners were very fond of me, because I would never judge them. As I kept saying, all the times when I used to go to prisons, I never once saw a criminal, never once inside jail, saw a criminal, saw people who done crimes but never saw criminal people who done crimes. I didn't judge them by that. Those acts, which they did, they were much more than that. They were untouchable. How many things have you done in your life knowing? Millions, hundreds of millions of acts, words you've done? Why can you judge a person for 3 or 4 stupid things they did? They get those billion other things, wonderful, kind things they did. Can you touch yourself? How many? If you tallied up all the beautiful thoughts you've had in your life and all the stupid, evil thoughts you've had in your life, all those. Those kind words you've said and all those mean words you said. All those selfish actions, not those compassionate actions. You can't remember most of them, but how can you judge yourself? When you don't judge, you're free. You don't have to control anymore. And when you don't control and you're free. You'll find that all of those unskillful actions are hurtful. Actions tend to disappear or hurt, and evil comes from hatred. Ill will. You will badness on somebody else. Hatred. Ill will. This is where those things come out from when you have this freedom. Non-judgmental love. How can any evil come out of you? How can any hurt come? How can anything bad come out of that? That's why monks will let go. Nuns will let go. People will let go. People who do become free, who stop the controlling, become the most beautiful, wise, virtuous people in this world. They don't do any harm because they don't want to control. They're free and they teach freedom to others. That's why the essence of what we do here is. We learned that in our meditation we learn the less you control, the more successful the meditation is, the more peaceful, the happier the wiser. And that's what you do in your life. You don't control the people around you. You don't control your disciples, your friends. You don't control your body. You don't control your body. You relax. No stress. And your body becomes healthy and lives a long life. Now we want to. Do you want to live a long life? Self controlling yourself. Let go and be free. Stress disappears. Then you get health and long life. Example. So controlling and freedom. Why do you control anyway? Because of you, judge. I never mention this, but I'm going over time. You know why you judge? Because you've got an ego of self. That's what the self does. You judge whenever you look at something. Whenever you are there, you're always assessing. Better. Worse. Good. Bad. Whatever. So by not judging the reason why it's very hard to do is because you have to disappear. You have to vanish. The self goes when you stop judging. That's when you don't judge. You're no different than any other person. Therefore you disappear. Why? In Buddhism, we call it the teaching of an unknown self. Disappearing. Vanishing. So the more you are, the bigger the ego, the more you will control. When you start a lesson, disappear and vanish, you will be more free. You won't control others. So you can understand. The more enlightened the person is, the more free they are, the more they won't control others. That's why you never get a monk, be President of United States or Prime Minister of Australia, and not into controlling the entire freedom to vanishing and disappearing. So that's the talk this evening on control and freedom. So does anyone have any questions about that talk this evening on a discussion on control and freedom? Yeah. I definitely feel in my own. Well. Why don't. You make one. Point. You know. And then. Indeed. Sometimes. So you're talking about controlling children because you want them to have a good life. You want to encourage them to do well at school and workers. And sometimes their boss, you know, is afraid they'll be lazy or they'll make too many mistakes. But you can see that sometimes that control is counterproductive. You're controlling because you want the best for your children. You're controlling because you want the best for your company. But you know, you've been in that situation before. It actually is counterproductive. What control is there to achieve and achieve the opposite? So now there is another way. And the other way is I said earlier, trust you give trust to your kids. And now this beautiful love and acceptance. Sure, the kids will make mistakes from time to time, but that's what they're supposed to do. That's what life is about making mistakes and learning from them. But at least the children will see from you. Not to be afraid. And I've seen sort of our parents who do give that freedom to kids, and they're the kids who usually don't take the drugs, who don't sort of get into the alcohol big time, because now the kids are learning some responsibility. It's a control freak. Parents. They're the ones the children doesn't know how to sort of give themselves that freedom. And then they're the ones who just go and sort of take the drugs and the alcohol end up into trouble. It's I just started thinking of this. There was a study which was done. I recently, uh. I just had to put me on to it because so many, I think, as many of the fundamental evangelical Christians were saying, if they don't go to church, don't go to temples and stuff like that, that the society starts to become immoral and dissolute. And this smart Alec guy over in the United States somewhere called statistics like crime rates, suicide rates, divorce rates, abortion rates, no child pregnancies, all these negative indicators of society in like in, in towns and cities throughout the Western world and compared that with attendance at church. And there he found a positive correlation there where there was high church attendance, there was a high incidence of child, uh, teenage pregnancies, rapes, divorces, murders and everything else. And it was a fascinating because exactly the things which were saying, if you go to church, become a Christian or, you know, it's going to stop. Actually, it made it worse. And the reason why was that? And the reason I mentioned is that because the more you try and control people, actually, the more difficult they'll become. And in the I think, one of the best countries, they said, which had the lowest suicide rates, the lowest, um, divorce rates. You know, the low crime rates, you know, very low teenage pregnancies. I think it was actually some towns in Sweden. It was a very, very secular society, which I gave. It's a lot of freedoms to its inhabitants, its people. So it's a study which could actually be repeated. Does actually control lead to more societal problems? And control is not just from governments, from religions as well, from parents, from bosses. Or does more trust giving more trust to your workers? Here's the job. Do it your way. Is that going to lead to more profits in the company? Is it going to lead to better kids? What do you think? I know where I will think, where the success lies. It goes against the grain because sometimes we think we want to achieve something. Got to control. I think that's why we get into such a problem in our societies these days, controlling evermore and getting into more and more societal child relationship problems. What happens when you have an argument with your partner? You want to control them more. When you get to a mistake, you want to control yourself more. What happens? You just keep repeating the same old mistakes. Yes. He is speaking out important against things like homophobia or, you know, like stupid wars and stuff like that. And of course, you know, you know, I do do that, even though I get into trouble about it sometimes and I'm very happy to do that. But this is actually exactly what I've been saying this evening. Well, why was there a problems with the gay, lesbian, transgender community? Because other people wanted to control those people. Why was that? Because out of fear. And, you know, sometimes you got your own agendas the way you want to control people. And so that I would speak up against that as many times as people asked me to. Ha. Ha ha. Yeah. Nice. Okay. I see your point here. It's not you're judging the intolerant people, but you're sort of telling them to be non-judgmental. So, you know, let's see. Okay. You say actually I'm from so espousing being non-judgmental. That's being judgmental about people who are judgmental and comparing the people with not judgmental. And you can always get into trouble this way. But you can see what I'm saying here is actually to actually to be non-judgmental is the, you know, the purpose of this talk not to be controlling. And that would mean so speaking out in favor of being non-judgmental. And sort of putting that out there. And I'm not controlling people for empowering people. So that's my gift. Now it's up to you to do what you want. It's not. Of course. I don't think it was anything, guys. I would just be stood in my room. Not even so, speaking to now, who cares about you guys? Whatever you want to do, fine. I mean, that's not anything goes. It's actually the teaching, the non-judgmental. Anything goes is just, uh, again, is just, uh, the controller, uh, the judgmental ism. The egos just keep running, uh, keep in power and keep creating all the problems in life. And you do speak, you do teach, you do do things. But it's not judgmental. It's just giving that sort of teaching out there into the world to let people take it. Spreading seeds. It's like, huh, what are you doing? You just like, you know, when the flower blooms, does it just. I'm going to bloom today. I'm going to turn out white. Turn out yellow. This is just the natural person just, uh, unfolding this drama coming. I say it's coming from the Dharma inside. And it's not being controlled by good or bad, this or that. It's just coming up. This is true. There will always be in this world, you know, cool people, kind people. There'll be sort of light and dark. There'll be winter and there'll be summer. There'll be wars and there'll be times of peace. But our job is actually to lessen us, not to obliterate them. You can't control them. It's like sometimes that living out in the bush and serpentine. And having been through some, some of the worst bushfires over there in was in 1991, the hottest day of the year, I thought to stay ever in Western Australia that day we had our bushfire and serpentine. It was another day a month later which was even hotter and that was a day, a huge bushfire. Crown fire came through our land. I learnt a lot about bushfires there, how you can't control them. What you do is you nudge them this way and nudge them that way. You don't face them head on and say stop, can't be done. Now by backburning just by a little bit of a firebreak here, by watering this way, just to push them slightly around. And that's the way they usually dealt with, not the head on control. Let's waste time. So you can nudge, but you can't control. That makes sense. Okay, well, thanks for those questions because it's a very difficult issue. Now we can talk about this for another couple of hours. But you have to go home and I have to go to bed. It's not right when monks stay up late at night. People start to wonder, why are you going to bed so late? Are some some good or bad? I go. Back one time. Be one. Take me. So I come back to what are the more on Amazon me? The party part. I go after all. Ackerson. Gold. Sunken glamour.