Crisis Management

Crisis Management by Ajahn Brahm I'm gonna be talking about some of the problems which happen in life when everything goes wrong and when there's a crisis in your life, which is usually every week, at least very often. And sometimes those crises are big crisis. This is talk about what happens when you really are in trouble and how we deal with that. Because it reminded me of one of my favorite poems, which I read as a young Buddhist layperson a long time ago, which, when is easy enough to be happy when life goes along. Have I got it now? Like a song. Thank you. Yeah. Remember that? Yeah. That's right. Thank you. You've got better than I have. I'm getting old. It's easy enough to be happy when life goes along like a song. But the one worthwhile is the one who can smile when everything goes all wrong. And that's the poem. Because it's true that when things go all wrong, it's very hard to find a person who can have a good attitude, who could smile and be at peace. Too often when things go wrong, when things are in crisis, when everything falls apart. When your life is a big mess. Too often people, they just make it worse with their reactions. And what do we do? What's the Buddhist attitude when life goes very, very wrong? When we're really in a big problem, a big crisis and big trouble? And the reason why I want to say this is because most of you, whenever that happens, you come and bother me. And if I could tell you what to do now, then I can have an easy life. So the point is that, first of all, that one of the interesting things about classical Buddhism, if ever you read about the essence of Buddhism, the main teaching was the Four Noble Truths, which was about the crises of life caused suffering, dukkha, pain and disappointment. Frustration. And that was actually the first teaching of the Buddha, which recognized that this is a big problem of life. But the wonderful thing about the truths, the Four Noble Truths, was the Buddha also started teaching about what to do or why it happens. But first of all, that first noble truth just makes it quite plain. But this is par for the course. This happens. It's just part of life. And that's actually a wonderful realization that it's not that you've done something wrong. It's not that you are a mess and incompetent, and it's not anybody else's fault either. This is just part of life. But life is what goes wrong and where we can even understand that. And I'm not just saying this as an excuse, I understand this. It gets rid of the first level of a problem or difficulty or suffering. Whenever we do have crises in life, too often when things go terribly, terribly wrong, we always look for someone to blame. It's a scapegoat reaction and blaming others just makes things worse. When the tsunami happened at just over a year or so ago, that people are always, why did this happen? And should we blame some God? Or shall we blame the fact that no one was warning about these tsunamis? There was not enough communication. Was it because that people were living too close to the shore? What was wrong? And I remember being called out by the press afterwards when people were saying, should we blame God? Should we not blame God? Was it somebody's fault? And I said, look, who cares why it was caused the people there who are homeless? Let's go and help them. Stop wasting time. And a lot of time. Blaming other people is always wasting time. If there's a crisis, instead of trying to find out who is responsible, we can actually do something about it. The trouble is, if we can't find somebody else to blame, then the buck stops here. In other words, you blame yourself and people who blame themselves for the crisis of life, whether it's a divorce or a failed relationship. Your your business goes bottom up or whatever else it is in your life which goes terribly, terribly, terribly wrong. Too many people blame themselves. And that happens very often when anyone has been abused in a relationship or growing up in their family, the sexual abuse of children or whatever. How many people have an inherent ability to try and find someone at fault? And if you know you love that person, or you used to love that person, then sometimes it's hard to blame them. You end up blaming yourself. And that's the wrong attitude to the crises of life. As I famously said, which I repeat every few weeks. Blaming someone else is like having an itch on your head and scratching your bum. The itch never goes away. In fact, you get two itches for the price of one one on your head and another one on your bum, and it doesn't help you at all. The reason you say that is people remember that there's little sayings. Got it on your head, scratching your bum. That's blaming somebody else or blaming yourself. You've got the problem and you've got the guilt or the anger if you blame someone else as well. That is not the right reaction, the right reaction to the sufferings of crises, the terrible things which happen to us in life from time to time is number one. We can expect them. It's part of life. And understanding that, accepting that gives us this wonderful insight in that we cannot control this external world. You cannot control your partners. You can't control the weather. You can't control tsunamis with the best equipment in the world with all of the warning systems. Sometimes it just does not work. And other people for many centuries have been trying to predict when eruptions, volcanoes will happen. Sometimes you just can't do it. Sometimes you try and predict when the volcano in your relationship is going to happen. You just can't do it. Sometimes you try and predict when the tsunami of cancer is going to come or so, so you can actually not have that terrible disease. Sometimes even people who eat brown rice every day still get cancer. This is strange, but one of the things which we should learn from the crises of life, from the tragedies of life, is that with the best will in the world, and with all the effort, even even people working together, you cannot control this world. And it is the arrogance, the delusion of human beings is to think that if we had enough resources, or if we were clever enough, we would be able to control this world and to alleviate all suffering. Every time I read that in a medical journal that they're going to have some breakthroughs. So you don't need to have suffering or pain anymore. Whenever I hear they're in the euthanasia debate, people say that palliative care, palliative care, we can actually give you some medicine so you don't feel that pain. I'm afraid I've been to too many bedsides. When people are dying in great hospitals and they are still in pain. The point is that there's many things in this life which you just cannot control, and it is our sense of ego and delusion, the sense of thinking we're in power, that we think, what we think we can do this. The point of Buddhism is that you have no power or very limited power to control the world, but you have immense unlimited power to control your mind. And this is a difference. Whenever there's a crisis, we can accept that that crisis happens. Sometimes we don't think that somebody's fault that I didn't control skillfully enough or other people didn't control skillfully enough. It's the government's fault, or it's the Buddhist society of Western Australia's fault or blindfold was people make mistakes or not mistakes and can't even make mistakes. Mistakes. When you find out why these things happen, it's always causes behind it. Remember the seminal story when one of the old school friends which I grew up with. I knew him from the time we were in the Cubs together, you know, the junior Boy Scouts and still keep in touch with him. And he was a school teacher. And when he went into the class one morning, the kids filed in. He was teaching, I think, biology, I think at the time of physics. And one of the kids spat at him. They missed him, fortunately, and was on the floor and he said, clean it up. And the kid said, F off. They're right in front of the teacher's face. So straight away, sent to the principal. Now what happen if that happened to you? A kid and a 13 year old acted in such a way. Sometimes you think you got no right to do. Shouldn't do that. But apparently the principal and deputy principal came in later and just told what had happened. This little guy that was. He was completely devastated. His parents had had this incredible argument the night before. His mother had left home. I think his father had beaten him or something, and he was completely distraught and he just didn't know what he was doing. He was crazy with what happened the night before. That is not excusing the behavior, but it's understanding it. There's a lot of difference between finding excuse, which means that it doesn't matter, and understanding the causes. There's some understanding of the causes. We can get the big picture. We can understand what's happening. And when you find what the causes are and you look, you think, oh my goodness, if that had happened to me, would I have done any better? When you find the causes. The causes aren't excuses. When you find the causes, it gives you understanding. When it gives you understanding. It's very hard to judge. It's through that wisdom you find. Now therefore, the grace of fortune. Go, you or I. And this is a wonderful thing. When we stop judging and instead we investigate and find out why many of the difficult things which happen in life when you see the causes. You see how some people are treated. Remember this story of this little kid who was abused at home, had these terrible parents he ran away with only 6 or 7 years of age, lived on the streets in LA, and became a lifetime criminal. When you heard his story. Fortunately, he was had some good karma because he was at the right place at the right time. His case off a social worker knew someone in a movie industry, and he was about to be released on parole. They were looking for a job for him and they needed a someone, a consultant for a movie they were doing about criminals. They wanted to learn how criminals really spoke. And so he was suggested as a consultant, a lifetime criminal living on the streets, who would know more about criminal speak or gang people speak than this guy? So he was hired. He was so good. He got a part on the film and the film was called Reservoir Dogs. He became a movie star straight out of prison into the movies. And now he lives in Beverly Hills in a big mansion, which he actually earned. It's amazing. But because it was a strange story, he actually said what had happened to him and how he'd grown up. And sometimes when you see what happened to people like this, it's not an excuse for the crimes he committed. But you could understand why. So the understanding of the causes for the crises, the difficulties, the problems in life, it actually we can find out what's going on. We can get some understanding and with the understanding, first of all, the judgments disappear, the blaming goes, and we can actually do something about it because we cannot control. The world, but certainly we can control our attitudes towards it. The same mind which we work on in Buddhism, which is why that when you do get into difficult situations, your house gets burgled or you find you got a cancer, or you lose all of your money, or terrible things which happen time and time again, which people come and tell me about. Number one, let's not judge. Let's not get angry or blame. Let's just wasting time. The number two. Let's understand why this happened. And that will show you that this is part of our life. This world is like that. This world will never be perfect. We work our hardest to try and make it better, but we can never make it perfect. But because it's not perfect. That's why we can learn. We change our attitude towards these things, which is why that the basic Buddhist teachings is if there's something you can do, you give it everything you've got. If there's nothing you can do, you do nothing. And this is a wonderful attitude that sometimes in crises and terrible things which happen in life. One of the advantages which the Buddhists have is knowing how to sit still and wait. Those of you who haven't read my book, one of the classic Buddhist stories, is the one about the man who's running through the jungle chased by a tiger. The tiger was on his heels, about to catch him, and he saw by chance a well in the middle of the jungle. He'd jumped in to try and escape from the tiger, and he jumped in. He realized his mistake because the well was dry, and at the bottom of the well was a big black snake. Intuitively, he grabbed to the side of the well. There was a root protruding protruding from the well. He grabbed onto that root. It broke his fall. When he came to his senses, he saw the snake had been disturbed, had lifted its head, opened its hood. I was trying to say, this is visual effects for the camera. Trying to. Try to strike his feet. And a tiger. But he was just. His feet were just too high. The snake just couldn't reach. And he looked up and the tiger was not going to give up that easy. He was leaning over the world, trying to paw him, but his hand holding the it was just too low. The tiger couldn't reach him, so for the moment he was safe between the tiger and the venomous snake. And then he looked around, and he saw there was a hole in the side of the wall, out of which came two mice, a black mouse and a white mouse, and the mice started chewing on his root and making it thinner and thinner and thinner. So this is called a crisis. There you are, above you, a tiger, below you, a snake. And your precarious hold on safety is being nibbled away by the second. You haven't got much time left. Now, according to this classic Buddhist story, the backside of the tiger who's pouring in the well was rubbing against a tree, making the tree move on the branch of that tree. There was a beehive. The bees didn't come down, but the honey did. The honey dripped into the well. And this man put out his tongue and tasted that honey. And it was so delicious. And there the story ends. Now, the reason why that's a classic Buddhist story is because life does not have neat endings. If you do resolve one crisis, there's another 2 or 3 waiting in line for your attention afterwards. Life is like the soap opera, which is always something happening. Happening to make you tune in for the next episode. That, my friends, is your life. Now. The point of that story is that even though you're in a crisis when there's nothing to do, you do nothing. Not even feel afraid. But you can always enjoy moments of happiness in the middle of a crisis. This is what it means. It's easy enough to be happy when life goes along like a song, but the one worthwhile is the one who can smile when everything goes all wrong. You can taste the honey even though you're about to die. Why not? So waste of time. Worrying is the waste of time. Trying to do something when there's nothing you can do. And the wonderful point of that story is that the future is so uncertain. Unexpected things are the ones which are most likely what you least expect is usually what will happen. In my ending to this story. If you haven't read my book, the Tiger being a bit too greedy, blend into the world just a tiny bit too far. Lost its balance. Tumbled in, fell past a man, broke its neck in the fall and crushed the snake at the same time. And that's plausible. At which point the man could, at his leisure, climb out of the well and walk away in safety. Now, the reason I tell that story in that way is I've seen this happen in life again and again and again. You have a crisis. Some terrible thing happened in your life. Divorced. You lost your money. You lost your kids. Even. You're about to lose your life. And what do people do? They don't enjoy the honey because of their reaction, trying to control uncontrollable situations. We just make it much, much worse. Instead of pausing. Conserving our energies. Waiting is the attitude is what we control in Buddhism. We know how to let go and be at peace when there is nothing to do. And if we can only remember that we can save our lives many times. One of the other stories in that book is a friend of mine who's actually sat up here giving talks before. I won't say who it is, but when he was walking with his friend in New Zealand, he came to a beach. He was one of the hot afternoons, had been walking all day. He was sweaty and tired. No one was around. Monks aren't supposed to swim. But he decided to have a swim. There was a hot day and it was just so inviting. If he'd have done his research, he would have known that there was a dangerous beach. There was a riptide which had actually killed many people. He went for a swim. He hand swam for years. He got caught in the rip in the current. And what did he do? When there's nothing to do. Do nothing. He relaxed. He let go and let that current take him a long way from the shore. What most people would do in a crisis like that is to fight, to try and struggle against the current. To swim for all your worth. The current would have won. The current would eventually taken him all the way out to where it did deposit him. But if he'd have struggled, he would have exhausted himself in the fight and been left a long way from the shore with hardly any energy left. As it was, he let go. He relaxed. There was no reason to fight. He just had to just give in. And because of his training of the attitude, he couldn't control the current. But he could surely control his mind. When you got taken out that far. When the current had subsided in its strength. Then he started swimming and he made it to shore. Otherwise, he would not have been able to tell me. Except he was the ghost. But I can't tell ghost stories. At least not tonight. I get into ghost stories. We'll be here all night. But he survived. He was exhausted. And that was a beautiful example of the training of a Buddhist. How it saves your life. It was a crisis. Life threatening. Many people had died there. He survived because he knew the attitude of when to control, and now wasn't the time to let go when the current was able to be hard fought. Then you can do something about it. Too often, because we are control freaks, we think we can influence this life so much that we create the problems. Some religions are controlling religions. They tell you exactly what to do and they try and control, control, control the outside world, try and control the men. Trying to control the women, trying to control everybody. You just can't do that. What we do in Buddhism is controlling the mind. Because this is what's most important. There's nothing to do. Leave it alone. When the Bamiyan Buddha statues were blown up. Can't stop them. Leave it alone. Control the anger. Let go of any idea of revenge. Don't even judge whoever did that. This is called controlling the mind. Giving compassion instead of anger to the situations where you can do nothing about understanding instead of judging. So Buddhists control their attitudes. They don't try and control the world. Because that's something which you can do. You cannot make this world a perfect place. But you can make your mind a perfect place. Let's call Nirvana. So whenever we have these problems in our life. We can actually look at our attitude towards them. Is there something we can do? If there is, we do it. But what do we do? Understanding. First of all, compassion is incredibly powerful. But the most powerful is patience. Whenever you are in the shit, which happens very often, what are you try and do? Sometimes you struggle, struggle, struggle and it goes all over you and your friends as well. A lot of times all we need to do is to be patient. One of the classic Buddhist stories is of the Emperor's ring Emperor. Young man. Whenever he was in trouble, he'd get so upset he'd sulk and stay in his room and get depressed. One of the big problems of our life. Depression. It's just too difficult. Life. It's just all going wrong. Why me? Why does this happen to me? That's called depression when it carries on for too long. And he was a subject of depression. But when things went well in his kingdom, the economy was booming. His football team were winning. Whatever else turns you on in life. He was so happy. He would party and have a great time. The point was, he was spending so much of his life sulking or partying. He wasn't doing any work, and that was one of the reasons why the country wasn't prospering. Just like sometimes you, when things go wrong, you just get upset. You sulk. When things are going well, you think this is going to always going to be like this. You think this is your birthright, this is how it should be, and you become heedless. You don't do any work. You may have a terrible relationship and you break up. You get depressed for weeks, months, even years. You can't have another relationship because you think it's going to be the same. You're sulking. Other times you meet someone. Oh, this is it. I lost, I found my partner in life. We're made for each other. Another, more visual aids for the camera. And because of that, you take each other. You take your relationship for granted. You don't put any work into it. And after a while, you're back to where you started. Another separation, another sulking period. Now the Empress Ring story was the ministers who were older and wiser. They'd been to a local Buddhist society a Friday evening, many, many times, probably that. They understood exactly what needed to be done. They made a ring for their emperor. Very simple ring, which they gave to the Emperor to wear on all occasions. The only thing about that ring was the words on the outside which were engraved into that ring. It wasn't a ring like I will love you forever, like you have on these rings for marriages. This was a wisdom ring. On the outside of the ring were the words. This too will pass. This too will pass. It looked that on all occasions. So when things did start going wrong, it will pass. It showed him what patience comes from. The wisdom of change. You know how bad it is. It will not last. It will either get better or get worse, but it won't stay the same. It can only get so bad when it bottoms out. Has to start getting better again. Now, the point is that that is a truth which you learn in life, no matter how bad it gets. One year from now, two years or three years, it will be much different. You know that when I started teaching in prisons and some of these guys who had just been put in jail, there was just so hard to take. The beginning of a sentence, the humiliation, the shame, the guilt. Those guys suffered those first weeks in jail. And all I would say is Emperor's ring. This too will pass with your sentences. One year or five years, or ten years or 20 years for anyone. Those they call me in the body jail. This too will pass. There will come a time when her sentence is just a memory. Remember that it's not end of the world stuff. When we understand, this too will pass. It gives us hope. And hope is a seed of positive attitudes. If we realize it's not going to overwhelm us, we conceive beyond the problem. As I said two weeks ago, with the simile of the hand, when your hand is too close to your face, you can't see anything else on your hand. When your hand is where it belongs, at the end of your arm you can see your hand. You can see everything else. This too will pass. Puts it in the context of time, whatever difficulty and problem and crisis you have. I did like many of you. I went to Sri Lanka just after the tsunami and saw the devastation. Visited some of the homeless people there. You look at that devastation. It's just hopeless. You think at first. But through hard work, days, weeks, years, life comes back again. You see on the news the devastation of earthquakes. With hard work, it all comes back again. You see, it is the destruction of wars such as in Iraq, but with hard work and goodwill it can come back again. People can have families and walk the streets in peace. We know this too will pass, gives us hope. But the most important part of that teaching was wearing the ring when things were going well, like in Australia. Our prosperity, our happiness, our peace will pass when we realise that we are never heedless. We will work our butts off to make sure the harmony, the peace, the prosperity, the friendships we have will last as long as possible. We understand the reason for that ring. We understand how it stops the crisis by never taking the good times for granted. Whenever you do have peace and happiness, remember to keep working so that peace and happiness will last a long time. If you have a good relationship with somebody, never, ever, ever take that for granted. Remember it will pass and then you can build, strengthen. Always work to see how you can improve that relationship. You're never lazy and heedless. Whenever you're in good health, you just got over a sickness. Never think, oh, I'm cured. I'm going to be alright forever and ever. Work hard to keep your health going. It's the heedless people who think now I've got it. Now it's all right. I can relax. Doesn't understand just why crises happen. So we understand what crises are. And doesn't matter how deep you are in the poo. You know he will one day and all poo. All shit eventually turns to fertilizer. As you all know. The fertilizer it works gives us growth. What makes the flowers beautiful? What makes a fruit sweet? And this is, again, the beautiful Buddhist idea of the tragedies and crises in life. We look upon them as learning experiences. They are fertilizer for our compassion and wisdom. And it's true that when you do have crises in life, my goodness, you have the opportunity to learn. You have a master class in wisdom and compassion delivered to you with no charge. But if you reject that with a bad attitude, you realize later on what a wasted opportunity that was. The crises are opportunities for growth. They're tough in not saying they're easy to bear. But you cannot control the outside world. You cannot control your partner. You cannot control the people who work for you. I can't control my monks. And I'm supposed to be an abbot. Just last week had an argument with one of the monks. We were talking about the Buddhist attitude to homosexuality, and he was a know it all. And I remembered, actually, that's how I was, because I've been this monk for 32 years now, and usually about three years as a monk, but 3 to 4 years. Now you have like, the terrible twos for kids. This is a terrible season for us. Can I see this again and again? That's a time when you're confident enough. You've learned the ropes and you've learned a bit of like Dharma. Some of the teachings of the Buddha and the rules. And you really think you know it all? And they do. And then afterwards, you know, another couple of years, you realize how little you did know. That's actually what my teacher used to say. He said, when you're five years as a monk, you know, you know about 1% of the Dharma. That's all I said. I said that just to keep us. But that's nature. I can expect that. That's no par for the course. That's what I was like. That's what this magazine. He just thought down so he'd be like that in another couple of years. That's what we do. He's really nice now, but, you know, he's just, I don't know. Two years later, after that period, he got nice again and very good. Then I realized I can't control that because it's nature. So when it happens. Ah, here we go again. You know, just crazy monk. And that way you don't get upset. You don't add to the problem with your dysfunctional mental attitudes to life. So it's like your partner is sometimes they go through their moods. That's why one of the lovely stories, which is it's not in the book, it's in the next book, which I just was proofing or meditation. The one about the Water Buffalo story. It's a great story of how to let go in crisis. There was a water buffalo being led past our monastery many, many years ago, and now the man had a water buffalo by a string. The water buffaloes in Thailand, in Southeast Asia, the most placid of animals. They just go very slowly. But every now and again they get upset. And for one reason or another, no one knows why. It got upset, as was passing by a monastery and went to went to run away. And the stupid farmer tried to stop it. Now you've seen how big a water buffalo is. You see, even like a tough farmer, there's no way you can hold a water buffalo back. But he tried. The string wound around his finger. The water buffalo ran off and took the top of the third of his finger off. So he came into a monster with a bloody finger with a bit of bone sticking out, obviously in great pain. So obviously we just put him in our monastery vehicle, took him into the hospital to get fixed up. He was okay. Just afterwards he had one finger a little bit shorter than the others, that's all. But it was a wonderful simile, which we exploited many times. When a water buffalo wants to run off, it's the best thing to let it run off. Because when water buffaloes run away, they don't run that far. It's usually about 200m. 300m at most. Then they calmed down. The wise farmer then walks after them and then pulls them back when they are not sort of so upset. That's the way you look after water buffaloes. That's the same way I look after monks. Run a run off. That's stronger than me. I go. And then afterwards, he can ride in the back. Now that's a great way. Looking after your wife. Your husband. Whoever your partner is, when they're acting like a water buffalo, which they do sometimes they're really raging. You can't control them, but you can control your mind. Don't get upset and angry. Let go of. There's nothing to do. Do nothing. Run off. And then afterwards, when they've calmed down. Then you can pull them back slowly. Now that's wise attitudes to life. So if there's any people being terrorists in your family being absolutely crazy, and you realize they're stronger than you, let them go. Leave them alone when they've calmed down. When the something you can do. When things have changed. Because life is always changing. Then when the summit to do, that's when you pull them up. A crisis which we experience in life sometimes is so bad you can't see any possibility of survival. It looks so depressing. Sometimes people want to kill themselves. And though sometimes people have come up to me and told me what's going on in their lives and saying they're suicidal and I have to struggle. Really struggle hard actually, to try and convince them not to. Well, one of the things which you say it will pass. Leave it alone. Just rest. Bear with it for a while. It will change and know that, because that will give you enough hope. You will see the same light at the end of the tunnel, and that's enough for you to bear with this and understand that when you do get through it, you will be stronger for the experience. Why, sir? And what are the other wonderful benefits is you will learn what compassion truly means. I don't think people can know compassion unless they've been through suffering. You can't know what it's like for another person unless you've had a taste of it yourself. But when you taste it, the depths of depression or pain, suffering, loneliness, whatever it is failure. When you really know what it's about and you've managed to find a way through that, when you've experienced the crises of life and you've managed to find the path leading away beyond outside of it, then you have compassion and wisdom. So compassion without wisdom is just a bird without wings. It's kind, but it doesn't know how to help a person. But when you have compassion or wisdom, the bird with its wings, then you are such a powerful being. You can really serve and help other people. Which is why that in Buddhism we look upon the crisis of life just like that they are. Learning experiences is what we grow from. It's as if the crisis in life, the pains, the difficulties, the death, the diseases, the sicknesses, the tsunamis, the governments are there to test us. To make us understand. To show us a path of growth. Of learning. Compassion. Kindness. Wisdom. Of non-judgmental understanding. So that we can not so much change the world, but change the attitudes. Changing the world without changing the school. School is there for us to learn from. We don't make mistakes. How can we learn? And where we can change our attitude. Sometimes we can look upon this life. Yeah, this is par for the course. People do stupid things. We try and stop them as much as possible. We try and intervene because that's our compassion. But we know we will never succeed fully. Years and years ago, I started to build a monastery. I thought I'd build it really strongly, really well, the best materials and really make it as perfect as possible, so that once you made it, you never have to make it again. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! They. Even the best buildings have their cracks even as the best foundations move. Even the best ideas have got their faults. Even the best Buddha Society committees have their idiosyncratic failures. I've never seen a government which is perfect. You think they're okay? You could do much better if you were Prime Minister. Ha ha ha ha! Big joke. We all make our mistakes. It's very easy to judge other people. But this is what governments are like, what people are like. Sometimes when people actually asses say these problems, I got married and my wife is like this and like that. Sometimes I say, look, I've been in this business a long time. What you've just said, I've heard hundreds of times. What do you expect when you get married? What do you expect of a wife? What to expect of a husband when you have a child. What do you expect when you have a kid? Do you really expect they're going to be quiet and sleep at the right times, and never crash your car when they're 17? That's what you did, wasn't it? But the point is that expectations of life are completely sort of out of sync with what life truly is, and frustrated expectations is often the cause of so much suffering. So if we could only get that wisdom to know what life truly is, that crises do happen in life and they're part of life, they're there for to teach us amazing things. And what we would really learn is actually when there's nothing to do to learn this amazing patience, to understand that things will change. We don't need to get depressed and kill ourselves or destroy others when we get frustrated. Be patient. Let go. Leave it alone. It will change. It's learning. Growing time. That's why I call them growing pains. The pain difficulties in your life are called growing pains. You may not think it at a time, but if you use it wisely, you're much better for the experience. And we know that then we can control something, not the experiences of our life outside the experience of our life inside. When things go wrong, we don't blame. We can allow it to be. If the separation happens, we did our very best. We can leave it alone, let go and not have the remorse and the pain and the terrible revenge and and anger which, you know, people going through divorce do have. Does it help anybody? We can learn to deal with the crisis of life. And even if it's a sickness or even a death, we can even take that in our stride as well. Deaths happen. What do you expect in life? Don't expect that you're going to live to 70 or 80. Well, are they saying that? I say every few weeks I look around the room, make a quick estimate of how many people are here, and there's a baby about 300 here this evening. And then I do a quick calculation to say that I think about eight of you will be dead by this time next year. That statistics. And then I ask, which eight is it? And I can tell you by saying, do not look at the old ones. The other point is, yeah, you'll expect maybe eight out of 300 to die in one year's time, but you don't expect that to be you. That's why you have unrealistic expectations. No way. Do you understand things like this? We could actually live with the laws of life. We realize, sure, we can't actually control our long longevity, but certainly we can control our attitude to life and death and the attitudes to life and death when somebody dies. Why get so upset? They're dead. It's not going to bring them back to life again. Tears don't actually make corpses grow. So we can learn, change our attitude and grow. Sure, it's disappointing, but we learn from it. In death, we learn the value of life. We don't take every day as if it's going to be endless. Every moment becomes more important. That's the lesson we learned from death. And so these things are wonderful teachings for us. And also, do you really want to go on for that long? There's 7080. It's a bit a bit much isn't it? So if your body is no good, your eyes can hardly see. Your hands can't even hold a glass of water anymore. Now your legs are just all failing. So when I say that when you get old. Your legs go. Your arms go. Your eyes go. Your ears go. The only thing which gets stronger with old age is your mouth. Old people, they could really talk. That's why the politicians only become politicians in their old age. It's true, isn't it? I mean, I had a talk. So with that sort of observation about the nature of life. So we can actually learn just the right attitude towards life. So when people get a bit crazy, are they just being crazy when they're sort of born again? Christian comes and sort of harangues me because I don't let Jesus Christ into my life so that, okay, you can say that this is a Christian, do the Christian thing. That's okay. So that way your attitude of life never gets upset, never gets angry, never gets into these negative attitudes which create depression, anxiety, whatever, even depression, which is a big thing. So I mentioned that before. Is it? Is it an attitude problem? Can we actually do something about that? Not with drugs, but with attitudes. Life is sometimes depressing. What is wrong with that? This is just mild depression. The big depression is another ball game whatsoever. But if you ever get mildly depressed. Just be happy to be depressed. You got some advantages being depressed. You don't have to go to work in the morning. You can sleep in late. You can eat chocolate because, you know, sometimes people say it's okay to indulge in chocolate or go shopping when you're depressed. Try something you really like. But not only that. The problem with depression is you get depressed about being depressed, and then you get depressed about being depressed, about being depressed. And you continue being depressed, about being depressed, about being depressed, about being depressed. And you can see how you build this hole for yourself. Digging deeper and deeper and deeper. But if you could just accept what's wrong with depression, that's okay. Make peace with depression. If you make peace with it, the attitude of peace towards whatever you're experiencing is the part of freedom you hear in great pain. You don't fight it. You make peace with pain. I mean, really peace with pain. The pain disappears. The Buddha famously said, human beings have got two sources of suffering. He said it's being pierced with two arrows. The first source of suffering is a physical suffering. The second source of suffering is the mental suffering of those two. He said you cannot control the physical suffering that's part of life, whether it's old age, pain, sickness, things going wrong, things which are completely out of your control, which once you thought were in your control. Relationships, kids, finances, whether? Someone wrote and asked me, can you talk about the influence of weather on your meditation on your life? They were emailing from England. Of course. It's not the weather which makes you depressed is your attitude to the weather which makes you depressed. So when it's sunny days, amazing, wonderful and always free energy and you can actually go out and enjoy yourself when it's raining and cold. Wonderful. Great. I don't need to go out. I can just meditate and be still. Is this attitude problems? That's all. And if we understand this is not the weather, which is the problem, it's our attitude towards the problem. It's not the physical stuff which is the problem. It's the mind which is the problem. We understand the Buddhist teaching of the two arrows, the physical arrow you can't do much about sometimes. No life is the weather is cold. Sometimes it's really. Sometimes it's grey. Sometimes it's sunny, sometimes it's too hot. You can't do anything about that. I did here reading the paper that it was a rainy day, and someone actually did call up the weather bureau in Perth to complain. That's ridiculous, isn't it? You know, you can't figure out the weather bureau to complain, but people do that all the time. They complain to their husband about, you know, being a being a man. It's crazy that people do that. They complain about the body for getting sick. They complain about their kids for not doing what they're told. They complain about me for telling stupid jokes. Come on, what do you expect? I mean, you know my reputation. You come here. This is what you can expect. The point is, the physical area you can't do anything about. Or you can do a little bit about. But you can't do much. But the mental error, your attitudes towards the problems and difficulties in life all day sickness and death. Things going right, things going wrong. Know your finances, your relationships, the people you live with, the monks you are supposed to be teaching, what you hear, what you see, what you feel, what you taste, what you touch. You're not really in control of that. You should know that by now. But while you are in control of your mind, make that peaceful. May that wise. There's nothing to do. Do nothing. Don't even think about it. If life is a big pain, why think about it? Just makes it worse. Be patient. Be still. There's always honey dripping down from somewhere. When you're between a tiger and a big black snake. Oh, by the way, the black and white mouse. Black and white always got this wrong. Black and white mice. That symbolizes night and day. Always chewing away at your precarious hold on life. These are the mice. The black mouse is out now. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. And because of that, you see that we can do something about the the mental error. And that's why we have meditation. That's why we come to places like this to learn this beautiful mental attitudes which solve the problems of your life. So when a crisis happens, no matter what it is, please remember these mental tools for dealing with it. First of all, no need to blame anybody. No need to blame yourself. It just happens. That's why it's part of life. You haven't made a mistake because you're out of control. Or rather, life is out of control. You're just a passenger on a journey, that's all. And number two, say, don't blame anybody. Number two, remember or pass. It always change when it gets really good. You know it's going to get bad afterwards. That's life. It won't always be roses. And number three, to realize that the real problem is the attitude problem. Nothing to do. To do nothing. Something to do. Get everything you've got. When there's nothing to do. At least you can learn. So even the bad experiences, a growing pains with those attitudes towards life crises will not be such a big issue anymore in your life. Even when terrible things happen, you will be like that person in the in the poem. It's easy enough to be happy when life goes along like a song. But you'll be the one worthwhile. The one who could smile. And everything goes all wrong in your life. Why not smile? You can't do anything about it. So smile. Thank you. Okay. Any complaints? Complaints. Comments and questions? Yeah. Anyone coming with a complaint? Yes. It is. Any other sort of issues in life other than karma? What most people do which determine your pain or pleasure or whatever else in life. Now, the calm is so complicated when people say that they think it's their karma, what you do, but it's so many other courses. Everything has like courses to it, but sometimes the causes are so complex. It's just so hard to actually to predict or even to compute. So when we actually look, why did this happen to me? You can see some major courses, some major influences with this. Other minor influences and list of the web of courses is just so complex that for many you might just say it's just chance, but it's not charge that is courses there. It's certainly not created by some sort of creator God pulling the strings as if you were some sort of puppet. It's a whole web of connected courses. So that's why we can't actually say, oh, I've done something wrong. Therefore, I have to be punished. It's not cob. It's not like a punishment mechanism. It's amazing when a lot of people think about carbon in the way that they always think. The karma is like you've done something bad in the past. You have to be punished now. They never think that. Come when you're having a great time, that's your karma. But it's a great thing you experience happiness now because of some goodness you've done in the past. It's amazing just how negative we are in the West. We always look for the bad courses, for the bad things that happen to us. We'd actually learn much more if we understood the causes for our happiness and the causes for our prosperity. If we can only understand the causes of peace, we'd never do. We'd never. So we neglect to actually to strengthen and embellish those causes. When we keep on focusing on the causes, so-called bad karma, then we neglect the good stuff. When you just focus on the weeds, you forget to water the flowers. So don't just look upon the bad things which happen to in life and thinking, why did that happen? Always look upon the good things which happened and repeat those causes. Don't just pull out the weeds. Water the flowers here. Yeah, but I don't really call it national karma or international karma or global karma. Cosmic karma or. But instead of actually calling it like that. Just cause and effect causes because otherwise, you know, you think that. Oh, the whole of Australia. No, because it invaded Iraq or something. We all have to sort of, uh, you know, bear the consequences of that. But you know, you know, many people sort of disagreed with that and they protested against that. So it seems to be unfair that would be punished for the sins of our fellow Australians, as it were. But that karma doesn't work in that way. So we can't oversimplify, which is why I didn't give you a simple answer. It's a complex web of cause and effect. You are affected by the decisions of John Howard. But you also are one of the people who helped him get into power. So, you know you're responsible there somewhere other. So, you know, you're not completely so absolved from the problems. But there's an interconnected web and sometimes it's hard to trace it back. But you know that if you create some goodness and kindness in your little corner of the web, that's the best you can possibly do. And your goodness and kindness, your compassion, your generosity will actually spread along those little threads. And it's amazing just how soon it was spread to all others. Did that sort of answer the question? Okay, okay. So I think that's, you know, thank you for that question. Okay. Let's get back to announcements now. So thank you for listening today. Now we have the ads. Thanks very much.