Give It Everything You've Got

Give It Everything You’ve Got by Ajahn Brahm Okay. So like many of the people working hard for this global conference that I've been, uh, getting up very early in the morning, going to bed very late at night, uh, rushing around all day. And I sometimes surprise just how the mind can have such an effect on the body and how one can develop energy in one's life, even though one is very, very busy. So the talk this evening is on the facts that the mind is a forerunner of all things, and if one's mind is very sharp, you can have huge amounts of energy at your disposal. So one of the stories which I did write in my book, Open the Door of Your Heart, which was a fascinating story because I never knew it happened until after I came back to Australia. A young man came from Sydney to tell me this. He said just before my teacher, Ajahn Cha, got sick. Before he stopped eating any more, he'd managed to find his way to Argentina's monastery. At this time, my teacher was a very famous monk, so famous that it was very hard to even get close to him. But this young Australian man had travelled all the way from Sydney, found his way to Bangkok, found out how to get to Argentina's monastery in the far north east. Find out how to get from the town of Ubon to the small village of Bongo, where Argentina's monastery was, and eventually found his way to the monastery, which was about four kilometers outside of the village. When he got to the monastery, he had to find out where Argentina was. Eventually he found him under his heart as normal, talking to many, many, many people. So this man from Sydney, this young man who had come all this way to ask deep questions on Buddhism to find out the answers to questions which had puzzled him for many years. Very deep, profound questions on the meaning of life and the path of meditation. He had all his questions ready. But as soon as he came into the presence of this great agent, he realized his journey would have been in vain simply because there was far too many people around. Urgent, important people, business people, monks, generals. Because by this time my master agent was a very, very famous person. And soon he realized, after sitting in his great crowd of people on the edge for about 2 or 3 hours, he soon realized there was no way that Arjun Shah would be able to give him the attention he required to ask his questions. So the man got up despondent, having traveled all that way, having seen this great rise for this master, but not been able to actually ask what he wanted to. He got up and went to go to the taxi waiting for him. And as he was walking away, he realized the taxi would not be there for another hour. He had some time to kill. So thinking if he can't ask the questions, at least he could make some good karma. He picked up a broom and started to sweep the grounds. His head was sweeping for about half an hour, and then he felt a hand on his shoulder behind him. He turned around to find the owner of that hand was none other than Agent Shah. The great master who had seen this Westerner come from such a long way, and not being able to ask any questions. Rajan Shah never had time to speak to him at length. All he did was say something in Thai and walk away. What he said was translated directly afterwards. The translator mind said, Agent Shah said to you, if you're going to sweep the grounds, give it everything you've got. That's all. The translator, Mark, went away. If you're going to sweep, give it everything you've got. That seems such a simple lesson, but that man from Sydney took it back with him on the plane. He thought about it on the long journey back from this far remote northeastern corner of Thailand, all the way back to the home in Sydney where he lived. And he realized that a great master like Agent Shah was not just talking about sweeping leaves. He was also talking about life. What he was saying, that whatever you do in your life, whether it's sweeping leaves, whether it's meditating, whether it's giving at all, whether it's cooking a dinner or even writing a letter to the tax department or to the inside cover of the West Australian, what I did yesterday, whatever it is, give it everything you've got and don't do it half heartedly. Don't even do it 90%, not even 99.9%. Whatever you do, give it 100% every time. If you're sweeping leaves, give it everything you've got. That was what that Sydney man said he understood by Ajahn Shah's teachings. And he said that's the only teaching he needed. He was a successful man in his business. He had a great relationship with his family and he had some very good meditation. Why? Because of that simple lesson. Whatever you do, give it everything which you've got. Never 99.9%. And sometimes people think, wow, if I do that, I'd soon get tired. I'd soon lose all my reserves of energy. But that's not how it works. When you give everything into this moment, you give it fully. You find you create more reserves of energy. Is a strange thing about tiredness and energy. And where it comes from. Are just some people energetic or some people just tired? Why is it that sometimes that we can really put forth a lot of energy into whatever we do, but other times we feel we just can't do it? It's just whether your mind is engaged with the task at hand is engagement, which is the important thing. When you're only 99%, you are disengaging. And because that of that amount of negativity. It never really bites. The effect never really happens. But if you give it 100%, you find that you create energy. And this is actually what I was surprised to read when I started looking into the Buddhist teachings given 26 centuries ago, where I saw that he said the word for right efforts, one of the factors of the Eightfold Path. He said, you initiate, you generate, you start energy. What do you mean you start energy? I know how to start a car. You know how to maybe start your computer? What do you mean? Do I start energy? Where's the boot button for my mind and my whatever. But after practicing a lot of meditation, having lived in this life so long, you understand where that boot up button is, where you can actually start that energy. It starts in your mind, where you start to engage in whatever's going on. Giving yourself fully. The problem is that sometimes when we hold back. When we're not really engaging. And one of the reasons why we hold back is because there's a negativity in the mind of the complaining mind. During the meditation, which I was just teaching this last half hour. There was a point in that meditation where my mind completely flipped. I was very tired to begin with. And I was complaining. I was thinking, poor me, why do I have to do this? I've been working all day, receiving guests, going into the the hour rehearsals. All the other speakers, they had gone back to their hotels or their monasteries. And I'm left here holding the baby again. And this is the baby, Mike. I was too tired. I don't want to meditate. I don't want to teach people. And of course, that's when I was really tired. But I know enough about my mind now that when you have negativity complaining, that's what saps your energy. That's what takes it away. That is where you have a leakage in the energy in your mind. And as soon as you block that leakage and stop complaining, it's a great privilege to be in this moment, to be here, to be able to share a talk. And you start blocking that. And it's incredible just sitting up here, this huge amount of energy started flowing in again. Never complained about anything. If you start complaining, you're losing energy, especially if you're tired. If you're tired, it's the last time to complain because your tiredness gets worse. If the negativity starts to increase and you go into this spiral of depression, negativity, complaining, anger and you know where that leads. But instead of complaining, why is this happening to me? This is not fair. You can make use of what you have. Be there. Embrace. And as soon as you embrace what you're experiencing, that's the put up button for the mind. Then energy starts to flow. Why? Because you're giving yourself completely to this moment. Not 99%, but 100% to what just needs to be done. And that way you find you have huge resources of energy when you give to each moment, not holding back something for later people who hold back for things for later. They're not really here. They're half in the future and they're not fully engaging in this moment. We call now, and that's why the energy levels go down, down, down, down, down. But if you put energy into this moment, the energy levels go up, up up, up. And sometimes it just makes no sense at all to me physically. Why you can get so much energy. One of the key experiences of my early life as a monk was when there was. Some junior monks who are about to be ordained as four monks, and at that time it was our tradition. If you're going to be ordained as a monk, you have to make your own robes. We have a set of three robes and under robe, this robe and another spare over robe. And to make those robes in the old tradition, you just start with white cloth, which you'd have to wash to get the starch and the grease out, first of all. And then you'd sew it. And this is a huge piece of cloth. You have to sew in a certain way, and it takes about 2 or 3 days just to sew the robes. And then you have to dye them this brown color. Now the reason why we have these a dark brown color so you don't have to wash them so often. The reason some monks, especially the tie marks, have the bright yellow robes. It's usually because in Bangkok it helps the traffic see you so you don't get run over by crossing the road. That's all. But anyhow, it takes a long time to actually to make the die. And there's no shortcuts. You literally had to haul the water out of a well. You had to light a wooden fire under a big metal basin boarding the water. And the dye came from the jackfruit tree. Old logs of jackfruit. You with a machete. You chipped them up into slivers to boil them down, to get the sap out of them. And it took hours just to get a little bit of sap out of these wooden chips. And then you'd have to concentrate that sap down. And only when you had this concentrated dye could you put your white robes in them and to beat them and pummel them, and then you dry them on the line, turning them every a few minutes so the dye never street, and then you put them in to put some more dye on about 3 or 4 times before they became the correct color. It was hard work. Time consuming. It was like a test to see whether you really deserved to be a monk. And at this particular time there were three monks who were about to ordain. Actually, one of those monks is now quite well known as young Louisa, the Japanese monk who has been here before. He's now got a monastery in Kanchanaburi, uh, in the east of Thailand. So the west of Thailand. And he was one of those monks and those poor monks. They'd already been up the night before. They hadn't slept for about 40 hours, and you could see just how tired they were. So that evening, after the evening service, we did some charting and meditation, which finished about nine 930. I went to the shed where they were busy working for another day, another evening without sleep, and I told them, you guys go and take a rest. I will look after the Thai pot all night for you. I will keep the fires stoned. I will chop up some more, uh, chips from the Jack wood tree. You just go and take a rest. And obviously there were just so thankful that they could actually take a break. Have you been working constantly for about 40 hours? No, you're just looking for a sleep. There's a magnetic attraction from your pillow which can pull you from 100m away. You're so tired. And these bags were that tired. I never needed to ask twice. As soon as I said I'd take over, they were off like a shot to their rooms. And so I stayed up all night working hard. And those days we used to have to bed at 3:00 in the morning for our wake up call, and we'd all get up at 3:00 to do our morning chanting and that morning chanting. Even though we were very tired, it was usually. That wasn't the real chanting that we used actually chanting party and they would meditate. And then about 630 we'd go on our arms round. Now. Usually in the morning I was tired for the chanting. At 3:00 the bell went. I went after the chanting. Those monks, having slept, came back to look after the job they were supposed to be doing all night anyway. But the trouble was, or the interesting part was. Whereas when I'd slept, I was usually sleepy in the meditation that morning when I hadn't slept, I wasn't sleepy. I was perfectly alert. And even when I went on the arms round, my mindfulness was so strong. It was so strange because I never expected, having been up all night, working hard, and also throughout the whole day, that I was not tired. It made no sense to me. I expected to be very sleepy, but I wasn't. And so I asked the monk who was the abbot there at the time, why have I got so much energy when I haven't slept for about 24 hours? More than that, 36 hours? And he told me, because you've been helping other people, because you've been doing some good karma, because all night you've been focusing not on what you need or what you want and helping other people. When you make such good karma. Putting everything in what you're doing, you always get huge resources of energy. And I proved that then, and I proved that since this making good karma is not just for something in the future, life is a great way of developing huge resources of energy and the accompanying joy right now. People who work hard for a good cause, you find you can work harder when it's for some church, charity, Buddhist society than you ever can when you're being paid by a company because you're doing it for another reason, for karmic reasons, for kindness, for care, for love, or whatever. It has a different source and has a far different effect. And so because of that, you can find these huge resources of energy just from kindness and goodness. But it's not just energy which you are building up. There's some part of Buddhism which is very rarely taught. It is that energy is happiness. And this lady has seen that I'm thirsty. So she's made this, uh, got some water, some orange juice. So she is not going to sleep tonight because she's going to make us so much energy. But. It is any act of kindness and goodness does do that to you. You get energized and that type of energy. The energy which comes from good karma, from kind action, from compassion, from selflessness, from not thinking about oneself and for helping others. That type of energy is a very happy energy. It's very different than a cup of coffee, which gives you a boost of energy, which makes you shake physically. This is something which gives you energy and keeps you still, and gives you lots and lots of inner happiness. The energy of the mind is happiness. Coffee gives you the energy for your body, but you're really borrowing stuff. So that if one does acts of kindness and goodness and puts everything into what one is doing, you find that you do have not just great sources of energy, but also happiness as well. You get joyful simply because you're engaging in that which is good and kind and wonderful and noble in life once. I've been doing this for so long now. Any opportunity which I see of doing something kind and good for other people, you realize I'm going to take this because I know what the results are going to be energy and happiness. And also, there's another thing you should know. There's no limit to the energy which you can have, nor is there any limit to the happiness you can experience. So as monks, we get into very, very high energy states. And those high energy states are also high happiness states, which is why we learn how to meditate in a certain way. It doesn't matter what particular tradition of meditation you are using. What's most important in the training of the mind? Just like in the practice you do in your body, you know, with your work, whatever you do, get everything you've got. Even when you're meditating, you focus everything on the task at hand. 100%. In a moment. 100%. It's silence. 100% on the breath. When you have that degree of focus. One thing at a time, fully on what you're doing, you find that as you practiced in your daily life, the way you sweat believes is also the way you look at your mind. And then you find you have huge energies even in your meditation, but not energies which take the mind backwards and forwards like coffee does to the body. It's not a wandering mind energy. It's an energy which is poised and focused in the moment. Those of you who have been practicing meditation, you know that degree of power. You know that it's impossible to fall asleep or get dozy. It's alright to get dozy. I suppose at least you're at peace. But it's nice to be there when you're at peace, so you can enjoy it when it's happening. The trouble is, too many people, when they get quiet, calm and peaceful, they just nod off. They're not really there to enjoy the amazing silence of the mind. But once one develops this ability to really focus and put the full mind's power in this moment, you find it does energize the mind. But with stillness as well. So you're focused in this moment when you're focused in the moment, fully alert to what's happening now. Energy starts to come. The mind starts to waken up. You know what the word Buddha means? It means the awakened one. It doesn't mean the sleepy one. The sloth and torpor. What it means the mind which is fully awake and alert, open to what's happening with that degree of energy. You get something which I have called power of mindfulness. The idea of mindfulness in Buddhism is this awareness, alertness, being right here. So you can see, you can know, you can feel what's going on. But for many people, they may be here but not fully engaged in life as it happens. They're mindful, but not powerfully so. And because of that, we miss so much of what's happening in life. We miss even just the talks because we're half somewhere else. I read in time magazine some years ago, they did a survey of people who were listening to talk such as this in auditoriums, and they found when people were listening to a talk such as this. Only about 5% were actually paying attention. The rest of the 95% were thinking sexual fantasies. I hope that's not happening here. Remember, someone can read minds. Be careful. But when you actually are paying attention, it's amazing what you can pick up. I've called this total listening because we use that power and that focus, not just in our meditation. We train it in our meditation, but we use it in our ordinary daily lives. When someone is speaking to you, if you know how to totally listen, you're right there with them. With all of your senses open to all the information which they are passing on to you. It's not just the words, it's the intonation of the words. It's what's between the words. It's how it's spoken. It's the body language. It's the way the eyes look, the way the body is erect or hunched. Each one of these gives us information which is part of the package, which too often we miss. And because of that, someone can speak to us and we just don't hear them. They can be with us and we don't see them. They can touch us and we don't feel because we're not fully there. We're not totally engaged in the moment. For those of you who've had problems in your relationships, who've had trouble with your partners. Why? Have they really been listening? Have you been really? They're totally engaged in the moment when they're trying to say something to you. Too often, as you know, the problem is the other person isn't totally listening. They're half somewhere else. Or more likely, 90% somewhere else. And this is the reason why we just don't hear. We don't know. We can live with someone for many, many years and we still don't get it. Because all those years we've never really been totally listening. If you're in business, I've been teaching this total listening to people in business recently. About ten days ago, I was giving her a session at the 11th International Human Resources Conference in Singapore. And that was one of my little parts, which I did to teach people how to totally listen, to tell them that when someone is speaking to you, open your mind and your heart, your ears, everything completely to them, then you'll always have faithful customers. Clients will know that their needs are being listened to. The other people working with you. You will be getting the information from them, from how they're doing, how they're going. You won't make so many mistakes. The business, the company, whatever you work in your office will become more harmonious because you're communicating with each other. You're being with each other. You're totally listening when someone else is speaking. But even more than that, life is always teaching us in every moment. There's so many experiences which we have in life, which can be key experiences where it opens our heart and opens our mind. But too often in life, when life is teaching us, we're not listening, we're somewhere else. That is such a huge problem. So when we learn how to totally listen with this great mindfulness, putting everything into this moment, all our attention into what's happening, you find not only do you get happiness and energy, but because you are totally engaged, you get insight, wisdom. This insight and wisdom is not something which is only for some deep meditators, is not only for those people who have got great spiritual qualities. It's not just for people who live in forest monasteries for year after year after year. The truth is just there, waiting to be heard or seen. It's just people are just too dull. They never really hear when life is teaching or about enlightenment. And because of that, we don't see it and life passes us by. We need to deeply engage with the moment, to be right here, to learn how to totally listen, even to our bodies. Strange thing with his bodies. There you are, right there inside of them. You can't get away from them. They're there with you every day. But too often, people just don't listen to what the body tells them. I don't. This is my theory. I'm not a doctor, but I'm a meditator. Has been mindful for a long time. And I know that when my body is about to get sick, it tells me it gives me many warnings saying, slow down, take a rest. Take it easy. I listen to that body. Recently, I had some food poisoning. And during the night time I was getting, I wasn't vomiting or feeling sick. I had a sore tummy, but I just couldn't stop drinking water. I was always thirsty. And of course, the following morning, the doctor rang up one of my disciples and said, yeah, you know that in a condition like that you should drink lots of water. I said, you didn't need to tell me, doctor, because I've been doing that all night. That's my body told me. Even earlier on when I decided to go on my first pilgrimage to India. This was when I was still a student in 1972 or something, and I travelled overland from London. I was doing really well until I got into Pakistan, and there I had some sort of curry. You never know what's in the curries in Pakistan, and it was one of those bad curries. And so a terrible diarrhoea. As soon as I got over the border into India. Just found a hotel, any hotel would do and just sat on the toilet for the next two days. And I was only 921. I was 20 or something. I didn't know much about health in those days, but you know that I was just sitting in the hotel. The first time I left. That hotel room was only a cheap hotel. I just went to a shop to get some salt. I just craved salt. And every doctor knows these days that when you have diarrhoea, you know when you're not eating, you lose all your body salts. I didn't know that. It's just I felt my body and my body said, get some salt. So I did, and I just eighths of handfuls of it. It was really weird. It was only later you realized that my body was telling me, take some salt, and I was paying attention. That's what I did. And so its body will tell you if you listen what it needs when it is salt, or it needs some other vitamins or whatever else it requires, it'll tell you if it needs a rest, it will tell you if it needs exercise. So please listen to this body. If you don't, you can end up getting very sick. Whether it's heart disease, cancers, whatever else happens, the body will give you plenty of warnings. But sometimes we don't hear those warnings. We're not really here when the alarm bells go off. Were too busy doing something else. That's why total listening, putting energy into this moment will actually open your eyes, your ears, your feelings to the alarm bells of ill health. And usually you'll find you'll be able to avoid those problems. I'm very amazed at some of these very ancient monks, which I have seen even here. For our conference we got one. Bacchus was 85 done. We hurry very, very clear mind. But that's just a youngster in the Buddhist tradition. Some of these monks. There was a Cambodian monk 106, travelling all over the world. So giving talks. When I was in Singapore for a inauguration of the abbot in one of the monasteries, this Chinese man, he's about 102, just walked up the stairs as deep as this onto the stage and gave a tour unaided, without any walking stick. It's pretty good for 102. There is many other these ancient monks. There's one by King. Many of you know Argentina who's staying in a new monastery. He used to be my second mark. He's been here many times before. He was staying in a monastery in, uh, the Kauai district of Thailand. That's just. Where is that? Just a little to the northeast. It's not really northeast. It's just a little north. A little east of Bangkok. And there in this monastery, he set it up and his mouth walked down from the mountain somewhere. And this monk has been around for about 80 years. He's about 102 also. And he still walks up and down the mountains. No one knows actually too much about where he lives, but it's really interesting. Fascinating. Monks have been meditating for 80 years in the mountains. They're really cool. Those type of monks. Really humble. Because one of my monks was saying there's maybe only been around for about 4 or 5 years, and this monk comes along. This 80 year old man can boast to him. And he said, oh, you must have ordained that. How many years have you become a been a monk? Because usually our seniority is nine years. We've been a monk. And so there's, you know, a young monk for my master's. I've been about four years. How about you? 80 are. You're so senior. And these monks were, like, walking unaided. Just completely fit. This makes no sense at all in such a harsh environment without any medical attention. You get such fit and healthy and aged people. Why? I really do believe it's because when you really learn how to meditate, you really get your mind very, very strong. You become very alert and very awake. So you know what the body is doing. And you usually take preventative measures when there is still the time. And so because of that, you're developing this total listening to your body, understanding what it needs and when it needs it. You are developing this total listening to life. Understanding what's needed and when it's needed. So not only you live a long time, you become a very, very, very successful. I'm not a businessman, but I'm a pretty successful man. We've done pretty well over these years listening to people. Not what they say, but where they're saying it for. Not just the words, but what comes from underneath those words. As what we listen to with total listening. And it's not just listening to our body. We do listen to our mind as well, and find out to keep our health in mind, because we have a healthy body which is very, very fit. Then if any of you noticed that just Ben Cousins was outside, he's a very well known person because he plays for the Eagles. I remember meeting him some time ago in a in a radio show. I was trying to teach him how to levitate through meditation so he can catch the ball much easier. And that's actually why the Eagles are doing so well these days. But there we go. There's a person you don't have to focus. Put energy into the moment. So they commit themselves in every moment. They're successful. And these are things that you can learn here just by learning why that song of Ajahn Shah, whatever you do, put everything into this moment for attention, full energy. That's why sometimes you teach children go to school, and their parents dragged them to the temple because they want to sort of teach them Buddhism. They want to teach some meditation. We want to get them on the right path. And they come up to me and I tell them, yeah, remember what I said? Whatever you do, give it everything you've got. So if you're partying, party hard. And then the parents look at me and say, I'm not going to take our children to actually anymore. I said, no, but party hard when it's time to study. Put everything into your studies when it's time to sleep, for goodness sake. Sleep well. Why is it that so many people just have tiredness? Because they don't know how to sleep at night? One of the why can't you sleep at night? A lot of times, because you keep carrying the past into your bed and you keep dragging the future into your under your blankets as well. Please, if you can only learn just a little bit of present moment awareness. It's just so easy to go to sleep at night. It is laid out there in the moment when you're in the moment. It's nothing to worry you at all. And if you want to go to sleep, that's not being in the moment. That's going off into the future. I want to be sleep sometime. The next moment you're worried about, oh, I'm going to get up in a few moments. I'm going to be tired. That's worrying about the future. Please let go of future and past when you go to bed at night. This is rest time, not work time. Learn how to be in the moment with no desires. It is laying down there in your nice bed for me, because you have very few luxuries in a monastery of our tradition. The beds are one of the most luxurious places to be. Sometimes I have to sit for long periods of time and your legs get sore. Your back starts to ache, but when you lay down, nothing aches. Everything is rested. So there was a one time when I was having a hard time going to sleep at night, and I cured my insomnia. It wasn't really that bad, but I'm thinking, why do I want to go to sleep? Why waste this wonderful opportunity to enjoy just laying in my nice bed under the wall covers? Isn't it nice when you wake up in the morning? Isn't it one of the most comfortable places to be your bed just before you have to get up? Isn't that a wonderful feeling? One of the best feelings of life. Just laying there with another ten minutes before you have to get up. Only ten minutes. Why not make it all wonderful? Eight hours before I have to get up? I'm not going to waste a moment of this. I'm just going to enjoy every part of being in bed. And of course, you know what happens, because the nature of the mind, as soon as you don't want to go to sleep, you go to sleep. So that was what was happening with me. Using a bit of positive mind there. It's very easy to actually to get rid of the problem and actually learn how to sleep well. Many of you may be have busy lives. You can't afford to waste time by worrying about sleeping or not sleeping. If you are a busy person, you're very fortunate because you have to learn how to train your mind. You've got no choice. Otherwise you go crazy. So learn how to put everything in to sleeping at night. Now is the time to sleep. 100% commitment to that and nothing else. No work. No worries about the past. Everything into what you're doing. And you can do this. You sleep well. When you sleep well, you find you have more energy and more ease of mind throughout the day. Usually, people who are tired or sick are the people who get cranky. And you all know what cranky people do. They create so much pain and difficulty in this world. I think if only Mr. Bush learn how to sleep properly, which is 24 hours a day, we might have a bit. We might have a better world because when people don't sleep well, or when they are sick, when they're aching, when they're in pain, they always get very, very grumpy. And if you're really in pain, sometimes you get angry and even violent a lot of times because people don't have the ease in their body. I've learned that once mood changes completely when the body is really relaxed, sometimes after a deep meditation, it's impossible to make you angry no matter what happens. Sometimes you're just so happy, so feeling so good after deep meditation that even if you know somebody's rear ends your car, even if they do something really stupid, nothing can make you angry simply because you've got so much happiness, so much energy, so much peace inside. Understanding that it'll be great if your husband or if your wife. If your kid or something is really grumpy, send them to learn some meditation. Send them to sort of relax and calm down, and then there'll be a much nicer person to live with. But I'm not talking about your partner. I'm talking about you. Are you a nice person to live with? Is it that your husband sent you here tonight? Or your wife or your family sent you all the way from Singapore to Perth to get rid of you for a few days? Obviously that sometimes that we create so much pain and difficulty for other people simply because we're tired. So tired. I don't mean physically mean mentally who just had enough. You know what that feels like? What happens? You can't take it anymore. You kick the dog. Throw the cat out. Divorce your partner. Sometimes people even beat their kids. Kids have done nothing since you're tired. Maybe not with sticks, but with words. Shouting at them. Screaming at them. Have you seen that happen? So poor kids, they just wonder where's my mommy's love gone? Why is my daddy shouting at me so cruelly? It's a terrible thing to see. Where does it come from? Parents are just so tired they can't take any more. They got no resilience. They got nothing left. So it's important to develop this energy into the moment, to put energy into what you're doing without complaining. And then you all have that power in the mind to create peace and happiness and energy inside. And if it's not for your sake, it's for other people's sake. Other people have to live, have to put up with you. And there's too many problems in the world because people are just so easy to complain, shouting at each other and causing all sorts of pain for others simply because they're tired themselves. So if we can learn how to put energy into resting, energy into being still, if this is the time to be still and do it even putting energy into eating. Sometimes people complain about irritable bowel syndrome these days. I used to say before that if you want to make a decision, trust your guts. But there's so many people have stomach aches. That's the wrong thing to tell people to look at these days. So instead of trusting your your gut. We have to fix the guts. First of all, why is it that so many people do have indigestion or stomach problems or irritable bowel system? It's quite clear to me that why people have irritable bowel syndrome is because when they're eating, they're not really paying attention and not giving everything they've got. Most of the time when people are eating, they don't even taste their food. They're busy talking to the person sitting next to them, or watching the TV, or doing anything except paying attention to what they're actually doing in this moment. For some years ago, one of our monks, he had some trouble with his digestion and he went to have a barium meal. It was a very adult. If they still have that as a diagnostic technique. You have this like really gunky white liquid barium, which you have to drink a lot of, and it sits in your stomach. And then as the stomach starts to churn and move, they can follow its progress through your bowels on the X-ray machine. And so they gave this Michael barium meal, and they had the X-ray machine on him and nothing was happening. It was about 3:00 in the afternoon until they realized monks don't eat anything in the afternoon. And this monk hadn't eaten a meal in the afternoon for about 6 or 7 years. So the stomach was not used to working at that time of the day. So these doctors were really stumped. It was just sitting there. And as far as the, the the natural clock of his stomach was concerned, it was sit there until dawn the next day when he could start eating again because the stomach had learned through conditioning to turn off from just after midday to the following dawn. Because that's the only time we only eat from dawn until midday in our tradition. But one nurse had a brainwave. They couldn't give him something to eat. All they said is think of your favorite food. And as soon as he started thinking of his favorite food, the stomach started churning, liquid started coming out of the glands, and the whole thing started to move. And so they could actually complete their their diagnostic test. And when he said that to me afterwards, I said, yeah, how important it is actually to pay attention to what you're eating, because even just thinking about what you're eating actually makes the stomach start working, juices starting coming out. And that was actually why that meal could actually start moving, simply because he started thinking, making awareness of his favorite food. Now you can understand if you are eating and paying no awareness at all. You don't realize it's your favorite food or any old food, which is why that the stomach doesn't move properly, the juices don't get secreted and saliva doesn't even come out, which is why it doesn't get digested fully, but is why the people have stomach problems. A little paying attention to what you're eating. Putting energy. This is eating time. Give it everything you've got. Enjoy it, for goodness sake. If you go to an expensive restaurant in particular, and if you go with your partner, if it's a very expensive meal, please tell them before the first course. Shut up. No talking. I will enjoy this meal. I paid so much money for it. I'm not going to have my attention taken away by you. Shut up! Doesn't that make a lot of sense? Because how can you enjoy your meal when you're busy talking to somebody else? Would you actually go to, say, a musical performance, say, especially like classical music. And have a conversation with your partner. Hello? Of course not. Simply because if you're listening to them, you can't be listening to the music. If you're listening to the person sitting next to you, you can't even taste the food. So even in romantic dinners. Candlelight. Expensive restaurant. Please tell your girlfriend. Shut up until I'm finished. And then you can really enjoy the food. Not only enjoy the food, that the food can be properly digested because you're paying full attention to everything you're doing. That way you become healthier and you don't have the irritable bowel syndrome. You don't have indigestion. The stomach and everything else can work as it's meant to because you're paying attention for goodness sake, and everything works properly. So this is the story about putting everything, everything you've got into what you're doing. And that even gets to the point of the final act of life when you're dying. Why is it that Buddhists get reincarnated is because they never die properly, never do it all over again. And it's a terrible thing to have to do all over again. For those of you who are old and you're retired, imagine having to go to work all over again. And if you're working there, imagine having to go to school all over again, even if you sort of still at school, imagine having to be a baby all over again, having nappies and wetting yourself and pooing yourself and not being able to tell anybody except screaming and and trying to get your mother's attention. Do not do that all over again. Imagine wearing a nappy again. You will if you don't get it right. So when it's about to die, give it everything you've got. Put all your energy into this, okay? This is a final test. It's like the final examination of life. The big one is now here. So please do it well. A lot of times when instead of dying, people are trying to live. And that's why they don't do it well. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I want to live. So instead, when it's time to die, I want to die. I'll just put all your attention into this whole process. It's a very powerful process, dying. And actually, in the old teachings of the Buddha, many, many people became enlightened at the time of their death, even if they didn't do it beforehand. They managed right at the last moment. The reason is because that time of death is giving you one of the most powerful teachings of life, teaching you what you really own and how much control you really have over the things which you always thought were yours in the time of death. All your possessions mean nothing. All that hard work for accumulating money, all those bank statements, those loans or those credit cards, you can't take them off with you. Don't know if you know the whole story of the man. He was about to die, and he was always equivocal about religion. He liked Buddhism, but he also liked other religions as well. So when he died, or just before he died, he went to see the Catholic priest, Buddhist monk, and the Jewish priest. And he said. Just to make sure that something could happen to me after I die, I'm going to give you $10,000 each, $5,000 to your temple and $5,000. I want you to put in my coffin when I die so I can go up to heaven. Either put his heaven, Jewish heaven, or Christian heaven. Well, it must be right. So the Buddhist monk, the Jewish priest and the Christian priest thought, well, you can't turn down a $5,000 donation. So they took that money. And when that man died during the funeral service, they all came up. First of all, came up. The Christian Freeze put $5,000 in cash into the coffin, keeping his promise. Then came the Jewish priest put another 5000 $5,000 notes in the coffin. Then came the Buddhist monk wrote out a cheque for 15,000 and took the other $10,000 change. That's why I put it to wise. But you can't take anything with you. So the time of death is the time when you can realize the time of death is when you can actually realize just how little you own, and how you can have to let everything go. And it's easy to let things go. You realize that your family, not yours. They're just friends. People you grow up with. People who you know for many, many years will eventually you. Apart from your friends. You, apart from everything in this world which you had, your home, your car, your possessions, you part. For they're not yours. They belong to nature. As soon as we realize that we can let it go, it is much easier when we let these things go. We can enjoy people's company when they're there. We can enjoy our possessions, our house, our car. When it's there, we enjoy it. We enjoy our partner while they're there. We can even enjoy our monk when he's here, before he goes to Singapore or wherever else he's going next. But after a while, we know that we have to let it go. We know how to let things go. We know how to enjoy the when they're here. Too often we take things for granted. We think they're always going to be here for us. And that's why we never really care. We think we care tomorrow. We can say I love you tomorrow. You can say sorry tomorrow. How often is it? Always tomorrow. And we never get round to it. And then we die. Wonderful thing about death. It shows us there is no tomorrow. Actually, there was no yesterday. There's only now. What a beautiful moment this now is. We learn how to grab. Not the day, but to grab the now. And we realize that's all we ever had. That's all we ever needed. That's all we ever wanted. Just the peace in this moment. Understanding that the death teaches is about thee. The value of peace. The value of forgiveness. The value of letting go. That's why many people get enlightened. The time of death. So it is a time for you to die. Please give it everything you've got. So you don't need to come back again. Get it right this time, please. And that way, when you put energy, effort full attention into whatever you're doing, it's incredible to see how successful you can be, whether it's in life or in death, whether it's in your relationships or whether it's in your business, even in your meditation or whatever. Putting energy into the moment, one thing at a time. Everything you've got is incredible. Just how successful you can be, and also how much energy you can arouse, and also how much happiness will come along with that energy. This is a very simple teaching about life. It is a teaching which came from Argentina, which I have followed. I know that when I was building my monastery, those of you from Singapore went to see it today. You see many of those buildings I actually built myself. I know that it's sometimes said in some books that never in the history of Buddhism has blood ever been shed for the furtherance of the religion, but that is actually a lie. It's not true. I have shed much blood on those buildings. Building a monastery. Sometimes I've hit the. I've hit my finger. A finger with the hammer. Sometimes I've much blood has actually gone on those buildings. But I've always given it everything I've got. Will you give it everything you've got? This is why you get a beautiful monastery. This is why you get a powerful Buddhist society. This was why you get a successful life. This is why you get an energetic mind. This is why I was really tired. And I've just spoken for one hour. Amazing. So whatever you do in life, everything you've got. If you're with your partner, give him everything you've got. Listen to him or her. Total listening. Be in the moment. Eating. Really? Pay attention. Whatever's anything you're doing. Enjoy every moment by putting full effort into whatever is the task at hand. You'll have lots of energy for later. Don't worry about saving something for a rainy day. Give it now and then. You'll have as much energy and happiness as you'd ever want in life. Thank you very much for listening. Are there any questions? There's any questions anybody would like to ask about the talk this evening? You can actually shout it out because I think you can hear if you have any questions. Putting energy into the moment. Energy into the question. Yes. Aha! You're talking about when things aren't interesting. Then what do you do? And again, a lot of life is making those things interesting. Putting energy into them. Putting joy into them. Recently when I've been teaching meditation, I was teaching this was actually in Melbourne. There's a few people from Melbourne. I got a letter from one of the members of the Buddhist Society of Victoria, and they were saying that they were trying to meditate, they were getting down. And I gave them a very simple, uh, technique of take your attention away from your breath just for a second and put it around your mouth and smile. And then go back onto your breath. You'll find the breath is more interesting and more joyful. And I wrote back a letter. I only received it yesterday. They said thanks, thanks, thanks. It worked because they were getting bored with their breath. It was not interesting and that's why they couldn't really focus on their breath in their meditation. All they really needed to do is to put something into it, to make it enjoyable, to make it interesting. Some years ago, there was one of the people here who was a bus driver, and I thought, that's a dead end job, just driving a bus. There's there's no real job satisfaction. There's no real prestige. When they went to parties, what do you do? I drive a bus. It's not like being like, you know, the CEO of a company or like, you know, a footballer or so. Even like a monk has got some romance to it. But they being a bus driver, I said, look, don't look at it that way. You can have so much fun and happiness in the past. All those people you meet, you will affect every one of them who walks onto your bus and pays their fare. You could growl at them or you can just smile at them, say some nice words, just give some good energy to them and they will give you good energy back. And so he took what was a boring job, but he gave so much energy to to it. He changed his whole attitude and his whole life as a bus driver changed. So what you actually look upon as being boring or disinterested. There's nothing in life which isn't so, which is disinterested. It's just what you put into life. And if you really put energy into anything, you find it open up. Then the most what you thought was an interesting task becomes fascinating even when you're washing the dishes. Boring, or washing dishes. Feel the texture of the plates between your fingers. Feel just the smoothness. Just after they've been cleaned. As you're wiping them, I feel the whole movement of the cloths plate. What are you doing this for? Doing this for so other people would be able to eat a delicious dinner later on. Out of compassion for them. It's not so much what you do. It's your attitude towards it. It's a very good question because if you are bored with anything, it's nothing to do with the task which you're doing. It's all to do with how much good attitude you're putting into what you're doing. I've given so many talks in the last year, I should be bored out of my skull with giving talks. I go to Singapore and I give talks. Come here and I give talks. I go to Melbourne and I give talks all day. Go to Thailand and I give talks. I told people that a few weeks ago I tried to escape in Singapore. They took me into the airport, into the airport lounge. People were talking to me all the time. I decided to run away into the toilets in Changi Airport lounge. Thinking I'd escape as soon as I got into the toilet, the toilet attendant recognised me again and started asking me questions on meditation for the next 20 minutes. So even in the toilet I can't escape. And I realised that that was my karma because I had bad attitude. My attitude I tried to escape. And of course, the sooner you try and escape, the karma catches you and make sure you can't escape no matter where you go. Instead of thinking that I should have just said, okay, I'm tired. As a man, it's a privilege to give talks. It's not boring at all. Put everything you've got into what you're doing, then you have fun. If you're writing a letter to somebody, even if it's to someone you like us leaving his chaplaincy job, give it everything you've got. It's fun. So whatever I do, I try and give it that extra energy. It's always fun then, so it's never boring or dis interesting. You make interest, construct it. And I think people think that being a monk must be so boring. It's amazing just how interesting it is being a monk in today's world. Fascinating life. We should actually have this on the universities when they have these career days. We should have a stall. Be a monk. Maybe we can go on those. Also those job centres. Be a monk for. Thank you for that question. I hope I answered it to your satisfaction. It's a very interesting question. Okay. I think that's probably enough now because it's gone past 9:00. So thank you for that question. And thank you for coming here.