Happiness | Ajahn Brahm

Happiness | by Ajahn Brahm Transcription (Robot generated transcript – expect errors!) So for this evening's talk, I'm going to talk about happiness. Is that a good title for the talk? Yeah. And the reason is because the last week I've been got so many letters, emails, all sorts of stuff, because finally they proved that Buddhist monks are actually more happy than others. Listen, I'm enjoying this. This is many extracts here. This was from the Times of London. On scanning the brains of Buddhist monks and others who practice religious meditation, two groups of researchers separately confirmed that it is visibly biologically provable that such people are happier than the norm. And my comment? See, I told you so. All these years we've been telling you this. And finally it's been proved. Those who follow the Four Noble Truths and cultivate detachment, acceptance, the control of the desires and the contemplation of the moment's beauty are not only serene, but strong. The gymnasts of the mind, said one scientist, admiringly even when not enrapt in formal meditation, they are less likely to be shocked, flustered, angry or even surprised. You can experiment as found fire a gun near them, but please don't try. And they barely jump. Yet at the same time, they are unusually sensitive to tiny signs of emotion in other human faces. We can now hypothesize with some confidence, said Professor Flanagan of Duke University, North Carolina. That, though, is apparently happy, calm Buddhist. They say souls here calm Buddhist, non souls really are happy and. They say here the basic tenets of Buddhism are easier to turn towards. Live every moment and every act. Fully accept that all things pass. Control your desires without starving them. Do not kill or quarrel. Hatred cannot be ended by more hatred. Forgive others than yourself. Be kind. Contemplate the beautiful. Many of its sayings are superb. I am particularly fond of the maxim that churning water for however long a time does not produce butter. That's actually from the suitors there. And they really said that. But it's wonderful. Churning water for however long time does not produce butter. So trying to make money does not produce happiness. There are government ministries that would do well to put that up on the wall. It what is it here. I got here okay. They're doing about the investigation here of prozac and other things to make you happy. There are safer routes to calm the conducts. We should not need so many of these happiness pills that s POSAC and that stuff. The conduct of consciousness is private to each one of us. And you can t pass laws compelling meditation. Why not? But there are aspects of public policy that help or hinder these intimate, private routes of happiness. Local authorities who tend green, quiet spaces in the midst of noisy cities and spend effort on holding back noise and vandalism may find it hard to justify the cost financially. But they are probably helping as much as if they built another hospital. I want to say that I think I really agree with that. Primary schools which hold a meditation period, or instead a chill out room with soft music and colors, report extraordinary improvements in the behavior and learning of stressed hyperactive children. You see, so all these years I've been saying this works. Finally, the scientists, they did brain scans and they actually show that the Buddhist monks meditators are happier. So this is what we are coming here for the sake of happiness. And why is that? So is because this is basic Buddhism. We all know. If anyone asks you what is Buddhism teach? You can say the Four Noble Truths. We just mentioned it in there a few moments ago. The four Noble truths. And you know the way the Four Noble Truths are taught here. The Four Noble Truths are happiness, the cause of happiness, that sometimes there isn't happiness, and why there isn't happiness. Some of you have read the books, some what the Buddha said. He said suffering, the course of suffering, the end of suffering, and the way to the end of suffering. But the end of suffering, as I keep on saying here, is happiness. The way to happiness is this eightfold path. And sometimes there's no happiness. Why? Because of craving desire. That s why there s no happiness sometimes. So this is actually basic Buddhist teachings. This is what the Buddha started teaching right from the very beginning. Away to happiness. If there s no happiness, why there s no happiness? If there is happiness, why there is happiness? The cause and effect of happiness. And so anyone who understands those teachings and starts to put them into practice, if it's no true teachings, it should make you happier. And so this is actually basic Buddhism, the path of happiness. This is what we're doing it for. Certainly why I was doing it for. The reason why I started meditating was because it was happy. It was just so much fun. A different type of happiness, a different type of fun. But I'll come across that later on in this talk. The reason why I kept precepts why kept my five presets because it was fun to do this really struck people. What are you doing this for? You're trying to go to heaven or trying to be some sort of fundamentalist Buddhist by giving up alcohol in university? It was actually more fun to do that. I keep telling people that when I gave up alcohol at university, it was a courageous thing to do. All my friends were all into alcohol, going to the pub in the evening, having a few beers, getting drunk. I gave it up and I thought that was it. My friends would not like to go out with a wowzer again, I thought invited to any more parties. But you know what happened to me? I got invited to even more parties than I did before. And the reason was because they wanted somebody sober to drive them home afterwards. There's many advantages in giving up alcohol. Then you enjoyed yourself before when you took alcohol, the first part of the party you remembered the last party, didn't know what you were doing, was very dangerous. So it's marvelous to bear. I was happier. I became a happier person. And so what Buddhism was actually encouraging me to do is actually be happier and happier. And it was true. The happiest people I'd ever seen when I was a layperson were Buddhist monks. Actually, when I saw them, I thought, this is very interesting, because I'd seen the theory and I wanted the examples, examples of people who've been practicing all these things for so long. Does it work or doesn't it work? What I saw, my goodness, it worked. When I decided to become a monk, I was so impressed that in this type of Buddhism, that you don't have to become a monk for every her. As long as you're happy, having a good time, you can stay as a monk. As a monk, you can disrobe at any moment. There's not much of a ceremony required. I can just turn to any one of you and just say, right, this is it. I'm leaving. I'm not a monk anymore. Oops but you have to mean it as well. That's all it needs, actually, to leave. And that really impressed me with Buddhist monasticism, because it meant that you weren't trying to control a person just because of some vow they made many, many years ago. And it meant because it was so easy to leave the monkhood, the only reason why people were still there was because they must be getting something out of this. There must be some enjoyment, some fulfillment, some fun, and. That actually promised to me that there was something behind this this whole path of Buddhism. And when you went over to when I went over to Thailand, where I studied as a monk, where I became a monk again, those people out there were just so happy. It's crazy that they weren't having any alcohol at all. There's no sex involved. There's no beer, no movies, no Matrix. And they were just so happy. There's a Matrix craze at the moment. Stupid. And they were just so happy without all of this. And that really started to sort of show me something. That what real happiness truly was. Certainly there's a few of the experiences which I had as a young man. I went to, like, a big university, just scholarships. My father was very poor. I was quite bright as a kid. I went to this big college called Cambridge where your designation was called Young Gentlemen. I had long hair, hippie bees, green velvet trousers. I was anything but a young gentleman. And in this particular place you were living because of the college system. You're actually living and associating with all his professors and lecturers. Some of them were noble laureates and. And you got to know them personally. And one thing which I found out was that just because you're brilliant in your field of science or whatever, it doesn't mean you got any idea about life. Some of these people were going through divorces, were going through personal problems. They weren't happy. And that actually really was one of the reasons why I left academia, because with all of the intelligence, it didn't seem to be used for the right purposes of being happy. So intelligence just wasn't seemed to be the way to be happy. When I went to Thailand, I saw these really, really poor people. They were so poor, but my goodness, they were happier than some of the rich people I knew in college. Some of these people were almost millionaires because their parents were very rich and they got good education and sent them to college. And my goodness, some of these were so rich, but they weren't happy at all. And I started looking, if I was going to sort of live anywhere, I'd rather live as a poor farmer in the northeast of Thailand and as a rich person in London, basically because they seemed happier and. But one of the first things which I found over there was that not all of the Thai villagers were happy. Some were as miserable as the people I knew in the west but some were really happy and at peace with themselves. This is 30 years ago and I soon found out the people who were happy in the village were the people who had the all village. All the families always had water buffalo to plow their fields. That was almost part of the family. The people who were happy were those villagers who had one water buffalo and were content to have one water buffalo. They were as happy as anything. Always ready to smile and to talk with you and to help out in the monastery. Always ready to have a joke. Always light hearted. Just they were happy people. The sort of people you never see or very rarely see in the Western places. But it wasn't all the people. There were some of the villagers who wanted to get on in life. Those are the villagers who had one water buffalo and wanted two water buffaloes. They were the ones who weren't happy. And I started to realize it was like rich wealth and poverty has nothing to do with how much you have. Nothing at all. Because I see many people rich in their hearts, happy people who ve got hardly anything. I ve seen poor people who ve got millions and millions and millions and live in big mansions. I remember I tell the story that went as a man. Sometimes one of our jobs is to go house blessing go to people's houses and just bless them. One family well not family one house I went to once in Perth a big mansion I think it's in Shelley or something on the riverfront and they're huge mansion is a by thai lady I think she's left there now. And during the ceremony, I asked to go to the toilet. And this is no joke. This actually happened. She had to draw me a map. How to get to the toilet in a mansion. It was that complicated and part of the thing we have this little holdy water we sprinkle in all the rooms I love doing that because I actually get to see so have a sticky beak around people's houses it. And she had took me so long, actually, to bless this house, because so many rooms. What really struck me afterwards was there's only one person lived in it. Herself. She had no friends, no family, no children. She lived in this huge mansion all by herself. That was just so sad, so lonely. She had huge wealth, but no happiness. So to me, anyway, I realized that being rich doesn't mean having big houses. Being poor doesn't mean sort of living in a dirt hut, poor or rich. I'm talking about rich in happiness or poor in happiness. It doesn't depend on how much you have, but your contentment. Which is why the Buddha kept on saying that contentment is the highest wealth. It's the richness, it's the happiness of the heart. And that's what I actually saw in these monks and these lay people in Thailand. They had this beautiful sense of contentment and happiness. Sure, they worked hard. They didn't want so much. And this is actually the core of reason why Buddhists are more happy, because we're encouraged not to want so much. Basically, wanting is the cause of suffering, craving, desire, letting go. Contentment is the cause of the ending of suffering, of happiness. It's a very powerful teaching because it goes against a lot of what we do in the west, and it's part of meditation, it's part of life. We all know if you try and meditate wanting things, you just get suffering. It's a Buddhist second noble truth, which is why I keep on saying here, there's two types of meditation in the world we talk second noble truth meditation and third noble truth meditation. Those are two types of meditation people do. Second noble truth meditation is called craving. I want I want to be peaceful. I want to sort of get blissed out. I want to see my past lives. I want to see the lotto numbers for this week. I want to get rid of my pain. I want to get rid of my sickness. All wanting, wanting, wanting just leads to suffering. The Buddha said this, and it's basic Buddhist teaching. The Buddha said letting go, giving up, craving is the way to happiness. That's the third noble truth meditation. This is the way I've been teaching for the last few years. Just sit there and let go. The door of my heart is open to this moment, no matter what it is. It's contentment. It's putting happiness into the moment rather than seeking happiness from somewhere outside. And. Instead of going searching for happiness in somewhere in the future, in somewhere, I get rich, I get win the lotto, become famous, find a beautiful partner in the world, get rid of all my problems. So solve this, solve that, then I'll be happy. And of course you know that that is never the way to happiness. You've been doing that all your life. Is your life, your work finished yet? Have you that happiness yet which you've been struggling for all the time? Of course not. There comes a time when you stop all that struggling to try and find happiness somewhere outside of this moment, outside of you, outside of your family. That's why that happiness lies in contentment and letting go. It's a strange thing happens. That what craving, what desire, what the promises. If you work really hard, then you'll be happy. Try and get this, then you'll be okay. Isn't that what the adverts say? If you actually go and see the Matrix, then you'll really be happy. You haven't lived until you've seen that. Go and sort of go overseas, go to Paris. You haven't been to Europe yet. You haven't been you haven't lived, you haven't been happy. If you haven't sort of fallen in love, you've never been happy yet. You don't know happiness until you've had a child. All this sort of stuff craziness. So what is happiness? You find? So sometimes I ask people, the moment in your life, when have you been most happy? Just ask yourself that question. The time so far in your life when you've really, really been happy. Happiest moments of your life, what have those been? I remember just as a student when I was working, trying to save up to go overseas. I got my scholarship to Cambridge when I was only 17 and had nine months off. It wasn't really a gap year, it was just what happened. So I had nine months between finishing school before going to university. So I got a job and saved up and was going to go to North Africa and United States, Central America. I had a great time opening my eyes to different cultures in the world. Remember at lunchtime I was having this little job somewhere in Kenton, and I go into sort of Hyde Park, just to sit by the lake. It's interesting. The lake was called Serpentine. Perhaps it was an omen of things to come. And I get so peaceful there, just so content. Hardly worry in the world. I thought, this is really what life is all about. Just sitting by a lake with no responsibilities, free, at ease with my lunch hour. And of course, later on in life, when you were working hard as a school teacher you got all these responsibilities and you lost that sense of peace and discontentment. It was only later on, as a monk, you got that contentment back again. Just when you're sitting by a lake. Now, as a monk, you sit by the mind which is the beautiful lake inside. Just content. Having your lunch hour. Lunch hour is a very beautiful concept because it's the space we have between our work where we rest and we relax. It this is what letting go really means. Too many people think that to let go you have to do absolutely nothing. Those of you who've been to see the monks in our monastery at Serpentine or go and see Sister at Kichigan you know, just we work really hard. But not all the time. No matter how much responsibilities and duties you have in the world, the monks learn how to put all of that down for a few moments to rest and find their inner happiness. This is the reason why people don't find happiness. They don't know how to stop. So much of our lives we keep going hour after hour after hour. In the last week, how often have you just stopped and paused in your week and just allow everything to calm down and come to a stop? Just to sit by the lake for lunch hour, just to be at peace. We're always moving, always walking, always running, always chasing, never stopping. This is why we find no peace, no happiness, no sense of freedom in our world. We just become just obsessive doers. We've forgotten how to just stop from time to time. This is one of the reasons why Buddhist monks are happy, why it's proven to be so. Do we know how to stop? How to let all those burdens down on. Just for a few moments. It's called nonattachment, which means letting go. Sometimes we have to contemplate this first, actually, to at least convince ourselves it's worthwhile doing. Why is it we always worry about the past so much? Why is it we always just concern ourselves about the future over much? It's just an obsession which we have. It's got no validity rationally. We all know that. The past is just so uncertain. What you think happened probably never did happen. Just as somebody was telling me just the other day, they're involved in a car accident when they went to the police station. They put the report in to the police station and afterwards they realized they made a mist sake and they thought, oh my goodness, that they're going to go to jail for that. They lie to the policeman or to the police station. I tell them, look, it's well known, ask any policeman, that when two people see a traffic accident and they take the witness statements, five minutes later, those witness statements will be completely different than what actually happened. Even in five minutes ago, we can't remember exactly what happened. One of the old meditation tricks sometimes we do to see how mindful people were. Your shoes, where did you leave them when you came into this room? Are you sure? You think you're sure? One evening, after one of these talks has happened, actually many times, someone came in afterwards can we use your phone? Because their car had been stolen after one of the talks. So they called the police and of course, our caretaker went outside and said, what color is your car anyway? Because there's one car left just on the other side of the car park. They've forgotten where they parked the car. They were sure they put it there, but it went actually somewhere else. Now, I think you can all relate to that, can you? The reason why you can relate to it is because our memory is so uncertain. So why do we bother about the past so much? We don't know what really happened. We think we do and that's a problem. When we know it's uncertain, we can actually let it go. Isn t it wonderful to be free of the past? Look at how much pain it causes what happened to you when you re a kid whether you pass the exam or fail the exam whether this happened or that happened, it's all gone now. You don't need psychologically rationally. You don't need to carry around the past because it's come a habit of ours and because of our habits that we just torture ourselves with the past. If you're going to remember the past, why do you remember the good things which happened in the past? Why is it we always remember the bad things which happened in the past? Why is it that when we go home after a day's work how's your day at work today, A? The boss shouted at me today. What else happened? Why do you always remember the rotten things which happened today? We had a car accident. How many times do you drive and you didn't have a car accident? Do you go home and you say to your wife, oh, it s wonderful. I didn t have a car accident today. Isn t it wonderful? And no one shout at me in the office today. Why is it we always focus on the faults of life? Or rather, we always focus on the faults of the past? It s just an obsession we have with Buddhism. We actually see through wisdom, through training. We don t need to do that. It we don't need to focus on the faults, focus on feeling guilty or feeling being a victim. We can actually let the whole thing go. It's allowed. It's good. Other people do it. You do it and you've become more happy. Become free of your past. Wouldn't it be a wonderful thing to do? Completely free yourself of all the past gone. So you've just got the present moment and the future. All the scary things which we have to think about what's going to happen next? People get so scared of life. Brisbane Wells in Singapore, so many people were scared of getting SARS. I was telling, look, the chance of getting SARS are just so minimal. When I was there in Singapore, hundred people had SARS. It was in the newspaper, 100 people today, 104 people. My goodness. I was trying to get those newspapers to put in 3,990,000 people. 900 didn't have SARS today. And. That's true because it s 4 million population in Singapore. Just think how many people didn't have that disease. And that actually puts perspective in what? S going on. Why is it that we just focus on the faults all the time? Focus on negativity fault finding. This is why in meditation we train ourselves to seek out beauty. To see the beautiful even in the breath. This simple thing like a breath, just going in and going out, going in, going out. It can be the most beautiful thing in the world. We see the beauty in simplicity. Why do you need a television to see all these nature movies? We got Cotterslow Beach at sunset. We got these beautiful forests. We got the southwest. Why do you need to actually to manufacture beauty when you have all the beauty you like just in the moment right here? Why do you want to seek out happiness somewhere else? We've got so much happiness inside of ourselves if we'd only pause and stop to look. This is what actually the Buddha was saying in is to go against the stream of the world which goes to seek happiness somewhere out there in the relationship, in the movie, in the food, in the sex, somewhere out there. Then I'll be happy. Buddha said, stop, you find you have all the happiness you'll ever want. Stop looking, stop searching. Stop trying to seek for things. When you stop, happiness is right there with you. This is why the whole path of Buddhism is all about slowly stopping, slowly calming, letting go, being more at peace. That's the underlying theme of happiness. When we start letting go, how do we start letting go? We start letting go by being generous. We're doing a little fundraiser today because many of the Buddhists are Sri Lankan, because there's been huge floods in Sri Lanka. They haven't been publicized very much, but they're there and people are dying. There's a little collection out the back there. Wonderful thing to let go. Little bit of money in Australia, goes a huge way in South Asia. This is why we do this. Maybe not because the people in Sri Lanka, actually, they do need it, but we also need to help to give. It's like a bit of letting go, a bit of renunciation, a bit of freedom. And if you just give a little, you get so much happiness back. I've done that in my manner, in my lay life, even my monastic life. Every time I give something, give my time, give energy, go and help somebody, you just get so much back in return, so much happiness. Why? The reason is because it's being selfless. Giving up, letting go, not wanting anything, but just giving for the sake of giving, sharing for the sake of sharing. This is why it makes one happy. So we're not doing this to get to heaven afterwards. We're not doing this to get brownie points. We're doing this actually for happiness. That's why it's so often that if anyone's been to our monasteries at Giddy, Ganop, at Serpentine, even this place here on the weekend, have a look at how much food people bring for the monks. There's much, much more than we can eat. Sometimes. I remember just this one monk the first time he went to England and there s all these people gave him so much food. And this English man came up to never seen a monk before. Looked in his bowl and was actually amazed, actually disgusted, actually, how much food this monk had in this bowl because he looked in and said blimey, that s enough to feed a bloody army. That s what he actually said. So this monk was a bit embarrassed, but he told us a story afterwards because he only eat one meal a day. So it has to be quite a bit. Imagine all your dinners all put in one bowl. Breakfast, lunch and dinner and all that. We eat in between. Of course it's a lot. But imagine people bring so much for the we ask, Why do you bring so much? It's not that we need it. Why do people go all the way from Earth all the way to certain town, an hour's drive there? We're the only place where people actually bring us dinner, where we have guests and where the guests do the washing up. If you invite guests for dinner, at least you to the washing up. There are guests to the washing up as well. They feed us, they do the washing up and they take it away afterwards. And I asked Cuban, I said, Why do people do that? And all the time the same answer could they get happiness out of this? They get happiness out of caring, looking after, sharing. That is the first type of happiness coming from letting go. The happiness of generosity. Just caring, sharing, giving for others. It doesn't have to be money. Just giving time, giving energy, giving effort for others. People go and work in hospices, hospitals, just for the sake of it. This is where you get so much happiness out of this. For two years, when I was a student, I spent every Thursday afternoon going to a local hospital, helping out with down syndrome kids. I got so much happiness out of there. So much so that in the last the last time when I was in the last time, one of the last times I went there in the afternoon. I'd been working with these kids for so long that everyone trusted me. They gave me the whole group to look after as two groups. I looked after one whole group myself in the first session. Then we'd stopped at tea and I looked after the second group in the second session. I didn t know what was going on. I was stupid. After the second session, they put all the two groups of kids together with all of the occupational therapists and all the other nurses there, to make a presentation to me. Of all the students who ve ever helped out volunteer there, I'd been there by far the longest, and they wanted to thank me. And so all these kids, these down syndrome kids s had actually tried to make little things, little presents for me. They weren't sort of very well made because these kids could not do very much. They all presented me with these things and my goodness, you cried. It was so touching. Because I was stupid. I didn't expect I didn't know what they were up to. And after making this presentation, they said that you've been the student who's come here the longest. We know that it's finals week next week. You have to do your exams, so this will be your last session. And I always remember this. I actually asked and said, look, my exams don't start for another week. Can I please come back next week again? And I actually almost beg to come back again. And I did this because I enjoyed it. I wouldn't miss it for the world. I got happiness out of that. It wasn't doing service in the sense of, you know I was I was trying to sort of sacrifice myself for others. I was getting so much happiness out this it was fun. I was learning about how compassion makes you happy. Our service giving it's letting go again. That's actually why I started keeping my precepts because letting go you didn't need to have alcohol to be happy. You didn't need to sort of lie to get your way in the world. You didn't need any of these things. You're happy quite naturally. Why is it that sort of people have to go and drink to be happy? I can't understand it myself. Happiness is natural to people if you can just let go and stop worrying about things to be able to let go of the past, not be afraid of the future if you enjoy each other's company, if you're in an airplane, so what if it gets hijacked? Nice story to tell people on a Friday night when you come to Perth there's people in Singapore told me once that if you actually get killed in an aircraft it's one of the best ways to dying for two reasons like dying in an air crash. The reason is the first of all it's instantaneous, you don't feel anything and number two, your relations get a big insurance payout and there's no need for a funeral. Number three you sort of cremated on the spot saved a lot of problems going to funerals just sort of funeral last Thursday spending hours and hours in this ceremonies and boxes three reasons why it's a great way to die if you're on an aircraft crash you see what we're meaning there is actually sort of making it enjoyable. It. Why not? Because in Buddhism you try and make happiness out of anything. And this is not just saying this. This is true. You get sick and I say, what a wonderful opportunity. You're sick at last. You've got a chance to rest, stay in bed all day. Isn't that wonderful? Is it wonderful? You got an opportunity for other people look after you. So many people tell me this, that when they're getting these great sicknesses, they feel so touched how many people care about them. It becomes this beautiful way of people being allowed to express their compassion to other people. That's why if we really know about sickness and how to deal with it it becomes a beautiful time of our lives for those who can help us and serve us and look after us. That's why one of those mugs, years and years ago, visiting his parents in Chicago chicago is a very, very cold city, especially in the winter snows. It's icy. He slipped and broke his leg and. Was put in hospital and he told me that when his mother came into the ward and saw him, she had a big smile on her face he couldn't understand why. Are you happy that I've got broken my leg? His mother said. At last I've got you where I want you. Because his mother just wanted to him. And now he was in hospital for a couple of weeks. He couldn't go anywhere. He was stuck there. Great. I can bother you. Isn't it wonderful to be able to help other people, to serve and look after them, care for them? It's a privilege to care. If you know about letting go, you get so much happiness of looking after someone else who'sick in pain. Seeing how I can actually relieve and help that pain. I can be a friend to you, how I can care for you, how I can express my love for you. Sometimes it's so hard to express love. But when a person'sick we can do that. It's almost like one of the times we're allowed to really just show how much we care. That's why sickness can be such a wonderful moving time. So even in sickness, you can make it good, enjoyable, growing from it. You can make it happy. And that s why, if you bring happiness to sickness, the sickness doesn't last all that long. Happiness means the endorphins in the bloodstream. Sort of get secreted. Nature s painkiller increases the immune system. This is actually why you keep it happy, even in hospital and even in deaths as well. You've seen all the times I've done funeral services. Many of you have been to those already. And if you haven't been to one yet, you will do one day when I go and do yours. And you make them happy. Why not last Thursday? Yesterday was a funeral service for Sri Lankan lady who died. 42. Comes here regularly. You one of the things I noticed there. I gave a nice little sermon there. Little talk about just no, death is okay. Nothing wrong with it. But that is afterwards, just when I had everybody so nice and calm and peaceful. But what happened was when people actually gave their condolences and. It was like Westerners. They weren't Buddhists. And I sort of really should have gone up and told them look, don't do that ever again. Everyone was nice and peaceful, but then they came out, oh, you poor thing. Oh, isn't it terrible? Oh, isn't it awful? Oh. And of course, they sort of conditioned that response from other people. They made the death sort of a sad occasion just because of unwise responses to what's going on. It wasn't their wife who died, but they said, oh, isn't it sad? Isn't it terrible? Because we've been conditioned to think like that. And Buddhists, when they've changed that conditioning, they can actually take all of these occasions in life death and sickness, disappointments and they can handle it with much greater ease, less suffering, even with happiness. After all, when a person dies, their job in this world is over. It's like retiring. Aren t you happy when you retire? You don't have to go to work anymore? Just like some of the prisoners I used to see in jail, when they got released from prison, they used to work their custom. They shouldn t be doing this. They're supposed to be Buddhists but they used to have these champagne breakfast starting javadale. They were free. When you're dead, you're free. Free having to go to work in the morning, free from having to sort of all this painful body, which is usually happens when you're dying, isn't a wonderful thing. So a lot of times that people have the wrong attitude towards these things and as Buddhists we can see things in a different way. Said here many, many times when you die, do you want other people to be upset and cry? When you die, do you want other people to be miserable that you're not there anymore? Of course not all human beings, because we love our friends, our relations, our loved ones, we want them to be happy. So why are people just so stubborn and never pay any account to the person who they're supposed to be paying respects to? If they were really paying respects to the person in the coffin, they wouldn't be so sad, because paying respects is respecting their wishes and wishes for you to be happy. So it's just a different way of looking at things. And this is, again, letting go. We know how to let go of each other, then we know how to be happy. This is why, again, Buddhists are happy, because they can let go of some of these things which happen in life which other people think are sad and terrible. Buddhists know many, many times you've lived, you've been here, done that so many times. We enjoy each other's company and then we go again, be terrible if we were the same person forever, never and ever. Variety is a spice of life. And not trying to say sort of keep changing your partners, but next lifetime, maybe. Who knows? But what we're actually saying there is that we don't take these causes for suffering and causes for pain, which people usually do in the world, as huge problems anymore. There's another way of looking at it, and Buddhism gave that other way, called letting go. A lot of times it's because our thought becomes so narrow minded, so conditioned, always thinking in the same way. That's why when somebody dies oh, isn't it sad? Or sometimes that when people fall in love. Isn't it happy when a baby is born? Oh, congratulations. We got our cultural conditioning here. But if you think about it, what does a baby do when it's born? It cries. And all the relations are laughing. When somebody dies, you can see them smiling and everyone else is crying. We get it the wrong way around every time. Sure. The person is actually being born or dying. They should know, though the point is here that some of our cultural conditioning is not all that helpful and that's all it actually is, is cultural conditioning. And Buddhists have actually tried to stop that conditioning, stopping it through mindfulness, just seeing what's going on. It's marvelous is whenever you have a problem in your life. Actually, instead of looking at the problem outside, look at the person who s reacting to this problem. Look at what's going on inside of you when somebody s dying or when there's sickness or when there's a loss. What's actually going on inside, not what's going on outside. Because the problem is that when there's any tragedy in life, it's always is. We focus outside of ourself. Oh, that poor thing. Oh, my stock. My stocks have gone down. I've lost money. What's happening actually inside is more important to see. We actually start seeing what's inside, which is what mindfulness is supposed to do, what contemplation is supposed to do. See some of the silly ways we react to these things and just how we allow these things to create suffering in our mind. It's big deal. You get money, you lose money. Sickness and health, life and death, the dualities of the world. They come and they go. That's why part of Buddhism is like just the impermanence. That teaching of the emperor's ring, which is a powerful teaching. Don't mind how many times I've pete it, because I practiced that myself. The emperor was always getting depressed when things went wrong. Always having parties when things were going right because he got depressed. He would sulk and stay in his room because when things were going well, he'd always hold parties. He never did any work, but. Because of that, the kingdom got worse and worse. And so the ministers met together. How can we teach this young emperor to be wise so he can run a good kingdom? And all they did was give him a ring. A gold ring. But on the outside of that ring were inscribed the words this too will pass. That's all. So when things were going well in the kingdom, he'd look at a ring. This too will pass. You can't take it for granted. So he worked even harder. Even when things were going well, he couldn't afford to have parties all the time because he knew that the good times would pass. They were unstable. They needed work to keep them going longer. And he gave it that work. Now, all your relationships, have you got a good relationship with your partner? That too will pass. Because you know that you put more care, more attention, more effort into your relationship. Because you can't take it for granted. Are you healthy? Have you got sickness? Remember, this too will pass. So if you're in good health, look after that. You put effort and care into your health. Because it's of the nature to get sick. You'll look after it. You don't take it for granted. And your life, this too will pass us. So look after this life of yours. Make sure it's rich. Rich in goodness. Rich in those sorts of things which we talk about at funerals. The goodness, the care, the love of a person. Because this too will pass. And when you're sick you know that story with Jagan Cha? When I was sick in hospital in Thailand, first time I was sick with typhus fever there about three or four weeks. Couldn't find out what was wrong with me at first. Then later, what we found out was typhus. You know what it's like in a third world country in a backwater a third world country in a hospital ward. My first memory of that ward was at 06:00 in the evening. The nurse went after 07:00. Still, the nurse night nurse hadn't come. So I turned around to the mud sitting in the next bed. When's the night nurse coming? Should we try and tell someone? The nurse hasn't turned up. What do you mean night nurse? There ain't no night nurses here. If you get sick at the middle of the night, that's just bad karma. And. Thank you very much. And I had this terrible fever week after week. And then Adjourned Char came to visit me. My teacher, this great monk, came to visit little me. I was only a young monk, a baby monk. He s such an important big monk. And he came to see me. Know what it s like when these people come and see you? And I felt so elated for about 1 minute. Because when Ajad Shah came in, you know what he said? He said, Brahma Wang, so you're either going to get better or you're going to die. And then he left. Thank you very much. But just how true. That way he didn't sort of mess around. He just told it as it is. How can you make fault with that? That's true. Whenever you get sick, it's not going to last. This too will pass. So you don't have to worry about being sick. Because it's either going to die, you're going to get better. One of the two. So what? It means the pain is not going to last forever. The weakness this is what I mean by this too will pass. So no matter what's happening, if you're in grief or whatever, it will pass. Don't have to worry about it. If you're depressed, you're in depression. Don't worry about it. All pass. Just see how long you can be depressed for. See if you can beat your record, keep notes. See if you can be depressed for longer than you did last time. All you're doing there is when you're actually saying that to see how long you be depressed for. It's reminding you that it won't last forever. This is trouble with depression or sickness. When you it's got no end to it, then you can't handle it any longer and that really becomes suffering. When you know it's going to end, then you know it's tolerable. This is actually why when we realize that things will pass, whether it's sickness, disappointment or whatever, we can actually handle it. It makes much greater happiness. When we know it's going to pass, we're letting go. So this is actually why Buddhists are happier than other people. Because we can let go. It will pass. Doesn't matter what happens. When I first became the Advert of the Monastery in certain time, I made this resolution. I thought, well, it doesn't really matter if I do really well, then that's great and can help a lot of people. But it'll be even better if I really stuff up and make a mess of things because then people can leave me alone. I can become a hermit. That's even better. It's always a win win situation. That's always in life it's a win win situation if you know the dumber. Doesn't matter what happens if if I die tomorrow, it's great, be a peace at last. If I don't die, then I can actually work harder and do more good karma for other people. Either way, it's a win win situation. So this is actually just a different way of looking at things in life. If your husband leaves you and. Then it's a win situation. You can go off and become a nun. It's so hard with a husband over there because you go look after them and all this sort of stuff. So it's always a win win situation. If they don't leave you, then you got a nice companion for your old age. So on to work and pay the rent. So it's always a win win situation. So looking at the positive side of life and why not? Why is it that human beings, we always tend to look at the negative side of life? There is a positive side there. So have a look at it and incorporate that into your life. What is said in that little essay there about seeing the beauty in things? That's why it's so hard for as a monk to get angry at other people, because there's so much beauty in other people. I ain't get angry at them for doing things like that. Can I see this stupidity of some of the monks in the monastery? Because I saw myself I used to be even worse than that when I was a young monk. So how can you be sort of critical of others and get angry at others? You just can't do it because you see the beauty of other people. In Mahayana Buddhism we see that the Buddha nature and now this. How can you be angry at Saddam Hussein? You can see the good side in him. How can you be angry at Adolf Hitler? Can you as a monk? It's just so hard because you see the goodness in each person. Sure, they got some badness in there, some silly things they do, but you see so much goodness inside of them, so much potential for goodness. That's why you can't get angry at them. You know that story which I been telling people about the entire land during the Vietnam War when there was the insurgency there and where they solved that insurgency by giving amnesty, giving forgiveness. And I told that story in Sydney just about a month ago. And in that story, I say the nonviolence. So the Thai soldiers never went and blow up the communists, the insurgents, these were communists inside the country. Thai people number two. They tried to address the real problem by looking after the countryside. Making it sort of prosperous. And number three, they had this forgiveness amnesty. Any of these communist guerrillas terrorists, internal terrorists who were blowing up soldiers, torturing monks, some of the forest monks got captured and actually tortured to death. They had this amnesty. Whenever you wanted to give yourself up, you can go back to your village, go back to your university, wherever. And so eventually all the communists gave themselves up and they were just completely forgiven. And the point came when the leaders of the Communist army gave themselves up. And I told you the story before, you may remember, that they got given good jobs in the Thai government service. That's as far as I knew. I told that story in Sydney. The Thai consul stood up and asked a question. It wasn't a question, he said. It's a very interesting story. They wanted to add an agenda to it. He said, Two of those leaders of the communists. They were given good jobs in the civil servants, civil service. And those two of them are presently ministers in the Thai government. One a very senior minister. I was so impressed. These were people who would normally be actually put in front of a wall and shot dead or they'd be put in jails to rot for the rest of their life or hung for war crimes. They were given forgiveness and they had their chance to use their abilities, organizing abilities, their commitment to a cause for the government. Beautiful sort of strategy. And the Thai government took them in and actually made them work for the Thai people. And now they are actually ministers in the government. Ex communist guerrillas who are trying to overturn the government are now working for it. What I mean about forgiveness, that's Buddhist attitudes. Isn't that a wonderful use of our resources? That's why you can see the good in everybody. There's potential there. So we can actually change the world by not wasting the great resources, but by turning them into good resources. That's why I can't get angry at people, see the Buddha nature, the goodness in everybody. This is actually why you can be happy. So these are many, many little pointers here. Different ideas of actually creating happiness in one's life, seeing beauty in everything, beauty and sickness, beauty and death, beauty in many things. That's why Buddhists are happy. And it's been proven. And there we go. So if you want to be happy, this is the place to come, what I usually call Happy Hour at Dhamaloka Buddhist Center. So thank you for coming to Happy Hour and may you all get happier and happy and happier. So thank you for listening to why Buddhists are Happy.