Harmony

Harmony by Ajahn Brahm So as Rachel just mentioned, I just come back from about 10 or 12 days in Japan and I was attending a big Buddhist summit there whose expressed aim is to try and create some unity amongst all the different Buddhist traditions in our modern world. And they're very successful in getting some very high powered leaders from all the major, major traditions, uh, to actually to work together for the sake of harmony. And because of the success of that summit and because of the importance of the topic, I thought I'd talk this evening about harmony and is how to create it in our worlds. Uh, because, as you know, just there's disharmony between the countries and governments and religions, and there's disharmony in society and disharmony in your office. And very often is the lack of harmony in your own mind. And when there's a lack of harmony in one's own life, especially in one's in our life, it creates an enormous amount of stress and struggle. And it's not necessarily cancer to solve that. But certainly when I first learned about Buddhism, especially when I became a monk, I found something fascinating in all of the the rules which we have to live by as monks. One of the most important reasons why we had those rules for the sake of harmony, so we could live together, you know, without much argument or any arguments in the monastic community. The Buddha mentioned very clearly that when is no harmony, there's no possibility of getting any deep meditation without peace outside. It's very hard to find peace inside, and it's important that we learn the techniques and strategies for developing that harmony in that peace. How many of you have relationships, partnerships, and unless you have harmony and peace in that relationship, it does create enormous amount of suffering in your life. And even this morning that I not saw this morning, just before I came here this afternoon, I performed a marriage ceremony for a couple of our members who have been coming to this place for a long time following their ceremony at the monastery and serpentine by the lake. And I mentioned a story which is one of the key stories from my book, Opening the Door of Your Heart, which I very rarely mention about how we can know this story that I mentioned. I mentioned the book very often, but the story. Which I'm about to mention. I think a lot of times, as I mentioned it earlier, concerns harmony and how we can work together when we really commit it, when we really think we have to. It was a story of, well, maybe 22 or 23 years ago, when we were first starting our monastery, there was a young girl. She's much older now, uh, who came to Perth with her husband. Her husband was a mining engineer. He had a contract for 2 or 3 years. They were young, newly married, without children. There was a nice adventure to come to Australia for a few years, and at that time, you could buy a house pretty cheaply, and you could sell it for a little bit more than you paid for. Not like these days. And so they bought their house, and when the contract ended, they had to go back to Canada. So instead of getting an air ticket, they decided to sell their house. And with the money they got from their house to buy a small yacht and sail back to Canada, they were young. It was an adventure. And the idea was that once they reached Vancouver, though, could sell the yacht, get their mortgage back or their deposit back, and then buy another house. A great way of travel. And it was also an adventure. And imagine sailing through the Pacific, through the islands, out to, uh, uh, Canada. And of course, being so close friends say I wrote a letter to me when they arrived safely back in Toronto. But they said in a very interesting event had happened. While they were halfway on their journey, he had teamed up with another couple who were also going back to Canada. So there were two married couples and in the middle of the voyage. So the engine broke down. And so the two men, the only ones who knew how to fix the engine, went into the compartments with the tools to try and fix the problem. While the two women had nothing else to do. They were just on the deck, just reading magazines, enjoying the the sunshine. And of course, it's very difficult to fix things sometimes. And because the engine or the problem was difficult to discover, the two men started getting irritated. It was very close, very cramped and very hot in that small compartment where the engine was. And the irritation soon became an argument. And the argument got worse and worse until they were shouting at each other. And the argument culminated in one of the men throwing down their wrench and swearing and saying, right, that's it, I'm leaving. And when you are angry, you do get crazy. And this was actually what happened. He was so mad and crazy with his anger. He actually went to his cabin, cleaned up, changed into some nice clothes, packed his bags and appeared on deck in his best suit carrying his suitcases. And he said it was the women laughing at him which brought him to his senses. Why, they're laughing at me for. And then he looked around him, and there was ocean in all directions. There was nowhere to go. There he was on the boat saying, right, that's it, I'm leaving. Was not an option. So he went red in the face. He went turned around without speaking. Went back into his cabin, changed back into his work clothes. Went into the engine room and helped. And of course, they fixed up their engine and they sailed back to Vancouver. As friends. I liked that story for two reasons. There is. First reason was it recognizes that sometimes there's no place to go. It's nice to say, right. That's it. I'm leaving, but we can't. Where can we go to? And number two is that when we accept that there's no place to escape, there's no place to run, then we can always fix up any problem. We can create harmony if we have the will to do so, and the commitment to do so when we understand that it gives us hope for our world, because all the different religions and philosophies and cultures and nations in this world. There is no place to go if we have a war in Japan. To the places we visited to do some peace prayers was Nagasaki in Hiroshima and where they dropped atomic bombs. And you can still, as a monk, I'm very sensitive. You can still hear the screams of the people who got burnt to death, and the cries of all those who had the worst slower deaths from the radiation. When you go to places like that, it reminded me of another place I went to in April, which was just outside. Outside a pylon pen. One of the many killing fields where when you walk on the earth, you are literally walking on the shattered bones of the many thousands who lost their lives in those killing fields. The earth has got white specks in it, and also there are shed shreds of clothing which are always coming out from underground. When the rains come, more come up. You get an incredibly sad feeling that why is it that human beings do this to other human beings? And with that feeling comes the commitment. You can't just sit down there and do nothing. You have to strive to do something, something really worthwhile and meaningful, so that we can create that harmony and mutual respect in our world, which makes such atrocities less likely in the future because there is no place to run. We have to learn how to live together. And the summit which we had in Japan, was meant to show that, yeah, we all Buddhist. Let's get the Buddhist working together. It does not matter so much what tradition you follow, and hopefully that everyone who comes into this center is very happy to go to other Buddhist centers in Perth, and I don't think that we have the best sensor and all those other Buddhists, they don't really know what Buddhism truly is. Sometimes we do have conceit like that. And one of the things which is important to understand, you know, as a Buddhist, when you have that conceit that you know, your tradition or your path is the best, that is a sure sign you you have a big ego. Well, the Buddha said there was actually three types of conceit, three types of pride. It's not just that I am better, it's also I am worse is another form of conceit, and even saying I am the same is a third form of conceit. The Buddha saw so much deeper than other people because we can't judge at all, better or worse. These are two sides of the same coin, and even the same. We're all different. We're not the same. We don't have to be the same, but we can each receive the same amount of respect and give the same amount of value to others. So there's no ego and self there being better or being worse. It's a very weird part of Western culture that we always want to sort of. Not to praise ourselves and even reject the praise of others. Which means that in the West we actually develop from our many, many years a lack of self-esteem. And we make a mistake, or someone in our family makes a mistake and we blame us. Even just this week, somebody rang up for counselling. Their child had gone into drugs in a very deep and bad way, and they were blaming themselves. Sometimes as a parent, we blame ourselves for what our children get up to, and really, we can't really blame ourselves. That's been totally unfair. I gave the simile of a seed. Sometimes a gardener has a seed. Sometimes even the best gardeners can't make a beautiful tree out of a bad seed. And sometimes very stupid gardeners could. They don't know anything about gardening, but the seed is so strong it still produces a very beautiful plant. Why is that simile important? It's because it's not just the parents. It's what you're dealing with. And that child comes with karma from its past. Every one of you has had a child knows when that baby first comes out and you hold it in your arms. You know that's got history. That's not a new being. It's not a blank slate that comes with a past. And you feel that sometimes it's a very old, wise being. Sometimes it's a being who comes into your life with problems. And sometimes mothers can feel that, too. So never think that it's a blank slate which you can do whatever you like with. You have limitations as a parent, and I think you realize that. So we don't feel guilty about this, but why it is that people take on the pain of others and make it their own pain. Sometimes that's not helpful for anybody. So we sometimes do that to ourselves. We have this low self-esteem. We think we're worse than other people. Sometimes we think we're better than other people or with the same as other people. All of the three conceits I would have said, don't even think like that. Don't judge or compare the same, better or worse. It's all comparing and it just cannot be done. It's amazing when you stop all that comparing business. We don't say all the different forms of Buddhism are the same. We don't say they're all equal. Not one is better than the other or worse another. They're just different and we can value each one. When you learn how to see value in things, then from value comes respect. It is not that difficult to value the different parts of Buddhism, even the different religions in this world. A key story is I often hang out with people from other religions. I think it's good for me. Basically, I don't want to sort of feel like I'm in a cult. You know, where you only sort of hang out with Buddhists and talk with Buddhists and read Buddhist books and only go to Buddhist centers, because that's a dangerous thing. It's nice to have input from other areas in your life. You become very wise that way. And also you can actually see the value in other things. And this work is conducive to harmony in the world. So, you know, I like going to and to other little ceremonies. And this key story was when I think the first time I went to Christchurch Grammar School, I had to give, give a talk. They wanted me to lead the assembly because there was a few Buddhists. I think a few Buddhists, even from here, were attending that school. So they asked me if I could give a talk there. Uh, and as we were going into the morning assembly, the the principal turned around and told me, he said, because you're the speaker this morning, you'll be going in with me and with the chaplain. Now, Frank Sheehan is a good mate. And he said, what we usually do, there's a little very simple Christian shrine there. We bow to that shrine because we're Christians, but we don't want to offend you. You're a Buddhist. You don't have to bow. And I took the opportunity to get aggressive. I turned around to him, the principal, and said, what do you mean I can't bow? I demand my right to bow. I was doing it to make a sort of a point, telling him that why, as a Buddhist, should I not bow down to a shrine like that? And he was confused. And I said, look, I don't agree with everything in your religion, but there's much in it which I can respect and value, and that which I respect and value is what I'm going to bow down to. And he understood what I meant. And I think just recently was in August or September. We had another visit from Christchurch Grammar School. They always had been there children at least once or twice a year. And this time the principal came himself and I had to see what was going on. He had a wonderful time down there. So you can see what can happen, that when you show respect and value for something in another person's life, not everything, but to value that which is really worth respect. It brings this beautiful sense of peace and harmony where we say we're not the same. We have our differences, but there's enough in you, in your path, in your being, which I can really respect. And I'm focusing on that. That means we can live together in peace and harmony. And what we have in common, if we keep focusing on that, that is what grows. This is an important part of Buddhist psychology, which is actually filtering down now into our Western type of psychology. We focus on differences and we split apart and we focus on the negative. We become negative. You know, the two bad bricks in the wall when you focus on the two bad bricks and all, you want to destroy everything. But instead of focusing on that which is bad, we can focus on the other part though, which we can respect in other faiths, in other parties, in other people. And that actually makes what we respect grow, grow, grow. And I think I did mention this in the previous talks, I was just when I came back from Singapore teaching at a mental health conference. And there were in Singapore the modus operandi for the number one hospital, which deals with people with mental health problems, was do not focus on the disease, on the psychoses, on the depression, on the schizophrenia. Focus on the other part of that patient. Focus on the times when they're not having an episode of psychosis. And when I heard that, I thought, amazing, wonderful. You've got the message. Because when they found they were focusing on the times, those patients, they weren't exhibiting mental health problems, focusing on the healthy side of them, if you want the healthy side to. And they found us a much better way of treatment, with far quicker and more long lasting effects. You can see when we focus on the differences, on the faults, on the problems, those faults and problems actually grow. We're creating disharmony in our world and especially with ourselves. So just as we teach, I treat people from other religions and faiths or even people in my own religion who disagree with me. Just put that aside for a while. Would we actually disagree with and let's value that. And that will really grow. And what do we have in common? As I move around people of different faiths and different regions and and different lands and cultures, what we have in common is this basic sort of a love of respect, of peace, of this real sense of freedom. And I don't mean freedom to do what you want. I gave a talk last night to the monks about what real freedom is, and it's not the freedom to sort of go and buy that car, or to go and get their house, or that freedom to go and do what you want. That's not freedom at all. Because you see that what that really is. You're poor by the nose, by your desires. And you're pulled by the nose by you know your negativity. Sometimes someone can call you names. Even this morning, I just went to the chemist on the way up here, and a girl outside said, what are you wearing those things for? And I said, Because I'm a Buddhist monk. Have you got anything underneath that? It's good fat, isn't it? And I said, yes, I have. Actually, I got an under rope and said, very good thing. Very good thing. But then just as I got into the car, she put her hands up like this and I thought, isn't that wonderful? Now, obviously she was testing me out and when I passed her test, she gave me respects. Now, little stories like that just show you that you could have got negative about that, but you don't. You respect the question even though it's testing you. And if you respect the question, what actually grows and comes out of that encounter is the sense of, oh, you know that lady, the little girl respects me and I respect her. So we have harmony rather than having a big arguments and divisions in things, so that freedom means that you're not going to allow other people to upset you. You're actually you're free from these underlying tendencies of negativity or having to have. How many of you, when you're hungry, can go past a shop selling your favorite food and not buy it? I used to do that when I was a student. I had a friend who was a Christian, and at that time I had lots of ego because he was a Christian, I was a Buddhist. We were always competing with each other. So when he said he was going to go on a fast, I had to go on a fast as well. And we had a competition. Who had last longest. I won says how big my ego was, but to test myself, you know, I was born in England and my favorite food was fish and chips, so I hadn't eaten for about 2 or 3 days, just water, and I would actually get on my bicycle and cycle backwards and forwards in front of the fish and chip shop, just to test my willpower. But I was good because you could give it up. You could be free. Now, even recently, just combining what I just said with, you know, the the work we do, trying to form, form, um, friendships and harmony between the different religions. You may have read in the newspapers that the abbot of the Benedictine monastery in Yorkshire passed away recently again. He was another good friend. And such a good friend that I was invited to his funeral service. And that was actually just the day before I left for Frankfurt, and there was a mass at the church in Subiaco. But I wasn't just invited. I was also asked to say a few words as well in a fully Catholic funeral. There wasn't any Muslims or Jews there, which I saw, just a Buddhist. A couple of us went in there and actually, to show the actual friendship we have and how that was so respected that as a Buddhist monk, no, I was allowed to say a few words at a very senior Catholics funeral in front of Archbishop Hickey now, and it was a full mass which went on very, very long. If you think this goes on, long here should go to the Catholic Church. Went on so long I missed my lunch, didn't finish till after 12. But it was worth it because it was a wonderful thing to do and be part of. The best part of it was actually the friendship which had formed across the religions. And I mentioned this and also mentioned this on this tour, which will be on the internet, because it can be done, and there's no wonderful thing that, you know, you can just have such friendship so you can push aside all these causes for division and wars in the world. You know, there was just executed, the Bali bombers and the newspapers were saying that everyone is really afraid there may be retaliation. Retaliation is not religion. I don't care what religion you have that's never mentioned in any sort of wise holy people's words. We don't retaliate. We forgive. We move on. Retaliation is to say, right. That's it. I'm leaving. I'm going to kill you. And of course, that means there's nowhere else to go. So real religion, real understanding is the importance of harmony, the vital importance of harmony above almost anything else. That's why, again, I said to the couple, which I married this morning. Sort of always remember that. What's the most important thing in your marriage? It's not being right. It's being together. And you. Sometimes you can't have both. You can't be right and be together. As you all know, those of you who have had marriages or relationships. So when you have the priority, right, it's being together is most important, not whose right and who's wrong, then it means I can just keep giving in. Who cares who gives in? Man gives in, the wife gives in. We all give in. And if you might understand that, then you understand how a relationship works. The togetherness is most important and you understand just how in our modern societies such togetherness, the harmony in society is so important, much more important than being right or being wrong. Because without that harmony, where is there to go? Where can there be any life, any prosperity? It's good whenever this Christ is in the world, in the sense that people have to work together. I remember my parents telling me, especially my mother and my grandparents, who were in London during the Second World War. My father was up in Liverpool and there being bombs, not just no one nine, 11 once in every 100 or 200 years, but being bombed every night with huge bombs falling from the sky. Night after night after night, during the what was called the Blitz, the Second World War. And hearing those stories and hearing my mother and my grandparents saying, what a wonderful time that was. Unexpected words. Even though a bomb had she landed next to the, you know, those, um, terraced houses they have in UK? Just know with one wall separating one house and another, even the next house where they were staying got a direct hit and the windows shattered and my mother's arms was was torn, blood streaming down, but managed to survive. Their neighbors right next door were killed instantly. It was night after night of things like that. But what a wonderful time. How can you say that? Because everybody had to work together. There were very few arguments and it was a great sense of togetherness in times of crisis. It's sad. We have to have a crisis to learn the lessons of harmony. We can learn it. When is not such a crisis how important it is to work together? Going back to some of the stories with my own mother. When I do leave and you don't see me on a Friday evening or I'm overseas, sometimes I do go and visit family because I'm mostly in England. I remember visiting my family once and I was staying in my mother's house, and I don't just stay there. I usually offer to give talks here, there and everywhere to make myself useful. And so I was given a talk in a very, um, nearby Sri Lankan temple, only about an hour's walk from where my mother lived. And I was due to give a talk there. But instead of getting people to pick me up and just going in a car, you know, I need the exercise as you can or as you can all see. So I said, I'm going to walk there. So she was on one of these apartment buildings which is owned by the local government. Now this high rises, I think what's called these days, Sink Estates is supposed to be like a poor person's area. But when I went in the elevator on the 14th floor and went down to the the ground floor, I think I was going to go and walk to this talk at a Sri Lankan temple where many people were going to come. As the doors opened on the ground floor. I was faced with a woman, an elderly woman who was covered in blood. It was apparently she had fallen down the stairs going to the basement, and she was obviously very badly injured but could still stand. So of course I forgot about my talk. I was going to talk on compassion anyway, so let's do some compassion. So I got her into the lift and made sure that she was reasonably okay, and took her back up to where my mother had her flat and took her inside and call for the ambulance while my mother and I just, oh with a cloth, tried to clean her up. But the most wonderful thing was that because we'd forgotten to close the door in the in the emergency, there was a trail of blood leading, you know, in the lift through the passageways to my mother's apartment. And one after one after one. People followed their trail of blood to see if they could help. And after a few minutes, there was a whole heap of people in my mother's room and tried to do what they could. There was a community, and it was wonderful to see that a community had formed because somebody in this apartment block had had an injury, and they could see it, and somebody went off to turn off the gas because he was cooking some dinner. Someone rang her. Um, relations. We arranged for the ambulance. She had actually broken her leg and injured herself quite badly. But certainly from that time on, my mother said she really respected Buddhism and was always asking how I was and when I was going to come back, simply because you were kind. But what impressed me was just how people would actually come together and help and stop whatever they were doing. There was a community formed when we formed communities, when we really respect and value one another and care for one another where we have that harmony. It's amazing what people can achieve. I know one of the problems in our modern society is again, mental health problems. You know, most of those mental health problems arise because of isolation. And sometimes that isolation is self-imposed. Sometimes we don't allow other people to come close because we don't realize the importance of that harmony. We don't value ourselves and we don't value others. So I think it's very important that in all human beings, no matter who they are, to see value in them. When you see value in them, this creates that relationship and creates a harmony. I often say just how many times, as a young monk here in Australia, I used to go and visit the jails and the my trick if you like to be successful sort of visiting jails was to see value in his people who had done terrible crimes. Because if I could see value in people who had killed, who had raped, who had no stolen and cheated, if I could see value in those people, it's very easy to see value in each one of you, and you can see value in anybody. And when you've seen value in somebody, that's what you look for. And that's what you see. That's what they show you back. If you look for the forces somewhere else, the things which they've done wrong. They will show that back to you for sure. But when you see something worthwhile, valuable, lovable, respectable in another human being, they show that back to you. That's one of the great secrets of creating harmony. So when I hang out with the Catholics or with the Anglicans, or with the Jews or with the Muslims, you know, the reason we had a muslim person come to give a talk here during our reigns retreat, because I went to a conference with him in Phnom Penh, and we went together to those killing fields, which I was talking about earlier, because I valued him and he could value me. We could actually invite him. He could accept to come and give a talk here. I think it's a wonderful thing that we do such things because we're not just teaching philosophy. You're not going and thinking, you know, I'm a Buddhist. I'm a meditate, even recite the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path dependent origination in Pali and Sanskrit and anything else. That's okay. If we want to sort of get a degree in a university, but this is about real life and how we can do something to create a better world. And my point here is that what works to create a better world now, big time, is exactly the same thing, which creates a better world in your family and also in your own meditation, in your own life, in your mind. Just the same way that I went to prisons and saw things I could value. And they showed that back to me. And we had a beautiful relationships together. So even when I meditate, when I'm alone, when I'm travelling in an aircraft, going somewhere or waiting in an airport, I can see something in myself that I value and care for, and that makes me in harmony with myself. When I see something inside of me which I value and care for, that actually grows and it become a more valuable, caring person. Now, of course, each one of us makes mistakes. Each one of us does stupid things. Just. Oh. Yesterday I made a big mistake. I was that sort of a downer. This is where you invite them minus your feet, and we give it a bit of a talk. Afterwards, I was giving a talk to the couple who invited me, and I knew they were married and they had just had a child. They moved into a new house and I was talking to them about, you know, and hopefully you're you're going to be very happy in this house and together as a family. You can look after one another and value each other. But there's another couple who were there also another, a young man and young woman sitting right next to each other. And they said, oh no, you married as well. And he actually said yes, which was actually true. Um, uh, I suppose logically, but they were married, but they just separated. So then I was going, talking to them about how I can live happily together and peacefully together. I really blew it. So I don't think she's going to come here for a long time. I made a big mistake. You know, but sometimes we do make mistakes, and I just laugh at them sometimes. I remember some of the other big mistakes I made. I was giving a funeral service once. That's another thing you do. Marriages, funerals, you name it, we do it. Give us a meal and we'd do anything. Not quite, but there we go. Well, doing a funeral service once for somebody. And I said how sad it was because I knew that the, um. The children. Because I used to come here very regularly and I said, it's such a shame that your mother has passed away. And she was such a good woman. And then this old lady stood up at the back. It's not me who's dead. It's my husband. It's their father, stupid. So when you're doing a ceremony is trying to be solid. Sometimes these things. I remember one of the other stupid things I said. I was actually, it was several years ago. And I'd just do the stupid stuff now in the community hall before this hall was built. We did. I did a marriage service in there. Anderson, a young tiger, came in there with his elderly Australian and straight away. Being stupid, I thought, oh, you must be the father in law. He said, no, I'm the groom. So that wedding did go on very well. So you made his mistakes, but you sort of laugh at them instead of getting upset at them. But you just don't worry about the mistakes of life. I was sometimes called that liken them to the simile of a sunset. Unless there's some imperfection on the horizon, you don't get beautiful sunsets. You need a few clouds or a bit of dust. And then if you look over the Indian Ocean in the evening time, you get these amazing sunsets, but only if there's some clouds or a bit of dust there. If it's perfect, or blue sky to see the sun go down. And it's not that nice, not as nice, as well as a few imperfections. The imperfections in life actually give it texture and give it beauty. So we're not afraid of imperfections or differences or things which are wrong. But for harmony we can accept those as sometimes a texture of life which makes life interesting and unique. But also we remember the the things which bind us together, which join us together. No. It may be the case of men from Mars and women are from Venus. But we both we all orbit around the same sun. We have a lot in common. Much more than anybody thinks. You know, you may sort of thing that different races have different sort of tendencies. But it was wonderful that Japan had people from all races, even Africans. You know, the one of the interesting people at this Japanese conference was a couple of kings. And one was the king of the Toro Kingdom in Uganda. And the way he spoke are not confirmed as yet, but it looks like he's a Buddhist. No, an Afro Buddhist king. And that's really interesting. I don't know about the protocol. We should invite him to give a talk here. Very interesting. But it's amazing to see, you know, people from all different races coming together and all sorts of different types of Buddhism coming together because we have something in common. And we can extend that to all people of different religions or know religions to find the common ground, which is huge. When we keep focusing on the differences there, we will have wars. So the common ground with your neighbors. With the people in the office, with the enemy in the office, you just you can't stand. If you keep focusing on that, you'll have a terrible time at work. Why not see if you can see something you value in that enemy, in the person you hate? Seeing something of value is the start of compassion. I know Buddhas were supposed to be compassionate. Be kind. But a common complaint is how can you be compassionate? You know it's all right for you as your brother. You live in a monastery with nice monks. You know, you don't know what it's like out there in the real world. And of course, you know what it's like. You know, sometimes the monks, you see, they're very well behaved up here. Actually, they are well behaved in a monastery as well. But sometimes. Not always. So you always have some problems wherever you go in the world. But. You know. You know how to deal with us in a really good way. And respecting other people, finding something in their you value is a start of compassion. Without that, you just can't even begin. Why should I be compassionate to that person? Why should I forgive them? So if you see something to value in them, something worthwhile, then there is a good reason to be kind. Once we can do that, compassion and kindness is easy and it's hugely beneficial. When you see someone, you respect another person and you have that inside. You're not playing. You see something you respect. You can be kind and that kindness will change that person. As it changes you. How many times have you been mistreated, abused? Criticized. And you've deserved it. I deserve it. But if you're really honest. But has it really helped? Hasn't really. But instead of actually been criticized and abused and told off when you've done something wrong, even if you deserved it? What's it like when someone actually understands you and understands you? You have made a mistake, but you're in difficult situations. You weren't perfect. You did do something wrong. As we all do, and they've understood you. If you've been understood when you made a mistake, it's one of the most wonderful experiences. People have actually really empathized with you. You never know what it's like to be a human being. You have to make decisions. And sometimes you make wrong decisions, stupid decisions. But if you criticize, you just hide those faults and you never learn from them. You get defensive and you keep making the same mistakes over and over and over. But when people understand you with kindness, they value you. You're a human being. You're a person just like me, and they value you. You make a mistake. They understand you. And you can accept that mistake. You can see it because you know that's not the whole of you. There's some other part which other people couldn't see. I always tell people who who have an enemy. There's many people, not just one, ten, 20, 30 people who love that person. Sometimes it's hard to imagine. How can anybody like that bastard? And you find that people actually love them. They've seen something in that person which you're blind to. How come someone can love you? Sometimes it's a great shock. Sometimes when a person says how much they love you. Me? You must be wrong. It's bad if they can do that. Why can't you love yourself? And have that same sense of esteem? Value? Same sense of self-worth. All it means is you can see the positive side of you and that side will then grow. You see the positive side of other people. That side of them will grow and the negativity will disappear. You see the positive side of other religions, faiths, other philosophies and that positive side will grow. This is the way we create harmony and peace in this world. It does work in big situations. I remember that conversation. I will never forget a young monk in Thailand. I was and we had the former Prime Minister of Thailand who came to visit again. I happened to speak with him for a short while. And for those of you Thais, it was the doctor, Sanya Temasek. He later became the king's chief adviser. He was a prime minister for about one year in Thailand, and he told me that he'd been in this important position. He said there was never, ever a problem I couldn't solve with my enemies, with other politicians. Never was there a problem I couldn't solve. And I just went to see them, just the two of us. He said, I put my hand on his knee, which entitled, didn't mean you were gay. It meant you were friends. For my hand on his knee. As an act of friendship. And because I made a friendship the first part of our conversation, we could always solve our differences. And he meant that he was sincere. And when a person is such an important and a position where there is often so much conflict as a prime minister, a leader of a nation involved in all the politicking and vested interests, when he could say things like that, I thought, well, why can't I say things like that when I'm not a prime minister, just not have it, or just a leader? Surely I can do things like that too. And so you strive to do such things. And the trick is by valuing seeing something of worth in another, and seeing that of worth in yourself and seeing some worth in life. If you don't see any worth in life, you tend to get into addictive substances or even commit suicide. We think, what's this life? It's a waste of time. You just, you get born, you get old, you lose your job, you die, you get married, then you get divorced, lose all your money. You have kids and they leave home. What's the point? It's very easy to get into negativity because you don't see value in things. So we deliberately see the value in this life. In Buddhism we call this a precious human life. It's a life to learn things especially. It's it's one of the best universities. When we can learn from disappointments. We know we're not in control of life. We try our very best. It goes wrong. We turn out for the airport and they play this council slice sometimes their aircrafts. As I say, that plane which came from Singapore, the Qantas flight which went up and down as I said, I said, what do you expect? Qantas. It's called flying kangaroo. It's what kangaroos do. They got really good. So it's a big, big deal. So when you understand just about life you learn a lot. And where do you learn about it? The more you learn, actually, the more that life doesn't hurt you anymore. And that's the meaning of life is learning. And as we grow more and more, we find it's those difficult experiences of life, the ones which are painful, what I call the growing pains. So even that which is difficult to accept or to bear as a mark, I realize that is the most important part of your life. At the time when you're experiencing that as hell, it's so difficult and so painful, and sometimes you wonder whether you could ever get out of that mess. But you do. Everyone does. But the payoff is what you learn. Painful at the time. But you grow so much. You learn so much in a young people who come here. When young kids come here, you know, the 18, 19, 20 year olds they're always worried about, well, they usually come and speak to me, usually when they've had breakups with their boyfriend or their girlfriend at the end of the world for them and tell them, look, you don't know what love means until you've had your heart broken a few times. And they accept that and understand that it's true and you have to have a bit of pain. In order to understand the importance of compassion and kindness. And we've had a bit of difficulty in your life. Those are the sorts of people who get very, very compassionate and very kind and wise. It's one of those reflections I had. Seeing all these these great meditators I knew in Thailand, and I couldn't really figure out why it was that some of those meditators, they could get in very, very peaceful, very still. But they weren't wise. They couldn't really help other people. They couldn't give good talks or counsel others where other people, they could meditate and they could share, they could counsel, they could teach. And when I investigated and why that was mostly it was those people, those monks, nuns, whatever, who had a lot of suffering in their life and became good meditators. They were the great teachers because they'd they knew what it was like to be in pain. They knew what suffering was from personal experience. And of course, from the time of the Buddha, one of the greatest, if not one of the greatest teachers in the time of the Buddha was a woman, a nun. And I discovered this in her early on, reading all these these scriptures, you know, because I thought, I'm a Buddhist, I should actually know what I'm supposed to be. So reading all these original ancient teachings of the Buddha. And I started reading interrogator. This is the verses of the enlightened women in the time of the Buddha. It's a great read. And I had all these nuns have become enlightened. And there's a whole passage where the nun was saying that be meditating for years, listening to talks and getting nowhere. And then this one man came along, this great teacher. A week or two weeks, he was fully aligned. And I read the next story and the same thing happened. This one nun came along and a few weeks later, awfully in mind. I don't know how many nuns became in line because of this great teacher, and that great teacher was called Pata Chara. And her story was snow. She came from a good family. She fell in love with someone of a lower caste, and the parents would not allow her to get married to the person she loved. So she ran away. She ran away with. This guy is a very good guy. And so they ran away and lived in a forest. And when she became pregnant with her first child, it was the custom in India to go and see your parents. And you're so new. As I tell people these days, once you have a child, your grandparents will love you. Because sometimes they don't approve of your husband or your wife. Once you have a grandchild, then or your grandparents, they just want to have all your parents want to have a part of your child. So actually unites. So she went back to see her parents. But I think that, uh, actually she was going to give birth at a parent's house, but she gave birth on her way. So she went back home. And the same thing the second time she wanted to give birth her parents home for her second child. But again, she gave birth halfway on the second time, after giving birth in a forest, her husband was trying to get some wood together to warm her, and in the wood was a snake, and he got bitten and he died. And so poor Pata Chara had her husband dead in in India at that time, there was no social security. It was very, very difficult to survive. So she had only one choice to go to her parents. So she took her children, maybe a 1 or 2 year old and the new baby. And unfortunately, that day, there had been a big storm. And so the river was swollen and she couldn't get both children across carrying them. So she decided to carry the baby across. First of all, she carried the baby across and put it down on the far bank and then waded back to get her older son, the two year old. And halfway across, her big eagle swooped down to take her baby. And being too far away, she screamed and waved her arms to try and scare the bird away. And her oldest son thought that the waving and the screaming was asking him to come. So he waded into the waters, and the same time the eagle swooped away with her, her newborn baby. The eldest son waded into the water and got swept away by the current slew of. In the matter of a few hours she had lost her husband and her two children. And if that wasn't enough. As she wandered closer to her parents home, she asked about her parents, who was told the news that because of the storm which had swore on the river, the tree had fallen on their house and both were dead. Lost her parents, her two children and her husband on the same day, which drove her literally out of her mind. And because of her madness, the grief which was too much for anyone to bear, she was wandering, babbling. Her clothes had fallen off absolutely naked because of some good karma. She wandered in to the monastery where the Buddha was giving a talk. Just like now. If I was given a talk and a naked woman walked in here, what would you do? You said I protect the box. And so somebody actually tried to push her out. But the Buddha said, no, let her in. And now one of the monks gave her a rope to put around her. But because he had so much tragedy so quickly, so if her mind was actually open and the Buddha sort of gave her a small teaching, she became a nun and she became fully enlightened. And she was one hell of a teacher because of the pain which he'd experienced immense, intense pain. There's no reason why you shouldn't believe that story. She became such a powerful woman, a great teacher. One of the other women I really respect as comes out, and I mention her before I've lost contact with her. If anyone knows where she is. Her name was years ago. I remember this because I met her in Fremantle Prison when I was still open, when I was visiting the diocese in Cova. Her name is to never forget her because she told me her story. I had just been visiting the guys in Fremantle jail and she was a social worker there, so I had a cup of tea with her afterwards and she told me her story. She was Czechoslovakian when there was one country for this split up. It was in 1968, I think it was when the Soviet tanks came into Prague, because the government of that time, led by Alexander Dubcek, had issued started reforms from the Soviet communist system. He was a populist and everybody was right behind him. He was called the Prague Spring, and the Soviet tanks rolled in to crush that movement for freedom. She was, I think, a 16 year old, a young girl who decided to stand on the streets to protest. There wouldn't be a big thing in Australia. But in 1968, in Eastern Europe, I was taking your life into your hands. And unfortunately she was a wand, one of the ones who was arrested and put in jail for protesting for her country, for freedom. Put himself, I think, 20 years or more. There was no lawyers, no human rights group to help her. And she told me that in those Eastern European jails, you were regularly beaten for nothing. It was part of the system. But she said why she was experiencing so the loss of the best years of a woman's life, 16 to 36, spent in an East European town. Whenever she was being beaten, she vowed never to get angry. Never to feel resentment again. So torturous. And that was an amazing thing. To even think you can do as she said. She did it because she said if I gave in, sir anger or resentment or feelings of revenge, my torturers would have won and I would have lost. For 20 years she did that. And so she was released. You can imagine just what a powerful woman that was. And how is one of the great women I've met in my life? So she told me also, when any of the prisoners in female two complained about the complaint about the condition, she would come into my office. And I'll tell you what a record prison is like. The prison guards are free about this wonderfulness. People couldn't do things like that. She was free from the torture. I'm not going to allow that to destroy my mind, to destroy my sense of integrity and people like that. When you see people like that, you notice that pain and that strength which came from that pain made them amazing people. So when they are difficulties in your life. Embrace, value them as well, because they're part of things too. And you become stronger, wiser, more compassionate as a result. In that way, though, we can be in harmony even with the darker side of our life. Even in the painful part of our life, we can become in harmony with it as we accept it, embrace it, and make use of it. Let alone the beautiful part of our life when we're in harmony, not with life as it should be, but life as it actually is. Then, of course, we know the secret to peace of mind. You will never be able to change the world. We are always able to change yourself. You can't control others, but certainly you can control the way you relate to others and the way you relate to life. It is a path of harmony. It can be done. It is being done. And you can do that too. It's also a path of hope and a path of freedom. Whatever happens in this world, you can be free. All about harmony. And we try very best not just to talk about this, but to practice it. Sir. May you all live in peace and harmony. I have some sample tobacco, but I'm Bhagawan Dong a v. What? They. Are cut off by a what? I am more than I am a son. Sir. Party Panorpa a torch song. A single sun kind of mommy.