How To Be A High Flyer

How To Be A High Flyer by Ajahn Brahm I got a couple of nice emails and faxes, and one I'm going to read out because that is quite funny and is very apt. So just come back from a very tiring teaching tour of Thailand and Indonesia and Singapore and uh, just in about ten days and about eight cities giving talks in many places, just like, uh, being like a rolling stone, just giving a one gig, one night, one night stands. But so the question was, I'd like to hear a talk on how Ajahn Brahm copes with being a high flyer. The CEO of Rio Tinto, who I work for, does not travel as much as I Jambu does. I like some tips on how he manages with the stress of airports, capital cities, not getting sick from other people on long haul flights. In short, how to be a high flyer? And somebody else also asked me to talk a little bit about the the three jewels or the three gems and the precepts. So, as usual, I like to combine these things together because we just talk about things like the Triple Gem or precepts. It can be a bit too theoretical. And actually, if you explain how these things are actually used in daily life, for example, someone like me who flies around, how can you actually use these things to make your job a more peaceful, a more tolerable, and more enjoyable? Now because it's true. I do fly a lot. There's many people I get to know personally now in Perth Airport. Even our librarian, Abby. She's here as she is in the front. I keep meeting your cousin at the immigration there and all the other people who stamp my passport, who say hello. And where are you going? This time I turn around and you just spent a lot of time up in the aircraft. I know that sometimes people think that that's not environmentally good because of all the greenhouse gases which are jet aircraft flew into the atmosphere. But then again, I've got many carbon credits because I'm celibate, never had a child, and thereby the fact that I'm celibate and fabulous means that those carbon, the carbon which I have saved by not having children, I'm looking after the planet by doing my bit to stop overpopulation, I think, gives me enough credit to fly around the world without any guilt, but also because of a Buddhist, we don't tend to have guilt. One of the things, one of the things we do is we don't encourage. I mean, even the idea of guilt. Where does it actually come from? It all comes from believing what other people say about you by not believing. Other people's ideas. If you really think it was wrong, you wouldn't do it to begin with. But the point is, now you know it's worthwhile doing. And then some other people or society or religion says this bad. You shouldn't do this. And it gets this conflict between what you know is right and what you're told is right. And that's something we don't have in Buddhism because we don't actually, literally none of you here. You don't do what you're told because you're not told anything. But actually you do do what you're told. Because what Buddhism is, it tells you not what to do, but how to find out. In a tour of Indonesia and these other places where I went to recently, that's actually one question which people kept on asking what else is the basic difference between Buddhism and other religions? And that's actually a classic definition. If you want to ask your friend, if you want to tell your friends, they say, well, what is the difference between Buddhism and another religion? One of the classic core differences is Buddhism never tells you what to believe. It tells you how to find out. So it's really up to you. And it's a great little difference here. So telling you what to believe often gives rise to guilt. I one of the questions I'm really going off the point here. One of the questions which came up in Indonesia was abortion. And the reason was because that morning the newspaper said, I forget what city I was in. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and have to look around. First of all, I find out what city I'm in a different city every morning. And I think it was sort of a buyer. But someone asked me about abortion because that morning there was an article in the newspaper about the number of abortions had gone up by about 40%. And this is a classic case of how some cultures, some religion, some traditions had this terrible, heavy burden and light of guilt upon something which is troublesome enough as it is to deal with. And the last thing we want now, on top of, you know, an abortion is the guilt factor afterwards. And now when I was asked that question, now, what is the Buddhist view on abortion? And said, why are you asking me? I've never had one. Why would I die? And how many of you are told this right or told it's wrong by a man? It isn't that, sir. Isn't it ridiculous? The only person who has the right, as far as I'm concerned, to say it's, you know, right or wrong or whatever it is, is someone who's experienced that, who knows what it's all about, who's had to face a decision which is one of the toughest in a woman's life, if not the toughest. And they have to make a decision. They try and do the very best they can in the circumstances. It's never, ever taken lightly. And the consequences, as you know. Either way, consequences. And you bear those consequences. And what a man or religion or a lady should do is not to make it worse by layers of guilt, but to make it more easy with layers of understanding and compassion. We don't do guilt. In Buddhism, we do kindness and say, look, there's no way I could ever know what you've gone through unless I go to previous lies. But on this lie, there's no way I can feel what you're feeling. So all I can do. And all I should do. Is to give you that compassion and kindness. Whichever way you decide. I will always be your friend and always be there for you and to support you, never to condemn you. But you can see just how guilt makes everything so much more painful. So because we don't do guilt in Buddhism, sort of, you know, we don't feel guilty for these things. That's one of the reasons why I can fly around quite happily. There's not only that. It's the attitude which you have. You know when you have to do these things. One rule, which I always try and keep whenever I go travelling, is never, ever to look at my itinerary beyond the present day. Because if I look to these things and once I did that, look at all these scenes which I had to do, you know, from getting up early in the morning, go and give this talk to that person going on TV, going on radio, and just about midnight usually when you're finished. And if I looked upon it, I think that's impossible. You just can't do that. You just get tired out. You'll never be able to achieve, you know, that schedule. But when I didn't look at it, it just only got 24 hours a day. Every minute. Just a minute. You've got to be somewhere. You've got to be doing something. So I found out when I didn't look at the schedule, I stopped worrying about the future. We don't worry about the future. You don't put your mind away from the present moment. That's when you get stressed out and get tired. Who is actually doing all of these things. It's very easy. But thinking about it was the hard part. That's one of the basic teachings of Buddhism. If you don't know that teaching that's in my book, Opening the Door of Your Heart, and I'll tell that story in brief, it is a wonderful story. My teacher, Ajahn Chah, was building his hall after building the hall. It was a lot of earth left over in those days. Instead of using like a backhoe or so, an earth mover. It didn't need to have all that equipment in Thailand because they had the junior monks like me. So why waste money on a bulldozer? We didn't get 50 or 60 months pushing wheelbarrows. So after our one meal of the day, just one meal of the day, and it was just a very simple meal, some sticky rice and maybe a fish. Or as I said, sometimes a frog and a banana. Nothing really much to go on. And you. After that, attention said, we've got to move this earth. A huge amount of Earth. Yeah. It was three days of hard work for about nine weeks to finish about 9:00, 915, maybe 930 until about 10:00, because we used, um, lamps to push the earth at nighttime. No lunch, no dinner, no smoko. As in Australia, it was a full on. And then the next morning the same. And the next day for three days. There's one thing which made me got me through this. I had this immense faith and and a sense of adventure and joy. You're really doing something worthwhile in your life, you know, building a monastery. You know, I understood the law of karma enough that if you do something good, you're always going to get something wonderful back. So when we finished moving the Earth after three days, very, very tired, I thought, wonderful. Tomorrow I could wash some clothes, get very sweaty and dirty, have a good shower and, uh, have some meditation the following day. But that night, Ajahn Chah left for another monastery. And the following morning, after breakfast, the deputy abbot called us all together, and he said, I've been thinking about that pile of earth. It's in the wrong place. Why don't we move it over here? But he had a point. I could see what he meant. And again, I still had lots of faith. So for another three days, just on one meal a day, pushing wheelbarrows, shovelling dirt in a mosquito ridden, hot jungles of northeast Thailand. Oh, that was tough. But we finished six days of hard work. I think, oh, alas, I really needed to wash. I was thinking no. With all this pushing the barrows and all your clothes get soaked, you got no time to wash them. I thought I'll have a nice rest tomorrow morning. Have a nice, uh, uh, meditate, have a relax. Because, you know, you're very tired. Your muscles will stop. And that night, Ajahn Chah came back. And the following morning, he got all our monks together and said. I told you to put the earth over here. You put it over there. Move it. I often said that was the time when I lost my faith. Because these senior monks, they don't shovel earth or push a wheelbarrow. They just sit in their hearts talking to people and giving sermons like I'm doing now. And it's all right for them to sort of have all these great ideas and they don't have to do the work. It's just not on, and it's just not right. I got very angry. He had no choice. He had to push those down wheelbarrows. But when I did, that's when he started to swear, because that's the that's the English Australian way of doing things, isn't it? When or when things go wrong, you swear. But of course you swear entirely. Swear in English so the timelines can understand what you're saying. Only it doesn't quite work that way because they can see by your body language are upset. And that was when. This is the good karma from doing all this work for six days, I got a big pay payback. Because a monk came up to me. He saw I was very upset and angry and he said, pushing the wheelbarrow is easy. Thinking about it is the hard part. And wow, that was worth pushing wheelbarrows for 20 days because that that really just is just change of attitude. That just stops so many problems, not just pushing wheelbarrows and every other part of my life. It is so true. I understood what he said. Enough to stop thinking about it. Stop worrying about it, stop complaining. Just push me. I wasn't thinking about it. That wheelbarrow felt lighter and he had a lot of fun for three days with the monks. No pushing wheelbarrows, telling jokes and having a good time. Yeah, it was timing, but mentally he had a lot of fun and I learned from that experience. Now for three days we were finished and fortunately both the deputy and the abbot now agreed that was the right best for the earth. I was quite relieved at that, but I learned a great lesson from that. Whatever you have to do in life, thinking about it is hard. Not doing it is very easy. And every now and again you test yourself out. This last was it. During July you flew from Perth to Toronto to give some talks, and there was a very long flight and it was about 36 hours and that's it. I think one was 40 hours, the other 36 hours coming back because lots of connections. And when I was in Los Angeles airport, there was a bomb scare that was actually wonderful, having a bomb scare, because it's very boring going on this aircraft. We have a bomb scare and wow, wonderful. It wakes you up. It's better than a cup of coffee. And it was him. It got a lovely story for me, which I mentioned here at the time, because as I was going from one terminal, because the Canadian aircraft came in one time and had just to walk only a couple of hundred meters, I think the Singapore Airlines terminal. And as I was walking a police car, an LAPD police car in the movies came screaming down with its sirens flashing, and it was really exciting. And it screeched to a halt right in front of me. And I put on the brakes and went on halfway up the pavement and I thought, My God, they can arrest me! What have I done? Well, they weren't interested in me. Instead, these two cops came out and they didn't have guns. Had semi-automatic machine guns. I thought, wow, this is really interesting. So the doors flew open. I didn't bother to turn off the engine. I actually had to close the doors and I started running up the stairs. It was really exciting until they got to the first landing. And then they both of them stopped panting and heaving. They'd ran out of breath over the first flight of stairs because the real cops, not the ones in the movies, are so overweight and unfit that no way can they ever run after sort of a real criminal who goes to the gym. And it was so funny. All my fear, which was I stopped laughing at these cops because they were so out of fear. I think there are too many doughnuts. That's the trouble with LAPD. It is amusing. It's a wonderful little story. So. But when you actually started thinking about all the time you had to spend, it was impossible to do that. We only had one minute, every minute. So you're always in the present moment, just relaxing and just enjoying yourself. And, uh, that way you never felt so tired when you're traveling, whatever else you're doing. It's the mental energy which gets sapped. I know why it hurts. So just thinking about it. If I thought 36 hours flight on a plane, that's terrible. You don't think about it, you just do it. 36 hours goes fast. And the one thing I did find out many, many years ago, I think I was flying from Adelaide to Perth and, you know, instead of just looking at the magazines or whatever, I just sat down and just meditated for an hour and a half. And if you meditate when you are traveling, you've got nothing much else to do. So you meditate there. And I found out you get much less jet lag. You don't feel so tired. It's a great opportunity to do some meditation. I know some people keep telling me, oh, life is so busy, we don't have time to meditate for 36 hours. What a wonderful opportunity to give it some nice meditation. I remember some times I've gone into meditation where I've been on the aircraft. Trouble is, the flight attendants come up to afterwards and say, oh, you had a very lovely sleep. You were. So I wasn't asleep. I was meditating because they think you're sleeping. They said you can always sort of put the the chair back if you want. I said, I don't need a chair back. I'm meditating, so sometimes I don't understand. But one thing I did think about once in aircraft, if you did meditate sitting on the floor, you could actually get two layers of people instead of one. Thereby, you could actually get sort of four people in an aircraft and get much better profits. So one day I thought of starting a Buddha Air where we don't have any seats. Everybody sits on the ground with little cushions and zappers underneath. It will save a lot of money and get more people in. And you don't need in-flight entertainment because you just meditate while you're sort of going in there. So even a small plane, you get twice as many people in. You don't need any reason why you have to have these aisles is because people actually have to go back and forth serving you things, and that's really a waste of time. So make a lot of air cook about what was it, a couple price airlines, what they call cut price and what they call. Budget. Airlines. Budget. Airlines. I keep the beauty budget and add on the info Buddhist airlines. And that would mean you get more people in and because you're meditating, you know you're very calm. You don't need food or water. So that way, you know, on this lovely price, you just get into jhana when you sort of leave and come out when you get back again, rice and fresh. And that's really what I call in-flight entertainment. So who knows what day that might happen. But anyway, one thing I define when it's in the present moment and you're very peaceful, you don't think too much. There's no trouble, there's no problem at all. And even the person who asked that question about being sick, where I get sick on these airlines, maybe sick sort of beforehand, I mean, when I was in Sri Lanka, got a cough, but that was because I was with other monks in the car and they were all coughing. Although in the last trip, which I did, I had a very sick arm for a couple of days. But when I was in Jakarta there was such a big crowd and there was a new book of mine out. Don't worry, it was in Indonesian. And it was over that evening. I signed over 1000 books. I should have done that, but I was never thinking about 1000. I don't think about it. I just do it. Just sign a book and sign a book and sign a book. The next morning, I couldn't raise my arm. It was so stiff. I was very fortunate that there was. I saw a time out there, and they gave me this wonderful massage. And that night I went to sleep. And the following morning, the arm was completely back to normal again. I think it may not have been the massage. It may be because I got a sore arm from doing something which was good and worthwhile. That's the other thing which I found. If you're going on a sort of an aircraft and doing a lot of heavy work, but it's not really for a good cause, it's something sort of selfish or personal just for your own benefit. You don't get energy. You don't get peace. There's one thing, another thing I found whenever you're doing something for somebody else or, you know, for the monastery or for the Buddhist society, you find you get much more energy. I found this out again, going to stories of my early life as a man when we did it. Tough as a man. When you're training as a monk, it's not an easy thing. You have to be physically strong, mentally peaceful in order to survive. Because we only have three robes, the upper robe we have and one which we an outer robe and a lower robe. And to cover, like I said, you had to make your own robes and a white cloth which would slow and you'd die. And the dying process to dying the robes was using jackfruit wood. In Sri Lanka they used the same. When I went to Um Narayana and one of the other forest monasteries, just the same as we did so much commonality to the different countries with the forest tradition. So we had to take the wood, chop it up into little chips, pour water from the well, start the fire. There was no electricity. It was all just basic stuff. And boil this wouldn't he got the sap out. Concentrate that sap so you can dye your robes. And these three monks furious. Three monks were ordaining. And they all had to do all this within about 3 or 4 days. And they've been working for about 48 hours without any rest. No sleep. How to keep on doing this? Because it took that amount of time. Nothing really. Amnesty international should investigate some of these forest monasteries. But one evening, after the chanting and meditation, evening meditation, about 930 and I was tired, I had a lot of compassion for these young monks. I hadn't slept for two nights. So I went up to the dying and they said, come on, guys, you go and take a break. Go and take some sleep. And I was skilled enough. I'll look after the fire and the dye pot for you all night. And of course, I never sort of argued before I could even finish speaking. They were off because I was just so tired. We haven't slept for such a long time. It's very painful. So they went and had a good rest. And I worked all night. And at 3:00 in the morning when we would get up there and a girl went and they sort of came out saying, thank you, we had some rest. That's wonderful. Thank you so much. And I went to do the chanting and morning meditation. On that morning. I was not tired at all. I had so much energy. It was so weird not having slept all night and having worked really hard. And now you're meditating and you're perfectly bright and going on arms round afterwards, which we would do. Walking through the village, I was like running, jumping up and down. I had so much energy inside my body. It was so strange. I asked a senior monk at the time what was happening. It was like I was on speed or something. And he said, you got energy because you just sacrificed all night to help somebody else. That's the energy you get when you give, when you help, when you do something selfless. And that's what I've employed in my life. So if you're going on a long journey to help somebody else, you get huge amounts of energy coming up. It doesn't matter how tired you are. You may get up at 4:00 in the morning, which I was doing, and not going to bed till about 1130 or 12 some nights and just spending a lot of time with other people. It's really tough being a monk, because you go and give these big talks to 2 or 3000 people, and they sign books and take photographs and answer questions, and maybe they let you go about 11:00 and then somebody drives you back to where you're staying. But when they drive you back, that's their opportunity to ask you questions. They got you stuck in the car. That is a matter. They can ask whatever. But I know that when you do give for other people, you get energy back. So if I'm traveling, I'm working hard for bigger cause. You have huge amounts of energy. If I was doing it for myself. What I want, what I need. When you get tired, if you're going to be a high flyer and make sure it's for a service which is much bigger than you cause for a reason, which is really worthwhile in the world. And if you can identify such a core, such a reason for working hard, you'd be surprised how much energy you can call on karma. An instant result when you do something selfless and kind. That's one of the reasons why all these journeys. I have a great time going on there, but it's really impossible when I look at how much work is done and even my host said, come on out, every time you push in 60 part time, you slow down, you get energy, you get joy, you get a wonderful sense of inspiration doing these things. That's how you're a high flyer, because you've got good energy, because you've got positive mind. That's also why you don't get sick. And I was first year as a monk in Thailand. All the monks were getting sick with diarrhea especially, and all these other diseases, because it was really basic village food. And to give you an example of what we used to eat every day, I was cleaning up around our monastery kitchen and there was an earthen jar with rotten fish inside crawling with maggots. Because usually they they keep the fish in the winter and the rainy season, and they put it in a jar and it just put some plastic over the top of the jar. The rubber band. And keep it in there as a source of protein. In the dry weather when there's nothing to eat. That's how they keep the fish. However, this particular jar, the plastic had torn and the flies had gone inside and so it was crawling with maggots. So I picked it up and went to throw it away. At which point the headman of the village, who happened to be visiting that monastery at the time, who was the most educated and respected man in the whole village. Said, what are you doing? I said, look. It's gone off. It's gone in it. And he snatched the jar from me and said, that's extra protein. And the next day we had the same fish in our curry. And it was gross. Well, we had to do that. But nevertheless, no matter how gross it was. So have, you know, you really had energy and you never really thought about it, but nevertheless, many people got sick. I remember once all these people were getting sick, having diarrhea. I made a resolution for one year. I'm not going to get sick and people thought I was stupid. They said that you can't just decide not to get sick. I thought it was a wonderful experiment to do and I was a scientist. It's as powerful a solution of positive thinking. And it was for one year. I never got sick. And all these other monks would come in in the morning while I was on the toilet all night, or I had diarrhea. Oh, yeah. Me, I never made it to the toilet, said somebody else. And they were also complaining, looked at me and said I had a good night's sleep. I'm fine. Now you can ask how the monks were with me at the time and that's what happened. And it was not that I was physically robust, it was just a mental attitude. Now it is true. I'm sure doctors here and psychologists would actually say the mental attitude is very, very important. So if you are going to be a high flyer, you are going to do things, you are going to be around other people who are sick. Be careful of your mental attitude, because your mental attitude can either enhance your immune system or completely weaken it. You don't complain. You don't be afraid. That's one of the things I was never really a fearful person. I wasn't afraid of these things because you weren't afraid. You tended never to get those sicknesses. Even malaria that many malaria areas. And sometimes you think, who knows, maybe this mosquito might be the one with the malaria, but you can't tell. You know, they all are the same. They don't have a big M on their backs saying their malaria bite is okay. Come on, you're going to bite me anyway. Just get over and done with. And so you were kind to the mosquitoes. You never worried about them. You never got sick. So this was actually really weird where I found my own personal experience. So mental attitude is really important. So if you come to places like this and you meditate and get some positive counselling if you like, and how to keep a positive attitude now don't just keep thinking worrying about what you have to do. Just do it only one minute at a time. Don't send your mind off into the future. How much work is in front of you? Just what the work is you're doing right at this moment. So you need to think about. Make sure that this brick which you're laying now is good. This little sentence which you're composing in a letter right now, this sentence is okay. That's actually how we built up this Buddhist society in our monasteries. It literally has been one brick at a time. Just lay a brick and see what the next one has to go. Literally, that's what happens. So we plan too much in life. We tend to sort of get worried and afraid. We also just lose our perspective. And I've often mentioned here, where is your future made? Now when is the only time you can affect your future? Now, whenever you just waste time worrying about the future, you're neglecting the very place your future is being made. So right now you're making your peace, your health and prosperity. This is where it's happening. You don't pay attention to the place where things are happening. No wonder things don't go as well as they might. That's why when you're on a flight to the moment where you are, you're not sort of sending your mind to the destination or thinking how many hours to go. When are we going to get there? Or calling the flight attendant. Can you please ask the pilot to take a shortcut? I've got to get to my destination quicker. Could he put his foot down on the accelerator and speed up a bit? He can't do that. It's one of the nice things about being an aircraft. You're completely out of control. And that's one of the nice things I like. The series is sit back in that seat. You can do absolutely nothing. You can't get there faster or slower. That's why I like. It's like meditating. In meditation, you let go of all control. Nothing to do. Because if you try and make meditation happen, you just make problems for yourself. And it doesn't happen. But when you really let go, relax, then you can enjoy the fight. And meditation is like traveling on aircraft. All you need to do is get on your seat, your meditation cushion, your stool or your chair. Once you strap yourself in, then you take off into the nice meditations. You don't have to do anything, and every so often the flight attendant comes up to you. That's what it does to me. You want a cup of tea, sir? Who wants a breakfast, sir? Would you like a cup of coffee or a hot towel? And in meditation, it's just like someone comes up to you and said no. Do you want Janice to get out? I have some dinner today. Would you like insight? Yeah, I'll have some insight. What's, um, what's on the menu? Oh, we have meaning on the menu. Once returning, full enlightenment. You want full enlightenment today? Oh, yeah. Thank you very much. I'll do fine. And it's all brought to you and served to you. That's actually what happens in meditation. You never go and make peace happen. You never go running down the aisles clapping in the tent. Give me some peace. Give me some forgiveness. Give me some compassion. You can't do that. It all comes to you when you sit down, relax and let go. Which is what you do in an aircraft. That's why I often like the simile between meditation and aircrafts. So that's how you become a high flyer. Especially in meditation. But in meditation, you don't have in-flight service. I call it insight service. You sit there. That's not a bad joke. Why are people grody? And you're served is amazing insights. And you don't go searching for them. That's one of the big mistakes of people trying to be white. Don't go chasing wisdom. Be still. Be alert. And wisdom always comes to you. The classic spiritual truth. Don't go searching for wisdom or trying to think it out. When you're still you just things. They just come. And it's always the case. Flashes of insight. But only when you're still enough to listen. So this is actually how you become a successful high flyer, a peaceful, happy guy. And of course, also an aircraft is not just getting sick, you know, because of all the other stuff which is recycled through the, um, the air conditioning. I don't get sick on aircraft. It's not only that, it's also you got the good attitude, but, uh, and also being being in the present moment and being nice and peaceful, but also, can you just, uh, stay in this moment? I think the most important thing is learning how to be in the present moment, when you're flying in the aircraft and be very, uh, peaceful, uh, not worrying about things, not thinking too much and just relaxing, not getting tense and also not having too many expectations. Because just like in real life, the unexpected often happens. For example, one of our monks. Some of you may know him at Joanna D'Amour. He was flying from Adelaide to Perth. And when he came, when we met him at Perth Airport, he was smelling like a distillery. He smelt of alcohol, whisky. However, we questioned him about this because if they serve alcohol on aircraft, what have you been doing? And he said that as soon as he they took off from Adelaide. The person in the next seat was obviously very, very nervous. I started talking to him about how he was so afraid of flying. He was very, very scared and the only thing which would calm him down was a whisky. So as soon as he could, he ordered a whisky from the flight attendant who gave it to him, and he was drinking the whisky and talking to the monk, having another whisky, talking to the monk, having another whisky. Talking to the monk. And so just before they landed in Perth, he had whisky in his hand and it was turbulence. And the whisky went all over Argentina d'amour and sold his robes. And that's why he smelled like a like a pub when he came out of the aircraft. At least that was his. That was his excuse. That we believe him. He could walk in a straight line. But you do get these problems back by the aircraft, but sometimes also aircraft, and later they get delayed. And one of the things which I've noticed is this crazy. Why is that? Whenever there's a delay or a cancellation, that people get angry. I still remember I told this story actually, in Indonesia, because the last time I was going to Indonesia on the Garuda flight, it was delayed for 24 hours. And I remember when I got to the counter, they said, oh, it has been cancelled today for 24 hours. Okay, fine. And I sort of called up somebody. I was, can I use the phone and got a mobile dish or called out someone to to rescue me from the airport. There's no problem with the piano after me. He went up to the Countess Pagny, his fist on the table. You can't do this to me. I've got an important appointment. This one day off my holiday. I forget what he was saying, but he was very angry. And because he was angry. The plane never came any earlier. All this shouting did was gave him a sore throat and a sore hand. And to me, that's stupid. Of course, if he could shout and get the aircraft to come earlier, fine. But it didn't. And I figured out at the time this was the time when there was bird flu all over Indonesia. And Garuda was a bird. I thought I must have got bird flu. So he just left it like that. Because what it taught me is you can't control things that life happens in is unexpected. And it's only when people have these plans, plans which are fixed in concrete, you have to get there at a certain time. You have to go meet that particular aircraft to catch your flight. There's always another flight going next. It's never the end of the world. And these aircraft companies, they put you up in a nice hotel. Actually, that's the only time I was. Qantas was delayed once, but I was going somewhere about I'd get another 24 hours and I got to stay in the Perth Sheraton. The month as a great opportunity. Never been in there before. How can I ever stay in a Sheraton hotel? I've been in Perth and I was at a show. There was the Hyatt. It was the Hyatt, you know, in the sort of next the police station in East Perth. And because by the time they decided the play wasn't going to come, it was at 3:00 in the morning and I thought of they would would pay a taxi for me to come to Mara. I don't think I would be able to wake up the caretaker. No respect to the caretaker. Wasn't a pleasant caretaker, was one of the previous ones. They would wake up at 3:00 in the morning if they saw a monk banging on the door. So I decided free hotel. The Sheraton or the high end said, yeah, I'll take that. So I got to stay in the high. School for three. That was good fun. So when he sings, I don't get angry. I think it's a great opportunities and a nice, nice adventure. And that's what life is like, an adventure. So what I learned from travelling is you never know what's going to happen next. Completely unexpected. And because it's unexpected and you know it's going to be unexpected. You never get angry. A lot of anger comes when we get frustrated. And what is frustration anyway? Our expectations and plans don't work out. It's amazing just how expectations turn into demands, which lead to frustration and eventually to anger. When you don't have much plans, you don't expect much out of Qantas or out of Garuda. I'm just happy it land safely because some of them don't. I was in one of the aircraft I had to Indonesia, and the guy sitting next to me was I was reading a newspaper. Hey, look at this. What is it? Turkish airline crashes and splits in three. Thank you very much. Because we have a landed yet. Well, you don't get worried about this. Is that expected? So if you die anyway. And I keep on. If you haven't heard this one before. If you die in a plane crash, is that the wonderful way to go? Especially the best way of dying is in an aircraft explosion by a terrorist at 30,000ft. It is is the best way of going for three reason. The three benefits of dying at 30,000ft in a terrorist explosion. Number one instant cremation gratis. So those of you who had a mother or father die know how difficult it is to raising these things with the funeral directors? So much work and carriages and flowers and things, you have to worry about putting notices in the newspaper and finding a time at Karrakatta or Pinnaroo or the amount of the cremation. It's just such a hassle. Aircraft express is done all for you. Instant. Very efficient. Number two, the benefits of the target 30,000 in terrorist explosion is how much the cremations of funerals cost a huge amount of money. But if you die at 30,000ft, not only is it instant, but your family makes money out of your death because insurers, they give you a payout quite substantial, I think at least 10,000 bucks. I remember seeing that in the sort of the the Warsaw Convention or something. They got to pay at least 10,000. If you die soon, that is good money, especially in these days of economic crisis. But the best, the very, very best benefit of dying at 30,000ft in aircraft explosion is you're so close to heaven, it's easy to go the other way. The three benefits that die at 30,000ft. So you can see we have positive attitude like this. You don't get worried about things that expect it happens. You always make something good out of it every time that something's gone wrong in my plan. So you see other people's plans. You don't make it to the talk. On time of something goes light, the aircraft doesn't turn up or it something happens. I always find it really interesting. And one of the fun parts of life, when you experience things you never expected, you go to places you never dreamed of going, getting hijacked. Wow, where am I going to go today? So you can see like going in aircraft. You opened the unexpected. This should be just fly at night. So if you know how to have very little plans, you don't worry about being late or whatever. This is a story I think I've told here before. This I think this guy told me this in Thailand as an experience which changed his whole life. He was in Bombay. This was when it was Bombay, not Mumbai. And he got in a taxi to go to the airport. And I don't know where he was flying. And the taxi driver got lost. Now he expected the taxi drivers taxi to know the way. And that's why you get in the taxi. But this guy got completely lost. And as the minutes were going past. Where's the net? The airport is this way. No no no no. So that way. And the minutes were ticking by and he was really scared he was going to miss his plane. He had nothing. No other way to get there. He was in the taxi. And he was just hoping and praying his aircraft will be delayed, which is not quite a reasonable chance. But he got to Bombay airport. He saw his plane taking off. Stupid drive. It got really angry. The next minute, he saw the plane come down again. Crashed with no survivors. Imagine that this true story came and told me this. That completely changed his life. Today he was angry at the driver for being late, so he missed his flight. A minute later, he was thanking the driver for saving his life. That taxi had been on time. He'd have been dead. Things like that. The unexpected when he taught him the unexpected. Don't know what's going to happen next. So be open to the unexpected. Don't get angry when your plans go wrong. Sometimes it's a far better outcomes than if your plans went right. So this is as a Buddhist, as a spiritual person, you're open to the unexpected. You do have a few plans, but you don't keep them so firm and strict you can get angry and upset about them if they don't go right now. You can be a high flyer and go all over the world. You're late for this, too early for something else. But there's always opportunities. Unexpected things happen. Wonderful. So you can see that that type of attitude in high flying makes it easy to travel. You don't get tired, you don't get frustrated. And big cities or small cities. You know, who cares? They're all just good, fun traffic jams. You know, in Indonesia there's so much traffic, especially in Jakarta, it was getting jammed up. They're wonderful because they're going so fast. I can't appreciate the view. And it's my first time I've been there. Especially. I tell them if they get lost, that's even better because when you get lost, you know, you get to see some parts of the city which they never expected to take you to. But getting something is a wonderful way of touring around the sorts of streets which no one usually goes down. So whatever things happen, I always see the benefit, the positive in it, which is true. So these sorts of attitudes are what we mean by taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, the sangha, rather than plans and expectations. To me, the Buddha stands for peace. For me, time stands for wisdom. For me, Sanga stands for compassion, peace, wisdom and compassion. That's why I go for refuge, for peace, not for activity, anxiety and getting anger. That's not peaceful. I know that getting angry in an aircraft, travelling expectations, not fulfilled, whatever doesn't change anything. It just makes you mad literally and gets rid of your good health. Getting angry at people so you don't get angry. You respect peace. You remember the Buddha, the peaceful person and the wisdom. So great opportunities for learning about life. So already, you know, to spend 15 minutes giving a talk about flying an aircraft and how it taught me so much about moving Earth in a monastery, laboring how that taught me, not just helping other people, how that really changed my life, about how to give and get more energy, and how to sort of spend time in the moment and not sort of start complaining and and worrying. Doing it is easy. Thinking about it as a hard one. And that wisdom just changes your whole life. They do become a more peaceful, happy person because that's the job of wisdom. Wisdom is what solves problems. And if you think you're wise and is still getting angry, upset tends. That's not wisdom. That's just thoughts and opinions and ideas. You know it's wisdom because it makes you peaceful, because it does calm things, then it solves problems. That's why wisdom exists. That's its job. And lastly, to compassion. Because of the anger, the community of monks and nuns is supposed to be. They're supposed to be the the ethos being wise, compassionate, virtuous people. I always remember like the people, like my teacher is so compassionate and kind. Never criticizes you. Even I did some stupid, stupid, stupid things and I do stupid things. He just laughed. He thought it was so funny when Western monks were stupid. We gave him so much pleasure. And that's why I just compassion and kindness there instead of sort of getting angry and shouting at us. So compassion is something which is really important. I'm compassionate to Qantas and Singapore Airlines and Garuda and all these pilots and other people in compassion and kindness. So, you know, all these kids on the aircraft who keep screaming. Yeah. And you're just sitting right behind them. Yeah. That's what kids are like. Poor things having to go in that aircraft. They can't play around. Even more compassion to those poor mothers who have to deal with their screaming kids on an aircraft. No place to go. And compassion solves a problem. Do I take refuge when I'm going on an aircraft in in peace, wisdom and compassion? And that's just one example of what we mean by taking refuge. If you got cancer, would you take refuge when you got cancer? You take refuge in saying, please, I don't wanna die. Please, I don't want to die. So you go to the the Buddhist temple on Friday. You go to the Friday evening. You go to the Catholic Church on Saturday. The Protestant church on Sunday. Go to the synagogue on Monday just to make sure that somebody's got the right answer and works. They get rid of your cancer. There's no way you take refuge in praying to somebody to help you. You don't even take refuge. Too much love, even in medicine. You don't want to take refuge in peace, wisdom, and compassion. When you've got cancer, make yourself peaceful. Every doctor knows that the more peaceful you are, the more chance that cancer is of going into recession. If it doesn't go into recession, you die. You die wonderfully well, peacefully. Isn't that a wonderful thing to do? Wisdom. Understand what? What does cancer here for? Why? It's all received. Teach us something. The teachers know how to deal with our bodies. How to be more kind, relaxed. Look after them better. Teacher says you know that death happens. It's not a matter of how long you live, but the quality of your life is. People say I'm too young to die. It doesn't matter how young or old you are, but I always look for when I do. Funeral services is a quality of that person's life. Maybe only 15 years I've lived, but there's 15 years of life with the quality. And sometimes you see, like a 15 year old. Because of such a wonderful life, they've been a really inspiring person. Don't get sad of their death. And sometimes, like an eight year old who died. Never done anything for anybody that looked after themselves. Never really done any social service. Never really made an impression on their family. And that's sad. It doesn't matter how old you are when you die. It's how well you've lived. Makes me sad or happy when I see someone who has died. This is what wisdom means. And compassion. Be kind to yourself. Even if you're not wise, if you're stupid, you should be kind to your stupidity. You all do stupid things from time to time. And I do many, many stupid things. Sometimes I think probably sometimes, you know, people come up to me and say, do you remember me? And I sort of say, I remember you. Well, I get it wrong. Now you're the person, you know, the person I met in prison, wasn't it? I've never been a prison. What are you trying to insinuate of a bad person? Oh, there's that other guy is a big trouble. By getting people wrong. But they're actually kind of compassionate to yourself when you do stupid things. And also you're compassionate to other people in this stupid as well. And you're compassionate to your body and to the mind and to the whole world like kindness. I love taking refuge in kindness, which accepts people and the world as they are. There you go to all these different places in the world, whether it's to Indonesia or to Sri Lanka, to Thailand, to Singapore. And girls and boys, gays and prisoners. Just people never do stupid things, just like I do stupid things. But they're people and you can love them for just being humans. Animals, insects. There's mosquitoes being mosquitoes. Would you expect mosquitoes that are that hungry? So here you go. There has something to eat, mate. When you're compassionate like that, you have a much more wonderful life. So when you take refuge in peace, wisdom and compassion are three refuges and it gives it a meaning. Whatever you have to do in life. I always take that refuge. That's what a refuge means. It means a place of safety and security. Some place you can go when you're in trouble. A refuge. You've got women's refuges. They have men's refuges. Maybe have a monk refuge one day. I don't know, but we actually don't need a monk refuge because we've got meditation as my refuge. Peace, wisdom and compassion. No refuge in life. That's for me. The triple jam. That's why it's a jam. It's so valuable. You can't put a put a price in dollars on peace and wisdom, in real wisdom, which solves problems that is so valuable when you know how to live in life and people come up and they're sort of very sick, or you get sick and you're in problems or whatever, and you can be wise and compassionate, isn't it? When you see a compassionate person or compassionate act, everybody respects that. Everybody thinks, wow, what a beautiful thing to see. A real, true act of kindness. That's why we worship those things while there are refuges. And if we do that, we keep our precepts. I've only got two minutes left. I know that sometimes people think, oh, these Buddhists have five sets not to kill, to steal, commit adultery, lie or take alcohol and drugs. And they think, oh, five precepts is too much. So out of compassion, out of wisdom, wanting a peaceful life for people who can't keep five precepts. These days I teach people two precepts, nice and easy. Just keep two precepts, and those two precepts never do anything. My body's peace of mind, which harms another being, human or otherwise, don't do anything which harms others. That's precept number one. Precept number two. Never do anything. My body speaks my mind. Which harms yourself. So number two, don't give harm to yourself or to others in the world. And just keep those two precepts. So don't shout at your husband. Don't feel guilty at yourself and get angry at yourself. Look after your body. Give it a rest and decent food. Well, also be kind to your mind. Give it a break. Don't harm your body. Don't harm your mind. And don't harm others either. The two Buddhist precepts. And I never invented that. That was the Buddha's advice to his own son, Rahula. The two precepts for taking refuge in peace, wisdom, compassion, having two precepts, never harming yourself and others. Then you understand how you can be a high flyer. If if you never travel on an aircraft in your life. Still, whatever you have to do in this world, whatever you're called on to do. You can do it with fun, with joy, and also with peace in your heart. As combining the two talks How to Be a High Flyer and the meaning of the Triple Dare and the Two Great Precepts. Thank you for listening. Okay, there we go. Another day, another talk. Any questions? Any questions? Comments or complaints? Yeah, yeah. Sure. So I know people when they leave after an hour or so. Oh, yeah. But for those people who get drained for upset or angry, just make peace. Be quiet. And that's what sometimes happens. So sometimes people go crazy or they. This. This even happened just on one of the flights. Now what happens? People rushed to get on the aircraft first. It doesn't matter if they get on first. We all arrive at the same time. And when the plane lands. They rush to get off first. And this happened. I forget which city people have since been added. They rushed to the front of the aircraft to get off. And then? We disembarked to the rear rear exit. So they all crash to the front. And I just was waiting for everybody else could get out there and beat everybody. I loved it when those things happened. Just my sense of fear. All those people rushing off the front. You just wait there and you get out first. So that's that's like, you know, people just rushing off and doing things and after a while, stop rushing around. Just like life doesn't matter whether you sit in first class or you sit in the rear of the cabin, sometimes you know you will get to the destination at the same time. Occur and enjoy the right instead of just struggling. So. To be the best, to get there first and to be the top of the top of the whatever it is you're trying to be, I just stop all that business and take it easy. Much more fun. I had some awesome Buddha. I was dying ago and dying to be what day? Me. So I gotta, I gotta mana my song. The party piano. I adore a single song kind of mommy.