Is Nirvana Guaranteed?

Is Nibbana Guaranteed? Uh, some of you know who've been looking on the website to know that I've only just returned from Melbourne this morning, and, well, I went to Melbourne yesterday afternoon just for one night, and tomorrow I'm going to Sydney. But the reason I went to Melbourne yesterday was, uh, to deliver a talk, uh, the Buddhist Council of Victoria. I invited me to come and give a talk as part of a a big presentation on Buddhism. And the title of the talk they gave me, uh, to speak about was Is Nirvana Guaranteed? And I thought, oh, what a great title for a talk. So I thought I'd, uh, revisit that title this evening. Is Nirvana Guaranteed? Especially all of you who signed on as members of this Buddhist society. They should. We put a clause in the bottom of your membership form that if you don't become enlightened, uh, that you get your membership back. And it's a great little title because it also indicates some of the attitudes which people have in our modern world. And that's an attitude which even goes, uh, onto religious pursuits or the spiritual life. You say, well, if I'm going to commit to this life, I want something out of it. And when you start thinking of that sort of attitude that's going completely against, you know, what spiritual life is supposed to be about. And it reminds me of a very, very famous and very powerful saying of my teacher, Ajahn Chah, who once said, sort of, you don't meditate or you don't practice to get something that you meditate. You practice to get rid of things, to let go, not to attain. I always remember that saying, because that's probably the essence of a spiritual life is not to attain more things, not to get things, but actually to let go of things, to abandon things, to be more free from those possessions which usually dominate us. And understanding that you can see the point which the whole idea of that is nirvana guaranteed. So what do you want to get? What is this nirvana you really want? And so, so often it's just another little attainment, another little badge you can carry on you like some medal or some, um, special hat, which you get. Now I'm enlightened. Look at me. It's what we call in spiritual life, spiritual materialism. And it also reminded me of a question I was asked in Bali just over a week ago when I was there, and actually it was under a week ago. It was last Saturday. And, uh, I was asked a question there that why is it that sometimes this was in Indonesia, people go to all these temples and they still don't seem to be better people afterwards? There is a great question. Why is it that sometimes people can act all holy and spiritual and go to temples and churches and whatever and be so nice inside the compound, but once they go outside, they still argue with their wife, they still get upset in the traffic and they still become sort of miserable people. And uh, the monkey was uh, uh, with at the time a very great monk, venerable pioneer of Indonesia. He was gave a beautiful answer, and this counts from him, he said. But a lot of times people go to a church or they go to a temple wanting to get something out of it. Very often people go to churches or whatever, or even here, they want to do some praying so that they can, uh, fix up their marriage so that they can become more wealthy in their business, or so they can get rid of their cancers or whatever. And sometimes that we look upon spiritual life as another way of getting something. And he said that if you actually go into spirituality, wanted to get something out of it. That's the reason why it doesn't work. There's a very beautiful and very deep answer. So sometimes you ask yourself, what am I coming here for this evening? Were you trying to get out of this? And if you're trying to get something out of this, then it might be a good idea that we charge for it. Visa we don't charge for coming in here is because there is nothing to get out of here. It's a place to let go of things, to lose things. And when you understand that we understand the whole question is nirvana guaranteed? Again, it's just like a business deal. And that's not what spirituality truly is. The spirituality is actually learning to become more free, more peaceful, more empty. Just have less things bothering you in life. Now, when I talk about this, sometimes people get a bit afraid and they say, does that mean I can't have my house and my car? I've worked so hard for my superannuation fund and all these other things which I like in my house or in my life, and that's not what we mean at all by being free is being able just to, you know, have these things if they come along and literally being able to let them go, not being possessed by your possessions is what we mean by letting go. I know sometimes it's wonderful when I've seen people who haven't been possessed by their possessions. I remember as a again many years ago, going to visit the the teacher of A.J. Amato for my first couple of years helped me through monastic life as the first abbot of what Nana Chart and I chose to meet, and I was the abbot of the monasteries in England, a very great monk. And I remember once going to see his teacher, who was also a very famous monk in Thailand. But he was, you know, what we call the village monks. So the forest monks were very strict with our rules. We never accept any money because we don't accept or hold any money. It does mean that, you know, we can't have many possessions. But this monk had money and I thought, what a scallywag monk. He has money. He shouldn't have money. He should be strict like I was, because I was a very proud monk in those days. And sometimes pride leads to arrogance. And because you're arrogant, you tend to criticize others, not really understanding what they're doing or why they're doing it. But then he was just so kind to me. He sort of shared his breakfast with me, and then he said, do you want to come to the refugee camp? Because this was just after the time of the Vietnam War and as many Laotian refugees just close to his temple. And so I went there to visit. And sure, he had a wallet and it was full of cash, but he literally turned it upside down and emptied it and just gave it to the the poor refugees. And I thought, wow, what a wonderful thing that was. And it was a sincere gesture. It wasn't just doing it for me. He was just saying that if he has money, this is what money is there for, to bring happiness to others. He didn't need anything himself. He was well looked after, had a nice temple to stay in, enough food to eat enough rose, what more do to Mark need? And I was so inspired by that gesture that there was a man and the surface of things. He was breaking the rules by having money, but the way he was using it was so inspiring. And the way he never kept anything for himself, he just literally emptied a wallet, turned it outside coins as well. Okay, you're poor refugees. You need it more than I do. Please help yourselves. When I see things like that, I realize that what possessions are really there for. And if you can be like that with your possessions, so you can actually share them when somebody needs them and you're not possessed by them, which also means that you know that if you lose something, I never mind if you lose something. It's one less thing to carry. It's wonderful, actually, when you sort of go traveling. And again, you all know that I carry very few possessions with me on the aircraft. But sometimes when I've gone on these pilgrimages, on one occasion, the last time I think I went on pilgrimage to India, one of the people in my group, they lost their bags. There's always no bags. Get lost here and go there and go all over the place. I was very impressed with the fact that they said, oh, never mind, because they could do without their bags. So everybody else had to carry their bags, but they were free. And they borrowed, uh, you know, they borrowed, uh, a skirt from here or a blouse from there. And they did. Okay. And they were in India anyways, a poor country. And they were actually doing the the Indian thing, going around with few possessions. They had a bit more than a loin cloth, thank goodness, because they were a girl. But still they did very, very well and I was very impressed with them. I think the the baggage was eventually returned to them after, you know, many months around the world and eventually got back to them here in Perth. But the very fact that they could let go of their suitcase without really worrying about it showed to me that they weren't possessed by their possessions. No, they were allowed to to let go of things. Because it's true that when you talk about Nirvana, anything in this world is not guaranteed. It was always like, planes are late. No, people don't show up, let things go wrong. And again, I see too many people getting angry when things go wrong. And I think, what are you getting angry for? It's not really a wise thing to get angry at these things, because you get angry at a plane not taking off on time. But as much as you get angry, the plane doesn't take off any earlier. And I've often reflected the reason why people get angry and they suffer is because they asked from life something which life can never give. You know, life can't give you planes always taken off on time. They can't give you sort of a boss who is understanding at all times. My goodness, you're not understanding at all times. Why do you expect your boss to be different than you? You can't expect a wife is always in a good mood. No longer can you expect a husband you know is always there for you every moment of the day. As marriage counsellors say, if that's what you really want. Someone who's always entertaining, always there for you, and who never complains that you should marry a television because they're always there for you. They entertain you and they never complain back. But real people, this is what they're like. And real life is just what they like. And a lot of the time about wisdom is actually learning to understand what life is. So we never ask more than it can give us when we understand what it can give us and how much, then we understand what we can do, what our limitations are. And anger is always going way beyond limitations, and wanting the world to be something different than it can ever be. That's what these expectations are. And that's why that one of the things we let go of in coming to a spiritual path is this unrealistic expectations of ourselves and others and of life. Our life is what goes wrong. That's what life is. And we learn from those mistakes and it goes wrong again and everything. You fixed it up now and everything is going to be fine from here on in. It never is like that. You know, it's like my building a monastery. 23 years we've been down at serpentine, and people still ask, when is the monastery going to be finished? Hahaha. It's never finished. And when is your house work going to be finished? It's never finished. When are you going to retire? Sometimes you think 60 or 65. And then Mr. Castello comes along and says, no, 70 before you retire. But even if it is 70 when you retire, you still do a lot of work. You never really stop because you can't stop, because this is life. So sometimes we look upon our expectations and we think that, okay, we're going to be healthy, we're going to be fine. But you know what life is like sometimes, even if you do eat brown rice and you meditate and do yoga every day, you still die of a heart attack. Sometimes some people do. So you've got to be careful about the expectations of life and understand that one of the things we get rid of here is what we call ignorance or delusion and delusion. That's what delusion is not understanding the rules of the game. And so when we understand about the rules of the game here, we are actually to let go of things. And the most important thing to let go of again is not so much the physical possessions outside. Also, you know, the um, the stupidity about not understanding what life can give us. The most important thing of is this terrible ego thing. Now the me and look at me and how good I am and how wonderful I am, and just know how enlightened I am. And people who want to sort of have nirvana guaranteed, then they're never gonna get Nirvana. Because the whole idea, if I want something and I want to get this, I know certainly that sometimes people think that I've been coming to this temple now for sort of one year, and I'm still not enlightened. It doesn't work. And of course, I have missed the point here. Enlightenment is not something you get. Enlightenment is something which is a sign that you're disappearing. There was one great monk who came here many years ago. His name was Ananda mangala. He was a great monk because he had a great sort of, uh, CV. He started off his life as like the head of the Gandhi youth movement. And so he was very friendly with all of the the Gandhi family. And with Nero and all these other people. And then he decided to take a spiritual life and become a Trappist monk. And I had to become a Trappist monk. He didn't like that. He had to become a Buddhist monk. I remember him always telling the story when he told his superior, his abbot, in a Trappist monastery, that he wanted to become a Buddhist. They were very, very upset. And so they took all his theologians, cause he was a prominent person in that South Asia. And they tried to say, no, no, at least and at least be a Christian. Well, if you don't want to be a Christian, let's be a muslim. Let's believe in God. Don't be a Buddhist. But he eventually became a Buddhist and a very good Buddhist. And I remember him once telling me that he said when people asked him, are you enlightened yet? Are you enlightened yet? He would always answer, I'm not enlightened, but I'm highly eliminated. I thought, that's a wonderful answer. Not highly illuminated, but highly illuminated, which actually starts to understand what Nirvana really is. To see how much you can be eliminated. I mean, the ego and the sense of self being eliminated. So you're hardly there. So you don't really own anything, and you don't sort of worry what other people think about you, because there's no one there to actually to. Be teased, or to be insulted, or to be scolded, because sometimes you think if somebody scolds you or they tease you, or they try and irritate you, who are they trying to irritate? If they call you stupid or who's stupid is it my legs are stupid or my ears are stupid or my speech is stupid. Is it? My mind is stupid. And what is that? Mind you, try and ask a scientist what a mind is and they just go round and round in circles. So what actually is stupid? So after a time when people start to call you this, they call you stupid. They call you ugly. What do you mean is ugly? What part of me is ugly with my nose? Ugly? If your nose is like, you can get a nose transplant and make it. Or have a lift or whatever, because what is actually ugly? So a lot of the times when people scold you or they try and criticize you, there's a wonderful way of not getting angry. Is that what actually are they criticizing? And in the end, you know, there's always this ego. And the bigger the ego you have, the bigger the target you are. And so the people with big egos get very easy to be insulted and get upset so easily. The bigger your ego, the more of a target there is. When you've got a very, very small ego, when you're highly eliminated because you don't own anything, you don't care what other people think of you. That's why the monks go around in dresses and female clothes, look at us, and we don't care what other people think of us. And again, it's it's great all these stories we have about being a monk, especially in the early days here when people didn't know who you were. Still, even these days, just in the airports, when you go into the toilets and you sort of queue up at the urinals, sometimes I feel that people like looking at me either side. You know what? Do I have great fun with this? And the reason you have great fun is because if that people do criticise you, that you just enjoy it and you laugh with them because sometimes it is very, very funny. And so because of that, with little ego you have, you don't get offended, but instead you find fun about life. And that's one of the wonderful things whenever you make a mistake, being able to laugh when you make a mistake and often make many, many mistakes. I was telling people, I think in I think it was the last night in Melbourne, some of the great mistakes I made. I remember doing a marriage ceremony just next door in our community hall and it was this, you know, young Thai lady come in and next to this old Australian man. And I thought, oh, that's your your father in law is bringing you in. And of course, he sort of pulled her face and said, I'm not the father in law. I am the groom I'm marrying. It would have been a very embarrassing moment. But his daughter, who was there, who was much older than the bride, said, yeah, but you're old enough to be her grandfather. So she saved me. Thank goodness. But he wasn't happy with me. I don't think he gave much of a donation that day, but it was also, I remember doing a funeral service and when I was doing a funeral service, there was a Sri Lankan person who had died. And so I started off the funeral service by saying, just what a wonderful person. Uh, you know, the the couple there, I knew that what a wonderful person your mother was who just died. And as I was going on with the qualities of this couple's mother, and then they were looking a bit at me, a bit strange, but it was this old woman at the back who suddenly stood up and said, I'm not dead. It's my husband. It's their father. As I say, my mistake caused you a lot of happiness today as well. So instead of getting embarrassed when you're highly illuminated, you can laugh with everyone else and and share your stupidities and the mistakes we make in life. Isn't that give life this beautiful flavor of, you know, we're human and everybody's human. We all make mistakes and we can laugh at our mistakes. And that's the best part of life when things go wrong. If things always went right in life, there will be no humor. And so when we laugh, we're actually accepted. Yeah, I'm like that. You're like that. We're all like that. This is a commonality which brings us all together. Whether you're a muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist or whatever. We all make stupid mistakes. Sometimes I really like to see Osama bin laden fall down on a banana skin and have that on the Al Jazeera videos, and that would make him much more human. And I think you get much more support. But whatever happens that you understand that a lot of times that when we can laugh, it shows because we're not really possessing our egos, we're actually learning how to let go more, eliminate ourselves more. It's much more fun, and we can share our mistakes with other people and make them laugh as well, and therefore create more humor, more happiness in this world. And we don't have so much pride anymore. And the terrible thing about pride in our world and just, you know, who's the best and who's who's, uh, greater and who's more important. One of the strengths and also the weaknesses of Buddhism, the the weakness are the strength and weakness of Buddhism is that we have no hierarchy in the sense when the Buddha passed away, he said to everybody very clearly. So, you know, we can't forget this. He said, after I pass away, no, I will not have any more leaders after me. I won't institute a whole hierarchy of head Buddhists in the world. No popes, no archbishops, no ayatollahs. Instead, we'll just have the teachings that will be your leader from here on in. And that's a very powerful teaching. It also meant that, you know, there is no overarching authority over myself, over the Buddhist society of West Australia, or over any body. Every community is actually completely independent. We have our teachings, you know, the teachings of Buddhism, of truth, of kindness, compassion. That's our teachers. So know who's the pope of Buddhism? Compassion is a pope, not a person, but a principle which is great, which means we don't have those hierarchies which actually encourage like egos and pride and trying to get on in the world. But the weakness is, though, that we don't it's very hard to find a common voice, or if a person find out what actually is Buddhism, teach what's Buddhism's view on the war in Iraq or whatever, because we don't have the hierarchy or the organization to actually to give that unified voice, which is a weakness, but it's also a strength, because how can you have a unified voice on so many things which are so complex in their nature? And sometimes a unified voice, or one particular principle is just a gross generalization which misses so much. So sometimes it's wonderful having this. But the best part about it is that, you know, you're always taken down to sort of a lower level and, you know, you can't become a big ego in this Buddhism. You can see, even though I'm a very senior monk now, you can't tell the difference between my robes and the robe of the monk sitting next to me. So sometimes people don't know who you are. I've often told that story about her that I also helped working when I possibly can. And I remember once helping mixing concrete at a building site in serpentine when we were doing some work. And after mixing the concrete, you know, you get very, very dirty and stained by the concrete. And that was the right mess. And this Sri Lankan lady who was also Lankan, she came in a very expensive sari. She was obviously an upper class Sri Lankan. She came to visit the monastery and I just happened to pass by. So she said, I've come to see the abbot, Ajahn Brahm. Where is she? And thinking very quickly I said, what if you go up to the dining room there? He'll probably be there in about 10 or 15 minutes. Thank you very much. And sure enough that I very quickly went to my room, had a shower, changed my robes and looked respectable for a change. And of course, when I went in there, I talked to her and she was very impressed. And at the end, before she left, she said, I'm really impressed. This is a really nice monastery and you know that. You set it up very, very well and obviously you're a very, very good monk. But if you don't mind me saying, she said, I think you should talk to some of your monks, because I saw one who's very, very badly dressed. And that's not a very good reflection on Buddhism. And I said, okay, Madame, I'll talk to him later. And I did. I too thought to myself. But you, sir, who is the real Jedburgh? The sloppy guy who's just building things and getting, you know, mixed in with other people. So just because you're the abbot doesn't mean you. You can't get your hands dirty. You can't sort of, you know, mess, mess around with your other monks or you mess around with other people. So this is actually part of our ethos here, just actually to lower the pride so we can actually let go of things. But by lowering the pride, it's not sort of going to the point of thinking that one is awful or terrible or one is lower than other people, because sometimes that's almost like reverse pride, you know, just the the lack of self esteem thinking one is the worst, the worthless, the worst of the worse. And that's a big problem in our modern world, because sometimes the way we are always again put down and criticize, sometimes our ego gets so confused that sometimes we think we're actually hopeless. And that's not what I mean about, you know, letting go of things. It's like it doesn't mean like letting go of all your physical possessions. So, you know, you live under the bridge. You know, you keep your houses. That's not what I mean by letting go. Sometimes people are crazy that way. John Brown says letting go so they throw away their house. They throw away everything. And again, they live in the park. That's not what letting go means. That's, you know, stupidity that's letting go of your intelligence. But as well as that, sometimes people think letting go of pride means having nothing at all and thinking one is, you know, the worst of the worst, the lowest of the low. That's not what it means either. It means not measuring yourself. Not the highest, not the lowest, not even the middle. Because you don't measure yourself when you don't measure yourself. It's a wonderful. When you don't compare yourself with other people, then you are not subject to other people's, um, praise and blame as a cue as an indication of where you stand. So that's the problem with many people in our world, which is so sensitive to what other people think of us, because that's the way we measure where we are in our society or in our office or in our family. Now what our hierarchy is. And we get so sensitive just to the the praise and blame the accolades or the putdowns of others. This is actually what controls most of us in our life. We seek for other people's, um, praise or measurements, you know, to see where we are. When I say letting go of the self, it means we don't. We're not nowhere when we're just aren't there. So we're eliminated. So it doesn't matter where we are in the scale of like intelligence or not intelligence. Know that old trick which I say about, uh, just how people are, uh, not wise or not accepting of, say, things like intelligence when I ask people to put your hand up, if you think you're above average intelligence now, you won't put your hand up here because many of you have heard this trick before. But I'm sure that maybe about 7,080% of you, if you're not 90% of people in this room, all think they're above average intelligence. Only 50% of you are above average intelligence. That's what average intelligence means. And everyone thinks of above average intelligence because that's just conceit and pride. So it's amazing just how why do we want to be above average intelligence now? Because that somehow or other that ego thinks that we're a great failure and it's terrible to be a failure. Why does it really matter? You know, if you do lose your job or if you do stuff up, if you do make a mess of things, why are we so afraid of what we think is failure in life? And it's all because of just. We accept what other people say and think. Accept other people's measurements of what? Successful in life. Because when I first came here, many, many people, they looked at me and said, why don't you get a better job or get any job, you loser. They thought that banks were losers. That fair enough. We didn't have any sort of employment. I still got a health care card. So, I mean, that's part of being a loser in our society. I'm sure I could actually qualify for sort of dole payment, but I'd have to work for the dole. I suppose this is work. I'm not quite sure how it works, but never mind. I'm still very, very, very poor. And look at me. Got no sort of, uh, got nothing for my future. I've got no investments, no property, no superannuation. A Buddhist, a site of WA does not pay superannuation into fund for their monks. The tight fisted. No good for this society. So I've got no security at all so that people would think. Wow, you are a loser all this life and you've got nothing to show for your life. But we look at things in a different way that know your physical security. What you have outside has nothing to do. You know, with success in life or with happiness in life. And this is actually what we really mean by Nirvana. Like his happiness, you know, the inner success, the inner peace, the inner sense of freedom and satisfaction. When you understand what nirvana is, you understand it's not something you can actually guarantee. Well, you can say that if you learn how to let go more and more, meditate just to be peaceful, to be happy, to be wise, not to be so demanding in life. But I don't mean to go to the other extreme of not even trying at all or doing anything in life. I told last, not Wednesday, and I talk in my monastery the story about this really, really, really lazy guy. Who would could never get a job because he was just too lazy. And his friends sort of, uh, came together and they tried to think, how can we help our mate? And one of them had a friend who was working in a Honda restaurant. So we gave you a job as a waiter. It's easier to be a waiter in a restaurant. You don't have to have any degrees. You just go there in the morning and you ask what people want. You go and take it to them. You don't have to learn how to cook. You just need how to carry food. Surely you can do that and you can get a few tips. It might be a good little earner for you and you go home afterwards. You've got no worries. You don't have to think about the work. It's no stress being a waiter. But he only lasted a morning and he had to give it up. And he said, why did he give it up? He said it was so much torture for me. Why was it torture for you? Look, I had to see all these people eating and I couldn't eat myself. Oh my goodness, I said. So. I talked to the owner of the restaurant as a friend. So out of compassion, I said, well, you can be the cashier because it's screened. You won't even see the food, and all you need to do is to take the money, make sure it's the correct according to the bill and give the receipt. You won't see food and it's nice and easy, but he only lasted half a day with that job as well. When I asked him why, he said, oh, I was seeing all this money and counting it. None of it was mine. That was torture. So how can we find a job for someone like that? And finally, if someone has some contacts in the in the local council. There wasn't Mr. Burke, but they managed to get him a job as a cemetery attendant. And all you needed to do was to sit in this little booth outside the cemetery to make sure that, no, no, people went in to desecrate or destroy the cemetery. And how can that be a difficult job? Yes. It's hard to sit there. If anyone comes in who's, you know, messing around, you'd have to stop them yourself. Just call the police or the security and they will stop them. You just need to sit there and just watch. Surely you can do that. Job only lasted half a day in that job as well. When I asked him why, what's wrong with that? He said, well, I spent all those hours looking at all those people laying down and I couldn't lay down. I had to be on the ship. Now that's what you call real laziness. And that's not what we mean by letting go in sort of this Dharma. It means you still put forth effort and put effort into your work in life, but you don't ask too much for the result. Sometimes you just work just for the sake of fun because it is joyful. You know, I say I work really, really hard. I just, uh, I went to Melbourne on Thursday. I was actually only just coming back from Indonesia, which was actually just coming back from Sri Lanka. And then sort of, uh, last yesterday. Yeah. I don't know what day it is this Friday today isn't it. Yeah. Friday night talk. It must be Friday. I left on Thursday to give a talk on Thursday night in Melbourne. Came back this morning. And tomorrow morning I go to Sydney to give a talk. So, you know, I just, uh, people ask me sort of, you know, where do you live? And I say, actually, an aircraft that's already got forest monks, you've got city monks, you've got aircraft monks, and I'm an aircraft, so I work really hard, but I really enjoy it. And so that you can actually work hard. But you do it just for the fun of things and any material things which come back. Officers of rank I don't care about those material things which come back. Usually give them away anyway, but you do it just for fun. And it's wonderful when you're motivated, when your passion for life is actually for the joy of just doing it, you see its intrinsic worth. And of course, you know, the part of that has to be looking after your family, getting the money to survive, etc. and so some of it I have to work, you know, look after, make sure the finances are okay for our monasteries and our retreat centers and things. But that's not the main reason why I do things is the main reason is for the sheer fun of it. And that's the, the, uh, the most important motivation. So when we're talking about letting go of things is a way to get to Nirvana, and that's the whole part eliminate oneself. It just means eliminating the ego, not eliminating the passion, not eliminating just the the motivation. But it's not coming from the motivation of a self. And look at me and how great I am. Type of motivation. And it becomes much more powerful when the passion is not coming from a sense of me, but it's coming from compassion. And when you talk about being passionate with whatever you do, I mean adding that calm in front of it to compassionate. That's a huge motivational force. So one really works hard out of compassion, you know, for all beings that include yourself and your family and the society and my goodness, you can't get a stronger motivating force than that. But it's not coming from an ego anymore. So when we talk about Nirvana being a state of letting go eliminated, does it mean being a lazy state where you don't do anything? You know, it's a passion not coming from an ego, a self and an I comes from the compassion. You know, just seeing the needs of the moment for all beings. The thing is, you don't stand aside anymore. You're part of things. So often in life, we think we almost put ourselves aside or we're pushed aside and we're separated. When we're sort of separated, we feel so alone. We feel so rejected. We're not part of things. And of course, that's a huge amount of suffering in life. And that actually makes our ego even stronger. Even though it's wounded, it still makes it's a meeting. So the wonderful way of actually overcoming all of those problems, you know, is actually seem you can eliminate yourself more and more and more, not worry about things so much, not worrying about where you stand, but more worrying about where we stand, making it more and more and more of an US thing in life. As I often heard me say when we talk about a marriage or a relationship, and again, it was I even said this. I was pushing my luck a bit. When I was in Bali, I was invited to the a wedding ceremony. It was actually on the TV afterwards because it was a very prominent person who was one of the ministers who happened to be a Buddhist, and he was a former head of the, the, the police force in Bali. He was actually head of the police force in the first Bali bombings. And his son was getting married to another, uh, Buddhist girl. And I just happened to be there. So they asked me to give the blessing. And I just told them a couple of them there they were sitting there in front of the TV cameras, and I said, from now on, looking at the boy, you should never think of yourself again. He said, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I looked at her. I should never think of yourself again. And she smiles sweetly in love. And I said to her, and you should never think of him either. Then she started to get worried and I said to him, you shouldn't think of her. And it's great when you're teaching actually to get people confused. It's a great teaching trick because when you're confused, that's when you've got people's attention and their minds open. If you always go down the same road which people are used to, they fall asleep. Yeah, we know that story. We know where it's leading. We know how it works out so we don't have to pay attention. But when you say something which is just now, um, off the wall a bit, sort of, you know, skewed, that's when people think, ah, this is interesting. You've got people's attention. And that's when I sort of hit them with it's don't think of him, don't think of yourself, don't think of her. Think of us. It's an obvious thing in a marriage has to be us, not individuals. And again, if you just think of your partner, you're missing the point. If you're just thinking of yourself, you're being selfish. It always has to be us. And that's in a marriage. And it makes a marriage much, much more easy. Or any relationship we always think of as not me, not them, as we're in it together, or in a sort of a committee like of a Buddhist society. It's not the president, it's not the spiritual dictator, which is me, not dictator director. This is always hours because we bounce off each other and we're in it together. And it's not even like a Buddhist society. It's all us in here or in business. It's always in us. I went there to get that attitude again. We disappear. It's another way of letting go and another way of getting closer to Nirvana and understanding that it's guaranteed in the sense when you disappear and give up all those, you know, me and what I want or what I need or what I have to have, and it becomes an US business. We're getting far, far closer now to enlightenment, to understanding what Dharma is, what truth is, what the path to freedom is. And that gives us compassion because compassion is towards us. Pride is towards me. Hatred is towards them. But when it's ours, how can you hate us? You know there's no sort of locus for hatred then. Because now I'm involved in this. You can't hate or get angry at us, or it has to be them where you separate out. And actually, no, their pride always has to be me. Where you separate yourself out from the community. But when it's all us together, where can pride and where can hatred actually live? It's gone. It's compassion now and that starts to motivate you. And when you have to have this motivation, there's no like fear of failure. There's no overconfidence. You know, what actually confidence means is actually faith in that compassion, trusting in that compassion. Because when we have what is lack of confidence anyway, it's actually when we separated ourselves out and think we don't fit or we're not sort of performing or we can't perform. And again, it's just it's not looking at the big picture. It's separating yourself out from the big us. And then there's no compassion left because it's just me and my problems and my difficulties are my performance. Anyone knows has any sort of business. And this is the monastery business we call like monk business, not monkey business. Monk business and the monk business. You know how else has to be sort of togetherness? That's why we have a community. And that's where the whole thing works. You know, we sort of, you know, bounce off each other. And sometimes that happens in a family as well, bouncing off each other, but in a different meaning. If you're thinking, you understand fish bouncing off each other. But anyway, hope that never happens. But anyway, the way we have the bouncing off each other in the metaphorical sense, not the physical sense, it means that we can have like the sense of us and the compassion that motivates us. It's not what's best for me or what's best for you. It's always what's best for us. And that's the passion which really gets you working hard towards the betterment of society. So Nirvana now is not sort of like a selfish thing. It's not sort of a you thing. It's always an US thing. In other words, we have to be eliminated. Eliminated our separateness and sense of me as apart from you. And that means that we never feel that we can't do things. No, I can't do things. I remember that book, which Daniel Goleman did about emotional intelligence, where he found out that, you know, your individual scores at school or university or even your IQ, you know, didn't make any difference at all to your success in life. Now, do you remember that old joke about IQ? This came from that Vietnamese Australian, uh, comic. He's a great little joke about this Vietnamese kid who came home from school. He was a refugee kid, and he came home from school one day and he asked his daddy, daddy, daddy, what does IQ mean? And the daddy said, well, that's like a measure of your intelligence. If you got an IQ of 120, you do very well in life and maybe even go to university. IQ of 140. You're a genius. Most of us have a high IQ of 100. That's the average IQ of 80. You know, you have a difficult time IQ of 60. You're probably so stupid, you can't even tie up your shoelaces. And the little Vietnamese boy said, what does that mean? Is that the reason why most Australians were thongs? Now that was I didn't tell that joke. That was from a Vietnamese guy. But it was a good funny joke. And obviously the if you've got an ego, you're now offended if you're straight, but if you think, oh, you can laugh at yourself. And it said us, we could always join in. The joke is a very funny joke and I wear thongs anyway, so monks wear thongs. So all right, going back to sort of the sense of like ego and sort of like IQ and Daniel Goleman, what he actually showed was that the IQ was no measure of success, but he's called like an IQ, emotional intelligence. And what emotional intelligence meant was the ability actually to form relationships with other people, know friendships, comradeship, companionship, because he found all the really, really successful people which he surveyed were the ones who, if they did know it themselves, they could always ask somebody else, a friend. They could network. And if they were in any difficulty themselves. They always had many other people friends around who could also look after them. It was those social networks and the ability to create those social networks, he said, was a key to success. And this was actually in business and innovation, everything, he said. Which ability to network and a network meant emotional intelligence, being able to relate to another person. In other words, it could be an us sing and know how an US thing works. Not a me, not a them, but always the other thing. And that's what is compassion. And so as we develop the other thing more and more, and that the relationships which we form in life between our friends, our comrades, you know, this is why we've got a strong Buddhist society here, because over those years, you know yourself with the monks or with each other and with the nuns, you form this tremendous networks of relationships, which is great. So, you know, when somebody dies, you know, neither can monks or your friends can support you. It's a wonderful thing to have that network, which means that you never get so far down in life. And the same if you're poor of networking with your business. Finding some new avenues to to work in. This is actually where we have the emotional intelligence, the ability to network. The other thing, because we know it's always better for the whole country, for the whole world, if we can work together for a common cause. So of course, all of the problems in our world, whether it's the Tamil Tigers against the Sinhalese government or the Al Qaeda against Mr. Bush or whoever it is against each other, it's always me against them never realizing that us is the most important word. So it's our pride. Who's got the best religion? Who's got the best footy team? Who's got the best cricket team, who's got the best whatever else, who's got who? Which is the best temple? The best Buddhist monastery in the whole of Perth. Who's the best? Well, those sorts of thing. That's always the main thing. They always get problems there. But we have the odd side here. Then that focus, that way of looking at life. That's where compassion, the passion of Cummins coming together now, the passion for us, for the community and for the relationship, for the family, for the community, for the society, for the nation, for the world. That's what compassion is, that passionate action for the community. And when we understand that, we understand that just as Nirvana is not being lazy. Some people think that, oh, Buddhist monks, they just sit in a forest all day meditating, having wonderful time, staring at the navel, doing, you know, nothing at all for other people. Well, as you see, there's the, uh, the original idea of what people thought Buddhists were just like dropouts. You know, they're having a great time for themselves, but, you know, doing nothing for other people. But obviously, you've seen these monks and nuns here. We do a huge amount for others, and that's natural. It has to be that way. We're not special, and that's just what our life should be. Sometimes with that common, uh, very common. Unfortunately, these days, uh, problem with depression. There's many, many ways of dealing with depression. I've talked about many of them, you know, here. But one way, which I thought was a brilliant solution was actually to do some sort of social service, no matter how depressed you are, just gonna say visit some old people have got. No one looking after them. Just even last night, somebody was telling me a kid maybe about 20, 22. And this when he was at school, his mother was telling me while he was at school, uh, what part of his course was just go visit an old people's home just to be friendly to some of the the people in the nursing homes. And he was just so shocked that there was some people there who have no one visit them at all. And last, these three just got some small Easter eggs. Just those tiny ones just to give out to all the the elderly people in one of these nursing homes. And that was the only Easter eggs they got from anywhere. And they loved him so much. And the little Easter egg, he couldn't believe just how much love and, uh, thanks he got for a small Easter egg and how much joy he got, how much inspiration he got from just going to places like that. It's wonderful. If anyone is feeling down, don't just think it's a me problem. It's a nice problem. So maybe just go and take yourself to a hospital and just volunteer to mop the floors or do some sort of community service. And then you realize it's not me. It always was as. And with that, as you get this huge boost of energy, you're contributing to the US. And that way some of the depression which is just focusing on me. Me me me me me me all the time as natural. I'm not trying to sort of criticize this. This is just what happens when one gets depressed. There's too much inside. I'm taking you outside to a group, a relationship, a help relationship. You always think for any do any sort of community service, you're helping other people. And of course, you all know that when you don't help other people, you get far, far, far more back from those people you're supposed to be helping. And after a while, you go to this place and think, oh my goodness, those people are helping me. I'm not helping them. I'm sort of, uh, sponging off them. I'm sponging off all their kindness and their time. That's what's most important to do to have those relationships. So it's a great way of overcoming depression, actually, just to do more social service. When you understand that, you understand just how the ice business and the compassion which always comes from us, not just from me. It's part of the path to nirvana. It's an important part. And then that that selflessness, the abandoning of yourself that gives you the not confidence in me, but just the compassion, the confidence in us where we can know how to work together. We're not worried about what other people say about us because we're not in the picture. No, it's always us. It's the relationship. Why are they saying that? You know me. It's how we're relating together that's the problem. So we don't care about ourselves. We don't care about them. We just care about the relationship and how it all works. That's where the compassion lies. We put this beautiful joy, compassion, effort to try and make things better between us. Not for them, not familiar, but always for the community, whatever that community happens to be. And that's where this incredible, powerful force of growth, goodness, happiness, development and real development starts to occur. Not only do we not have any problems with lack of confidence or overconfidence. Not only do we have no problems with understanding what success is in life. Not only do we have no problems understanding what happiness is, and we're very strong on working hard, but we're working hard in the right areas. Sometimes we talk about development of our world. We wonder how much do we want to develop, how big do the towers have to be? How wide the roads? Just how much more technology do we need on our TVs and our computers? Is that where the effort should go? Or is it efforts to be go on community on the as the compassion, the passion for the community. When we understand that, we understand the path towards a nirvana, a happiness, if you understand what the path is, then yet we understand that that's going to be the cause which gives the result, and the result has to be guaranteed. Not because of some lawyer signs a document. We understand just. This is just the nature of things. Cause and effect. What goes up, goes down the laws of the world. And that's actually one of the meanings of the word dharma. Dharma means like the law. The way it works. Now, the truth is the cause and effect relationship. Just like the laws of science. Just the laws of life. That's the meaning of dharma. I understand those laws of life. We don't ask for life, something which it can't give us. But we understand how life works and we never get disappointed. Then you understand exactly what's going on and how to work with life and give that passion to the community, to the relationships, to life. And there's always going to be success and happiness. And the meaning of nirvana, which I the best meaning of. From the word of the Buddha himself. He said that Nirvana is the ultimate happiness. So the more one follows the path of Dharma and understands and lives accordingly, the more that happiness grows and grows and grows as the path Nibbana. Into ultimate happiness. So this is actually how one understands that, that type of compassion looking at us. Not me. No ego, no self. This is a way that we develop the ultimate happiness. And it's not just happiness for myself either. It's happiness always for us. You can't disassociate yourself. So this is the answer to the question is Nirvana guaranteed? It wasn't actually a good question in a sense, not a question which has an answer yes or no. But like many questions, are not there to get an answer there. There to actually to allow you to investigate deeper. Just the sorts of ideas which such a question generates inside of us. And from a simple question like that, we can explore very, very deeply into the nature of life how to overcome depression, how to have more happiness in life and more progress, less ego, more confidence, more passion, less laziness. So a simple question is never really meant to generate an answer is there to generate more understanding. So thank you for listening.