Just Injustice

Just Injustice by Ajahn Brahm It's always a risk when I give a talk on a subject, which someone just tells me one minute before coming in here. But it's also more interesting for me, if you can imagine, I've been in person for 22 years or more, roughly about 22 years. And so I've taught on every subject I can think of in 22 years. So it's wonderful when someone gives me a subject which I haven't thought of yet. And even though it's completely unprepared, there is the underlying themes of Buddhism which you can apply to these interesting questions to actually to bring out some themes which other people don't bring out. The question which somebody asked me just a minute before I walked in here for the meditation, was to please explain the Buddhist response to social injustice and other injustices in the world. And how should you, if you are a Buddhist, respond now to such things as wars, exploitation, paedophilia, domestic abuse, economic abuse, or whatever else there is, which is a perceived to be an injustice, and it's sometimes something which concerns people. What should you do as a Buddhist? So that's the topic of this talk this evening, but I did I say that I was going to talk a little bit at the beginning about the injustice of my trip to Bali last week, because what I was in was only one night. It was a lot of suffering for me. It was some of the most. Dukkha. There's a party where for suffering, which I've had in a long while. And the reason was, was that I was giving a talk in Bali and had a sister one night. But the people were so kind. They found a Buddhist who owned a resort by the beach in Bali. So they put me up overnight in this this cottage on this five there was a best cottage in the whole five star retreat next to the beach. So there I was, a monk with my own private swimming pool. Which I could not use. All the suffering there in my well-appointed bathroom was a spa bath, a Jacuzzi which I could not use. And then there was a big plasma screen TV. Which I could not turn on. And this is wonderful beach. Just within no one minute walking distance of my door, which I couldn't go to. Oh, it was so much suffering, putting a monk in such luxury. And it was so unjust that I had the chance that I couldn't enjoy it. When you don't have the chance and you wouldn't enjoy it, I'm sure. But I'm used to such suffering as a monk. For killing someone that was only just a bit of fun and games to start off the talk, just to get you interested. But the more serious topics are because that's only just a tiny little thing. There are some injustices in this world which are far more serious than a monk not being able to enjoy the swimming pool, the jacuzzi, or the plasma screen TV. Because of his rules, there are far more difficult things which we see either on the media or which we experience in our own lives, and sometimes they hurt us very deeply and we think this is unjust. What should we as a Buddhist do about this? One of the first things I will mention is that sometimes we have to be very careful of understanding Buddhism properly. Sure, the Buddha actually said that, you know, we do have this first noble truth that life is not perfect and never will be perfect, which is why called life is suffering. And there is an essential, um, lack of perfection in the human existence. This is because of the nature of human beings who have like, desire, greed, uh, ill will and anger. That is part of being born as a human being, that injustice will exist. However, some people stop there and think that, okay, the life is suffering. People have just got to accept it. Therefore, we should do nothing. But of course, that is completely misrepresenting the Buddhist attitude. Sure there is the first noble truth of life is suffering. But there's the other three noble truths as well to understand why. And there is an end of suffering and the way leading to the end of suffering, and to put forth right effort to lessen the suffering in the world. And also listen your own personal suffering. So, sure, we can accept that this is the way things are. But it also is incumbent on us to try and do something, if at all possible. So as a Buddhist, it's not that we just sit there and meditate and say, May all beings be happy and well. It means when we get out of the meditation, we try and make that wish a reality by seeing how in our lives we can increase the well-being of other beings to lessen their suffering in whatever ways we possibly can. But however, some people go too far on that direction just thinking to try and help all other beings without understanding just the full picture of what is going on. And one of the first things which I want to bring out here is what I call sometimes the misperception of injustice. Because a lot of times we think it's unjust, it's unjust, it's unjust. Without seeing the bigger picture. And very often, what at first sight you think is an injustice. When you see the bigger picture, it is quite just. And the classic story to actually to illustrate this is one of the stories in my book. And it was a story of this prisoner who I've been teaching meditation to for many months. And after one class he asked for a personal, private interview, which I gladly gave him, and at his private audience with me, he sort of told me that the crime for which he'd been put in jail for he did not commit. He did not do that robbery. He was innocent, he said to me. And he added that agenda. I know that all prisoners in this jail are big liars, and I lie as well. But I would not lie to you. Now, please. Honestly, I didn't do that crime. And the way he said it and the situation, which he said it. I believed him that there was an injustice. Someone who'd been put in prison for a crime he didn't do. And I'd been visiting prison long enough to know that the ability for the prisoners to use the telephone to contact lawyers to sign, right. And injustice was so limited, I thought, hang on. He can't do very much, but I can. I know lawyers, I can get some funds together. I can, you know, make his this injustice my cause. I can help somebody. So I started thinking very quickly of all these people I could contact to try and right this injustice, to get him a retrial, an appeal or something, because I'm sure he was telling the truth. It was a crime, which he did not do. But as I was thinking, he interrupted me and with a cheeky smile, like some of these older prisoners have, he said, yeah, I did not commit that crime for which I've been put in jail. But he said, there are so many other burglaries I committed where I wasn't caught. I guess this is fair. So it is true he did do that cry for which was put in jail, but he did many other crimes where he wasn't put in jail. So it was fair after all. And that got me thinking about the whole perceptions of injustice in this world. How many times have you not been caught by the speed cameras? But do you ever think it's not fair? It's unjust. I was speeding, but I wasn't caught. And there are other times when you know you are only doing one kilometre an hour over the limit or whatever it is. Do you find it in Buddhism to have this fascinating idea of the law of karma? It's a sort of natural righting or levelling of the injustices and unfairness of our world. It's a fascinating thing to actually to contemplate. Just how karma works. Even today, there was a bit of conflict in our monastery amongst a couple of young monks. There is always, in any community, some conflict. And I was telling one of them today said, look, doesn't matter what that monk said or did to you. Now, if he has really abused you, misbehaved, that's his bad karma. Why are you allowing another person's bad karma to make you upset and unhappy, even angry, even losing sleep? It doesn't make much sense when you look at it that way. Why do we always allow other people's bad actions to control our rather prevent our happiness? So I told him, whenever there's a conflict like that in a monastery, your job, your responsibility. If you can't stop it, at least don't get angry and don't allow injustices or perceived injustices in the world. To make you angry. Seeking revenge and making the matter a huge amount worse. As the Buddha said many, many times. That hatred never ceases through hatred. Injustices are never righted by hatred or by aggression or violence. That just makes more injustice in the world. So the first thing is that perceptions of injustice should never be fought with more actions of injustice, more violence, more aggression. So if someone misbehaves, first of all, you keep cool. Now, this was actually such a strong message in Buddhism that there is one suitor which is so powerful. Sometimes it just makes revenge completely untenable by anybody who is a real, true, practicing Buddhist. He's so famous in Buddhism that many people know it's called a simile of the saw, where the Buddha said so, especially to his monks. But this applies to anybody. He said, monks, if anybody. A group of bandits or whoever, hold you down and saws off your arms and legs with a handsaw slowly to torture you for no reason. If monks, you entertain one thought of ill will towards your torturers, towards your abusers. You are not a disciple of mine. I was such a powerful statement by the Buddha. He said, even if people are torturing you, inflicting such pain, such deadly pain for no reason. Then he said, there is never any justification for ill will to your torturers. He said, give them metta loving kindness instead. Now of course, that's incredibly difficult thing to do. But the point was the Buddha said, no justification. Can there be for this ill will, for this revenge? Now, of course, those people who are in areas where you are fighting for social justice, there are other trying to solve other injustices in the world. You're often confronted with situations where you are almost incited to violence, which is why that there is training, as far as I know, given to social activists to be nonviolent, to actually not to give violence to violence. And it must be. I remember when I was a student and very socially active and trying to right the wrongs of the world because I was compassionate. I was not just a Buddhist who sat meditation. I wanted to do something for the world. But of course, I was in demonstrations which turned violent, and that actually turned me off the whole social activism business, because as soon as there is violence there or anger, it, just the whole goal of your social activism becomes lost. It's one of the poems which I remember, written by William Blake, a stanza of which goes. The vengeance to the tyrant, fled and caught the tyrant in his bed, and slew the wicked tyrants head and became a tyrant in his stead. I was written in 1600, and something by the very perceptive and spiritual mystical William Blake, who also did these amazing paintings as well. I was really into William Blake when I was I was a student, but it really showed me that sometimes if you are in the business of trying to address the wrongs of society, you have to be very careful that you at least have an inner training so that you do not become the tyrant who you depose. And the story of social activism in especially our Western world, eastern world is the same is a story of kind hearted, good hearted people who really want to help the world, who get in positions of authority and power and become tyrants themselves who misbehave themselves. So the first thing is Buddhist social action. You have to really train yourselves very well, not just in meditation, but in these beautiful, powerful Buddhist attitudes. Where people can abuse you. They can hurt you. They can even kill you. But you will not entertain any thoughts of revenge or giving violence back. It's a tough ask, but it can be done. It is being done by Buddhist activists. You don't allow the bad karma of other people to upset you. Because what happens? Someone does bad karma. And we have this terrible, uh, dysfunctional response of human beings, of wanting revenge. They hurt me. I've got to hurt them back. But as a spiritual person, whether you're a Buddhist, a Christian and Muslim, whatever the punishment bit, if you're a Buddhist, the punishment is done by karma. You do not have to be the agent which punishes the other person. You can let it go. If someone's done that bad thing, karma will look after it. And if you're a believer in a God, Allah or, um, God or Jehovah or whatever, they will look after punishing them, no one gets away with anything. And as I've mentioned before in the talks, we don't believe in calm. You don't believe in any God. Then, you know, if you act inappropriately, if you hurt other people, you get these terrible psychological problems which you will have to pay a lot of money for a psychotherapist or psychologist to treat for many, many years. You don't get away with it anyhow. So never allow other people to control your happiness. Lesson number one. Lesson number two in activism for Buddhism is actually to see whether it really is an injustice, sir, because sometimes the bigger picture and it sees that it's just like a balancing of nature. So we have to see now, is it really an injustice? Sometimes we have the idea of poverty as being an injustice. And I remember just being in places like northeast Thailand as a young monk, which I've talked about in many talks 32 years ago, this was an area of Southeast Asia where no electricity had come, there was no roads, and no Western powers had taken over that country. It was like a natural, undisturbed. Primitive culture. Sure, they were poor, but my goodness, they were happy. And then all these aid organizations came into that area and they stuffed up their happiness, basically. I remember one of the old villagers who was actually a very close disciple of Ajinkya. If any of you have ever seen that video which was done by the BBC, I think on the I call the Mindful Way, I think it was called when they went to the monastery in Thailand and they did some interviews, sort of, you know, with agents. There was one man who was interviewed on that. His name was Paul. And when I saw him just before he died, because I knew him really well, and I was just chatting with him. He was the medicine man of the village, the herbal doctor, and he was very, very well known now in the whole area. And one of the things he said to me just a few days before he died, he said, you know, before they built the hospital, people were much healthier. It was only after they built the hospital that people started getting sick. As a fascinating society in which you just came out of the blue from this old man who who was at the end of his life and sometimes still does our so-called development create the problems? Now, when we look at sort of poverty, I was born in a poor home. My parents were very poor, simply because my father was sick for most of his life, so that he couldn't really hold down a job all the time. And I was very fortunate. I was very clever. There was some scholarships that I got, went to a good school and went to a good university, not because my father could afford to pay the fees. They were all paid for by the local council. But I remember just going to this really good school and it was a good school, many actually famous people. I'd only found out recently that Hugh Grant went to that school as well. And one of my, one of my schoolmates at the time wasn't very close. But, you know, you play soccer with him was, uh, you know him now as Manuel. From Fawlty Towers. Andy Sachs. He was in the same year with me at this school. I don't want to sort of spoil it all. But Manuel, he was not from Barcelona. He was from Chiswick. Well, he's faced with this. This really good English BBC accent. As soon as the school is working for the BBC and later on, sort of got the job as Manuel in Fawlty Towers, but. Okay. It's a very good school and got some. Some of the wealthy kids there could actually dress really well, but I couldn't. You know, because my parents were poor. So I would go to school in much worse clothes than many of the other students. And I thought that was really unjust and unfair as a young boy growing up. But I realized just how useful that was now, because even now I wear clothes which are much worse than anybody else in this room. So this was a training for my later life to learning how to live with poverty. So it was a wonderful gift that I came from a poor family. If I came from a very rich family, it'd be very difficult to be a monk. So what I first thought was an injustice. Now, looking back upon it was a wonderful opportunity for me, which I wouldn't have missed. Now, isn't this sometimes what we where we think is unjust? When you think, why did it happen to me? Or why does this happen to other people? Sometimes we only see a portion of the picture when we see the bigger picture. Then maybe there is a sense of justice there, because we got to get the value system right before we see what's just and was unjust. You know what's life all about? People think it's unjust because they don't get as much money as the CEO does. But do you really want so much money? If you do, you've been crazy. You didn't listen to the talk I gave last week too much money. There was actually an article somebody gave me. Some research showed that in the United States that people get to their happiest when on about $50,000 a year. So if you get less than that, actually, you know, you're quite unhappy. You get more than sort of 50,000, then there's no increase on your happiness at all. In fact, it's more problems. They found out 50,000 is the best level. Now, what that means is, if there's anybody in this room earning more than $50,000, we can help your happiness by encouraging you to give the difference into the donation box that would have started there, by lowering your income to the optimum level for happiness. I got the article in the monastery. That's what it said anyway. But the trouble is, we sometimes think you know these silly things. It's unjust because I don't earn as much money. It's unjust because, you know, I haven't got a plasma screen TV. Now, a lot of you sometimes think that way. Now that you should take that away. That's got nothing to do with justice or injustice. But where we do, how justice and injustice and where we do have real exploitation, which really harms and hurts another human being. And sometimes you see this, whether it's in paedophilia, domestic abuse, whether it is exploitation of people in third world countries who are made as even kids to work hard while children being forced into armies. Now that is an injustice. And so we have to see what not to say. That that's the way the world is. You can't do anything about it. We have to find ways if we possibly can. But whenever you see any injustice, anything wrong? The one who actually said you have to do a checklist before you try and do something about this. Is that what the Buddha actually said to his monks? He said, if any monk is doing anything wrong before you go and interact and try and tell them what they're doing, you should check many things first of all. One of the first things you should check are you doing anything just as bad or even worse? So before you go and write injustices with other people, what other people are doing wrong? What are you doing wrong? And make sure that you have got a moral strength, a virtuous lifestyle, the inner sort of integrity so you can stand up and fight injustice without other people can say, well, what about you? What are you doing? And this was the first thing that Buddha said before any monks would tell anyone else what they were doing wrong. Please look at your own conduct. First of all, this just does not work. You haven't got the strength to fight injustice when you are acting unjustly yourselves. Number one. And number two is, once you checked out that you got your own act together. Number two, to make sure you never act out of ill will, out of anger. It is so easy for people when you see injustice. As I said earlier, they get so angry. This is not right. But the anger doesn't solve the problem, it just makes the problem worse. A good example, as you all know, is the Muslim response to those cartoons when there was obviously an injustice and not a good thing to do to offend anybody else's beliefs, especially when a sensitive area. But it doesn't make the matter better. When we get anger. And, you know, that's an example of some things where we do sometimes, you know, our husbands sort of comes home late or has been with another woman or your wife is, you know, playing around with someone else or whatever it is happens in the world or your boss doesn't pay you the right amount. Anger just makes the matter worse. And you get domestic violence, sometimes beatings and even killings because of such anger. That's a hard one. But at least Buddhists say no anger is ever justified. And we have these techniques to lessen that anger. One of those techniques, which somebody asked me about earlier on this week, they had someone at work, actually, wasn't it? Uh, this was in Bali, the question time after the talks, they asked me they had a boss at work who was just really nasty to her and really badly sort of abusing her. It wasn't right. What should she do? And it's the old method of spreading loving kindness. But at a distance, what that really means is when you are not in front of that monster, when you are at home safe, relaxed, when there's no problem, then it's a time to spread loving kindness to that person. It's impossible to spread loving kindness when the object of your anger is right in front of you, because your old habits, old responses will come up. You see this person as abused you. You want revenge. It's your habit. But when they're not there, when you're at home a long way away in the temple here or whatever, you feel safe. A little bit of loving kindness. And then visualize them. Think about them. You'll find. Then you may be able to spread loving kindness towards them. For those of you who have a hard time even doing that, you got to think of some redeeming quality in that person in order to spread loving kindness. There was simply the brick wall, which you all know two bad bricks. If you only see two bad bricks, you want to destroy it. You have to see the other good bricks in the wall to be able to have a sense of forgiveness, to be able to have something, to put metta towards loving kindness towards when you're right in front of that person, or you can see is the terrible things they did or are doing right now. When you got some perspective, you're away from them. You may be able to see something else. So similarly of the hand, my face was similar to the hand. How big is my hand? It's so big I can't see any of you. All I can see in the whole universe is my hand. The point is, my problem is lack of perspective. I'm holding the problem too close to me. That's why I can't see anything else. I put my hand where it really belongs. At the end of my arm I can see my hand. I can see all of you as well. I can see things other than my hand. When you've got your boss or your enemy right in front of you, that's all you can see. You can see the bad things. You can't see anything else. Therefore you can't forgive. You can't give loving kindness. That's the problem. When they're away, you're at home so you can remember them. But you can see something more. When you see something more, then you can spread loving kindness. When you can spread loving kindness at a distance. When you're with them, you can react in a different way. One of my disciples in Sydney, she told me that she'd been hearing these teachings and she trained herself with loving kindness. That was her meditation. And she became so good at it that she was a business woman. She got like a clothing company which imports clothing from overseas. She went to London on business to try and do this deal with a big company, which had a notoriously aggressive and completely insensitive boss. A man, of course. I shouldn't say that. Sorry. So when she arrived, no jetlag, tired, and she went into this meeting. The other directors said, it's a waste of time. You coming in here? He's in a bad mood. He's already shouted at people today. So you have got no hope. So no. She come all the way from Sydney, all the way to London not to try and do this business there. So she told me because, you know, it was one of those experiences which really showed her the benefit of these sorts of practices you do in this temple. She did some quick, loving kindness to the guy. He wasn't in the room yet, so it's pretty easy to do. And he spread loving kindness for five minutes. And then he came in. So she had to stop, and he came in and said something like, what do you want? And straight away it was spontaneous. She said she never thought about it. She looked at him and said, well, you know, you got such wonderful blue eyes, just like my baby daughter. And this executive, he just melted. And within a few minutes they had the contract signed and the other directors asked, how do you do that? How do you do that? Tell us how you do that. And it was completely spontaneous. It just came because she had made loving kindness her attitude of mine before the guy came in. Instead of fear, instead of control, instead of, you know, anger or whatever. And so when she had loving kindness in her eye, in her mind. So straight away, something kind of a bit of praise actually just came straight out spontaneously. And because it came from her heart, spontaneous, it went into the executive's heart and he melted straight away. And because she had this wonderful relationship from the very beginning with this guy, Stone was being kind to him. No worry with the contract. So it's amazing just how you can actually stop these aggressive situations, getting into sort of anger or arguments. If you really have trained in how to have loving kindness, goodwill towards other people. And this is so important if you're trying to write social justice, to equip yourself not with ill will, but with the power of kindness. And the other thing which the Buddha said, which is a fascinating and powerful thing. This was in the erano the Sutra of Non Conflict, where the Buddha said, if you are criticizing, never criticize a person, but criticize a thing you never say you know, the the Jews in Israel are terrible because they've built this big wall separating their community from the Palestinians. They've taken the Palestinians land that will just get up the nose of the Israeli government, and they will just create sort of fear, anger back. That is not the way the Buddha said, you never criticize the person or the people. You only focus on the act, he said. In this suit as specifically he said, what you say is it is wrong to seize people's land unfairly. It are even not long. He had this other beautiful word. It is unskillful. So straight away, when a person hears it's unskillful to do that, it's not. They've done something wrong and they've tried then to justify or defend themselves, which is what you do when someone says you're doing something wrong. You say it's unskillful to do this. They don't say you're unskillful, they don't say you're wrong and you're bad. Say this one little action here is unskillful. So number one, you're not demeaning and attacking the person because we're all proud. You're not telling a person you're wrong. You're hopeless, you're evil. You see what happens when they say that no Muslims are evil or the West is evil, or sort of women are evil or whatever. I don't know what people say, but as soon as you say a whole group is wrong or evil or bad, you can see what response comes. Are you nervous to the person? The act first of all. So the people receiving that thing, it's not me. It's just a wonderful thought. I have this I'm not fundamentally wrong. I'm not basically flawed. I'm not evil. I will go to somehow. It's just some act of mind. And number one, instead of saying it wrong, it's unskillful. Unskillful is a good word, which means you have the right goal in mind, but you're doing it the wrong way. Now your intention is okay, but your means to reach that goal is not a very good means, and that is far closer to the truth of people. But it's the Israelis. They want security for their country, whether it's the Palestinians. They just want a peaceful lifestyle, whether it's the Muslim community. They just want to be respected, whether it's a Buddhist, they just want to be able to meditate peacefully, whatever, you know, Buddhist wants. So what we want is, you know, it's all the same. It's all good things. It's how we go about trying to get what we want or get what is really right and proper in this world. It's the means which are unskillful. So it's a beautiful word. The Buddha used unskillful. So you never criticize a person. You never say the wrong. You say it's unskillful. What you're doing this unskillful, exploiting children or making them join the army. Now straight away you can understand what that feels to the person listening to them. They're not being condemned. Not their particular group are not being rejected. It's their actions, their goals for whatever the reason they're doing this are probably okay. You know, the major goal is creating peace or harmony in their villages or whatever, but their means is wrong. So let's look at the means and find another means which is more skillful. And that becomes a much more effective way of fighting injustice. So if only our politicians could actually read that a runaway Bangor shooter. So we never go around criticising the Labour Party or the Liberal Party, or the neocons or the communists or whatever. We don't criticize groups, we criticize actions or ideas which are parts of a person, but not the whole. So the other people can actually listen. They can actually hear what we're saying. And when they hear what we're saying and contemplate it, if it makes sense, then they may have a more skillful action to follow. And of course, the other way of writing injustice, which also gets people onside, is whenever you see an injustice, you'll always see that there's something else which that person or that group does, which is noble and good. I've never seen one person or one group of people in this world who are all bad. There is never a war which has got 1000 bad bricks. Even in the worst world, there's always 2 or 3 good breaks, usually many more. I remember once going to one of the most notorious criminals I've ever met. There's people old enough to know the guy called Ronnie Kray. He was one of the notorious Kray twins of east east London, and a very notorious guy who was in the newspapers in England. And because I was friends with one of these other monks in England who often goes to visit prisoners in jail, when I was visiting England, he took me around with him. So I went into Broadmoor, which was the prison for the the criminally insane. That's a pretty tough jail. These were the mental gorillas, you know, who would sometimes attack you for no reason. And while the prisoners in there was Ronnie Kray. So I went in to meet him and said, oh, hello. Shake your hand. You know, very nice of you to come and visit me. He turned around to the other one and he said, oh, you want to get a few quid? I'll give a donation to your monastery. And there's actually that guy who wanted to actually to make some merit, make some donations and probably, I don't know, maybe none of you ever put any money in the donation box, but he did. And he was like a notorious killer. But actually, what it showed to me was that just all of these monsters, there's no such thing as a monster as a person who's done a monstrous act, and they're always got a huge amount of goodness in them. Now, when you're fighting injustice or confronting injustice, please don't just see the injustice. See, there's something more in that person or that group. Because if you just see the injustice, you'll react to that person or that group as if they are just need to be sort of wiped off the face of this earth. People who don't deserve to live. People who deserve your anger, your revenge. Don't see the person. Don't even see the group. See the act. Which is why one of the problems. You know, when we had the the execution of that Vietnamese Australian in Changi Jail, Singapore recently, I don't think execution is right for any reason at all. But one of the reasons why the protests from Australia had hardly any moral value was because only now, when there was an Australian about to be executed, do we make a big fuss and bother. It was the person, not the act, which we're focusing on basically. Now, obviously you'd have far more effect if you just know the Australian people or the world said no, execution is not wrong, but unskillful. In other words, what is the aim of the sort of the so-called justice system? It should not be to punish because punishment are the setting of accounts. That's the job of karma or gods or something, not of human beings. Our job is not to be the punishes. Now leave that to the law of come out of your question to God or to Allah, whatever. The job of human beings is obviously to protect our future. To rehabilitate that person as best we can. And if we have those two. Protection and rehabilitation, if that's our aim. If especially if you're a Buddhist government executing. It just means that when they get reborn again, they haven't learned anything. They come back again. Still, you know, the bad people or the the, uh, confused person. So if we have protection and rehabilitation, that's our aim. So we ask, now, does execution fulfill the aims? Is it skillful in achieving the aims which no justice is supposed to serve? And when you say not right or wrong, but skillful and skillful, it becomes much clearer. Know why? And if you agree with this, why? Execution. Capital punishment doesn't work. It's unskillful. There's much better ways to achieve the ends. So this is actually some advice or some ideas of how, yeah, as Buddhists we shouldn't just sort of sit there and allow injustices to happen. If it's at all possible, we should try and get involved. I know many years ago now I started thinking of actually starting a Buddhist political party. But I thought after a while so that wouldn't work. Because first of all, if it's a Buddhist party, you know, just like coming in here, we never charge anything to come in here. It's all run by donations. If a Buddhist party, uh, won a majority in parliament in Australia, we would have no taxes. The whole country would run on donations or on food fairs. Which reminds me that we're having a food fair on April the 1st, isn't it, for the convention center, a convention, uh, for the Global Conference on Buddhism, the Global Conference on Buddhism. So I will add to it. So if we had a Buddhist party, we just have food fairs and donations. So I don't think it would work. Number two. Now, as far as the law is concerned, we're not Sharia law like Mr. Costello was talking about. We'd have five precepts. So it asks the whole country to live by five precepts, which is also pretty un-australian according to. So I don't think we get very far as a political party. The first four presets would be okay, but for many Australians, a fifth preset would mean they would never vote for the Buddhist party. If we banned alcohol or beer. But anyhow, even as such as especially Buddhist monks, I always think the Buddhist monks and any actually religious leaders think we should really stick out, stay out of politics, because like every footy game needs an umpire. Every cricket game needs and needs an umpire. My soccer game needs a referee. It's great having like religious people who don't align with any part, who stand back, who never criticize the party or the person, but criticize the acts, saying that too many taxes are unskillful and not enough is unskillful. Not looking after the kids in school, enough resources in education and skillful. But we don't criticise this party or that party. We don't criticize that person or this person. We just focus on the acts. He's a compassionate and virtuous and skillful. That's as far as we go. And that gives you much more power to actually affect things in this world. You can be the people who stand behind, who not get involved in, you know, the politics of life, who give this like moral framework and guidance and help so people can make these decisions which affect our world. And that was always the role of monks. That's why I never agree with monks getting involved in politics at all, or why any religious leaders, whether it's archbishops or bishops or whatever, keep out and just allow yourself to give like the moral guidance now to help other people. Be the umpires, be the referees, but don't play for either side. So that way that I think Buddhists can actually do a lot to help injustices in the world because he's got these great attitudes. We've got the law of karma, which means we don't have to have revenge. We got the law of karma, which means that, you know, we are responsible. It's not some God up there who decides what happens. You decide what happens. You're the creators of your world. God or Buddha never built my monastery, I did. I've still got the cats and scars to prove it. So you are the creator so you can do something, but it's learning how to do it properly to be effective. So that you sum up some of the things I've said is. Oh, and the last thing I said is also like time and place. The Buddha said, when you're admonishing another monk or telling him off, choose the right time and place. Whenever you're writing a social injustice, choose a time and place because sometimes you just got to wait. Stop. It's not the right time. You won't be effective. Sometimes you just make matters worse. It's just the same. If you want to tell your husband off because he's misbehaving or something, don't tell him off when he's just comes back from the office after a hard day's work. There's the wrong time. There's the monks in my monastery have learnt if they want to ask me for something special, they look at me and see if I'm even really busy or tired. And they don't ask me that time. After I've had a nice lunch. They know what I like to eat. So look who has eaten that today. Wait, I've had my cup of tea. Then they asked me anything. I always say, yeah, okay, fine. It's obvious this is basic psychology, but we miss it every time at home. Now we ask our wife for something. And, you know, look at your wife. First of all, she's in a good mood or a bad mood. Find out what she likes. If she's just seen a favourite movie on TV, then ask her. She always say yes. And it's the same if you're writing social injustices. You got to choose your time. If you're going to be effective, there are times when you realize you're wasting effort. At such times, you just hold, hold still. But there are times when you can be effective and it's the people who choose the right types. You know, like, what did I think was Bob Geldof and did all those big, uh, what was it that. Uh, because I watched it on TV. But you read the newspapers he had, and it was a Live Aid or whatever, but the recent one where he just before the G8 meeting in Scotland somewhere, he had this big sort of concert worldwide, put pressure on these big leaders to try and reduce poverty in some of the very poorest countries of the world. His timing was perfect to do that. No, he timed it just before a big meeting to put huge moral pressure, international moral pressure on leaders. So you can see that the timing is so important. And it's exactly what the Buddha said. Before you admonish something, make sure it's the right time and place when the other people, the people who are creating the problems, are in a position and are open to hearing what's being said and trust the person will actually listen. If you criticize a person and think it's your fault, you're an evil person, of course they won't listen. It has to come from mutual respect, and I respect as often from loving kindness, from some wisdom, seeing some good in the the other person. And then you can talk to them, then they will listen. She's the right time and place, and then there's a much better chance that your message will get through and people will change. So to sum up how we do Buddhist action. Social action. Never out of revenge. Never allow another person to control your happiness. No matter what bad karma they do. You do not need to get angry back. If you do, you allowing other people's bad actions to control and influence and infect you. Make sure that you are virtuous yourself, so you have the moral authority to actually to act in the world, and you're not doing something as bad or worse than the other people are doing. See if you can make sure that you have loving kindness so you respect and care for the other person. To do that, you have to see some of the good things in the other person, not just the terrible things they're doing in the world. This is something noble and good, and it's always something noble and good in everybody. Even in torturers and murderers. And once you see that, you can have the loving kindness. And when you do criticize, don't criticize them the action and never say right or wrong, skillful and skillful say, I agree with our common goals, but the way you're going about it is a better way. So you give them the other alternative, but you choose your right time and place. A time when they're open to listening. You create that opportunity and then you can be effective in this world. And then you realize that it is part of our job as human beings to serve our society. It's part of our job to sit quietly and develop ourselves. And that's actually part of helping society. This part helping society is part of actually meditating as well. I've seen in my life, if I just sit by myself and don't help anybody, I don't get enough umph in my meditation. If you just go around helping other people, you just get tired and burnt out. When you get this balance of being kind to yourself and being kind to others, serving others and serving yourself, having a balance in your social action and your personal development, then you're actually doing something. You are progressing on your path of inner happiness for yourself and outer happiness in our world. You have to do this because not all of you are going to get enlightened. Many of you are going to have to come back here. And you better get these social issues right. For all you men, if women are being exploited and you're not helping, next time, you might be born a woman. Your career, you deserve that. If you've been exploiting children, you're certainly going to be a child the next time. If you're not looking after the health system and making sure that we got, you know, care even for the weakest members of our society. Next lifetime, that might be you who's a child may be born in a remote community, an indigenous community who's got no health care. So it's a personal concern. Helping yourself. Helping others, I find, is exactly the same thing. Looked at from two different perspectives. So to be able to be effective. You see from my talk you have to cultivate meditation, cultivate yourself to give you the power to be effective. But don't just sit on your cushion. Once you have developed yourself, help other people actually do the same. At the same time as best you possibly can. But remember those things. Never criticize a person. They act not right or wrong. Skillful and skillful. Kindness. Right. Time and place. I think you can do a lot more. Too often, social activists stuff up. They do become part of the problem rather than the solution. So that's the Buddhist attitude to social action, to solving injustices in the world will never complete the task. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep trying. So that's the talk this evening. And thank you. Thank you. So that's what you talk. Off the cuff, as usual. Has anyone got any questions about this talk? A nice subject, which I don't think I've talked about before. Yes. I'm. Three. Are you asking, is it like a more sinister place now than than it was when I was a child and there were still pedophiles around when I was a child? I just was very fortunate not to meet them. And when I was a child, you could get caned. You could get beaten at school. And if you go earlier. Because actually, on the plane back from Bali a couple of days ago, I said never. I took the headphones, but there was, I think that film Oliver Twist. And I remember like the the read the book Oliver Twist when I was very young and just see what happened to him. Just beaten mercilessly sometimes and completely abused, put in like workhouses. So if you go back in a hundred years being a child, then if you weren't the child of some rich person, that was terrible stuff. So it's not worse today than it's ever been. It's not the best today that it's ever been. So it's good in some areas, bad in other areas. It doesn't really change. Wanting to be more protected than ever, I think that yes, the reason why we're more protective to our children ever is because we're more control freaks than ever. And this is the big problem of human beings these days. Because of technology, because of independence, because of wealth, we do have more means and because we're more means. It gives us bigger egos, thinking we can control our world. We have been given more freedoms because of the advancement of our civilization, or the change of our civilization, because we got more means. We really got this delusion that we're in charge of. We're in control. And because of that, we want to control our kids as well. So you can't, you know, you can't control the kids. The kids will run away if you try to control them. So the thing with messing with kids is to trust them, to give them trust. And you usually find that your children will live up to that trust in most cases, not always care, but give freedom as well. Give trust. So any other questions we have? Okay, that's enough for this evening. It's just go past 9:00. And thank you for the person who asked me that. So let's give that talk. I hope that my talk, uh, lived up to the, uh, wonderful question which was asked. But this attitude corresponds to social injustice.