Kicking Goals in Buddhism

Kicking Goals In Buddhism by Ajahn Brahm The son factor. The saving score was a request which Sony gave three months ago, and I didn't have time to speak on their topic because of the end of the season, when the monks go back to their monasteries and stay there for three months, even though that is a three month retreat, we call it a rest time, which means the rest of the monks have a great holiday. But I have to work because I have to teach them. That's why I call it rest time. I still have to do work, but nevertheless, it's less work than usual. And so you do come back refreshed. But the talk, which I remember, uh, someone asked me to give was on goal setting in Buddhism. I'm going to talk about that because it's something which people often, uh, cultivate in their daily lives. They set themselves goals. It is only to, uh, this year, make sure you don't lose any more, uh, demerit points with the speed cameras. It's very fortunate driving with a monk, because even today we pass a speed camera. We were speeding, but it was just before he set it up. About a week ago, we were just passing a speed trap on the freeway and it was a car in front which got stopped, not us. So there's a lot of merits or good karma when you have a monk sitting next to you in the car. So those of you who have lost a lot of demerit points, especially the double demerit points on the weekend, you can always hire a monk. To help stop losing points. It can be a new fundraiser for the Buddhist society. How about that? That's how we set ourselves goals in many areas of our life. But against that, many of you understand Buddhism as saying no craving. Just go with the flow. Let it be. So how can we reconcile setting goals and relaxing and doing nothing? And obviously the answer is that there must always we always set ourselves goals, even in meditation. But the point is to know that one is setting real good goals. And some of those goals is the goal to do nothing. The goal of no goal. And that's an important thing to set oneself. But we start off with the ordinary goals we set ourselves in life. And so often those goals we set ourselves are completely ridiculous, stupid, inane, dumb. But we still set them like winning the lottery this week. You haven't got a hope in hell of winning that lottery. So don't even bother buying the ticket, at least for a dollar or two. Better off. Or you may have the goal of being the richest, healthiest person in the world. Or your team always winning. Apparently, while I was on a retreat, the Eagles won. The, um. Was it called the Grand final? And apparently only won by one point. It's amazing what Buddhist chanting can do. Just get you over the edge. Yeah, but I've yet to say thank you to me. I'm very disappointed. Because actually, some years ago that I was in the studio at 6 p.m. and doing a talkback show with Ben Cousins. He was next to me as well, and I taught him a little bit about meditation. You know, especially, you know, how to levitate so you can catch the ball before the opposition. So he still hasn't acknowledged the Buddhist contribution to the success of the West Coast Eagles. But one day he might. But anyhow, that we've set ourselves goals. But the goals have to be reasonable goals. And when the problem with goal setting in life is we make very unreasonable goals. Now, some years ago, I was reading one of these magazines I think was Nova, and there was a guy coming to Perth teaching people how they can live forever. And that was the goal. So you don't have to die. And he said, so far so good. The fella said. Of course anyone could say that. So far I haven't died yet, so it must be going well. And I think he offered a moneyback guarantee if you follow my course. But of course, once you die, you can't claim your money back. So it's a complete scam, and most people could see through that. But a lot of people can't, and they set unreasonable goals of living forever. Do you really want to set that goal of immortality? What would immortality mean? It means hundreds of years in nursing homes. It's a stupid goal to say so. You've got to set yourself a reasonable goal and look for the goals which we set in life. And are they reasonable? Are they attainable? Sometimes we want to set our goals to have physical comfort, material comforts. So you work very hard. You buy your first house, maybe just a weatherboard shack in sort of a rough suburb of Perth, like Nola Mara. But ever since the monks came here, the prices have gone up. But anyhow. And then you pay off the mortgage. So what do people do when they get themselves another pay off the mortgage by themselves, a bigger home. And when they pay that off, they buy a bigger home, or maybe even a second home, which they can rent out thinking that they can get material comfort. If that's your goal in life. Really think about it. When do you ever stop? When is it ever enough? Actually, that question has been answered definitively, scientifically, with a study which was performed in the universities of America. Harvard was involved, I think Princeton also maybe UCLA. I can't remember exactly which universities. They wanted to study the connection between income and happiness, and they use indicators such as a person's health, their relationship, and their lack of stress, their psychological well-being. And to see how income affected your happiness levels. You know what they found. They found, obviously, when you're poor, you know you're not happy because it's a struggle. When you haven't got enough money to pay the bills, you have to worry about where the money is coming from. And they said as you get more income, your income level rises. You get happier and happy and happen until you actually reach a peak. There's always a peak of optimism. And once you get to that level of income anymore, actually your happiness goes down. You start to worry too much. You got too much problems, too many things to look after. Whether it's your shares, you're always worried about the stock market going down. And interestingly, you know, it's always in October. You have the stock market crashes. But don't worry about that. It's not going to crash this year. But then again, you never know. But anyway, they find doesn't matter how much you have, they have an optimal level of income. And that optimal level is about 50,000 Australian. It's amazing. And above that actually your happiness level goes down, down down down down. And I've mentioned that before here. And I mention that again, because if you're earning more than $50,000 a year, especially a lot more than that, the Buddhist Society of Western Australia can help you increase your happiness. We can bring you back to the optimum of 50,000. And I'll show you there how that Asia box is over there. But one of the points is that it's never worked. I did that in Singapore. I said that story. It still didn't work. So people just don't believe science. But anyhow, the goal we have of thinking the more money, the more happiness obviously is a stupid goal. So we have to. When are we setting our goals? We have to set reasonable goals, good goals, goals which really are going to increase the happiness and well-being of ourselves and others. And that is a tough one to identify our goals, the reasonable ones. Just going for wealth doesn't work. Sure, it can be a goal. You can achieve that. But is it going to make you happy? Is it really worth it? What are you sacrificing, you know, for the extra few dollars a week or 100 or $1000? I know this is one of the stories. It's not in the book, but I tell this very often at serpentine. This is one of the stories of our modern times. The story of the boy who asked his father when he came home from work, daddy, how much do you earn? An hour at your job. You know what it's like when you come home. You're tired. The last thing you want is stupid questions from your son. He said shut up. And a son said, daddy, how many dollars do you earn at work? I told you, be quiet. I'm tired because you get grumpy when you're tired. The little boy, maybe six years of age, said daddy. How many dollars do you earn? That's it. Get to your room. You're grounded! He shouted at his little six year old. He started to cry and walked out to his room. He only asked a simple question and daddy, after half an hour, made a cup of tea or coffee or something. He started feeling really guilty, as you do when you shout at your loved ones. There. I shouldn't have done that. It was only a simple question. The reason I shouted at him was because I was tired, so I decided to make amends. He went up to his son's bedroom, knocked on the door, let himself in and said, sorry son, I was tired. I shouldn't have shouted at you. It's always good to apologize. I don't know why a six year old wants to know how much I earn, but the answer is $20 an hour. That's how much I earn at work, and I have to work hard for that too. This little six year old smiled and said, oh, thank you so much, daddy. Now can I borrow $10, please? And the father was about to explode in rage again, but would not get angry at his son twice. So he said, look, I don't know why you want $10, but I got angry at you once. Here you are. Have ten bucks. And he gave his son a $10 note. Sun smiled, reached under his pillow and took out in a couple of notes and coins. Another $10. He counted out 20, handed it to his father and said, now, daddy, can I buy one hour of your time, please? You understand that story? A little child needed his father's attention and thought the only way he could get it was buying one hour of his parents time. Now we can understand when we set our goals. What's really important to make sure when we set goals, we set goals which are really meaningful, rather than just being wealthy or just getting buy in our career. You know, your family's important. You know your well-being is important. You can set goals, but not at the expense of your health and well-being. It's common sense. And some of us, when we set our goals, we set reasonable goals. It's hard work, and sometimes we don't know when we should give up and when we should keep on going. That's one of the toughest questions for each one of us. Whether you're in a relationship and it's hard work and you wonder, should I give up or should I keep trying? Whereas you're in a business and you all know when you start business, the first year or two is a hard one. I know that because the business is very hard the first year or two. You wouldn't believe that when we first started our monastery down at serpentine. It was touch and go because the first years was only two monks and no one trusted us. Who were these baldheaded freaks in their brown robes? No one knew who we were. I told that story to some months last night. Sometimes people see you and they don't know what a Buddhist monk is. I was visiting a relation in England some years ago. They lived in a city in the Midlands of England called Stoke on Trent. I visited them, those cousins, and in the morning we went on a walk to have some exercise. It was very strange because as we were walking through the city centre of Stoke on Trent in Staffordshire, people were pointing at me and laughing. Time again, people and not just young people, old people who were pointing and bursting out, laughing and laughing. Now, I was not really embarrassed, but I was surprised because usually you don't get that response. Isn't a Buddhist monk? It was only a little bit later when I found out. Why? Because I went past the sign. There was a circus in town and they thought I was one of the clowns. With the new outfit. Maybe it's because it's very cold in that part of the world. I had a red nose. I don't know why, but I didn't mind people laughing. At least I was creating some happiness in the world. And what better goal could you have than happiness? Even if it means people laughing at you? It's one of the great things about being a Buddhist monk that you actually taught your brain not to worry what people think of you. If you make a mistake and people laugh, what a wonderful thing. You're spreading happiness in the world. I know people get embarrassed about, you know, when you make a mistake and people laugh. You should be so pleased that your city actions has created happiness in life. And even now, happiness. One of the reasons we, um, tell jokes in this place is simply because it's good for your health. As everybody knows, a doctor who comes directly from the latest research. Something was in some Lancet or AMA journal actually say when you do laugh, your arteries actually expand. They dilate. So what that means is all that cholesterol which you have because I had fish and chips today. So if I laugh a lot it balances. Hey he he don't get heart attacks because when you laugh you're doing it. Now. Your arteries expand and all that could actually go through for a change. So today's joke. I don't know, this has got to do with goals, but I told it earlier today and it's a great joke was there was apparently a true story of the Italian ambassador to the United Nations. He didn't know English very well. Not these high goals. It is one of the reasons that being an idealist, and most monks are idealists who want us to do something for the world. And sometimes when you're young, you want to change the whole world. It gets very frustrating when you see reading newspapers, what goes on in this world? The corruption, the lies, the destruction. And sometimes people get quite despondent about what might happen in our future. With its wars in Iraq, whether it's global warming, corruption in governments, wars. Terrorism. And sometimes you say, what can I do about this? The problem is there's always something you can do. You set yourself a goal not to stop terrorism, not to stop wars, not to stop global warming, not to have these big ideals. But to start with where you are and how can I lessen global warming? How can I create less cause for terrorism? How can I ease the pain of people in conflict? You can you see the difference between those two goals? One is just so far ahead of you that you will never reach it. It seems. And you'll give up on the journey. It's a goal too far. But the goal of the humble goals of just helping one person, lessening your ecological footprint. Doing a little bit less. Helping one person instead of helping the whole world is in your power. And this was a great insight for me as a monk to realize if I aim to help the whole world, I will give up after a short time because it's an impossible journey. But if I aim to help one person, that's something I can do. And I do that now, or when I've helped the first person, then having achieved that goal, I'll help the next and the next and the next and the next. Those incremental goals are where you have the high achievers. You set the big goals. You have the high failures. Even building a monastery at serpentine, there was literally was one brick at a time, one building at a time, one idea at a time. Let's do this first. Finish it. Stand back and see what to do next. That's why monasteries are organic. Sometimes people say, when is it going to be finished? Is it finished? No. We've been building it for 23 years. When is the tree finished growing? When do you finish learning? These things are things which don't finish. Helping. Serving is something without an end. You don't save the world. That will be an end of the world. You're continually contributing. You can see this is the wise goal. Being kind, being compassionate. Doing what you can now. The small goals are what makes the big effects. So that is perhaps the meaning of my life as a monk. You give one talk at a time, one group at a time. Sometimes the people see the schedules which I have when I go overseas. I retreat finishes on Sunday morning. I arrange retreat. Monday morning I'm off to Singapore and Bangkok and back again on Thursday for teaching and doing a celebration on the the next weekend. Then I'm off again. Sometimes people look at my schedule. My goodness, you must get so many frequent flyer points, which I do. I've always, always almost got enough to buy my own aircraft. But no, that's not the point. You're just helping, little by little, one by one person by person. Rather than having this huge goal of what you want to do in the future. This is the humble Buddhist goals. Of helping the person in front of you rather than helping the whole world. Doing the task at hand rather than thinking of the completion of the whole project. Which makes life possible. Which keeps you in the moment and keeps you very, very effective. Strange that what I get up to is a monk. I've given, even during the retreat, a few strange talks. I went to the zoo last week. I think the monkeys were going bananas. I needed a bit of meditation training now. That wasn't the reason why I said. I went to the person to give a talk in the School of Midwifery and Nursing. I also went to Further Beach Village so it was like almost a hippy festival. They wanted me to give a talk. It's amazing sort of places where you go and give talks, but also it's very strange that now I'm going to give talks in human resources conferences, going to one in April in London. They've invited me pay the fares to a masterclass. So what is a man doing teaching business people about how to do business? I was about 32 years ago before I had a job. I haven't been paid for a long time. But the point is that when you understand about goal setting and how to achieve those goals, what you learn even in a monastery or in a Buddhist society applies so much to our modern life. And when I gave a talk in Singapore, somebody noticed it. And they say, we want this guy to give a masterclass to all his business leaders in this world conference in London in April. Interesting, because these techniques work, the incremental goal setting within your power one after a time, what happens with many people when they set the big goals, big goals and they fail, they lose their incentive to do anything in the future. They get despondent, depressed. Why bother? I am a failure. You do need successes. While greeting your small goals to motivate you to the next goal. Otherwise you give in. So my life has been that way. Setting goals. If you fail the goal. Great. A nice lesson to learn. If you achieve. Great. More incentive for the future. But you see the biggest goal which we set ourselves in Buddhism. The one which really empowers you to success is the goal of that inner understanding. And of all the goals we set in the world, we make that the most important. The goal of inner happiness. We mentioned that because, again, maybe it's because I was a scientist by training and you get all these, uh, reports, papers which people send to me because they know I was a scientist and still interested in science. And one of the most powerful pieces of research which came out recently was, again, not the relationship now with goal setting and success, but with with so much success and happiness. It's a brilliant paper. Which actually showed with a huge amount of research. That happiness always precedes success. Not the other way around. You're not successful, and then you become happy, but you're happy first, and then success follows as a natural result. So if you are setting goals and you want to be successful in your goals, you find if you haven't got the happiness factor, you find you become impotent, ineffective. You don't achieve so much as you possibly could. So happiness gives power to your mind. It gives energy, incentive, enthusiasm. We all know how important that is in our progress through life. To be enthused, I can sit up here and give a talk and be really depressing. I don't really want to give a talk tonight. I should be on retreat. And if you talk in a monotone tone and no one really hears and you really all said no, you put enthusiasm in your talk. When you put enthusiasm in your talk, it comes from happiness. It's always successful then. This is most important. Whatever you do in life, you give it everything you got. You infuse your energies into the task at hand. Happiness gives you that energy. There's one of the reasons why that to have success in whatever goals you set, the first goal you should set is your own inner happiness, even if you have a relationship with somebody else. If you are dry, unhappy, depressed, miserable, how on earth can you forge that connection with somebody else? If you ever noticed depression, misery just brings you into yourself even more. When you're happy, you become outgoing. Depression sends you inwards into your own world, a dull world, a dark world, and that you really need the dark. People need other people more than anything. You don't seek them out. That's one of the problems with such depression. When you have that happiness, then you can afford relationships. Happy people make friends very easily. Happy people can make those relationships. So really, the first goal which people should have in life is their own inner happiness. Get your act together. Create that peace and that happiness. And that is why many people come to centers like this. They come to meditation. They learn things like Buddhism because they make themselves happier and they become more successful and they become better husbands, wives, children, parents. It works. That's why people come here. Because they learn the art of happiness. Understand? And that should be your main goal. Now, how do we become happy? Such an easy thing to do. This is what we have with meditation. This is where we come back to the goal, which people think is a contradiction in terms. If you crave, you reach your goals. If you let go, you don't let anything. But actually the letting go. Contentment, the peace, the simplicity is where you cultivate your inner happiness. It's where you gain your energy. It's a great thing. Contentment being still is as if in that stillness, you're gathering the energies of your life, of the universe into one spot, putting it under the microscope. When you do that, you concentrate the energies of your life. It's in stillness that people gain happiness in rest. They get energy. This is one of the mistakes which people make. They think to achieve great things in life. They have to work so hard and keep on going. That's not the case. We work in our modern society inefficiently. Has seen people in front of those computer screens. They're so tired. They keep pressing the wrong buttons and keep making so many mistakes. The reason why they make so many mistakes and waste their time and other people's time is because they shouldn't be working. They should be resting. Having a cup of coffee. Going for a walk or something. Five minutes. Investment in rest saves hours. Later on, too many people in today's world when they work 16 hours, the last 4 or 5 hours of those are completely a waste of time. Furthermore, you have to fix up all those mistakes again. It's the problem. Instead of working so hard in one go. Take a break. You take that break and afterwards you go back to work again. You are fresh and you can achieve much more. That's what I do. That's why just before I came in here, I was running around doing many, many different jobs. When I take a break when I meditate, and that gives me the energy source back again. So to be successful in life, stillness creates that energy that creates that happiness. And this is where it's the lack of craving. It's the rest. You stop setting goals, or you set the goal of not doing anything for a short while to re-energize the happiness, the source of success. So the other goals you can achieve afterwards, it's how you reach those goals is what's most important. For those of you who are going for the greatest goal of all the enlightenment, you want to be enlightened. Many people say they want to be enlightened, but they haven't got a clue what enlightenment is. I said, that's like going on a bus because they're a Buddhist. It's actually a story which is in the latest book, which is now out in a Buddhist society of Western Australia. Advertisement over there. I gave us a whole spear, a chapter about enlightenment. And that's actually what it is. And how silly is that many people? If you're a Buddhist, you say, yes, I'm a Buddhist. I believe in Nirvana. What's nirvana? I haven't got a clue, but I believe in it. It's like getting on a bus, not knowing where the destination is, not knowing where you're going. Do you really want to become enlightened? Now, the whole point of that type of goal is, instead of calling it enlightenment, it's calling light. Peace, freedom, stillness. The end of all suffering. When you taught it those types of goals, it gives it meaning. As I say, if you are going to set a goal for yourself, it should be a meaningful goal. Many of the marks in my monastery and they visit us. Many of them have come, especially the visitors come to my monastery to learn the deep meditations we call jhana. These are stages of bliss. A couple of years ago, this guy came all the way over from the US. He came here because he knew my reputation as teaching these very deep meditations. He always wanted to bliss out and get into these ecstasy states, and he was inspired by my teachers who came all that way to learn Janus, the deep meditation states. As soon as he arrived, he gave a donation to the monastery. By the end of the retreat, he still hadn't gained a jhana, so he did actually ask for the money back. He did. He had to give it back because, you know, it's a Buddhist society. Okay? You can give it if you want. If you don't want it, you can get it back again. We're sort of no we're not. No clinging. That's our trouble. But then he got his money back afterwards. And anyway, so what a stupid thing it is to have those types of goals. So if you're a meditator, I'm telling people this. You don't aim for Jana's aim for peace. Get a proper goal. You don't know what they are. You aim for something you don't know. You're like shooting an arrow. You don't know where the target is. You never experienced it before. So don't aim for the chance. Aim for peace. You understand what that is? It's a goal which has meaning for you, which you can recognize. It's like a person who believes they want to go to heaven. Do you want to go to heaven? Was it like in heaven? Do you really want to eat ambrosia? That's apparently when I was a kid. That's apparently what I heard when I went to Christian churches. The ambrosia for breakfast. Ambrosia for lunch. Ambrosia for dinner. After a couple of centuries, is sick to the teeth of ambrosia. In my head, when you get fish and chips. Other people say, no, that's terrible. Isn't heaven? Because I don't like fish and chips. I like curry and rice. Whatever. Do you really want to go to those places? So sometimes we aim for places we don't know what we're aiming for. But piece. We know what that is. We get some idea. And this is actually where we set goals in the spiritual life which are number one attainable. You understand what they are. And when we get a little bit of peace, we get a reward. And we go the next step on the journey, the incremental, gradual path towards deeper and deeper stages of peacefulness, contentment and freedom. It's one of the reasons why for the the how many years now, whenever I teach meditation here, I always ask you how you feel afterwards. This is a time when you come closest to the meaning of peace and freedom. You feel it. That's so important. You've reached a goal. You've understood it. It gets you the idea, the incentive, the means to go to the next step. A deeper state of peace. A more wide sense of freedom, a broader sense of the meaning of life. A deepening of insight as you go on this journey, incremental one after the other, you find to go to the next stage of peace. What's necessary is a little bit more of letting go. Have you disappeared? Disappearing? The will, the controller, the doer vanishes. It's as if. To get to those deeper goals, you have to abandon all goal setting and just be and be still and just allow things to go according to their natural process. You're still setting goals here, but the deepest goal of all is stillness, of not doing. There's an old simile from the time of the Buddha. He said the difference between being enlightened and not enlightened is like a person who stands on one side of a great expanse of water, like a great river, and on the other side is enlightenment, freedom, safety. We have to cross that stream, cross that river, cross that body of water. That was the old Buddhist simile of the path towards enlightenment. And that river is so wide, and that river is running so fast that you can either way jump or even swim across it. You just get caught in the current and drowned. It's such a strong stream, and that's why that many people find it hard to find the deeper meanings of life the peace, the freedoms of liberation, the enlightenment. It's too far for you to cross. You have all your attachments. You have all of your little vices. You have all of your. Little thing is you enjoy your attachments and cravings. How can I ever cross that great stream? What actually happens? And you see this in the path of meditation. You understand what that stream is which you have to cross. It is the stream of craving, of wanting, of doing things, of setting goals, the unattainable goals especially. And you find there is no way you can swim across that. But there's another way. This is the way I was teaching in the last retreat, last few months in our monastery. The other way is you realize where the source of that great body of water is the stream, the source, the spring. You turn that off. It's not as if you need to cross the water. The stream dries up. It dries up until there's no water left between you and that far shore. The river of craving is stopped and dried. And then there's no difference between this shore and the far shore. That which separated you from enlightenment has now gone. The stream of craving. It's a very beautiful simile, because not only does it show you what enlightenment is. It shows you how to get there. And the incremental part. Let go little by little. Be more simple in your life and you get more happiness. You don't need much to be blissed out on the Katrina day at our monastery. Always have an open day. And many of you have already seen my mansion, my abbot's dwelling, where I hang out, where I sleep, meditate, where I live. And if any of you to go and see that it is a cave. It's about two and a half to three meters, only just long enough to lay down in. And it's one of the most simple dwellings you could ever imagine. It's only just a bit bigger than a dog kennel. And that's where I live. So you don't need much to be happy. You don't need me much to have a good time. When you cut off that stream of craving, when you're not demanding so much of yourself and others, then you feel freedom. You get the biggest goal of all freedom. To enjoy the moment and to enjoy yourself and to enjoy each other. Isn't it the problem that why we can't have the fun in life? We demand so much of ourselves and so much of our partners, and our kids and our parents who demand so much of our monks. People keep coming. My friend has had a heart attack. Can you do some chanting for them to keep them alive? And now our list of people to chant from is is so long. If at all our chanting worked, all the undertakers in Perth would be out of business by now. So if they do ask some chanting for your, um, people who are sick, you all have to do the chant for the undertakers as well to make sure they don't lose business. People are going to die sometime anyway. So what's a big deal? Just time to go. Let him go. Do you really want to live that old 50? 60? 70? What's it like now? I tell you, it's going to get worse. So sometimes I think I really should refuse to chant for anybody over 60. 70. Okay, I did, I got on to that one. But anyhow. We got ourselves, set ourselves reasonable goals and just the simple life is the most beautiful one. It's so important these days because whenever you do read a newspaper or people come to you, they're always talking about global warming, environmental problems, difficulties. And one of the easiest ways of solving that is to live more simply. And of all the religions, Buddhism teaches you to live simply and you teach by example. Look at the monks live in a one meal a day. There's this row by where I've got this one and one spare. That's my robes. I don't even have a wardrobe in my room. I have a line, and you can just put all your clothes on top of that. How many of you have just got one change of clothing like me? How many shoes have you women got? Well, we live simple simplicity. And obviously, living a simple life as a monk doesn't make you miserable. In fact, it's with lessening that your demands on the environment, lessening your material possessions, actually gives you so much more freedom. So I think that Buddhism has got a lot to actually to contribute to our world. So you can live simply and it's a happy way. You don't need so much. So your goal should not be achieving more. But actually to simplify, what a beautiful goal that would be in our life to see how much more we can simplify. It's amazing. The smaller the house, the easier it is to clean. I still remember this group of middle aged women. There was like an afternoon club. You know, if people, they weren't working, they met together one morning a week and they went to interesting places. And so one interesting freaky place, weird place was come to our monastery. Never been to one of those places before. That might be an interesting way of wasting an afternoon. So they all came to our monastery, and I took them around. And I showed them how I used to stay in. And I always remember the comment of this woman once she saw inside my room, she said, wow, if only my house was this small, I'd get all my housework done in half an hour. And I really felt for her. How much housework do we have? How much do we have to clean and scrub and vacuum and paint and all that sort of stuff? Isn't it wonderful that a small, tiny little cutie. It's more like that. It's actually. I get the government to make that, uh, for everybody. Just one hut each. Three minutes by 2.4. Wouldn't it be wonderful? All these big developers. There's a land shortage. Apparently in Perth, people can't find enough land to build their houses because they've got big blocks. Just have one little, little hut for each person. Maybe a bigger hut if you've got a family. Maybe just slightly bigger. Now, the point is, I think if our modern world needs those environmental goals of simplicity, learning how to use less, and that's great for us. But we can only do that if we understand the inner contentment, the goal of inner peace and happiness. Because once you have that inner goal, the inner happiness inside of yourself, you know what life is all about. You got the inner content when you're at peace, no matter what happens. Then you have power. Not the power to, you know, to chart and make people sort of rise from the dead or to levitate up in the air. Not that sort of power, but the power to participate in the world and be effective. You can only give 100% if you're 100% prepared to fail. Few people are prepared to do that to put themselves on the line. Go out there and just give 100% to any project which they want to do. Be 100% prepared for it to be a complete waste of time. Not really a waste of time. You're learning. You tried, which is all you could do. When you have the inner contentment, it means that whatever you succeed or fail in the world, you've always got that home to come back to the inner home of inside. It's because I have very deep meditation. I can go out and give talks all over the place and make a complete idiot of myself. I don't care. As a matter you are at home within a piece you can always go back to. That is my resource center with it. You can do that. You have this unassailable little place where you can hang out, refresh yourself, make peace with yourself, get energy. And when you go out into the world to do your jobs, working hard in your business, in your marriage, in your monastery, you can work so hard. Doesn't matter if you fail, you can keep on going. Doesn't matter if people criticize you. You can keep on going because you have your inner home. In the same way, people who have a very warm and loving family, a partner who really cares for you. You have a home. I don't mean a mansion or a small little hut. The walls don't make a home. It's the people in it which make the home. If you have that home, we can go back to after a hard day's work. Doesn't matter what happened at work. You've got your partner. The warmth of that family just to rest in. To be at peace in, to regenerate. It means the next morning, go out. You can fight the world again because you got a place to come back to. Unfortunately, too many people in our world today don't have that home. Their workplace is a place of conflict. The house is a place of conflict. They've lost the ability to appreciate each other and be kind to each other. They've lost the warmth and the source of that warmth. You haven't got that real home of a family or a partner. You always have the home inside of yourself. Beautiful peace and stillness. Once you have that, you can always go out into the world. No matter what happens, you can always come back home for a good rest. That is where you really have the power to make goals work. Power of the mind comes from stillness. Rest. Acceptance. Being at peace with this moment. Door of my hearts. Open to this moment. When you rest like that, you have the energy. The energy is happiness. And that happiness is what causes success, as that study proved. And then whatever goals you set, you are likely to achieve them. And you are also likely to know which goals are really worth setting in life. For those of you still at school or college, don't try and be the ducks. Don't just try and get the honors. First class with double merits. I don't know what they call it these days. In Buddhism, we think the best way is the middle way. That's why when a kid came and asked me, how are you doing at school? You're top of the class now. You're bottom of the class now. I'm so in the middle. It's like you're real Buddhist middle way. Good luck. In other words, you don't have to aim for the top. You don't have to aim for the bottom. Aim for the happiness. Don't. If any of you have ever read Plato's Republic, the last chapter is my favourite Plato, the Greek philosopher. The last chapter he described what he called the process of reincarnation. Elysian fields, where people go after death. This is a Greek idea of reincarnation. After the death, you go to Elysian Fields to rest, and after resting for a while, when it's time to take your next birth. You can choose what you want to be reborn as complete free choice. And Plato was wise enough to know only the fools and dummies choose to become famous and rich. The wisest people they choose neither rich, not poor, but in the middle. The average Joes and Joann's. They are the happy ones. So if you're the average one, well done. You chosen well. Make that your goal. Okay, let's end the talk now. Okay. Any questions about today's Dharma talk? On goals and a little bit about enlightenment in the middle there. To spice up the talk J people are just so quiet. It's really amazing that you're quiet now. And I ask for questions. But as soon as we finish, you're all lining up asking me questions. Really, I never mind. Okay.