No Complaints

No Complaints by Ajahn Brahm You know, sometimes you have to get here early to get the best seats. This is getting worse than the grand final. And come the day here, we have to be queuing up on a Thursday evening just to get a place here on a Friday. But anyhow, for the time being, even though it's sometimes we outgrow the space and it's sometimes not that easy to get a nice, comfortable place, but it's still a place where you can sit down. Because I just remembered something I said at the beginning of the meditation about complaining about the dogs, because it's a waste of time complaining about the dogs because they just, uh, that's what they do. They bark. So I thought the nice topic for a talk tonight is no complaints. Because we spend half our life complaining. And I don't know how old you are now, but has anyone ever listened? The waste of time, isn't it? Well, why do we complain so much? There are a lot of times where we start complaining about life, about our husband, about our wife, about our kids, about our parents, about our government, about our monks, about our nuns, about our Buddhist society, about there's so many things you can complain about. But sometimes. What's the effect of that? Does that really help another situation? And a lot of times, I think that one of the great assets of a Buddhist path is like learning how to change the way we look at life. So we complain this and we have more happiness. So instead of trying to change the world, we just try and change the way we look at it. I don't know about you, but it's so hard to change the world. But it's not that hard to change their attitude to life in the way you look at it. And while we are changing the attitudes, attitude towards life is having less complaints and a bit more compassion and kindness towards life, yourself and the people you live with. I don't know about you. Sometimes people complain about me or you tell silly jokes or, you know, use a shit word or, you know, you just. But I told people that it's I know because as far as Buddhism is concerned, we're all conditioned beings. In other words, we're we are the products of all the influences which go into us. And so the only reason why I tell silly jokes was because my father told silly jokes. And I go out with that conditioning for such and such a long time. So what do you expect? That's obviously the way that I'm going to be. And it's the same that the local language because you hear it every day and that's actually what you say. So, you know, don't blame me. It's all your fault. From my father's fault. Well, yeah. Well, we understand it's all conditioning. Oh, this is actually a nice story about conditioning. I'm not sure when I told this last joke about the, um, the Brazilian goalkeeper. I don't remember this joke. Okay? Just. This is a very good story about conditioning. Because, you know, how how hard like, soccer players have to train sometimes have to keep doing the same movement again. They're going shooting the ball, shooting the ball the same direction, the same direction. So it becomes like a condition part of them. Just second nature to automatically know when the ball comes across their head. It's automatic. But anyway, this was happened in Rio de Janeiro, in a very poor part of one of the great Brazilian cities. And in very old building there was a fire and a the fire brigade hadn't turned up yet. And at the top story there, there was a a woman with her baby. And the flames were getting closer and closer to her apartment. And she was screaming for help, help, help. And a great crowd had gathered around. Where's the fire brigade? Where's the fire brigade? They're not going to get here in time. And they were really afraid that this woman and her baby would lose their life. And then through the crowd came this big, burly man. And he said, drop the baby, drop the baby. I'll catch it so no one can catch. It's too high up. Said, of course I can catch it. Don't you recognize me? I'm the goalkeeper for the Brazilian national squad. I've never let in a penalty for the last three years. I could save anything. Drop the baby. He says I can't. And they all said drop it because they recognized him. He was the goalkeeper of the Brazilian national team. And then a big flame came so close, she had no choice. She dropped the baby. And the goalkeeper crouched down. And the whole crowd went absolutely silent as a baby tumbled through the air. Getting closer and closer to the ground at the last moment. The last moment. The goalkeeper leapt to his right. And he caught the baby. And they rolled three times with a baby in his arms. And all the crowd cheered, and as he punched the air, the goalkeeper dropped the baby onto his right foot and booted it ten meters above it. He his condition? That's what goalkeepers are meant to do. You didn't hear that from a Buddhist monk, did you? It's not a Buddhist story, but the condition is like that. And very often we're creatures of conditioning. And sometimes it's hard to change our condition. But one of the worst conditions, conditions we have is always that to be such complainers. And it's that negative response. We have too much of life when a lot of times we can't really do anything. The complaining is a waste of time and we think, oh no, it's just for that soft steam. It doesn't let off steam. It just makes your mind more and more negative. And I noticed as a Western community especially, and I think this is affecting Asian countries as well. We're just such great complainers and we don't need to do that. One of the stories which shows why we shouldn't complain is that story of, uh. They're not here this evening. The two Thai sisters who came to my monastery. And again, these little stories, they expand into some very profound understandings of the nature of our lives. Because these two Thai sisters, I tell the story often. I hope haven't told it here recently, but I give so many talks, you know, I don't know actually what I taught last week, because in the meantime, I've given about 3 or 4 talks elsewhere, so I don't know what I taught here, what I taught at the cancer group, what I taught somewhere else. So please excuse me. But anyway, it's a great story. These two sisters came to our monastery for counselling, and when I talked to the first the elder sister. What's your problem? Her problem was her husband. Surprise, surprise. And she was having such a difficult time living with this man and setting all the problems. And and as a, as a Buddhist, we really try hard to keep the relationships together, even if at all costs, you know, not at all costs. You know, we really put a lot of effort into trying to solve the problems in a marriage. So I'm telling all this different ways of looking at the problem and, and trying to deal with it a bit of like positive feedback to your husband and positive feedback towards yourself and all sorts of ways we can deal with the problem. But basically her problem was, you know, she had a husband she didn't want, but she was stuck with. And then sort of, you know, I'd given as much as I could to her. So then I taught her, sister, what's your problem? And her problem? She was single and. No, she was she had she was quite attractive. Found it easy to find boyfriends. But she said every time, you know, maybe a month at most, we'd go out together and it all falls apart. I just can't keep a man. And he said, no, I'm getting a bit old now. I'm in my early 30s. I'm not quite sure whether I can actually find a partner in life. I don't want to grow old, know without any. But I don't want to be lonely. My problem is this I can't find a husband. And of course, they've heard this story before and know that I thought of a solution. A very obvious one. You know, your older sister had a husband she didn't want. And you want one. Your sisters scoff. And to this day, I was so surprised I didn't agree on that wonderful wise solution. But having said that and made them both laugh, then of course, she'd get into the important part of that story and the important part. And it's a very wonderful way of looking at life, is that when you're married? I told the woman with her husband, you have what we call in Buddhism husband dukkha. Dukkha means suffering. You have that particular type of suffering in life you called husband suffering. And for those of you who have had 2 or 3 in your life so far, you know you've been remarried. You know, it's pretty much the same. And it's just, you know, there's a slight differentiation in the models, but they've all got the same engine underneath. And they like these cars. You know, there might be sort of a different color on the outside, but it's the same engine. And this is what we call husband suffering. And I told this lady, look, this is you know, your symptom. You've got husband suffering. This is what it's like to have a husband. Now, I've never had a husband, but I've counseled so many people. It's quite clear as an objective bystander, which is what a monk is, that, you know, you've got that particular type of suffering. I've heard it many times before, called husband suffering. And I looked to her sister and says, you haven't got that suffering. You've got what we call single woman suffering. And that's what it's like when you're single. You have that other type of suffering. And I said, look, if you get rid of your husband, you won't have husband suffering anymore. You'll have what your sisters got. Single woman suffering. And your sister, if you find a guy and get married, yeah. You won't have that suffering you've got. Now you would have married. You have the same suffering your sisters got. So just by getting a guy or getting rid of the guy doesn't mean you get rid of suffering. You just get a different flavor of ice cream. So. And that's such a wonderful entry into some very profound teachings about life, because very often this is what happens with saying, okay, you know, if I change my job, then I won't have suffering anymore. And it's true, if you change your job, you don't have that particular type of suffering. You have another type of suffering. Sometimes people are high flyers and they got the suffering of a high pressure job. They decide to give that up and become a bus driver. They don't have CEO suffering anymore and they have bus driver suffering or teacher suffering. Sometimes we think we get some more money and I, Mr. Carpenter, will love me for saying this. If he gets more money, then we won't have any suffering anymore. But a lot of times that when we try and change the externals, you know, we still have suffering. There are many, many people, many, many people who have had it with having a husband, having a wife. They've had it sort of working in this world. They get so dispirited and so disillusioned, you know, with money and with getting houses and getting on in life. They decide to become a monk. I have to tell him. Look, you know, when you become a monk. You sure you don't have going to work on a Monday morning suffering? You have monk suffering. And I remember this very clearly. As a young monk, I had what we call like young monk suffering when I was a junior monk. Because when Thailand. As a junior monk, we used to get the the the leftovers of the food. And, you know, sometimes I looked at those senior monks at the top of the line, and they had the best food because they had the first choice. And I got what was left over. And I thought, this is really unfair because those months have been monk, ten, 20, 30 years. They probably were all enlightened by now and they didn't need nice, delicious food. I sort of had my defilements, so delicious food was wasting on those enlightened ones who'd come to me instead. And I when I started thinking like this, they had all the biggest cushions to sit on and, you know, they never needed cushions. They were so fat. They had natural upholstery. I should have put the cushions to me. And you know that we had to work hard and a laboring as when I was a monk and as a young monk, I know senior monks. They never had to labor. They were the ones who decided what all the projects would do. They organized us, but they never did any work at all. They just sat there talking with people all day. And it really unfair. So I thought, wouldn't it be nice when I'm a senior monk? Now look at me. I've got my natural upholstery, I get first choice at the food, and I don't have to work in monastery anymore. Instead, I have to talk to all these sisters complaining about their husbands and their wives. And so I've got what's now called abbot suffering, sleeping. And I'm sorry. And that's true. And sometimes I sometimes like even here this evening, sometimes you have to really work hard to try and get to that toilet, you know, because when we started, there was a funeral this afternoon here. So they started the funeral about 515. I was out here talking to people. And, you know, if I didn't actually manage to get to the toilet, it would be 10:00 for an almost five hours without having a toilet break. They are. Poor me. That's called Abbott suffering, my teacher suffering. But when you understand, this isn't the part and the nature of the job, what do you do? Stop complaining because it's the complaining which was the worst part of the suffering. So instead of complaining, we understand it as well. This is what it's like to be a monk. This is what it's like to be a senior monk. This is what it's like to be a woman. This is what it's like to be gay. This is what it's like, you know, to be old and sick. So why do we complain about these things? Really? It's a bad attitude of life. That's the problem. When we understand, we understand. Well, this is what it's like to be old. So I keep complaining about the aches and pains in the body, complaining about the aches and pains, and the body's not going to make them go away. Actually, it makes them worse. So in Buddhism, we actually learn to change attitudes when we understand the first noble truths. The life you know is not sort of all, um, a bowl of cherries. The life is not easy. Life is always happy. It always has some suffering into it. No matter what you are. Know that I thought that when I became a monk, I could actually get away from all this suffering business, you know? That I had girlfriends before, and I was with so much suffering. I thought, wow, now become a monk. I'd be free of all of this. And I went off to Thailand. I thought, wow, going to like Thailand, living in the jungles, living in the forests, finding ice caves. I would never have to bother with any. I had this, this, this fantasy of finding a nice cave and just sitting in there and becoming, like, not being bothered, leaving the whole world behind, just maybe going out, eating your one meal a day and then spending the rest of the time in solitude and peace, blessing out on the peace of deep meditation, becoming enlightened. Oh, what a wonderful fantasy that was! Hahaha! Let's tell you one of the stories which broke my fantasy. I was I was in the north of Thailand as I was looking for these these secluded monasteries, I found one with nice food. People didn't bother you over there, but there was a very big festival day and we had a lot of people coming to the monastery. They were disturbing my meditation. But, you know, you had to be there for the meal. And the monk was giving his chanting and his talk. But I had been in that monastery for quite a few days, so I tried to slip away. But as soon as I went away, the people come and asked me questions. Not only a young monk, I didn't know much to know about meditation or much teaching, so I didn't really need to know very much because all they weren't even the laypeople, they weren't interested in deep meditation or Buddhism or they were interested in. It was me. They kept on asking the same question. They said, no, what country do you come from and how many brothers and sisters have you got? And you know, what did you know? Where did you go to school? And did you go to college and what food did you eat? And all those simple questions which people ask you when they haven't seen, like a Westerner before? And when people after people ask you the same question, you get so bored. There's hundreds of people. Thousand people came to the monastery for this big festival. They all ask the same question. Where are you from? How many brothers and sisters have you got? Where did you go to college? All those stupid questions. What food do we over there? I got so bored that I decided to sneak away and I was successful. I managed to sneak into my hut quickly, grab a bottle of water and a cushion and a flashlight and sneak into one of the caves. Because this was north of Thailand, some very, very deep caves, and I'd explored them before, and I meditated in them before, and I found the deepest of those caves. It was really remote, and I had to sort of cordon off some passages and go left and right. It was maybe 100m deep till the end of the of the tunnel. And when I got there I thought, great, I've escaped. And I sat down there with my bottle of water, had my cushion and a flashlight. No one will bother me here. Ha ha ha. Only five minutes. Five minutes was all I had when I heard a sound of something coming along the the passages of the of the cave, I opened my eyes, and because it was like a bend in the end of the tunnel, I could see a light getting brighter and brighter as they came close, and I could hear their noises and I thought, oh my goodness! They're coming in my direction. But I had a chance because one of them, one of these Thai people, when they came to the corner and they poked their head around the corner, they saw me sitting there in meditation. And immediately he was afraid and poured his head back. And I heard a conversation as a ghost at the end of the tunnel. That's what they thought, and I thought I had a chance. Here. There's a ghost at the end of the tunnel, and the other one said, it can't be. Yes there is. Let's get out of here. So let's have a look. And so two heads came around the corner very quickly, and they pull their heads back again. And that's when I heard the, the very, very sad conversation. No, it's not a ghost. It's a Western monk. That was very dispiriting. And they looked round. Yeah, it's a Western monk. So they all came in about 20 of them. They'd been so bored with the sermon of the senior monk, they too had decided to go and explore the caves, and they had to explore the cave, which I was in. So they came right up to me, sat down and said, what country are you from? And he, brothers and sisters, have you got? I was just so dispirited. Even in the head of a 100 meter cave. He couldn't get away from these people. So I realized my mistake. But that's what it's like being a monk. You can't escape from those things. Right? Even when I came to Australia, I had a fantasy because I heard in the Nullarbor Plain I got this amazing caverns underneath the Nullarbor. And in the caverns they got, like, water underground. And I thought, wow, wouldn't it be great? I'd take some surprise, maybe three months of surprise, and go and live in the caves in the Nullarbor. No one lives there. Surely there they'll leave me alone. But then, as I fantasize about being the hermit of the Nullarbor, I fantasize about what would happen next. Soon somebody would find me. Because people would always explore. And they'd find this old monk, the hermit of the Nullarbor. And they. They go back home and they'd tell new idea. I saw that in his papers. A new idea would be a feature on me. The hermit of the Nullarbor. And then after they did a feature of me, then the tour buses would start arriving. And when I had the tour buses, they'd have to have a cafe next to it selling DVDs, sheets and little certificates. I visited the hermit of the Nullarbor. And then channel nine would do a documentary. And that would be the end. That'll be the end of the hermit, the Nullarbor. Now, that is actually feasible. The point is that even as a monk, you can't run away and hide. And if more you complain about that, the more suffering you make for your life. So I understood very odhams of life that you're not in control of life when you're not in control of life. You stop complaining. I'm not in control of what I have to do. Sometimes I work very hard. I think, oh, why me? Why do I have to do this? But I learnt a long time not to actually to complain, to look at another way. You can always have a positive attitude to whatever you have to do in life. Even remember our journey far telling the story of a man who was walking along one day in the forest and he saw a big hole, and the bottom of a hole was a treasure worth millions. So he leaned over and tried to pick up the treasure. You know, the hole was just a bit too deep. He leant and leant and stretched his arm, but he couldn't reach the treasure. And he was complaining. The holes too deep. The holes too deep. Another man came along and said, what's wrong? Said, look. There's a treasure down there, but I can't reach it. The holes too deep. Listen, the man said, you silly fellow. Get out of the way. I'll show you what the problem is. He got a stick. He said it's not the fact that hole's too deep. The problem is your arms too short. So instead, he extended his arm with a stick and hooked the treasure out and went away. Now, the moral of that story is, well, you can play in the holes to dig the holes too deep. The holes too deep. Another time. When do we complain? We're not doing anything bad. We're just getting negative. It's never the fact that they're holes too deep. If your arm is too short and you can always extend the hot to the. You can always extend your arm with a stick. I remember that story. So instead of complaining, we always do something about it. Which is why one of those favorite sayings, which is in that book, opened the door of your heart. Always rather light a candle than complain about darkness. So as human beings we complain so much, we complain, complain and complain. But hardly do we ever do anything. Now, what complaining means is that we're rejecting. So this present moment, which is produced by cause and effect, is karma. That's why we have what we have now. Karma means that whatever you experiencing right at this moment, you deserve. It's a hard one to take, isn't it? Sometimes you say. Why? Me? It's unfair. It shouldn't have happened. But really, if you see the big picture, it's what you deserve. Now, the most important thing is the second half of karma. Karma from the past gives you this moment. Now, with all the problems and difficulties and all the happiness as well. The most important part of karma is what are you doing about this? What are you doing with what you have right now? The most amazing thing about the law of karma is you can always make something out of whatever you have to deal with. You can always make, as I keep on saying, a beautiful, juicy mango out of dogshit. If you know how to dig it in and wait for a while, you can always do something with what you have. And one of the most wonderful parts of life is hearing these stories of people who have gone through such terrible, terrible, terrible ingredients and made such a wonderful life for themselves. And then the last time I told a story of when I went to Fremantle Gaol, uh, some years ago, because I used to go teach prisoners in these different jails in Australia when I went to Fremantle Gaol. Now, one of the things he noticed in the old Fremantle Gaol, as soon as you went in there, there was nothing green. It was all this, uh, you know, the Fremantle limestone. And some of the prisoners say it had been in there many, many years, that they'd they've forgotten what the colour green looked like. And also, there are so many buildings that had such small courtyards that they'd had to look up to see far distances, and they would very rarely do that. They said one of the first things which they noticed when they were released after 10 or 15 years was to see like green trees, flowers and to see far distances. And I could understand that visiting into that gaol, it was a very, very nasty place to live. But the social worker who greeted me when I first went into that jail was that Czechoslovakian girl. And I remember her story and just what a wonderful woman she was. So much so that ten, 50 years ago now. Her name was Duchess in Clover. She was one of my heroes because she told me what happened to her. She was about 16 or 17 in 1966 when the Soviet tanks came into Prague. They had they were behind the Iron Curtain as a communist regime. But they had a leader, Alexander Dubcek, who was reforming the state and giving more freedoms and liberalizing the oppressive regime with the huge support of his people. For that upset the Soviet Union so much that they sent their tanks in to reclaim the country. She was one of the people who stood on the streets protesting. That's all she was doing, just protesting for the freedom of her country. No crime, no violence. She was standing up, silently protesting. She was arrested and put in jail for, I think 25 years. 25 years of your young life, 16 or 17 year old. And this was in an East European jail. She told me that how she was beaten regularly, that was par for the course. There was no Amnesty International in those jails. It was behind the Iron Curtain. Could have been less than 20, I think 20 years, not 25 or whatever. But she was regularly beaten. But she said even though she'd done nothing more than protest for the freedom of her country. And she was so young. And that sentence was taken the best years of her life, of her young life. She said that she would never allow herself to get angry, even during the beatings. She would never allow herself to feel ill will towards those people who were perpetrating that violence against her. She said that was the only thing which she could protect, her freedom not to react. They can imagine what a strong willed and wise person she was. Which was why, when I met her many years later, she'd eventually been released and, uh, resettled in Australia. And she told me she being the social worker in Fremantle jail, no matter how hard it was, there was never any prisoner complain. She'd take them into her office and tell them what a real prison is like. They went back outside saying, oh, Fremantle Gaol is a wonderful place. It's a wonderful place. But it was her attitude which really impressed me, just how? Instead of complaining about the terrible situation she'd been placed in, and instead of complaining, she'd made something very wonderful out of this, training her mind to not give in to anger with such a long time of persecution. Now, you may know people like that. What they do is show you inspiration that something else is possible in life. Instead of actually complaining and having ill will. Sometimes we can actually make something out of things we can't change, because that complaining attitude which we have, means we don't see other opportunities. We think. Why does this happen? To me, this is not right. We're complaining about the ingredients of our present moment instead of realizing that that's karma from the past. Now, what are you doing about it now? There is something you can do. I mentioned that story last Saturday. No, sir. Not. I started last Tuesday because I was in Sydney for the meeting. A man there who had been falsely accused of a terrible crime. But his trial went badly. He faces 25 years in jail. Talking with some of the other monks there, they were convinced he was completely innocent. But sometimes this happens. But I was taught how to understand this by one of the other prisoners who I got to know. This was Incarnate Prison Farm. He was one of these old prisoners who had been in and out of jail most of his life. And he was a very funny man. And he joined my meditation class and after a few sessions, he asked if he could have a private chat with me after the class, which I readily agreed to. And he told me that the reason he wanted to talk to me was because he was innocent. He said the crime for which he'd been put in jail for the robbery he never committed. One of his friends did that job, not him. He had been put in jail for a crime, which he didn't do. I know from my experience in teaching in jails that when you inside, you only have very limited access, especially to a telephone, very little money, so very little you can do to redress injustices. But I was always an idealist and I thought, he can't do anything, but I can. I know some Buddhist lawyers. I know some people in government. Maybe I should fight his case for him. And I started thinking of all the people I would ring up as soon as I got back to my monastery down at serpentine. Now, as I was thinking about this, he interrupted my thoughts with a very cheeky smile. He said, I am wrong. I'm innocent of this crime. I didn't do that robbery. But there are so many other burglaries where I wasn't caught. I guess this is fair. And I laughed and that fellow taught me the law of karma because I realized that, yeah, he hadn't done that cry for which was put in jail for. But how many other crimes did he die when he got away with it? And sometimes I thought, how many times do you complain when you're caught speeding by the speed cameras? And it's really unfair. But how many times have you been speeding and you weren't caught by the speed cameras? Do you ever say that's unfair? I was doing that too. Tim Kay's over the limit and there wasn't a speed camera there. That's unfair. Really? Do any other naughty thing. You're not caught. Do you ever say that's not fair? Sometimes the way we complain is we don't see the big picture. Sometimes life is fair. That's what that oil karma says. We get everything we deserve. So if something has gone wrong, what do you do? You start complaining about it and instead you think, what can I do about this? So we don't go blaming the past which is unchangeable. Nor do we blame the present which is right here. We become proactive. We say, okay, we're in this situation, I'm going to go to jail. I've lost my wife. I lost my kids, I lost my money. What are you going to do about this? So instead of complaining, we learn how to do something with whatever we have. And the wonderful thing when you have that type of attitude is nothing which you can't make use of to learn and grow and become a better person from. Nelson Mandela was in jail for 2627 years, though what he did when he was in jail. You know, other people have had gross injuries, either in car accidents or other tragedies. It's amazing just how that has sometimes changed their lives. Some people have experienced other tragedies people dying or children committing suicide instead of complaining. They've learned a lot about what life truly is. Which is why I know that we had this funeral this afternoon, and many of you who are here a little bit early, as saw the coffin going past, saw me following it. Traditional Buddhists would understand that was two out of the four messengers of truth in the story of the Buddha a nice young man, a wealthy family, healthy body. The reason why he left home to become a monk was he saw four sights the old man, the sick man, the dead man, and then the holy man. What that really meant to him was that he saw something about the nature of life. That this is what our life is. We have got old age. We have got signals. We have got death. We have got disappointment. Things don't always go the way we want them to. Husbands or husbands? Wives or wives? Kids are kids. And what do you expect of a 13, 14, 15 year old child? And we know so many parents come up and say, oh my, my girl, my boy is not talking properly to me. They're not respecting me. And it's the standard answer is, well, how did you treat your parents when you were that age? It's karma. So many of you hit it for whatever it is, that sometimes this is the nature of kids at that age. They're just going through their thing. When you understand, says what you can expect of life, and you don't ask for more than you can expect, the more than life you do. So you don't ask for more than life can give you, but you live within life's boundaries, and don't try and make more out of life than it can give you. Then we can actually understand where we don't need to complain anymore. We make use of whatever we have, and when we make use of whatever we have, that's what we call making good karma in the present moment. So whatever we have, we don't get angry. We don't get upset at it. We learn how to employ it to make a better, happier, beautiful life. So stop complaining. Do something. If there's something to do, now becomes this positive attitude towards the difficulties of life. Complaining is wasting time not being active or proactive. It's amazing just what you can do with that type of attitude. Even I remember during the tsunami crisis. I mentioned that already. Oh, no. So I just mentioned that two in the funeral service during the tsunami crisis. Somebody called me up from the local media to ask what was the Buddhist idea of what caused the tsunami? Because many sort of people who believed in God said it was God's punishment for something, or rather, I don't know what I was. The price of sin or whatever. And they asked me, what's the Buddhist idea? Why did the tsunami happen? Is it because people's bad karma? Or why did it happen? And my response was straight away. Look, what does it matter why it happened? What's most important? It has happened. What are we doing about it? Instead of wasting time trying to figure out why it happened. Trying to find someone to blame. There are people there who have got no homes, who are hungry, who are injured, who are in pain. What we're supposed to do is actually to try and help those people. Instead of complaining about the darkness. Let's light some more candles. I always remember the the her media person said, well, I rang so many people today. That's the first piece of sensible advice I've got. And he praised me for that. While the press put its attitude towards the problems of life. We should stop complaining, for we do something about it and you know that we can do a huge amount to solve these problems. Well, the way we solve those problems is not blaming anybody. I still remember one of the former prime ministers of Thailand who came to see attention. He was talking to me afterwards, and he told me, he said, there's never any problem. When I was in prime ministers only for one year, when I was a prime minister, there was never any problem I could not solve by going to see my adversary, just the two of us putting my hand on his knee, which was not an expression of being gay. It was an expression of like friendship in Thailand, with that expression of friendship to my adversary and just talking it over, there's no problem, he said. We could never solve together. I was very impressed with that because he was a sincere man and a prime minister of a big country. I thought that was impossible. But it's amazing with that goodwill and friendship, just how we can solve problems. Or will he complain? Like in a marriage, we do complain. It's your fault husband, or it's your fault wife. When we start complaining like that without friendship, of course they never can be solutions. And that's what complaining starts. It can. When you complain, it's like blaming somebody or blaming yourself or blaming the government. And with that type of mind of complaining and finding fault, what we're doing, we're not finding solutions. We're finding faults. As were complaining is no wonder it doesn't work. Instead of finding force, we should be finding solutions. And sometimes solutions are so hard to find. We need everybody included, different perspectives, different ideas, because solutions are that difficult. But of course, you can't find a solution when you're looking for the faults. So instead of complaining, we do something about it. We try and find solutions. And no, sometimes there isn't solutions. When is not a solution? Again, it's not a problem, is it? As hard as I think. Was it last week with that story from, uh, Harold Macmillan, the former British prime minister? I could have told us in Sydney, I'm not sure. But that particular story, again, is one of these little anecdotes which changed much of the way I look to my life, because I'm an a spiritual director of Buddhist Society of WA. Sometimes we call it spiritual dictator of Buddhist Society of wa. The head of the monastery down at Boston, monk of Serpentine Monastery. I've got so many responsibilities I have to be very efficient with the way I use my mind. And this is actually one of the reasons how I can hold so much responsibility without getting too stressed out, because this Prime Minister was once asked, during the time of the Six-Day War between, uh, Israel Palestine, uh, that's not Palestine at that time, I think was Jordan and Egypt and Syria and Lebanon fighting a war against his surrounding countries. It was called the Six-Day War. During the middle of that crisis, the newspapers interviewed the former British prime Minister, Harold Macmillan. And they said straight away, sir, what do you think about the problem in the Middle East? And this elder statesman, he'd retired at the time said, sir, there is no problem in the Middle East. There is no problem in the Middle East, he replied. And the reporter said, how can you say that as we speak there's a war going on. People are dying, tanks are shedding buildings. People are being wounded. What do you mean there's no problem? And his response was brilliant. He said, sir, her problem is something with a solution. There is no solution in the Middle East. Therefore it can't be a problem. Now that's one of those unexpected sayings which, when you contemplate it, has a huge amount of wisdom which saves so much suffering. The problem is something with a solution, there's no solution. It's not a problem. In other words, it's a waste of time even thinking about it because you can't be effective. Now, how many times do we complain about things which aren't problems? In other words, things which don't have a solution. You complain about someone who's died. That particular type of complain is called grief. Sometimes you complain about something you did in the past which you shouldn't have done. That type of complaining is called guilt and you complain about what someone else said. It's called anger. How many types of complaining are there? Most of them aren't problems. You can't do anything about it. It's dumb. But there are other times when you can do something about it. And it's not just trying to change the past. It's always the AFL code of knowledge. Forgive, no blame and learn from whatever happened. It's amazing to us how much we can grow with that AFL Code of Knowledge. Forgive and learn, but no complaining. And some of the things which we learn is actually to expect less out of life, to expect less from our partner. When you expect less, you can appreciate more. It's amazing thing that where we see the faults in another person, we can't see their good qualities. That's why complaining just looks at the negative side of a person about life or about yourself. Have you ever noticed that it's just like those, um, psychology puzzles where you can look at a hourglass and it's either two people looking at each other or it's a vase. You can't see both at the same time. Perception doesn't allow you to have both perceptions in your mind simultaneously. It's the same time thing. You can't have fault finding and love at the same time. You either complain or you've got compassion. You don't have both. We understand that. You understand how every time we have a complaining mind who miss the opportunity to have a compassionate, embracing mind. Of those two. Which one would you rather develop? The compassionate mind sees the other person with all their faults and embraces their faults with their good qualities. And seeing there are human beings, they're not perfect. They do make mistakes, but you love them for who they are. The compassion of mind just loves life for what it is surely has its got its disappointments, its pain, its sicknesses, and its death. We love life for what it is. Complaining about life and thinking, oh, may there never be any sickness. May there never be any death. My my marriage. Never have any arguments. All boys get promotions at work. May the government always do the right thing. Come and get real. Sometimes our compassion stops seeing the faults in things and sees the big picture, the beauty as well as the mistakes. And that's a powerful thing in life. Because when we start to develop that positive mind, the mind of compassion, rather than complaining, it changes the whole picture. Well, we actually find it was actually the complaining. The negativity was perpetuating the faults. Where do those mistakes and faults come from? Why do people argue with each other? Why do husbands and wives find difficulty living with each other? Why do governments always make the stupid decisions? Why is life like this? A lot of times it's because we put far too much complaining and fault finding and too little understanding and compassion. What was it like with you growing up? You may have been fortunate to have a parent who was kind to you, could forgive your faults and was compassionate. I was fortunate to have a father like that. I was amazed that somehow sometimes I thought I'd get punished for. But he would say never mind. That taught me a huge amount by having a parent who had more compassion than fault finding. And I grew. I grew strongly to deserve that compassion. And that's what I found in life. When you're compassionate to the other people you live with are unkind to my monks rather than fault finding. They've become far better monks. You try and find. Beat them down. Tell them all the mistakes they've made. What does that do? Have you had that experience when you were young? Always having your faults and mistakes pointed out. You just get dispirited. You give up. What's the point of trying? That's what happens with complaining. It gives you don't have any positive input. You get negative yourself. You just get depressed. Give up or you just fight back with complaints of your own. Is that any way to live? Is there any way to have a relationship when you're brought up like that? You also start complaining about yourself. You're not good enough. I'm not wise enough. I'm not clever enough. I'm not pretty enough. I'm not strong enough. I still remember the first year I came to Australia. I was number two monk, but I had to do a lot of work as well. And I remember one weekend this man called up. He made an interview for counselling for his 15 year old daughter. I've never done much counselling before, but I was willing to give it a try. But he never told me what the problem was. So this young girl came in a pretty young girl. What's your problem? And she was looking down at the floor. Took me about 10 or 15 minutes to get out. What was causing her such anxiety and depression? And there was a problem was she told me her nose was too big. It's so sweet there. What do you mean your nose is too big? Now put your head up so I can have a look at it. And now? And now is a bit stupid. At the time, you know, I decided to be the scientist. So I looked at her nose and I gave her a quick measure. I never got the ruler out, but you know, I can understand what a couple of centimeters was and looked at and said, you know, well, not you know, I've had many girlfriends, you know, your nose is actually quite average. It's not big, it's not small. It's not really to call like an exceptional nose, not even ugly noses. That's right in the middle. Like a good Buddhist way. Middle way nose. And that was my objective opinion. But that obviously never had any effect on her whatsoever, because she was so depressed because she thought she had a big nose. I see that's what complaining does. You find something wrong with you if you haven't got a big nose, you've got crooked teeth. I don't got crooked teeth. You've got bad hair. You've always got something wrong with you. Have you got a fighting mind? You're going to really suffer. If you've got a fighting mind, you can never find anyone to live with, not even yourself. And that's a cause of so much problems in our world. People can't even. They can't find a partner. They can't even have a good time with themselves. They're always seeing their faults. That's why it's wonderful to see. Stop always complaining. Have more compassion. More compassion to the person you live with. They're trying their best. Believe it or not, people actually do try their best to get on. They do try their best at work, even though sometimes you don't believe that. But that's a that's the case in a relationship. People are really trying. And you try your best. To everyone who's here today, you've really worked so hard to be who you are. You've tried and what happens. You just get complaints. You're not good enough. What happens then? You just give up. You get worse. A bit of encouragement, a bit of praise instead of complaining, works wonders. When I started seeing that in the Buddha's teachings, he called it stopped the fall finding mind and instead develop a mind which doesn't see faults, but which sees the positive side, which praises, which is grateful, which finds contentment. If I that lady came to me now, she's probably I don't know. It must have been 20 years ago now, 25 years ago now, if a lady like that came and said, be content with your nurse, have a contentment. Don't be so thought finding, because if I can do that in life, one will find it very easy to get it. Not find fault with a partner, not find fault with your children. Not find fault with your body when it gets old. Not find fault with death. Not find fault with the dogs next door when you don't have that fault, find in mind how much peace, contentment and happiness can you build a huge amount. And that's exactly what I teach. When people learn how to meditate. I don't know how many people, when they first start meditating. Sometimes they live their life one way and they meditate another way. These same as when you sit quietly down, stop finding faults with your own mind because it's tired or it's sleepy. If you fall asleep, fine. Well done. At least you're peaceful. So you don't find fault with yourself or with your meditation. Instead of having a complaining mind oh my, meditation wasn't good this time I was thinking too much. I was doing this. I was doing that, that complaining. You know, that's actually what stops you being peaceful when you meditate. It's great when we stop complaining. In meditation, we call using a mantra. This is good enough. This is good enough. This is good enough. No matter what it is, this is good enough. Had great success by using that mantra. In meditation retreats, people are meditating along and are having a difficult time. So stop whatever you're doing. Just remind yourself like a mantra. Words you repeat yourself again. This is good enough. This is good enough. This is good enough. I mean, they start complaining, hey, you know what happens next when I start complaining? They have this idea. This is good enough. They go to the next stage, they realize, actually, this is good enough. And from that, they get to the next stage. Actually, this is quite nice. Then they get to the next stage. This is bloody nice. Next stage. This is wonderful. Then they stop this thing out. This is a standard process. As a meditation teacher, I see with people because when they start complaining, then they can start to see the beauty in this moment. It was there all along, but sometimes all we can see is the big nose. We can't see the rest of the beautiful face. When you start complaining and this is good enough, the world starts to look more beautiful and it looks even more beautiful. And the happiness which you cannot describe starts to arise not just in your meditation, but in your whole life. It's amazing when people learn how to stop complaining so much that they don't have so much to complain about. The more you complain, the more you make the world miserable, which is what the law of karma is all about. You create your world. If you're a complainer, you create this very negative, dark, miserable world for yourself and the people who know you. A lot of karma means that that you are the creator, not of God, not the government. You create your world. When you realize how important, how true that is, every time you complain, you're just making more black clouds over the sky. So this is good enough. We start and now we realize it's actually quite wonderful and quite nice. That's why I've been around for 35 and 33 or 34 years now. I'm having a wonderful time as a monk. Sometimes people say, how can you do that? Such a tough life as a monk. You can't do this and you can't do that. There's so many rules. We can't. So many things we can't do. The one thing I can always do is to be happy and not complain. Even the food I get got no choice. Just put in my bowl. So I stop complaining and just enjoy it. Wonderful food. The more you stop complaining, the more peace and happiness you have. So instead of finding faults, we find solutions. Instead of seeing what's wrong, we see what's right. We create a right world, a beautiful world, a good world. You can try that in life. Try that in your meditation. Next time you sit quietly to stop complaining, you're fine. When you stop complaining, it's hardly anything to think about. Do you ever notice? And most of the thoughts you have are all complaints. He stopped complaining. The mind is quiet. If you start complaining at home, there'll be much more silence in your house. Much more peace and much more happiness. So if one learns how to stop complaining, it becomes the path to peace, to happiness, to liberation, and even to freedom. You create your world. That means the law of karma. So what other world do you want to create? Your life is in your hands. Da da da. So that's the talk this evening. Oh. No complaints. I don't log in. I'm not going to buy that one. I know you're trying to make me complain about you. Say that. It's a wonderful thing you said. Thank you so much for saying that. It's just good enough. That. Anyone got any questions, comments or complaints? Yes, sir. Yes. Question. Yes. He was green. Oh, yeah. He's perfect. He's right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. How do you distinguish between, uh, complaining and talking through things? And I think the key parts of this talk, which many of you may have noticed because I. When I said this, I noticed that many of you paid attention. Is you complaining is finding faults. Wisdom is finding solutions. There's a huge difference between those two. So we're not finding faults. We're finding solutions. It's not why did this happen or who did it? And trying to punish them is finding solutions for this moving forward rather than lingering in the past. Complaining is all about the past. Who did what? To whom? Why did it happen? Find a solution. Don't find fault. As I understand it. Okay. Next question. Yes. Okay. Should you have personal boundaries and try to be mindful? But sometimes it's difficult putting these teachings into practice in life. Yeah, it's difficult putting these teachings into practice. But you know, we learn basically that the more you try, the harder it gets. So after a while, you know, you just give up and you just allow it to grow naturally. So, you know, with all these teachings you have here, basically it is brainwashing. I admit to that, but it's brainwashing in a good way. And if it doesn't work, you won't come back again. So there's like a, you know, a sort of a safeguard there. And little by little you come back and you do find you change. But the more you try to change, so the slower it will be. And that's why the, you know, the change in your character, the change in the way you look at life. Sometimes you don't notice it, but your partner does. And your kids do. Your parents notice it, but you don't notice it at all because, you know, you grow so slowly, so incrementally. And this is what happens. It's wonderful to see this. Uh, I said, you know, during meditation that sometimes people they don't want to counter meditation because they've had a hard week at work, and you've got to come all the way over here and spend your evening over here meditating, listening to talks. And I remember many years ago that I was teaching in the Armadale meditation group, and the ladies told me afterwards, you know, I never wanted to come tonight. I. I was tired. Had a busy day. I had to cook dinner for my family, and I just wanted to put my feet up and watch anything on the TV. Didn't matter what, I was tired. But my children said, mummy, you must go to meditation. So now tired, mummy, go to meditation. Why? Because mummy, you're a much nicer mummy when you come back for meditation. And I told that story a couple of weeks ago. And afterwards the lady came up and she said, that happened to me tonight exactly the same. She never wanted to come, but her children said, mummy, you are much nicer when you go to meditation. She never noticed it, but her kids did. So a lot of times that, you know the growth in his teachings, they just happen naturally. And as far as your personal boundaries are concerned, you know that sometimes our personal boundaries expand and expand and expand and expand to include more things as we become more peaceful and more compassionate in life, which means we need to protect ourselves less and less and less. We have nothing much to protect anymore. You can be more open to everybody. It's a wonderful thing to have that when your boundaries, because the boundaries are sometimes what's between you and another person. And sometimes those boundaries expand and expand until they include everybody. I remember doing this as a meditation many years ago. I haven't taught this for such a long time now. I imagined in my meditation when I got peaceful, I imagined a circle. Inside that circle was all the people I liked and all the things in life I approved of and liked. And just outside the circle were the people and the things, experiences and situations. I didn't really detest them, but you know, they're not so nice. And the further they were out from the center of my circle, the more I hated them. The long way out when I met enemies, the situation, the things I really did not like. And I imagined in this meditation, just expanding my circle. Now, first of all, to include the people and the experiences which I never detested. But, you know, it was pretty ambivalent towards including them in my circle of things. I liked expanding that circle more and more and more until the boundaries got so big they just expanded into infinity. Night in Grace. Even the people I hated had embraced the situations I disliked. I embraced the hurt of the past. Everything became included within my circle. It was actually another way of looking at personal boundaries and expanding of so much. They included everybody. Everyone was inside and nothing was left outside. That's why sometimes boundaries are sometimes a bit of a problem. Yeah. I do know that. Right? Okay. That's true because I take a lot for me too. But yeah, there's a time when you say, okay, that you know that I'm also inside my circle. So if you do, open yourself up very, very much that sometimes some people, because they need so much, sometimes they do take and take take take, take. They squeeze as much out of you as they possibly can. I remember going to a talk over in, uh, one center some years ago, and I actually caught them. I overheard them say, oh, look, you better sort of ask them more questions to squeeze as much out of him as we possibly can before he goes back too much to. And his dad got bit upset at the time. I thought, no, no, you can squeeze out. Squeeze as much out of me as you possibly can. It's usually that I know now. The more I give, the more I have to do, the more is there to be given. It's a wonderful thing just when you really let go of your boundaries completely. If you can have the courage to do that. Yeah, sure. You feel tired physically, but emotionally you feel just so wonderful. This happens to me so often. I'd sometimes teach all day and get physically very exhausted, be emotionally just so charged and other too. I'd rather have the emotional happiness and the physical tiredness. So but you know, sometimes you say, well, that's enough for now because you can't as well. So sometimes you've got to look after yourself and be kind and compassionate towards yourself. But don't complain about life, about people. So squeezing as much out of you as I possibly can. That's just life. So I'm very happy that happens. And just. But then, then again, every time it's okay, it's time to go to bed now. So I go back to my room having a good rest. So you do the same. Give yourself space as well. I answered your question, but. And you're not complaining. So you've listened to the talk. Okay, so that's another talk off the cuff. I never knew I was going to talk about that tonight until the dog started complaining. So this talk is dedicated to those wonderful dogs outside who taught me how not to complain. So thank you for listening. Now we have a couple of announcements before we go. And now, with the new committee being elected tomorrow, there will be a new president from here or here next Friday. And so I won't be here and I'll be retiring from the activities. So I hope we'll all be able to make good use of the facilities that are and services that are offered by the Buddhist society and reach whatever goals we aspire to. Thank you. And, uh, we can pay our respects to the humans. Yes. Very good. Are on fire. Sound good? Go on. What I like about the abbey was they me? So long. Title II da dum dum dum da. Sorry. Sir. Party partner by the Waldorf star. Like a song called Starting Upon the Bombing.