Power

Power by Ajahn Brahm Okay, so this evening's talk is a result of a request which I think I got before I retreat, period, about 4 or 5 months ago. I kept it on my desk and thought, this will make a good topic for this evening's dharma talk. It's on power, and it's very topical because we have two Australian men vying for power next week. And sometimes there might be an Australian man, Australian woman vying for power in your family. So power is a topical subject, but it's going much deeper than that. It's what the nature of power is and is power. Any good at all? And what is actually real power? And how is it going to be a benefit to us in the world? Why is it people get stuck in powerful positions and who won't know? Let go and give it up. This is to talk about power. And to begin with, I was fascinated that, uh, in Buddhist cosmology, where we're not dealing so much with the nature of matter in planets and solar systems and universes and galaxies, but in the nature of the human mind and the levels of that human mind, we have like a hierarchy of heaven realms. And I was always struck by the why there are different levels of a heaven where we don't have to believe in heaven, but this whole idea of different levels of heaven, uh, does bring out an important aspect of the nature of happiness and pleasure, if you like. Because the lowest heavens, which is like more pleasure than we have here. In other words, now the food is always to your taste. No, the guys or the girls. That is always beautiful. Earth. And they don't talk back on you and they don't smell or whatever. But that's just the ordinary, like heaven realms. But then when you get higher than that, you have like the the heaven of the beings who delight in creating. It is a higher happiness. And just like sex or food or music. This the creating a divas or heavenly beings. And if any of you have ever done a work of arts and composed of music, or written a book, or know draw some sort of painting, or just done something which is very, very beautiful, then you get a huge amount of pleasure out of creating that work of art. And even if it's not a work of art, if you've had a child, the fact that you know you and your partner created this being. That gives you a huge sense of pleasure, and that will see a next level up above the sensory pleasures of just the sex or food, the pleasure of creating. And I think many of you can understand just how that is just so amazing and so pleasurable. But the next level up above that is the the divas who have the pleasures of controlling the control freak heaven if you like, which is even more subtle and more rewarding than sort of creating things, controlling others creations. Then when you go above that, we get into the realm of the pleasures of unconditional love and also the deep meditation realms. But that level is actually a very high level in the Buddhist cosmology. It's what it's doing. There is understanding. It's noticing that there is a delight, a pleasure in controlling, which is why that some people get addicted to that type of pleasure. And I know that people from other religions have often asked the questions in Buddhism, is there anything like a devil of Satan? And the closest we have there is a being, which is noted in the ancient Buddhist text called Mara, Mara. And when we moved to this suburb of Nola, Mara. People actually noticed that one of the Malay words for now is Nola. So this extra suburb means no Mara. So we're in a very auspicious place for our Buddhist center. But the idea of a Mara, the Mara, is not some evil being. He's more like a controller who once stretched you to make people. Do you know what now that being wants him to do. And this is why it is closest we have to like a devil of an evil person. The control freak in chief. And I was actually saying there in this cosmology is that. Yes, control is a certain pleasure in there, but there's a huge danger because when you start to control, you start to literally lose it and create a lot of harm and hurt for other beings, though, which is why, no, that very famous saying of Lord Acton, that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But does it? You can see in many cases it does. But does that mean that we just have to abandon all power and all control? There is another way, because in a sense, just the very fact that I'm giving a talk here today, I am trying to control I'm trying to influence beings, people in this world to become better, calmer, happier, more sensitive, more and more harmless people in the world. So in a sense, I am trying to interfere with, you know, the way of the world. I am controlling in a way, but it comes from a different place. And in this talk, I'm going to actually show the two different types of control and power. And the fact is not the fact that power in itself is evil is actually just where it's focus, where it comes from. And what is associated with causes are problems of power. Because the first thing about power becomes so centered in that person who exercises power. And if power is like controlling. Now you find out that the more person controls, the stronger and bigger their sense of self and ego becomes. And this is very, very fundamental to understanding. Know what Buddhism is, especially the psychology of the mind, that the more you control, the bigger your sense of self and the stronger it gets. And the reason is, is because that sense of self, you know, that your identity that is actually this is just what an identity does. It manipulates and controls its area of authority, the very least. Now we think we should control our own body, that this is my my field, my sort of owner, my property, and therefore I can control my body. I can do whatever I like to my body. And sometimes when you get married to some partners, I think they can control their partner. They can control their kids, and they start a company and they can control the workers. And then they sort of become a lawyer, and then they become a politician, and then they become a prime minister. Then they want to control the whole of Australia, and then they want to control the whole of the world. Whatever you control or you think you have power over influence over that is where you exert your power. And that's actually what makes your ego. It feeds it. Which is why, though, big egos want to control a huge area. Medium egos, at least they want to control their family and their sort of their finances. And even smaller egos want to control their body in their mind. But when we learn about Buddhism and actually just what the real truth is, we actually want to try and stop that controlling as much as possible because we realize that we don't. Only since I've only met sir, I met John Howard a couple of times a couple of years ago. And the the impression I got with him and this impression I've got with many leaders of which I've met the person I got with him that he owns Australia. And I was just something which came out straight away in my mind that it's not a fault of him. I think it's the fault of that office and being in it such a long time. I think any one of you would probably do the same if you were there. There's a Prime Minister for such a long time. Here's what actually happened, sir. We think that we can control. Now, that's actually the big ego. Sometimes in your family, you think you can control your relationship. You can control your partner now because you think that is my possession. And if you possess that person, it's going to come to a, you know, a huge amount of problem. There's no real relationship at all. It's going to bust up. You know, you cannot control your partner no more. You can control your country no more. You can control an economy. That's why sometimes you feel a lot of sympathy for politicians who are blamed when things go wrong. I think we should all know that economies are completely out of control. We should also know that our partners, they go according to their law, not according to our demands and wishes. And even your own life is out of control, and you should be old enough now to admit that and to recognize it, and especially our bodies. And we want to control our bodies. And what happens? They get sick or he gets tired where it goes and dies on us. Sometimes that as to the monks, we say, well, who owns this body here and this body here? It doesn't belong to our genera. It belongs to nature, and that's its true owner. When I recognize the true owner of my body and I stop sort of controlling it and wanting it to be this way and that way, because I realize I'm just fighting something, a battle I could never win. And actually, when you could, instead of actually controlling your body, you can just be kind to it. Kindness is a much different thing than actually controlling or exerting power over your body. Unfortunately, in our current society, the way we are taught, the way we sometimes brought up, and even like in the Christian Bible I was taught when I was a kid, is that God has given you dominion over the animals in the world, and this whole earth is yours to control and exploit. You can see where that's taken us with the amount of environmental problems which we have when instead of actually controlling, controlling the world, exerting our power over it. And what happens? It all tends to go wrong. Which is the nature of when we exert power over another person, over our sphere of influence, or even over our own body. I don't know how many managers there are here in this room, or people who run clinics, colleges, universities, or just their own department in a big corporation. You know that sometimes that power creates huge problems in your community, and you've seen that happening many, many times. Maybe you've been on the receiving end of the problems of someone exerting power over you. There's something wrong there. It's dysfunctional. The whole reason that a person is motivated to exert power is to try and bring some benefit to that relationship. Many people go into politics because they really want to do something for their country, for their world. Many people do go on with the most highest of motivations, but something goes wrong in the meantime. People fall in love and they want to live with each other, with their partner in this beautiful feeling of love together. But then sometimes they really want to have happiness. They want the other person to be happy. They want happiness themselves. But something goes wrong when they try and control that relationship. It ends up becoming dysfunctional and arguing and hating each other and getting divorced. And sometimes we have that same with our own bodies. Sometimes we want to control our bodies and just make it this way, in that way, and it ends up getting sick anyway. Some it's going wrong there, and even more so that those people who meditate, they want to control their minds. And how many of you try to control your mind? You got stuffed up, get frustrated, get upset and angry and think, I can't meditate. I'm getting out of here now. This is a wrong way of controlling, because that degree of controlling of things which you have no real power over, if you only realize what you're trying to do, you're trying to just like the, uh, story of, uh, which I learnt in English, um, folklore, King Canute, who stood apparently somewhere in England and because he thought he was the king, the emperor with divine rights, he stood on the beach and tried to order the tide to actually to go out when it was coming in. And obviously he made a fool of himself because you cannot control nature. And for all the technology of our modern world, we cannot control this nature. And every time we do try and control it, we tend to get sort of these some, uh, natural disasters which prove to us you can't control these things. You have no power over it. And every time we try and get that power, we end up sort of feeling that we are somebody until the point comes along where the truths of nature stares us in the face. Our body doesn't belong to us. Our partner is not our possession. Our world is not our domain. Even our mind is not at our whim to control. When we realize this, first of all, we don't realize it. But we're faced with the truth of that. We come up with what we call frustration. Why is it that I'm trying so hard? Then you wife. You husband, you just don't understand. Why is it sort of, you know, company Earth. We're trying our very best. But why is it all going wrong? And why is it that when you sort of meditate, try and get your life together, it just can't work? You get frustrated. As I mentioned here last week. And it's a very interesting thing for psychologists to investigate. I can actually see the link between control and then frustration. The next stage is anger and then depression. And I think those those things actually follow in the sequence. Then if you don't stop that sequence quickly. That's actually where one ends up. One wants to control, one thinks one can't control, one gets frustrated. One just tries harder, which makes one more frustrating in the end up frustration and anger. Why don't you understand? Why doesn't the body understand? Why does this happen to me? Why can't they do things differently? And if you get angry enough times, it just saps all your energy, all your willpower. And in the end, you just go into depression. You just give up. But give up big time, not give up. Like monks give up. We're not depressed at all. So that's the problem with control and the power which comes from control. The reason why people do it is because they get a buzz out of controlling and being in power. And that's what the Buddha said with that cosmology. That's the happiness even more than creating. When you're actually in power, you're in power over other people. And number two, sort of it makes for a bigger sense of ego and self. My. I got to focus on the ego and circuit. When it comes to ego and self, it just focuses all the energy in here, all the focus in here. The power is inside and I think it's the location of power which is the wrong problem there, the wrong idea there. Many times I said the real location of power should not be in any individual. The power should be located in the relationship between people, not between me and him. But the power should be focused in what's between us. Then you find if that is where you put power in actually making the relationships sort of stronger, more peaceful, more compassionate, more sort of loving. If you put the power there rather than me trying to do something, or rather you trying to do something, or is us putting something in between there? That is where power becomes very effective when it comes to a sense of self, and it's building up that self, it becomes dysfunctional, causes all sorts of problems. But the following story will will tell. This is today's joke if you haven't guessed already, which actually shows how power. Because sometimes, like monks, you know that we do have power sometimes, but we know we don't abuse that power. Now, this was actually a case of a kid who went to school one day and his friend told him, look, if you want to get some cash out of your relations, just go up to them, look them in the eye and tell them I know all about it. Because everybody has secrets and they're bound to actually to give you something. So when he went home from school, he went out to his eldest sister, you know, 14 to 15 years of age. He looked her in the eye and said, sister, I know all about it. And she looked very worried and gave him $20 and said, don't tell mum and dad. So then he went out to his mum and he said, mum, I know all about it and said, oh no, don't tell your father, here's 50 bucks. So now he was on a roll. He went to see his daddy and said, daddy, look him in the eye. I know all about it. And of course, dad didn't know sort of what he was talking about, but there's always some secrets he had. So he said, okay, son, keep quiet. Don't tell your mother. Here's a hundred bucks. He tried it on the dog, but dog just wagged its terror and got no money anyway. Dogs are great. They don't have secrets. So then he tried it on the postman. He went up to the postman, looked him in the eye and said, postman, I know all about it. And the postman smiled and said, you do. And gave him a hug, and called him. Oh, son. Now is there any possibility now you know that Mark sometimes can read people's minds? I know all about it. And the donation box is over there. If I was unscrupulous, I could raise enough money for a retreat center. No worries at all. But of course, actually, that's an abuse of power. People can't do that. When you actually do develop any such powers to read people's minds. There was a mug used in the time of the Buddha who started getting powers. And again, it was a danger there because he didn't have strong enough virtue morality. When he started developing his powers, he started to exploit them just out of ego and immediately lost them. He says it's almost like a rule of thumb in so the psychic powers and the meditation powers, unless they're based on a very, very strong morality, if you break their morality, they will get lost. And there's a good reason why. It's because that real power. And I'm going to talk about the meditation power and then go on to show the how this is what real power is and how we can use this power. We'll use the idea of this power just in ordinary life, so that power is not something which we're afraid of with no absolute power is going to be absolutely destructive. But when a power is a proper type of power, we can make use of this for the benefit of ourselves, our family, and for the world. So actually, what happens? The power which you get as a monk for meditation always comes from actually lessening your ego and lessening the consequent control which you you apply. And I found that out many, many times that every time when I meditated, I tried to make my mind peaceful. I could never do it. But when you actually let go, you're not trying to meditate. You're not trying to control your body. You're not trying to control the contents of your mind. You're not trying to control the environment and kill that dog outside always barks on a Friday night. You're not trying to control the outside world or the inside world, but you're making peace with it. You're letting go, not controlling, not doing things. And you all know. You should know by now that at the heart of meditation is letting go, making peace, relaxing, you know, coming to a sense of stillness and a peace with yourself in a world. And you can't get to that place of stillness and peace, you know, through, um, controlling or being aggressive. Now, just talking, just before I came in here about, you know, that I was a child of the 60s, you know, the hippie area, mate. Peace. Not war. That was our slogan. Then. That's my slogan. Now you make peace, not war with your mind. In other words, you allow it to be. You open the door of your heart to whatever you are experiencing in this moment, no matter what it is now, you can see that's completely opposite to controlling. You are not trying to make this moment different. You're practicing this beautiful openness of the heart. It's making. Peace is letting go. Being friends with whatever's happening right now because you are stopping this controller. As I said last week, the all the energy, the mental energy which you waste trying to control the world, especially the meditation, trying to control your mind. All that energy is freed to go to where it really belongs, just into what we call just knowing, bare awareness, mindfulness. This is actually why that when we do let go, when we do come to a state of peace, when we stop controlling, when we stop doing anything, when we do express this beautiful love for the moment, the door of my heart servant to this moment. When you get very still. That way you start feeling lots of energy coming into your body and mind. You do get energized, you do get empowered, and this is what it feels like. So much so then that book, which I wrote that mindfulness and beyond, I was actually making the point that we have what's called power mindfulness. And this is actually what it feels like when you meditate after a while, when you get very, very still, you do feel that your mind becomes very, very strong. And sometimes the first thought we know about this is when we open our eyes and we're just so perceptive. You know, the flower outside is incredibly beautiful. Even the sky. You can see the saw, the stars, the colors stand out at you. It's as if your mind is just gone up a notch in energy. Just like we have the, uh, the lights. If we just put up the power in the lights, the light shine more and you can see more. And that's what it feels like now when you start getting power coming up in your meditation. But you also notice any of you, if ever, get to that point. Whenever you start to interfere, to control, to make it sort of happen or whatever, it all falls apart. Because this is a power which is built on letting go, not on controlling, but on leaving things alone. Her power, which is really based on this unconditional love. Door. My heart's open. I'm not controlling anything. I'm just allowing it to be. And in that peace, in that stillness, a huge amount of power starts coming up. If you haven't experienced that in your meditation, you may have experienced that when you go out to the bush and when you go to places where there's no other human being for 200km all around you, and it's still you feel the power of that stillness. There's something incredibly strong there, which is why people do feel they have spiritual experiences in such places and are like the older hermits going off into the deserts or into the deep caves when everything becomes very quiet and you're not controlling anything. It's amazing the power which you feel. In that sort of stillness, and that really builds up very, very strongly. The deeper you go, the more you let go and the more power you feel. Now, this is almost like a natural process, because that will only happen when you don't do things, when you let go. And the more you let go, the more that you as a self just disappear. You're not controlling anything. You're not doing anything. Your willpower is disappearing. And with it, you as well. Which I know that as a monk, the more you disappear, the less there is of you in here, the more power you have. So this becomes a different type of power, not a power which is coming from an ego which is centred in here, which wants to control other people, which wants to control the world, which wants to control, you know, your garden or your house which wants to control your mind is something which is letting go and you feel more power. That's why it's fun being a monk, because you do have power. And sometimes people recognize that. I remember even 24 years ago when we first came here to Perth, we were just walking on arms around one morning, just in North Perth in Fitzgerald Street, and this guy was painting a sign on one of the shops, and he turned around to us and said, who are you? We said we have Buddhist monks. He says, you just don't realize how much power you have. That's who are you? And he said, I'm a witch. He was a witch. But you guys, he said, have much more power. And I understand that. I know that one of the other stories was when I was visiting my mum. I've told this story before, but it's a great story. I visited my mum in London many years ago and she was cooking my meal for the day. And as you all know by now, especially those of you who've gone to the monks, the monastery, the nuns, the monastery, the one meal of the day is very important for monks and nuns. So when someone knocked at the door, I did what? My mother to interrupt her cooking and small my lunch. So I said, I'll answer the door, mum. So I answered the door. And on the other side of the door, in this this block of apartments, there was a lady. She said, I'm a gypsy. She said, would you like to buy some gypsy Heather for good luck? And I said, no, thank you. And she said, if you don't buy some gypsy Heather, I will give her put a curse on you. That was their marketing campaign. For some people, it would work because you're so superstitious these days. Somebody had told me that there's a huge number of of Supernatural and Buffy the Vampire and all this other stuff, and Harry Potter on TV and film, so people really into the supernatural these days. So there's a good marketing campaign, but I had a better one. I stood up, had my robe won, I said, I am a Buddhist monk. My curses, madam, are much stronger than yours. I should have done that because her whole jaw dropped. She showed incredible fear and she ran away. She couldn't get away as fast. No, no, no, not that I would curse anybody. But you don't know that. But the point is, if you did exert such power, you would lose it straight away because it would come from a sense of self rather than a sense of letting go. And this is how I found in the mother meditation, and actually the path of being like a Buddhist. The more you disappear, the more your ego sort of shrinks into the big cosmos, if you like. So you're no different than anybody else. You don't stand out. You're not the center of the universe, but you're just part of it all. The more you actually disappear that way, the more you let go of control, and the more you let go of that control, the more power you actually have. And it's the power, which is because it's not coming from a self, because I'm not separate from you and because I am not more important than you, and because that I'm not focusing on myself rather than anybody else, because that power comes from a disappearance of a self, it's free to flow between us. So the power does not become to make a stronger self or to fulfill my own desires, but the desire. The power just goes out into the world. It does become a power which doesn't enslave, but a power which frees. A power which comes from an ego because it wants to control people. It wants to put you in that domain. I own you, I govern you. You are mine to follow my orders. That's a control which comes the sense of self. And that is a power which does corrupt and which is dysfunctional, cause most of the problems in the world. But the power which comes from letting go is there's no. Call it love if you like the power which says, the door of my heart is open to you, no matter what you ever do in your life. Now that is an incredibly strong power. When people don't realize how strong that actually is, because that is a power which frees the other person saying, I will love you. I will care for you no matter who you are, no matter what you do. The whole purpose one had power in the beginning was to try and bring benefit to the world, but because that power was coming from a sense of ego and control, you know, from the self, it was dysfunctional. It never brought any benefit to anybody but a lot of harm. Well, I know what real power is, the power which comes from letting go, from stillness, from allowing things to be from the real, unconditional love for another being, or for the world, or for the whole universe, or for just life, then that gives incredible power, the power to heal, the power to really bring benefit, the power to bring freedom. So you all know you've known me for so many years now. No matter what you say, I've never excommunicated anybody. Ever. In the 24, 25 years almost. I've been here in Perth. I've thought about it quite a few times, but now you don't have power. It's one of the great things about the Buddhist village, and I was one of the things which I loved about it. There was no hierarchy, there was no pope. There was no sort of even the Dalai Lama, you can argue with the Dalai Lama. And it's okay to argue with the Dalai Lama. He's not the head of Buddhism. He's not the Pope. He's not the highest authority. There is no highest authority. Or if it is the highest authority, it's you. You're the authority. So it's in liberating because there's no big shot, you know, in charge. There's no way to exercise that dysfunctional power of control. And actually, that was the meaning of when the Buddha before he passed away. So I'd asked him, after you pass away, who will be leading Buddhism? Who'll be the head? Who'll be the controller? He said no one will. He said, let the teachings be your your head, your leader, from here on in. And that was one of the most powerful statements from a religion, from a founder of one of the major world religions. He said, there is said it so clearly and all the different parts of Buddhism we all recognize this is a true saying of the historical Buddha. He said, after I pass away, there will be no leader. He said, the teachings that will be your guide from here on. And that was a powerful statement because that meant there is no way we can have like a pope or an archbishop or a boss. But it's not just a practical idea. It's something very deep in that stopping the hierarchy and that person being in power. Because if that person was in power and misses the whole point, we want to sort of lessen the egos, lessen our sense of control, lessen our sense of being in power over other people. And when we do less than that, then actually the power, the real beneficial power starts to be generated all by itself, which is why Buddhism has lasted for so many centuries. It's a powerful force because it's got no controller. It's a freeing force because that power of freedom is saying just doesn't matter what you do. The door of my heart will always be open to you. That was one of the things which I mention actually, in the talk about what was happening in Burma, because there's one of the powerful teachings of the Buddha. And, you know, these are sort of some of the teachings which even today, you know, heard this 40, 50 years ago, 40 years ago, still sort of makes me me tingle. He he gave the simile of the sore. He said monks or Buddhists, if somebody comes and gets you and starts torturing you for no reason. And he said, if they start to slow you off, your limbs off, not with a chainsaw, because that's quick. But when are these slow saws like a blunt saw? And then if he's seen, you're sort of your partner. Trying to saw a piece of wood takes them forever. You know, with one of those saws sawing each limb off. And I would have said, if someone's torturing you that way. And if you, my disciples, he said, have even one thought of ill will towards your torture, as you're not my disciple anymore? Even when you're being tortured, he said, you should have goodwill and kindness to the people holding the saw. But wow, that's impossible. But then you come across monks, whether they've been imprisoned in Tibet, by the government there, or by the monks tortured in Burma, who can actually do that? And wow, that is powerful. Why? Because it's saying even if you torture me, I will not let you control my mind. I will not let you make me get upset and angry and make you hate me. Now that has been done. Can be done. What a wonderful opportunity that is. We're here going to the fact of not allowing other people power over you. As I mentioned in my book, and it was one of the favorite sayings of our former Premier, Geoff Gallop, when I wrote and said, don't ever allow other people to control your happiness. Because being a politician, you have yourself caricatured in the press. You have in every sort of Air force, uh, action or um. I remember there was a picture in an election campaign where he was just picking his ear, just one little moment of lack of mindfulness. And that was the picture on the billboards. But that can really upset you. But why is it you allow other people power over your own happiness? Sure, they can torture the body, but don't let them torture your mind. Now when you see people can actually do that, you start to think, goodness, why do I allow, just as somebody who just calls me an idiot or someone who just cuts in front of me on the on the way here on the road, or just because you know that, uh, uh, the computer crashes or something. Why do you allow that to make you unhappy? Now, if there are people who actually have got so much wisdom they can actually experience, you know, real torture and still not get upset. Why, when you haven't got that degree of pain and that degree of torment? Just your wife. Yak yak yak yak. Or your kid coming home at 2:00, 3:00 in the morning, you know, why do you allow that to upset you and control your happiness? You see that when we can let go of the sense of self and the sense of being, uh, not really considered, not appreciated, how the people are exploiting us. I allow people to exploit me all the time. I just. When I finished here, I got to go to Kuala Lumpur tonight and give a talk over there. So Friday night and not tomorrow. Saturday and Sunday in Malaysia. And then Monday back here in Perth to carry on teaching the retreat. I'm really exploited. I really need to start a union. I just heard that. Who's that sir? Gentlemen, was it Joe MacDonald or Kevin Reynolds? He's just been thrown out of the Labour Party. I reckon approached him. Maybe he can start amongst Union next. Now, you don't mind being exploited, because when you can really let go of the sense of self and ego. Oh, there's nothing to exploit anymore. So when you can actually really start to let go, then other people haven't got any power over you to control your happiness, to control your wellbeing, and also that you can actually put the real power of freedom, peace, kindness between you and others. And what we mean by that monastic example, you know, in your your own daily life, why is it that you allow what happens at work, on the road, to work or back again, or in your family, or in the cricket match or something else? Because there's lots of Sri Lankans here. And I did read that Australia beats were likened to the cricket. But don't please don't allow that to to control your happiness. Hello. Matter is only a game for goodness sake, but sometimes people do allow that to control your happiness. When you understand what real power is, you put peace, you put kindness, you put sort of gentleness between you and whatever you experience. You don't allow anything to control your happiness, but you put this freedom into the world. And now that is incredibly powerful. When we have that sense of putting peace into this world, rather than control that acceptance, that sense of freedom, people tend to live up to that freedom. They respect that peace. They want that to happen even more in, say, a husband and wife. When you put that freedom in there saying, no person I've chosen to live with the door of my heart really is open to you. I trust you, I really want you. No, not you to be happy, not me to be happy as to be happy. So instead of trying to control that relationship, one gives it a sense of freedom and respect and love and peace. And usually that sometimes so rare in our world that people really respect that so much. They want to stay with you. The more you try and control the other partner, the more likely it is they're going to leave. The more you give them freedom, the more likely it is they're going to stay. Similarly, I gave many years ago is the bird in a cage? If you have a bird in a cage, sooner or later if you keep locking the door and they can't get out, sooner or later it's just probability eventually that door be left open and that bird will fly away, never to come back again. Alas, it's got its freedom. That's what happens when you keep a bird in a cage. Instead, if you keep a bird in a cage, door is left open. But it's a nice cage. Nice food, very comfortable. And if the bird does fly away, it always come back again. She's got its freedom and it likes the likes of cage. It's actually hardly worthwhile calling it a cage with it's got a door open and that's like a relationship too often, because we want to control, have power and make sure that relationship lasts forever. Never because we control it. We put our partner in the cage, lock the door. When its door is open, they fly away, never come back. We can keep the door open. Have a sense of trust and freedom and kindness and love. Then that has enormous power in that relationship and that keeps the relationship going for a long period of time. It's the same within a monastery, because now I'm supposed to be the leader of our monastery. But I was just talking on another matter with Agenda Tomato a couple of nights. A couple of evenings ago actually was yesterday, and we were just talking about solution of being abbots. And he said, no, you can't control your monks. And he said, yeah, I can't control my monks. Remember the monk who took over? Um, uh, Agent Shah's monastery? Edge and Liam, who's been here, is a great monk. I once asked him when I went to visit. How was your monks? Are they easy to teach? He said, ah, yeah. My monks in Thailand are so easy to teach. And so how do you do that? Because my monks are very difficult. They're not really that nice. Now, he said, that's easy. If they were to go that way. I'll let them go that way. So when I go that way, I let them go. That way. That's why they're easy to teach. In other words, you didn't control them. And that was really important for me. But then, you know, it's a monastery. They can't just do anything. They can't just be going out to the nightclub on a on a Friday night or go to the pub on a Saturday night. You know, what type of monks are they? And of course, the answer was something, uh, which I read in The Chinese Art of War. It's a powerful story, which I always try to remember as a person who's in a management position. The general who had the best discipline in the Imperial army. This was written in the Chinese art of war. They asked in. The Emperor wanted to know what is your secret? How come you have perfect discipline in an army? And the general said, your emperor is easy. My soldiers always do what they're told because I only tell them what they want to do. That was the answer. His soldiers always did what they are told, because the general only ever told them what they wanted to do. Now, of course, the answer is very deep and profound. How do you make soldiers get up early in the morning to train? How do you get them to go into battle where they may get wounded, even killed? How do you get them to do all that stuff? By inspiring them, motivating them, encouraging them. And when you motivate those soldiers, that's what that general was. He was a very powerful motivator. Well, it was patriotism or it was manly strength or duty to your country, whatever it was. He motivated him so well that when it got to the point of saying get up in the morning, they couldn't wait to get up when it was the point going trained, they were just, you know, champing at the bit, as they say, to go and train. Now when it's going to battle, hey, we can get into battle now. There are so heavily motivated that he only had to tell them what they wanted to do, which is why they always followed orders. So instead of controlling through force or through fear and too many religions, they control through fear. If you don't follow what I'm doing, you'll be communicated. You go to hell. And a lot of times, I've spent a lot of time describing what hell is like. That was in the old religions before they had movies and frightening movies. That was actually the only horror movies they had on the temple walls. But that was just out of fear. And of course, that is not the way to bring benefit to other people. It's not real power through fear. The power comes through inspiration, encouragement. Which is why when I'm talking about putting peace between you and your partner, having this beautiful power of love, which is a letting go of non-controlling, that is where power really comes from. You're motivating, inspiring, encouraging, and then your partner will only do what they want to do, which is what they inspire to do. They want happiness. You want happiness? Why can't we find happiness together? People in the world want peace no matter what side of the war you want. So the Iraqi Sunnis want peace as she has won peace. The Americans want peace. Why can't we find that peace? That's because we're doing it the wrong way. By trying to control coming from a sense of self coming from a power, instead of coming from a place of disappearing, vanishing, letting go, putting the power not in me, but putting the power between you and me. By freedom. Letting go. Kindness. Now that is inspiring. And when that becomes inspiring and it works, you find out the trick of what real power is. And that real power is one which does bring benefit to the world. If you don't believe me. Try it for yourself in your meditation and what you try and control the works of meditation gives. The more you open the door of your heart to this moment and you inspire yourself, that peace is nice. Stillness, softness, relaxation. It feels good. So you're motivated to go there again and again. You don't need to tell yourself sooner or later. You get so much experience in peace as a Buddhist sage, your mind leaps on to it. Just wants to meditate. It can't wait to sort of find a quiet time to sit down and just be peaceful. You try that out in sort of your own little, uh, practice of meditation, your own inner world. Then try it out in your relationship world and you try it out in your relationship. Well, with your partner. Just then you leap together because you like each other. You like that peace. You like that freedom. You like that respect. You like the love. Of course you'll be together. It's not because you force your partner because you're motivating, inspiring. Putting that right ingredient which keeps you together without any sort of power trips, without any big egos. You are disappearing. Your partner's disappearing. In face, so instead we get the ads appearing instead. Not the ego, not the me, not the them, the US. And when it gets to bigger things like your company or your place where you work. It's not the boss, it's not the work, it's not the secretary, it's not the tea lady, it's not the cleaner or the tea man. I don't know, I say tea lady. That's pretty sexist. There must be tea men as well. Or maybe men just can't make tea, I don't know. Though it's the team, it's ours. And so when we're all motivated, inspired, given that sense of respect and freedom rather than control, then that is powerful. And that's when your little group of workers can actually achieve things for the benefit of everybody. And it's not just, you know, so the Labour Party, in the Liberal Party and the Greens and the nationals and they don't know who else, we wonder if we always think it's us instead of confrontational politics, sort of cooperation or politics. That would be wonderful thing to have. And then when it's us, not them or him or me again, there's much more power there. And we can actually do much more and achieve much more, much more benefit. And it's not just, uh, countries, it's just us and our planets and the earth and the trees and the birds and the kangaroos in it together. It's always us. So we should never try and sort of control nature, but to work with nature, to put the power between us. Not in nature, not in us. We're part of nature. So when we put the power where it really belongs. Not controlling but respecting, being kind, loving, putting peace between us and whatever, wherever we are, then there is power. And that's what I really think power means, is a power which heals. A power which has no egos, no self, no individuals, but a power when we fade away, when we disappear. And we just put kindness and peace and love between us and whatever we are experiencing. It certainly works. And meditation works for relationships, works for monasteries, and also it works for the world. That's what real power should be. So to sum up, there is a power which comes from a sense of self, which wants to control and make things happen, because I want to make it happen. You get a buzz out of that. It gives you happiness, but it's completely dysfunctional. Even though it hopes to do something good, it always ends up exploiting and creating pain and suffering as well. It creates a huge ego, which is also very, very dangerous in our world. We've got too many big egos. We need to have less. And actually everyone fade away is even better. But the other type of power is you see that in your meditation. The more you let go, the more still you are. The more energy you feel, the more power you have. And this is what also what we do with whatever's happening in our life. The more selfless you become, the more you fade away in your business, in your relationship. It's not about me. Not about him or her. It's always about us. Then you find power begins. And that is a power which can give you a happy life together in your family, which can give you a happy world and even a safe planet. Power. Okay, so that's the talk this evening on power. I didn't want anyone. Got any comments or questions? Yeah. Very good. How do you avoid the trap of self-delusion and the ego trip? Well, just to contemplate, how do you avoid that self-delusion, the ego trip. Contemplate how many times you failed and you say why? And say, look at other people always failing as well. Is it something to do with you or something to do with them? Or is this something fundamental which you're not seeing? And afterwards it's fundamental. What saying just I cannot control. I cannot do it. It's impossible. When you say it's impossible, you realize it's not failure anymore. It just cannot be done. You can't control your body. You can't control your partner. But how many times you tried it? It's impossible. You can't control your kids. If it comes some sense, you can't control the world. But if you actually stop that controlling and put the power somewhere else, then things start to happen. When you actually come aware sometimes. Oh, hopefully before you get so frustrated. Because sometimes when you get really, really frustrated, sometimes you just exert more control. And again, you get into anger. And anger is so destructive in our world and we get so angry we can sort of harm each other and hurt each other and hurt ourselves as well. It's all because we don't understand that. Someone asked me what suffering was many, many years ago and they were rushing off to another appointment somewhere. And I always said that suffering is asking from the world what it can never give you. Asking from the world what it can never give you. And because we don't realize the limits of what this world can give us. That's where we get frustrated and angry. We can only know the limits of what can be done and what can't be done. I look at myself and just. I can't always give a good talk. I can't always give a new joke. There's only a certain number of jokes in the world, so sometimes they have to be repeated every night. So when you know your limitations, you know limitations of the world, you know never to ask what it can never give you. I be assertive and ask for what you want. Now, I always like to ask for what we want, not for what I want. It's a different thing that our community be assertive rather than the individuals who is what I want. You get very frustrated after a while and also you get into arguments and conflict. So it's not what I want. It's not what Buddhism wants. So that's what we want. It's not even just what human beings want. What about the other animals as well? What about the flies? What do they want? I know what they want. I've got my nose. Peter, what do we. What? How can we work together? Because you can't control all the flies. So in your relationship, this assertiveness is okay, but should not be coming from you. So it's coming from us. I don't think about that. That's actually very powerful. As a country, it's not what Australia wants. So what about the rest of the world? It's what we want as a world, as a planet. Not what I want. If I'm too assertive, I'm going to destroy this whole world and planet. Yeah. Okay. Next week, you should vote for the Brown Party. Why is the date of the grade's proud? Yeah. That's a great question because actually that by. I always thought as by I don't mind going on my own record here by law. You know, everyone in Australia has to vote. But, uh, every year for the last 24 years, whenever there's been an election, we don't vote, we don't go there. We get the little a letter back. Why didn't you vote? And I always write the same response back and get all the monks cards together. The same covering letter that Buddhist monks of our tradition have not voted or got involved in politics for the last 2500 years. And we can't start something new now. And now the. That's always accepted. But I did, actually. Someone told me, I think last week there was actually a clause there that you you're okay not to vote for religious reasons. So apparently. But that's I never knew that. But I had to find that out somewhere. But yeah, we don't vote. And there is a good reason though, because we're supposed to have left the world. We're not supposed to have any preference for these things. But when religion does get involved in politics, it's always very, very messy. So as monks, you know, we're supposed to be leaders. And so, no, we're not going to sort of say who to vote for, but we are going to sort of say, you know, just how to live life and what's, you know, virtuous, how to find what those virtuous and what's moral, what's good, how to know that and then leave it for you. Could we don't think it's wrong for for monks to use their power to control others. And that's sometimes what it is controlling. That's why we don't have any pork barrelling. Now, the government has given this temple or monastery anything in the election. No, no. No. That'd be terrible to do things like that. Bribing people. So no, that's what we. So next week, the monks will stay away. We can't even give donkey votes because we'd see us going in there. And you think, well, they are voting. They'd be seeing you do something. You can't say what you did inside. So you have to be seen to be not voting as well. That's your question. Any other comments or questions before we finish off for this evening? Certified insane. And prisoners and monks and nuns. Okay, I think we're in good company. That's very good. Okay, so thank you for listening today to the Talk on Power. I'll find some awesome. But a a a a but a I go wanting a b. What a me. 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