Pyramid In The Jungle

Pyramid In The Jungle by Ajahn Brahm For the savings talk. I don't have much idea what I'm going to say. There's no e-mails asking for talks, which I received last week, but I've had a very busy week and I got another busy week in front of me. I usually hold down at least two jobs, the other of a monastery and the spiritual director here. So during the weekdays I work Monday to Friday at Serpentine, and then I work weekends here in La Mara, so it's very tight a few moments ago, but when I started meditating, you can have this incredible peace and silence inside, which rejuvenates you and gives you more understanding, more clarity and more energy to do your duties and chores in life. And I did recall that, you know, speaking from the experiences of last week, that yesterday I was interviewed by, um, the ABC because apparently I haven't read these newspapers that somebody discovers some ancient Buddhist texts as somewhere over in Afghanistan or north of Pakistan. I don't know why the 720 the afternoon program is interested in that. I only thought that the ABC was interested in football politics. That's an ancient Buddhist text. So it really quite took me by surprise. But when they asked me said, what do you think about this exciting discovery? We could actually find something of the early teachings in Buddhism. And basically my response was, so what? I don't think they liked my response, but the point was reflecting afterwards that in ancient texts, or whatever you see in those those books is not so important. For you know, what we do in Buddhism because Buddhism is not a book based religion. Sometimes when I used to go, uh, to be invited to schools to talk about Buddhism, sometimes they say, well, what's your holy book? You know, because some Muslims have the Koran and the Christians have the Bible, so the Jews have the Old Testament or whatever. What is your book? And I would say the Buddhist holy book is your heart. So read that first of all. And that's a very important to actually understand that, you know, Buddhism is not so much a book based religion or an idea based religion, but not a dogma based religion, but a peace religion, you know, coming from inside a human being rather than from books and ideas. And certainly when I grew up as a young man, you know, matching my background and going to universities like Cambridge, it was just so much in their head and people had all these great ideas and they were great thinkers, which was why they had so many headaches. And it was a great surprise and a revelation to see, like these simple people, like an adjunct teacher who'd only completed fourth grade at school. That's less than primary school. Here in Australia, you get seven grades in primary school, only completed four grades. But he was one of the most wisest, happiest able persons I ever met. And those sorts of things start to make you contemplate exactly when we really want to find out how to live life. If we want some philosophy, some meaning, some direction. What do people in the West do? They go and read some sort of book. Now, I'm guilty of this myself because I've written 1 or 2 books in my time. But I always remember when I was a young Buddhist, I remember the Zen monk who came up, and this was in London about 30 years ago, and he came up and said, never, ever write a book, because writing a book is bad karma. Anyone who writes a book, he said, would have to spend the next seven lifetimes as a donkey. So I'm in big trouble now, so I don't have any books. That's many lifetimes. But obviously that was not so a dogmatic statement. What I was actually saying is that sometimes books can be useful, the ideas can be useful. Sort of even coming here to listen to a talk can be useful, but it's more important to listen to what's being said and follow it. And the whole Buddhist tradition is replete with people who are just going to listen to 1 or 2 words and then go off and become enlightened. Well, my favourite characters from the time of the Buddha was this one called Rama. Rama literally means one who delights in the truth. And when the Buddha was about to pass away at the end of his life, he said, in three months time I'm going to disappear. And all the monks were going. All the other monks, the Nancy disciples, laypeople were all going to get these final words of advice, these great teachings from the Buddha. But this one ranked has disappeared. He never went to see the great teacher once. And so the people started complaining. This Dharma Rama, he's just hanging out by himself. He's not really concerned about listening to the last teachings of his teacher, the Buddha. What sort of monk is he? And so the Buddha summoned him and said, Dharma Rama, this monk who loves the Dharma. Why haven't you come to listen to any of my talks? Why haven't you done any duties? Why have you just disappeared this way? And Dharma lama, this monk said. Because when I heard that you're going to disappear in three months, I decided that. Well, why are you still alive? Out of respect for you, instead of going to listen to all those talks or doing some studies, I'm just going to meditate day and night. And that's what I've been doing. Just practicing what you've been teaching us all these years. And the Buddha said, sadhu, sadhu, sadhu, which means like, good on you. And I say, no, that is a disciple. Someone who doesn't keep bothering the teacher with all these ideas, but actually listens and gets the message and then just goes and does it because the the truths which we teach here, you don't understand them from these talks that some of you have been listening to these talks over the last 20 years, you know, all my jokes off by heart. But you know what's the point? The point is that these teachings and these ideas are there for you to take home and to do something with, to get that peace and that calmness where everything becomes clear. One of my favorite stories about how to understand truth is a very wonderful story because it brings the metaphor of life very, very clear. And it shows you just how to understand life and how to find meaning. And it's the story of the person who's lost in the jungle. I mentioned this story in my book, and it's a powerful one because I got this insight just when I was traveling in the Yucatan Peninsula of Guatemala, when I was a 18 year old young man. And in those days, these jungles, there were real rainforests, no roads, no big roads anywhere. There was just these tunnels through the jungle, because as soon as someone cut a path through the jungle, the forest which is so vigorous in life, it would cover the top of the jungle, cover the top of the road. Now, within weeks. And so I remember just working my way to these ancient ruins of the Mayan civilization in the jungles of Guatemala. As an 18 year old, about 3 or 4 days. It took me to get there. And all that time you've just been going through literally tunnels. And when I first got to this place, there was no one around to tell me what to do or what not to do. Had all these ancient monuments, I could do whatever I wanted with them. And of course, being an 18 year old, a boy. What do you do? Let's go and climb one. So I try one of these great pyramids. When I got to the top, I realized its meaning. It was wonderful not being taught. Sometimes ignorance of what you're supposed to do, or what you're supposed to believe is a great asset to wisdom. When you're not blocked by all the dogma and teachings and other people's ideas, you're free to see for yourself. And so, because I had no understanding of that ancient civilization, because I hadn't read any guidebooks, I could go up there and see for myself with a freedom of no instructions. And when I went up there, it is very clear to me what those pyramids were. Therefore, as soon as you got to the top, you rose above the tree line. And it was an a wonderful experience for me because it was the first time into 3 or 4 days that I could see the horizon, that I could see any distance at all. Because, as I said, for three days you were in tunnels through the jungle. You couldn't see very far, but now you could see forever. As I said in the book, with nothing between me and the infinite in all directions. Can you understand just what that meaning is? It's a religious experience, an understanding of truth. Too often understanding the meaning of life. There's too many things or people or events between you and truth. Sometimes there's not even time to see because it is so busy. But they're on top of a pyramid. You're out of the jungle. You're out beyond, above. And you can look down. You can see that jungle. I saw the town where I'd come from that morning. It was only about 20km away, but it took about 3 or 4 hours. There's a beautiful little town called Flores. It was on an island in a lake in the middle of the jungle. It's probably some big city now, I don't know. Because I did it and I could see that in the dust. I could see the paths where I came. I could see where the rivers lie. Because you're above looking down below. And you could understand that this is a metaphor for understanding the meaning of life. When you're right in the middle of things, you're right in the middle of your job, your family, your finances. When you're right there in the middle of your life, you can't see it. The only way to get wisdom and understanding is actually to find that pyramid, that tower which rises above the jungle of your ordinary life. Because that's what it feels like sometimes. It's so tangle, so difficult, so many things happening all at the same time. And as soon as you finish one job, another 2 or 3 jobs comes up. That's what my life is. As soon as I go to one invitation to bless something or go and see someone who's sick, 2 or 3 other invitations come, 2 or 3 more people become sick. It's not ending for a mug. My goodness, no, you baby goats born, you bless them and that's just a star. And then, you know, later on you can marry them as a marriage ceremony tomorrow. And then you, you know, sort out their problems when they get angry with their wife, their husband, they sort it out and get them together again. And then there's when they retire, then you start to sort of teach them about Diana. So they get some good rebirth afterwards. And then if you go to their funeral, another funeral, and you're saying at least when the funeral is over, you got rid of them, but no, no, no, 49 days, a hundred days. Good. All these ceremonies and sometimes they think the ghosties come back. So you've got to sort that out again. Oh, there's no end of it. That's like my jungle, you know, the jungle of being an apple, the jungle having to go all these places. But sometimes my advantage is I've got my tower, my little pyramid, where I can just go up my pyramid and get out of the jungle of, like a abbot in this Western world. It's amazing what I get up to. I mean, some of you just don't believe the sorts of things which are monk does in these days. Well, this morning I was just helping a guy with, you know, the big truck driver with his 40 foot container. We've had some stuff come up from Indonesia, some stupas and some statues for our retreat center, which is being built in another year or two whenever we get the funds. So with a truck driver this morning waiting tomorrow. And then on Monday, sort of with the Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth. So you have all these amazing things sometimes with a truck driver telling you no jokes. Next, I better make sure I know who I'm with when I don't tell these jokes to the Queen on Monday. Otherwise I get in big trouble. But it's such a complex and complicated life as a modern day man. The work I do. But the advantage is you can always get perspective, because you got this pyramid which you can rise up above your world and you rise up and you get perspective and you understand what it's all about. Truck driver or queen does the same as human beings like anybody else, whether you're old or young, black or white, whatever people are, you can understand as human beings and as human beings. And it's a great sort of teaching and understanding. Whenever you see a person, you look at the person first and their job, their title, their health, their gender second. That's why that in my teachings, when I what I learned from going into prisons, I never, ever saw a criminal. When I went into jails, all I saw was people who committed crimes. They were people first, and the criminal part of them was just a fraction of who they were. Whenever I see no see a sick person, there's no such thing as a sick person. There's a person who has a sickness. They're a person first. You know, you never see sort of a terrorist. You see a person who's done a terrorist act. It's a different way of looking, which I learned as a monk. So, you know, actually the on Monday, the, uh, person who is going to be looking after me is Archbishop Jensen, and apparently that he doesn't like Buddhists. But it doesn't matter if he's like, you know, very sort of evangelical Christian. I never met any evangelical Christian. Yet all I've met is a person who holds evangelical Christianity. They're a person first. So actually you see something more than their labels. When you see something more than their labels, more than some of their their gender, more than their status in the community, more than their acts or their sickness or whatever else, then you relate to them. You can understand them. You can be kind to them. You can have compassion towards her, which is the usual way, the basic way which people should relate to each other. So when you go up that pyramid, you look down, you can actually see the relationships. You can see this jungle and how it's all laid out in front of you. And you see, oh, there's this tree and that tree, but they're all basically trees. So the important thing is in Buddhism is actually to get one's perspective. And the only way one gets one's perspective is to somehow rise above just the humdrum difficulties of your daily life, which is why we do have places of peace. We can just go and disappear for a while. Why? To get understanding. Not by thinking about things, but by leaving things alone. Why we have retreats is because you learn more in a retreat than you do in any university, or by reading books, or by listening to talks. It's like Dharma Rama in that beginning there, he learned much more by not going to listen to the Buddha, but by being quiet and meditating. I remember just as a young monk in Thailand, this man came to a monastery once and he said, can I stay for 2 or 3 days? And I said, certainly, I think I was a young monk, but I was in charge that day. And so this villager came and stayed in the monastery. I didn't ask him why. 3 or 4 days later, he came out to me because I was the monk who gave him permission to stay. He came up to ask permission to go to take leave, and I asked him and said, oh, very good. No, but if you don't mind me asking, why did you come here? You know, why are you so. Learning Buddhism. I never saw you ask any questions or read any books. No. Did you want to do any meditation? I never saw you come for the meditation meetings. Why did you come here? And then he told me the reason why he asked to come. He said I had a terrible argument with my wife. I felt so bad and so upset. I came to the monastery for three days. And he said, now I feel so much better. I'm going back to my wife. And I thought, wow, there's something very deep in his actions, sir, because sometimes all we need to do is to grant ourselves a few moments of peace, not to think about it, not to try and work it all out, but just to get up that pyramid of silence, of peace, of being apart from things. And so he can see the big picture when we get perspective, some of the problems which obsess us, I think, why are we being obsessed with such things? It doesn't really make sense. I remember reading a story many years ago about this young American who was working his way across Europe, maybe about 30 or 40 years ago, and he was working in a restaurant in, I think, Vienna, just like as a kitchen hand. And he got a little bit of money. But he also, like many people working in a restaurant, you get free food as well. And one day the owner of the restaurant said that we have ordered too much sauerkraut. There's some sour cabbage, which, you know, people like in that part of the world, so we have to get rid of it somehow. So yeah, all the staff can have free meals, but it's sauerkraut for breakfast, sauerkraut for lunch and sauerkraut for dinner. And is American. Went ballistic. He can't do that to us. We've got our rights. But having sauerkraut for three meals a day. You can't live on sauerkraut. This is not right. This is not fair. I demand my rights. He started getting angry. As Americans, I want to do. Not all Americans are some very nice ones. And. The cook called him aside, and his old cook said. I'm going to teach you the difference between an irritation and a problem. And the cook said, about 4 or 5 years ago I was released from Auschwitz. I'm a Jew, and I was put in that camp. And every morning when I woke up, I did not know whether I was going to be chosen to go into the ovens and die every day for a couple of years. I did not know whether I was going to be alive that night. Now, he said. That is what we call a problem. Eating sauerkraut for breakfast, lunch and dinner. That's just an invitation. And it's a very wonderful teaching there, because how often is it that we mistake irritations for problems that we just don't have perspective? When we get the perspective, we realize all this stuff in life which we worry about, which we think about, which we torture ourselves with, we only had a bit of perspective. It's not such a big deal. And that's what that man who came to the monastery because he had an argument with his wife. I don't know why he had the argument with his wife, but as you always know, it's always about small things. The old chicken and duck stuff in my book, all our arguments are just the small things. But why do we keep blowing them up and blowing other people up as well? You know, so what terrorism comes from because they don't have perspective. You know what real peace and tolerance and and love and religion is all about. But if we could only just get away from the books, get away from the thinking, getting away from the problem and get some perspective, then we see it's not such a big deal. One of my favorite similes is is assembly of how big is a hand? This is great on the the video here. Sometimes when you say this on audio, people can actually see it. How big is my hand? It's so big I can't see any of you. Is it my hand's fault? No it's not. The hands fold. It's because I'm holding it too close. I've got no perspective. When I hold my hand where it belongs. To the end of my arm. Yeah, I can see my hand. But I can also see each one of you as well. In this metaphor, the hand is that the problems we have in life when we hold them so close. Now my argument, my wife and my child, which has died now, my finances or my monastery or whatever, we hold it so close to us we can't see the big picture. We haven't got perspective. And a lot of the problems of life can be solved very easily just by taking your problem and putting it out here so you can see it. Yes, but you can also see the rest of the world. This is actually what you do by climbing those pyramids, which is mean finding that silence, that peace, that perspective by giving yourself quiet time. Another person told me that they were in Bangkok once, and they went into this temple and they saw this woman crying, crying, crying. She was on a little bench inside the monastery and he thought, should I go up and to sort of console her? She's obviously in a big trouble. But, you know, he wasn't all that fluent in time and didn't really I didn't know whether it was actually culturally appropriate. He was a Westerner. So let this Thai woman cry. And he was went off to do something else. And when he finished his little tour of the temple, he came out and the woman was coming out at the same time, and she wasn't crying anymore. So he couldn't help but say, are you okay? Said, yeah, I'm okay. What was the problem? Maybe I can help you. I said, no, it's okay. I'm okay now. It's just my problem was I lost my car keys. And so she was so upset. But what did she do? The wise thing to do was to go into a nice, quiet place, have a good cry, and find some peace and perspective. You don't need someone to tell you the answers. You just need a pyramid. A tower to climb to get the perspective. So the problem is not such a big thing anymore. Too often in life, the problems which torture us, the problems which make us lose sleep, sometimes they're small things which we exaggerate because we just don't have perspective. I just read an article, I think it was in the Guardian Weekly last week that scientists found we could have told them a long time ago, but they have to prove it for themselves. If more scientists were Buddhist, they would actually save a lot of time on their research. What they found apparently in UK was the best decisions are made when you don't think about them. And it's obvious we just do this all the time. Whenever you have a decision to make a sort of a problem or a conflict in life. The last thing you should do is to think, think, think, worry, worry, worry, or go and look in some expert to try and find the answer for you. That's what people do here sometimes, isn't it? That you have a big problem and you come and ask me. You just pass in the back and I will not accept it because they ask me that if it goes wrong. You've got someone to blame, haven't you? Now, I'll never tell anybody what to do, but I'll always tell people how to find out. That's one of the great differences with Buddhism. You never actually have this dogma which say like homosexuality is right or wrong or euthanasia is right or wrong. What sort of abortion is right or wrong? You've been here long enough to see. You can't get these answers in black and white, because it's wrong for people to actually to tell you those things so, you know, to make the decision for you. What Buddhism does is helps you find your own answer. Empowers you to discover these things for yourself. It gives you the location of the pyramid and encourages you to climb up so you can see for yourself what is right and what is wrong. What is ethical and unethical? What is really true and what is not true. You feel it. You can find that quiet place. You've got all the information. You leave it alone and you allow it to grow, to germinate. And maybe one day, two days, three days, four days later, the answer comes to you. I have to make many decisions as a senior monk. So when I make decisions, I just find as much information as I possibly can, and then I leave it completely, forget about it. And the answer comes out a few days later, and it's amazing just how good the answer is. For example, just one of our members. I don't see her here today, but she had this big, important job in the Department of Social Security. And just. She was coming to the Easter retreats. And just before she arrived, she actually arrived late because she couldn't finish all these problems in the office. You know what it's like when you're seeing a senior position. There's so many problems, so many things you have to work out. And so she was late coming to the retreat, and for the first three days I told her, just rest, relax. And she didn't think about the problems. But she came in an interview about 3 or 4 days later, said she was just meditating nice and peacefully, and all these amazing solutions came up and she said, well, quite frankly, they just brilliant solutions. I don't know why I couldn't see that before, but they would only come up when she was silent, when she wasn't thinking about it, when she wasn't interfering with the process of finding solutions, which is done almost subconsciously. And this is standard procedure for how we make decisions on important things of our life, important matters of our life. Now we should get married to that person or not. Whether you change your job. You know what you should do whether you're buying a house or not buying the house. Put all the information in or even the big ones about. Should I go without abortion or not? Put all the information in. Leave it alone. Don't worry. Don't think about it. Find that peace, that quiet. And then the answer comes up. Because it's of quietness. You make those decisions. It's like you're going up the pyramid and you do get the bird's eye view. You get perspective. You get the big picture. And it becomes obvious to you what that decision should be. That's why we call that insight in Buddhism. Seeing clearly the nature of things, seeing things the way they truly are. And one of the great teachings of the Buddha was such insight only comes out of stillness, out of the peaceful mind. It never comes out of a mind which is agitated or thinking. He said from agitation and thinking you just get delusion. This is where most of the problems of the world come from. It'll be great as once we build our meditation retreat centre down at serpentine. If we build it in time, I would invite Mr. George W Bush to come and spend two weeks in peace and quiet. And I am certain that his decision making process will be far more error free. Once he's been meditating for a couple of weeks. Good is true. When you give yourself time out, you get perspective and some of the silly things which you do. You just cannot do them anymore. That's why quietness changes you. It was only when a local, a building inspector in the Shire of Serpentine, retired that he came and told me. He came to a monastery to visit, and he told me that through the 5 or 6 years that he was the building inspector of our council, the SA of seven times out there, we had to get many plans through this guy. He only told me at the very end that whenever he felt stressed out in his work, he would get in his car, come to our monastery in serpentine and just sit in the car park. So that's all he did. He never wanted to come and speak to a man because that's just more words. He just wanted time out. A place of peace and quiet. Just to relax. Not to think about his work. Because after just coming in half an hour. An hour at our monastery, just drinking in the peace and quiet. He understood the solutions to the problems. And he could go back relaxed, clear minded, energized, and he could do his job. Which is why that in many places in the world, in great corporations, they have time out rooms for the executives, places where you can go, and they've arranged it so the mobile phones can not have a signal in this area. All signals are blanked out by some gizmo of electronics, and no person can enter in there. No secretary or other clients. Just the CEOs go in there and they cannot be reached. It was a way of like having time out. A little peace and quiet over here in this complex here. My timeout room. And I just used it before I came in here. Many of you were talking to me. Knows I was quite tired before I came in here. So I went to my timeout room. The toilet. That's one place where that one could come and asked me to sign a book or ask me a question. And is it great to have a timeout if you haven't got a timeout? Really, just to be able to sit quietly and peacefully, not to think of your problems, but to put them down, to rise beyond the tangle of the world, a tangle of thoughts, a tangle of dogma and ideas and just have a bit of peace for a few moments. Because that is the essence of what Buddhism is all about. All those words are just encouraging you, you know, stop thinking, let down, put down your burdens, don't attach. Just have a bit of peace and quiet for a while. I want to have a bit of peace and quiet for a while. You rest. You get energy. You get perspective. You can perform whatever duties you need to do in this world. If I can perform at a high level as a speaker, as an adult, it's only because I know how to rest, how to really get into deep meditation and become still, and then all your energies come back afterwards. It's part of the insights of the mind. The nature of the mind that you understand is where mental energy comes from. Mental energy comes from stillness. When the mind moves, it wastes energy. When it thinks. It uses up energy and skillfully. And when it worries, worries, worries or worries, worries, then you'll find it struggles and strives. You use up so much energy that at the end of the day, you're completely wiped out. Burnt out, you feel tired. And what happens when people feel so tired? They get angry at other people. They get grumpy. Things like road rage are just a sign of inner tiredness. One more thing. That's all it needs. And then you go over the edge. And the tiredness is nothing to do with how much work you you have on your desk. It's all about your attitude to that work. You think about it and worry about it too much. A little bit of stillness. In other words, put everything down and rest and allow the mind, the heart, the energy source of you, just to be still. You find all the energies coming back. In the beginning of the meditation today, I encourage you to imagine yourself in the cave of the heart, far away from anywhere. This is place in the mountains like a hermit. And as soon as you start to imagine things like that, you feel a bit of peace. And from the peace comes energy, and from energy comes happiness and perspective. This is why we do meditations such as this. This is why we take time out. This is why when we are very busy and have a lot of things to do, it becomes even more important as to be still for a few moments. So the energies come back to your mind. I notice this so often. If you work hard, you think a lot in rushing backwards and forwards. It's not just a body gets tired, your brain gets tired. When your brain gets very tired, you get depressed, angry, grumpy, even sick. You just. Your mind just hasn't got any energy anymore. It's all worn away. A wonderful thing happens when you give yourself time. You give yourself stillness. You give yourself peace. You go out of the jungle. You find a retreat centre. You just go out into the bush. You give yourself time. Sit down in your garden, whatever it is. You find the energy start to come back. Instead of controlling, thinking, worrying, you're still the energies of the mind come back. You can see deeper, you can understand more. You simply become more intelligent. You can see what's going on from a place of stillness and energizing the mind. Which is why in our modern generation, it's just so important to have opportunities for stillness, for silence, for peace. Otherwise we get just so upset, so tired, so worn out when our quality of life is just so low that we can't even feel life. We can't enjoy life. Life becomes dim and all gray simply because the energies of our mind are just too dull. When you give yourself a few moments of peace, hours of peace, days of peace, when the energies come back, the whole world looks completely changed. It looks more beautiful. I've often said this on our meditation retreats. When you go on a meditation retreat. Some of you just finished one last weekend. There's another one coming up the nine day retreat in Easter. You find that whatever the food you eat is is always more delicious. This is one of the things which I noticed the first retreat in our boarding house. The food was just English stodge, but it tasted delicious. If ever you been to stay at one of our monasteries, the food is delicious. It's nothing to do with the cooks. It's everything to do with the fact that your mind is become energized. And whatever flavors are there in the food, you can actually taste them. You are more sensitive and more receptive the more energized your mind is. When I started to understand this, I understand that because people have very little peace in their lives because they're thinking, worrying, working, struggling, and controlling so much. That their mind is very dim for the food they eat. They can't get any taste or very little. Colors are not rich. This life is just dull and washed out. And it's nothing about life. The fact is, you haven't given yourself enough rest when you give yourself rest. Stillness. Going out of the jungle after a while. Editors come back. Food tastes more delicious. People are more interesting. Colors are deeper. Life is more beautiful. Even the music you hear is deeper and more resonant. It's just what happens when the mind gets energized. It's just like many people just looking through the windows of a car, which haven't been washed for months. You're just looking through grayness. But when you wash that window, you find the world wasn't gray after all. But just a window is dirty. Life begins to sparkle. It's one of those great things about the teachings in Buddhism that when you start to leave the world for a few moments, you come back. It appears more beautiful. You're happier. And when you're happier, you create greater happiness for other people. So I tell people on retreats, remember, other people have got to put up with you. You know, you live with other people. So one of the most compassionate acts, one of the most selfless acts you can do for the sake of the happiness of all other beings is be happy yourself to be peaceful yourself, to get energy yourself. And that way you'll find you're creating happiness for others. So happiness, wisdom, stillness, it all come together. And this beautiful teachings has nothing to do with books. The books are just the instruction manual. You don't worship the books. You read the manual and then you go and do something about it. And meditation and stillness is not that hard. People make it hard when they try and control it. But when you just rest and relax. Imagine these similes are just leaving the world for a while. And then you understand what this is all about. You understand this? What sometimes I've called the sacred silence of the heart. Many people have been out into the bush of Western Australia. Or you've gone down to the ocean by yourself, not with someone else, because you turned up talking with them. You just watch the sunset alone. And it is so still and calm, so wonderful. You come back afterwards. Energised. Clearer. Happier. That's what this is all about. Finding that peace. That silence for your happiness. For your clarity. So you have insights into the path to problems of life, how to solve them. And you become this empowered person who has the the key to wisdom. And that key to wisdom is not in a book. That key to wisdom is in the silence which you've just experienced. You find that after watching the sun go down? The problems which you had have got put in perspective. They're not big anymore. You can see solutions even, and you've got the energy and the clarity to show for the time in silence. So the point of this talk this evening is don't just come to this centre every Friday and just know in the end, go back there and just, you know, just get into big problems and just start arguing about what Buddhism is and going and writing books about it or whatever. Remember what the heart of this is all about. The Buddha became enlightened by sitting quietly under a tree, not by reading a book. That silence, that peace is the path. When you understand this, you'll understand also. The more still you get, the more insight, the more clarity, and also the more happiness you can experience. So the amazing thing about being a monk, I've been a monk now for about 32 years now, is meditating way before I became a monk. And this, the virtuous lifestyle of a monk is just common sense to me now. You've gone way up on that pyramid. You look down and think, oh my goodness, why do people go and, you know, do things like drinking alcohol or lying to each other or just, you know, saying, you know, bad words to each other doesn't make any sense to me why people do that. And literally, I just can't understand it. Maybe years and years ago you could see that because you were sort of half blind. You know, what you were doing. Why would anybody harm another person or harm themselves? Just. I can't see it. Why? It's only because I don't know what they're doing. They're blind. But when you actually get that perspective, it's not worth harming another person. When you see another person wince in pain, or you see them cry. You see them get upset because of something you said. What did I do that for? A ridiculous thing to do. Why do I hurt myself so often? So fertile in Buddhism is not doing anything which hurts another person, nor doing anything which hurts yourself. Simple, but very deep. And it means you'll become a harmless person who doesn't go around creating more pain in this world. There's enough of that already, but only creates more peace, more joy, more sense of freedom. When you see that, the mind becomes so still and peaceful. I said that the more that you practice virtue, your level of happiness just rises, rises, rises, rises, rises every year. It's like the water rising. Sure, there is peaks and troughs caused by the waves on that water, but when you lift a virtuous life, your average level of happiness goes up. Up, up, up, up every year. And this is why that sometimes, you know, we've got a visiting time. Monk. He's just giving a talk to the Thais in the other halls. The two talks this evening at our Buddha Center. One in Thai and this one in English. But he's been a monk for 45 years now. This is a lovely person just to hang around with, even if you can't understand Thai to some monk who's been, you know, a monk for such a long time. It's a beautiful thing to see. And we were just talking our monastery of some of these old monks, which we've known for 40 years. 50 years, 60 years as a monk. And they're amazing. Now, having lived such a virtuous life, the level of happiness is just so high. Simply by not being a person who harms others or harms themselves. And with that degree of peace and joy, you understand what the meaning of life is all about. And you can see the peace and the stillness which come based on that joy. Remember the reason why the mind wanders and you think so much because you're not happy. A happy person is usually very still content. It is discontent which causes us to be so busy, which causes us to think and to plan and stuff. And when we learn contentment, we learn the secret of stillness. And the more still we are, the more contentment builds up. We have this beautiful part of meditation, which is happiness upon happiness upon happiness. Literally, just the path of Buddhism is a path of bliss. There are times when you bliss out, then it disappears again. But then the bliss comes more and more regularly as you understand that the cause of this stillness is peace, is freedom energizes the mind, and you get more happiness than if ever imagined before. When people ask me why you stay as a monk, I jump from. It's because of happiness, because of the bliss of stillness, which you get when you go in your cave and meditate. When I understand what that is, you understand this pyramid path of meditation. Leaving the world is not. You just get this incredible view of the infinite. But it's just so blissful and nice up there. You understand just how pleasure comes from letting go. A great stillness and bliss of the mind come from peace upon peace upon peace. And there very worthwhile going for many people spent a lot of their lives seeking for pleasure, watching their favorite movie, or having great sex, or falling in love, or having a nice child, or winning the lotto or whatever else turns you on. I see, I don't know these days because I know there's some weird things going on, but it's been a long time since I was in that world. But none of that can compare to the peace and the bliss in deep meditation. The silence of the heart. How many of you know that intuitively? It's what I call the sacred silence. There's something really holy about stillness. When nothing moves. When everything is perfect, nothing moves. So the whole moment is completely full, fulfilled, with nothing missing. That sense of peace, satisfaction, fullness, oneness. You all experience something like that. You all know what I'm talking about. That's the heart of all religions. That's especially the heart of Buddhism. This is called the Sacred Silence. And we should try and go to that sacred silence as much as we possibly can, to find moments of peace in our life. Stillness. Joy. You deserve that bliss of that happiness. Why not go for it? Not only do you get greater perspective about the problems of life, the insight you get, this incredible freedom as well. The understanding, the bird's eye view of what life is all about, understanding the infinite. All these great big questions about God, cosmos, the meaning of life. There's nothing between you and the answers to those problems. You can see them. You don't need someone to interpret them. Or a priest to be the letter carrier between you and the infinite. Sits right in front of you in that stillness of the mind. So that's the heart of what Buddhism is all about. That's why I say it doesn't really matter whether these so-called Dead Sea Scrolls of Buddhism, they turn up something which is important or not important. Actually, none of its really important. Is enough information already enough guidelines, and it doesn't really matter what type of Buddhism it is. If it makes you peaceful, go for it. In fact, that was actually a saying of the Buddha when he said, you could know what Buddhism is, what real Buddhism is, if it leads to turning away from the busyness of the world, if it leads to the fading away of all these problems, if it leads to cessation, to peace, to stillness, to nirvana, said, whatever that is, which does that. That is Buddhism. That's a teaching called dharma. Dharma. Truth is what leads you to that stillness, that freedom from the problems of life, the inner happiness, that sacred silence. What really we should call the heart of all religions. Sometimes too many books, too many words stop us from reaching that place. You got a good enough map. What we now need to do is to say and come to the quietness in the middle of your heart. You deserve that, and others deserve it as well. So that's the talk for this evening. Finding quiet time in the middle of your busy life. Okay, so anyone got any comments or questions about the talk this evening? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. With who's talking that they just come back from a pilgrimage to India, which we arrange every now and again. And that they were with someone called agent D who actually spent, uh oh, about 15 or 16 months here. Many, many, many years ago, he helped build the the main hall at a monastery in serpentine, a very lovely monk. And I remember him saying that he doesn't know what it was. He's such a soft monk, but in his house in the village, and when his father and mother planted chili there, chili peppers were always, never anywhere near as hot as the people next door. And his character was always the same as just chili, which is not hot. He discarded could get him upset at all, and that people have been like, you know, training like this in stillness for such a long time. It's such a high virtue. It's great to hang around. And that's what you were just saying. Imagine if now, another 30 years from now, would it be like there'll be even more so. So some of these old monks and nuns. Wow. They're really cool to hang out with. Doesn't matter if you can't understand a word they're saying. Don't matter about that. It's just a whole night to this. I think one of my favorite monks is dead. Now is this man called Adrienne Tate. I just have a picture of me here. It's gone. They're taking it away. Maybe in the other room. But I didn't take. And he was just like in this really old man. I saw him just before he passed away. And I was so scared of him when I first saw him. I went into the room. He was just so peaceful and calm. When you go into the presence of some of these guys, you just never want to leave. Just now, I just want to stay. And it's wonderful to have beings like that around. It just shows you what is possible in this world. They weren't born like that. They become that. Just like you can become this peaceful, wise, wonderful person. And remember, when other people aren't hanging out with that monk, he's hanging out with himself. So you imagine how he enjoys his own company. So you have spent a lot of time with yourself. So if you make yourself really peaceful and a beautiful person, then you're a beautiful person to hang out with. So you never get upset, lonely, or depressed in peacefulness. All those problems disappear. Any other questions or comments? Okay. I think I can't see any of them now. Okay, so I have some announcements now and then we can all have a nice peaceful evening.