Episode Transcript
Uh, sometimes when people come to him on the street, he can turn out to take to his have plenty of visitors. And, uh, sometimes these are people who aren't Buddhists, and they want to find out what Buddhism is. And one of the questions they always ask. No, no, for the source of Buddhism. So what holy books do you follow? Hence, for the last couple of months, I've been telling people, well, just like the Muslims, they follow the Koran and the Christians, they follow the Bible, the Buddhists, they follow meditation. That's our holy book. What we mean by that is that's the source of all our wisdom, of our ethics, of our morality, of our truth. Not found sort of in some ancient writings, but found in the heart of every person who cares to look. And that has a very profound meaning. Sure, we do have Buddhist scriptures, but they are not revered in the same way that those other books which I mentioned are revered. And they're basically they're just guidelines, like workshop manuals, like how to do things like meditation, how to do life. But the real truth. No. In fact, the the books are almost secondary. They're described how other people, even the Buddha, experienced meditation and truth. But the basic source of all of our wisdom, the basic source of Buddhism, the final authority, will always be the truth which you find in the peace of your own mind. And that has great consequences. And it's, I think, one of the reasons why that Buddhism, uh, has become very popular in Western countries or in educated countries, because what happens is that when we follow books and sometimes you can do this even with Buddhist books, if you take the Buddhist books as a prime example, then you end up once as your source of all wisdom and truth. Then you've got to find out which Buddhist books, whether, say, the Theravada books or the Mahayana books or the Tibetan books or the Zen books. There's so many books. And this is one of the troubles. Many years ago, when I was a Labour oldest in London. This Sir Zen monk came along to give talks. And it was interesting. Even in those days, I didn't care whether it was a monk or a nun or whatever tradition. What was the point of having different traditions? Now, what has that to do with Buddhism? So I'll go to any old talk, any monk, nun, even layperson, no matter who they were, if they gave a good talk, it was interesting. But I remember this Zen monk who came along from Japan when he first came. I went to one of his first talks in London and his English was basically non-existent. So I had to be through an interpreter for I so desperate anything would do. But after a month or two, I heard one of his last talks in London, and he'd learned some English, as you do. You know, when you were living in the country for such a long time. And so one of the audience asked this memorable question. This must have been in maybe 1969 or 70. And they asked a question. You've been in England for two months. What do you think? Of Buddhism in England. What is your impression of Buddhism in the West? Without missing a beat, he replied in English. Books. Books, books. Too many, too many, too many. Dustbin. Dustbin. Dustbin. And even with just those few words of English, he answered the question so eloquently and also so profoundly. Because it's not the books which hold the truth of Buddhism. Sometimes when we have those books, we miss the truth. We've got to go deeper than that. It's a meditation which is our holy book. And this was very important recently because yesterday somebody left the newspaper and I was reading it, and one of the leading articles in the West Australian yesterday was that Cardinal Pell had said how evil it was for people to, uh, have contraception. And how even stem cell research was, I think, what he called a Donald Duck, um, heresy or something. And when I saw things like that, I thought, oh my goodness, that where's all that coming from? And that was an example where as someone was following a book and not following their heart. Because it doesn't make any sense to me that you could call, you know, just ordinary human beings, men and women who don't want too many babies or because of, um, know, overpopulation or, you know, sexually transmitted diseases or whatever. You can't call that evil if they use contraception. It doesn't feel wrong. Now, the reason I said is it doesn't feel wrong. I'm going to come back to this in a few moments, because there must be something to that point that there is. Human beings have an understanding of basic understanding of what's right and what's wrong. Even if you've never been to a Buddhist center or a church or read philosophy, there's an instinctive appreciation of right from wrong. And as I've lived more as a monk, sometimes I've really respected that feeling, which you have of what's right and what's wrong. But now, because we have these issues in our modern time, especially stem cell research, which is a hot issue in our modern world now, IVF, abortions that our Buddhist community in Australia, we've formed ourselves together. We've got like a group called the Australia Sangha Association, where all the monks and nuns of all traditions meeting together as a group. We have Buddhist councils, and one of the things we're trying to do is trying to say, what's the Buddhist position on things like stem cell research? And so we can approach the government got over 2% of the population in Australia now. So we should have a voice. And so because this was a hot issue and they wanted someone or a few people to actually to give an opinion on this. So during the retreat I just got out a couple of books and meditated. One thing I found what the Buddha said was that, you know, when does human life begin? Now does human life begin like a sperm or an egg? Or when those two meet together? Or does it begin when it's implanted in the mother's womb, or does it begin a short time later? Apparently, just from reading the dictionary, an embryo is just the unborn being in the first eight weeks of its life. After that time, it's just called a fetus. It's just a difference in time, that's all. But when do you call that a human life? And obviously like a just a sperm is not a human life. An egg isn't unless it's fertilized. Well, when does human life begin? And when I actually looked to see go back in the books, first of all, just to see what the Buddha said, he gave this very interesting definition. This is, if you like, Buddhist scholastic argument. Very simply said, when consciousness first manifests in the mother's womb. Know when things like feeling will perception first manifest? Then from that moment on that the birth of the human being has happened. And sometimes I never really focused on that before, because the question was never asked for. The most important part of what I just said is when these things first manifest, first appear, first became available to see. I think of many of, you know, because we have these incredible ultrasounds and other ways of seeing what's going on in the mother's womb at an early age. That conscious activity just cannot manifest. There is no response to feelings of pleasure or pain or stimulus is of pleasure or pain, and there's no way that that being or that potential being is actually being able to respond to such stimulus with anything which manifests choice or will. So one reporter actually said that before that consciousness, that will that response to pleasure or pain can be seen is not counted as a human being. Now, that was a fascinating description there. When I talked to a doctor who's at a monastery that he was saying that the nervous system actually develops at a certain stage, and obviously, if that nervous system has not developed in that embryo fetus, then it cannot manifest a response to pleasure or pain. It cannot manifest consciousness. So interestingly, party word, which is manifest as he means, it shows, it can be seen, it's perceptible. It doesn't mean like a consciousness is there but not manifesting. So it's hidden somewhere. It means that you can do something. You can see something. What that actually means there, that it becomes very clear that if that being in the womb is not responsive to pleasure or pain, it cannot respond to pleasure of pain, because the nervous system hasn't developed, is not counted as a human life. And I remember the arguments which many people said about abortion because they saw her videos of abortions taken under ultrasound where the fetus, embryo, whatever it was, seemed to be responding to the procedure, shrinking away from the stimulus. It seemed to be exhibiting sort of pain. And when people saw that, they felt a natural revulsion that this is wrong, that a being would be sort of harmed or hurt. But when we know that such a response just cannot happen because a nervous system hasn't been developed when that B, which was seeing in ultrasound, is not responding to any stimulus. Then that natural revulsion is just not there. It doesn't feel wrong when we strip away all of our know, our conditioning, all we're told to believe, and we go to actually what we feel, which is deeper than our cultural conditioning, our religious conditioning, what we've been taught by our parents and our elders. When we feel this, we don't feel that that is wrong. A being can't feel they're not ready. They're. And that gives a standard which I argued actually straight from. Know some Buddhist teachings, but it gives the experiential feeling of what is right and wrong with what's happening in a mother's womb. Well, it certainly does say to me is that an embryo which is, you know, in a petri dish in some laboratory somewhere that never manifests any sort of consciousness or never manifests any feelings or sensations. And it certainly does not count as a human life. And I think many people, if they work, you know, in that area, if they work, you know, in a lab, you know, with unfertilized eggs or even fertilized eggs, which, you know, haven't actually managed to sort of, uh, be implanted in the mother's womb yet. They know that that does not look like a life. It doesn't look like a human being. It doesn't act like a human being. And I think many people, if they took away their religious beliefs, feel that that's okay. What I'm trying to do here is actually to go beyond the books. I use the post to say what Buddhism actually said, but where does it feel in your heart? You feel that, yeah, it is okay. It should be done. And I respect those feelings of human beings because that gives a moral pointer. And of course, from that argument, I argued very strongly that as far as Buddhist teachings are concerned, that how there is it's not considered to be killing a human life when we have stem cell research or when a woman or a man sort of decide to go to IVF treatment because they cannot conceive in any other way, which means that many of the unfertilized eggs might be destroyed, or they may be used for stem cells, and they will never actually be able to develop into a fully, uh, baby. I can't see anything wrong with that. It doesn't feel wrong because it's saving lives. It's doing something good. And it's also, you know, has that backing from now what the Buddha said. Understanding that the morality, our ethics becomes workable. It doesn't become something which some priests like myself, uses to enhance their power or to make life more difficult and miserable for the people who have to follow those religions. But the religion should really being, be giving a guidance for freedom, for happiness, for peace. Because when we look at, you know what we mean by things like evil or good or bad, you know, this are the basic teaching of the Buddha. And it was it was a teaching which was workable. You could actually apply this whatever you do. Does it cause harm either to yourself or someone else? Or does it sort of end that harm? Does it cause more, more peace? Prosperity? Happiness? If it causes harm, we call that sort of bad karma, whether it's harm to yourself or harm to others, if it causes the sense of freedom and peace, prosperity or whatever, souls are pain. And that's called good karma. To me, this is relieving. I take some of these teachings, you know, which I got from the Buddha, and you apply them and you come up to what some people call common sense and that common sense. Why is it common sense? It is because many people have intelligent minds. They do think they do investigate. They do feel. And again, they know what is right, what is wrong. So when we develop our mind, we develop our mind in a through developing intelligence. No, intelligence means it comes from a Latin word intellectually, which means to read between the lines. To see deeply into Lego means to read. To actually look deeper into things. And that's what really meditation is all about. And that's why the now that's the main talk this evening was what happened before I opened my mouth. This is just, you know, the just like you have the the main course. This is like the dessert after you've had the main course. The meditation was the main course because that's where we get still. That's where we see, that's where we feel. That's where we really understand what's right and what's wrong, what works, what is happiness and what way we should go in our life. Which is why that if people don't read the Buddhist books, which are means in here and meditate, that's why people can sometimes get stupid and going the wrong way. But you notice that the more time you spend in a little bit of stillness, in reflecting and seeing how you feel, what's happening inside of you, the wiser, the healthier, the more peaceful and happier you become. You're reading the book of life by stopping and being still and open your eyes to what's inside. Strange thing, but when you start becoming still, one of the first things you notice is what you're doing to your body. Give yourself a moment of peace. This was a poem. In the beginning of my book, I opened the door of your heart. Grant yourself a moment of peace and you realize how foolishly you scurried about. That's what happens when you stop. You think, why have I run around so much and so fast? Why have I actually run to. You run around in circles. Sometimes we work really hard in life. For what? For those of you who came earlier. You see where we always run to. There was a coffin in here a couple of hours ago, so I don't know if you're in the property marketing purse, but really, if you really want to invest in your final home, it's a six foot long, two foot wide, maybe a foot high, and it's called a casket. And it doesn't cost all that much. And I'm not quite sure those of you who had ever had a house, maybe you can ask for that. The first home loan from the government when, after renting for so many years, you can finally get a resting place and buy your own casket. But why do we rush around and and and scurry around so much? I don't know what it is these days, but people tend to always be going away on holiday somewhere. Are we going away on holiday for. Are they going to go see the Great Wall of China? Great Wall of China? You can go to our monastery. And so far we've got a great wall. It's about a kilometre long. If you want to see walls, go and see our wall. What's the difference? I have something a bit bigger than others, but it's just a wall. Well, you don't want to see the Amazon rainforest. Don't go the Amazon rainforest, you know, just go to King's Park, you know, some nice trees in there. And it's great because, you know, there's no not well, there's a few mosquitoes in there, but no, as many mosquitoes and snakes as in the Amazon rainforest. Or else you want to go and see the Himalayan mountains. Well, we've got the hills just again, nice views from up there. It's not as cold. Why do people like travelling so much? And sometimes it's because you know, what it really is, is because we just follow what other people do. We don't really think for ourselves, whether it's holiday time, let's go somewhere. Where do we go? So you look at the magazines and you just go off on these trips. And a lot of times, as soon as you go, you can't wait to get back home. And anyway, look at your homes. You spend all this money getting a nice house and a first opportunity. You go and leave it to go somewhere else. Daft. So you've got a nice house. Enjoy it. Stay there. Rest. You know, you've got the sort of nice armchairs, some. You've got meditation rooms. But can you rest in your house these days? Can you just sit there and just do nothing and really rest? What do you have to turn on the TV? Well, go and get a video or go and call someone up, or go and listen to some music. Or get on the computer and surf the net. How many of you know how to relax? It's incredible. Just a lot of the time, whenever we have any few moments, we throw them away. With this rush, all our lives and the only time we do get any rest in the coffin. The only time most people rest in peace. Again, very daft. It's too late then. So if you've got a house, a garden, you've got sort of holiday, just sit in your house and do nothing. That's what we call meditation. The art of simply doing nothing. It's amazing just how much you learned by doing nothing. Most people in the life, they can't do nothing because they're always going somewhere. If you've ever noticed, that's the story of your life always going somewhere else. You go to the Buddhist centre here in Nanaimo, and as soon as you get here, you go to get something to eat. Then you come and go to meditate. And as soon as you meditate, your mind's going all over the place. You never stops going somewhere. Then you come and listen to a talk, and then you're worrying. How many more minutes left? You've already gone home before the talk finishes. And then you always wasting time worrying about where you're going to go next. Too often, life is always going to the next thing. So much so that even when you're having your your dinner, you have your soup or whatever your entree, and you're always thinking about the next course, when you're having the next course, you're thinking about the sweet. When you think about the sweets, thinking about the coffee afterwards, when you think about the coffee, you're thinking about the ride home. Even on meditation retreats, I teach this. You see people, and when they're eating, they've got one mouthful chewing in their mouth. They've got another on their fork or spoon or waiting. Another heat is heaped up on the plate in line, and they're looking about what's coming next. They're about 3 or 4 spoonfuls ahead of themselves. Next time you have dinner or breakfast. Watch that. Why is it we're so ahead of ourselves? It's because we just do not know how to read. The Buddhist scriptures to go to the Book of Life, which is now. It is here in silence, in peace, not doing anything. It's amazing how much you learn about your body and about life. We just sit here and watch. We realize just how uselessly we have scurried about searching for something we already had. As another famous saying about the the man who was looking, the poor man who was looking for something to light his fire to cook his rice. He was looking for fire with a candle. Try to find out sort of how he can light his fire to cook his rice. If he only knew what fire was. He could have had his dinner much earlier. And sometimes that's what we do. You know, we look for wisdom over here. We look for truth over there. We seek our knowledge in books, or we seek our truth in monks like me. As Abraham said, this item, Abraham said that. Somebody gave me a cartoon this afternoon and downloaded from the internet. I've been showing it to many people. It's very funny. The first caption of the cartoon is a duck leading the little ducklings along the road. Now though, duck with ducklings following afterwards. The next caption they're going over a great in the road. Now imagine the great with holes in it and the little ducklings. The next caption all the ducklings have gone and the duck is looking down the hole in the in the great where its little ducklings have fallen. I call bad parenting. Don't lead your ducks over a great with too many holes in it because they fall through. But I call it. Why is it that people follow the leader too much instead of understanding for themselves and not following but understanding the truth so they don't need to follow the leaders? So we can understand for ourselves. You've heard me say this before. A teacher and I'm a terrible. I'm a very bad teacher. I'm very unsuccessful. The reason is because a teacher. The whole task in life is to get rid of disciples, to teach you. So you don't need to come to this center ever again. I must be a terrible teacher or your very stupid disciples, because you keep coming back year after year after year. Imagine if I was a school teacher and you come back, you know, year nine, the same people come back year after year after year. Talk about OB out bass, bass. There's no output. There's no outcome at all. You keep incoming every year. There's income based education. But anyway. The whole idea is to free people. Not to control people the way I would allow people to understand for themselves. So they're free from the books and they're free from the leaders. And that's actually what the book of life. The meditation of stillness in the heart does for you. The more you understand what is going on inside of you, you might say, yeah, that's what I've been doing. I run around for things, always seeking something else, going around and never giving myself enough time to be peaceful. Sometimes people think they haven't got time to meditate. They haven't got time to be still and be peaceful. They've got to work so hard. They've got so many things to do. If you think like that again, you'll be one of those people. Only rest in peace in a coffin. It's only a matter of like values, what's really important in life. That's why another famous saying of mine is never do today what you can put off till tomorrow. And I say that for Westerners, especially, because we're so compulsive doers. Get things out of the way. How many of you try to get things out of the way before you came here? What are you getting out of the way, anyway? You're getting your own life out of the way. And so you've got none left at all. That's when you're very old. You realize, gee, I'm 70. I'm 80 years of age now. What have I done with my life? You've just got your life out of the way. Now, 70 years have been gotten out of the way. And now here you are. That's frightening. So instead of getting things out of the way, become peaceful. First of all, spend more time just being. Being silent, being peaceful, being with your family, being with yourself, being with your body. So many sicknesses and illnesses can be avoided, not just by exercise. Exercise is youthful. Notice by eating the right food. Her by developing a still mind. So much stress comes from a mind which cannot rest. This is one of the great things, and I'm amazingly healthy considering how hard I work. And even during our reigns retreat, we call it the rest time for the monks. We call it a rest period, because that's when the rest of the monks can have an easy time, and I have to teach and look after them. So as for the rest, not for me. Because I'm still the teacher of that monastery. You don't have to look after things and answer the phone and go to funerals and do all the business and and the staff. But it's that time. I will spend 2 or 3 weeks, two and a half weeks or two weeks. And one day, usually in my cave, I got a cave in my monastery, some monk cave just for me, and I go in there. It's only about running about 2.7m round, and that's where I can stop the world. I don't do anything in there. Is this a mat there? A pillar clock? Water and just stop. That's actually how I can become really healthy. Because the mind becomes still. You feel the body relax. Because the body relaxes. Things flow freely through it. I've got great faith in the human body and has evolved over many generations. And the sick ones have died a long time ago. You know really that because of natural selection, we should only have the healthy people left. But this is the way we deal with our bodies in our modern age. We never sensitive enough to them to really be able to rest. If you become still enough, you feel the body become very sensitive, even to the organs inside of you. And if there's any problem in those organs, you can feel it. So then what do you do? You go to the doctor. No one needs it. Well, if it's really bad. Okay, go to the doctor. I don't want the Buddha society to get sued. Because when I stay here this evening. So please go to the doctor, okay? But also just become aware of that part of the body and give it. Know what I mentioned earlier? Caring attention doesn't just attach not just knowing it, because sometimes people know it and they're upset. They're angry, they're tense. I don't want to feel sick. Get out of here. But caring attention, which means you mix it up with what we call the Buddhism Metta. Loving kindness. Now, together with mindfulness, with sati. This is the parting words. When you combine those two together, it's a very, very potent medicine. So you put your mindfulness in your care there and everything gets soothed, you feel at ease, and just that amount of attention on your body eases things and you feel it. When you're very good meditating, do that very easy to zap parts of your body with caring attention. No wonder the body is relaxed. No wonder it heals very quickly. No man, no wonder you have good health. That's what I mean by virtue. Good karma, which creates positive outcomes. That's why that is the opposite of evil. That's good. You know, it's good because it creates peace and happiness there. That is the definition of virtue. And it feels right. As you meditate even more, you find it's not just relaxing your body, it's relaxing this mind. Why do we worry about so much? Why do we think so much? And when we do think, why do we always think about the negative parts of life? This is one of the famous stories, and I haven't mentioned this here for two months because I haven't been here for two months, but I usually mention it every other week. But I mentioned it actually just this afternoon at the funeral because, you know, at a funeral, we remember the person who's died. What do people remember? What do you remember? What do you remember of your past? What do you remember of your ex? What do you remember of your boss? And it's the old simile of the two chicken farmers. This is one of Agent Cha's favorite similes. And I love this. And I don't mind repeating it because people still make the same mistake again and again and again. The two chicken farmers simile is this the first chicken farmer gets up early in the morning to collect the produce from his chickens from the night before. So he goes into the chicken shed with a basket, and he fills the basket up with the chicken shit, and he brings that back into the house and leaves the eggs to rot. We call that a very stupid chicken farmer. Chicken farmer number two goes into the shed with the basket and fills it with eggs. And he leaves the shit to rot, to become fertilizer for later on. But he doesn't bring it into the house. And when he brings the eggs into the house, he can make an omelet for his family's breakfast and sell the rest of the eggs in the market for cash. That's a very clever chicken farmer. The meaning of that simile is this. When you collect the produce of your past, when you think about what's happened today, what do you collect? What type? What type of chicken? Father are you? When you think of your partner who's divorced you. What do you think of? Do you collect the shit or the eggs? Well, why is it. They're all shit collectors, basically. Okay, I'm being coarse, but when I'm. Of course, you remember these teachings. So listen to them again. You can go home. But when we think about ourselves, what do we think about? What do we collect? Now this is actually what you see in meditation. Just the way we do things is crazy. No wonder we suffer. So instead we become egg collectors. We collect what really is useful. The nice stuff of life. There's a wonderful thing which I learned this as a in educational psychology before I became a school teacher. Now, every psychologist knows this, but we keep forgetting it or we just don't put it into practice. This teaching is this truth. You learn much more, much faster, more efficiently from remembering successes. What works than you ever learn from mistakes. We learn from what's inspiring, for what works, what's beautiful. An example is this does about four three years ago. Four years ago, I forget what sort of I was awarded this John Curtin Medal for community service. And because people came to my medal ceremony at Curtin University, I've really tried hard to go to other people's medal ceremonies. I thought that they came to mine, you know, roar of karma. I've got to go to this. But actually these days I love going to that ceremony. And I was there last Tuesday for the awards. And the reason I love going to that ceremony, because they're awarded to people. And the people go up there and tell these beautiful stories of what they did, and they're inspiring the story I heard last Tuesday. There's one fellow who's he's given a raise, so much money for charity. I think he started a pennies for polio campaign some years ago. I think because of how much he raised, he said 178,000 children in our world will not get polio. And just because, you know, a guy worked hard to raise funds for that. And that's just one thing he does. And he was saying that he also arranges once a year for children who are deprived in need to spend a day with students at the UW to get volunteer students to spend their time just looking after deprived kids, giving them as much fun and merriment as they could. But this guy's expense. He said he was with a little kid of seven years of age in the grounds of Iowa, and just innocently asked his seven year old girl to run an ice cream. The girl said, I can't have an ice cream. Why not? He said, because it's not Christmas. My daddy only allows me to eat an ice cream once a year because that's all he could afford. And the man said, let's pretend it's Christmas day to day. And for this little kid, an ice cream. The simple thing like that made me almost cry. I told that last week to a few people. Come to the monastery that makes you happy when you collect the eggs of life. Not only does it inspire you and make you feel happy, it makes you go out and find a poor kid and give them an ice cream. It makes you be kinder. His good karma is virtue. That's why the more we focus on the beautiful kindness and generosity and softness and love and peace of life, the more we hear that and focus on that. The more we repeat it ourselves. That's why when we're still, we can see so much more beauty in life. The more frantic you are, the more you see the faults in life. Strange that we got this beautiful monastery at serpentine. A gorgeous monastery up in Jeju. Garnet. It's so lovely out there, but too many people haven't got the time to go there. What a waste. Or when they do go there, they rush in and rush out. They never spend time to see how beautiful it is. They go into our halls, the great meditation halls. We've got atmosphere. They go in there, they talk. They take the photographs, get me to sign a book, and they rush out afterwards to see them missing so much. It's amazing just because we rush around so much. We miss the peace, the beauty, the stillness. What is truly important in life? We pass by for the unimportant stuff. That's why that when you read the Book of stillness in your heart, that's real. Buddhism was inside of you. What happens when you're still where Buddhism really comes from? You feel, wow, it's actually an incredible amount of beauty and peace and loveliness in life. That's why I get happy. It's amazing that you can get happy when sometimes you see some terrible things. You go to people who are dying. You see people who are sick. People come and tell you about their problems, their divorces, their cancers, their illnesses. Very often that's when people call you up. Now, the old dialogue monks service when they're in trouble. Very few people actually dial me up and saying, hey, I'm having a wonderful day today. Everything is perfect and wonderful. You don't have to answer any of my questions. I'm just really blissed out. No one ever wakes me up to say that. I just say, I've just had an argument with my wife. Oh, my kid has run away, or my daughter's pregnant, or my son's on drugs, or he's not doing his homework, or I've just got cancer. I've lost my job. Or the Eagles lost in the quarterfinals. So this is why we focus on the negative too much. And because of that, that's why people have depression or have anxiety, panic attacks. They get cancers. They can't live with other people. They can't even live with themselves, let alone live with somebody else. So in order to heal all of that, you know, really all you need to do, you don't need to go and see a therapist or a psychiatrist. But to stop us getting sued again, please see the therapist. Please go to the psychiatrist. If you can only just read your heart. Just be still for a while. And see what's going on and find out that answers in that still moment of silence. Now, one of the great things you see in silence. It's a simple truth, but it's one of the most profound and meaningful you'll ever experience in life. In this stillness, you find I am okay. There's nothing wrong with me. It's a powerful truth because so many of us, until we go to stillness, always think there's something wrong. This is what we call original sin in Buddhism. Not something to do with Adam and Eve, but because we've got guilt trips. And this is when anybody tries to encourage those guilt trips and makes you feel sinful, you know, like, no. Well, I don't mind saying I think Cardinal Pell was saying that in the article. That's when we have a focus on guilt and looking down upon ourselves. That's a a cause of the anxiety, of the stress, of the depressions, of the anger to other people, the inability to live with ourselves or do with others. But as far as Buddhism is concerned, when you really get stood inside. You come to what we call self-acceptance, the sense of peace with yourself. That's why in that book, opening the door of your heart, I described it as I opened the door of your heart to yourself to say whatever I've done, wherever I've been, however I am, the door of my heart is open to all of that. Without exception, is the unconditional, complete, full acceptance of who you are. Then that gives you a sense, incredible peace. Here's another way of saying I'm okay when you have that feeling of I'm okay coming from that stillness. Imagine what results from that. Just 99% of the problems of life have been dealt with. You can be free. You can enjoy yourself without the guilt. Without the fear. Without the self-hatred. Without the recriminations. You feel? Wow. At last I'm at peace. Only when you can love yourself that much. To make peace with yourself. To realize you are okay and love yourself. This is what the Buddha says. That her mother loves her only to amazing their only child. They can now pee on the floor. They can sort of poo in their pants. They can do all sorts of stuff. But a mother always loves her kid unconditionally. You've your mother to yourself to love yourself with that degree of unmeasurable, uncritical, full acceptance. If you can do that, you find this incredible peace. But when you can love yourself, then you can love others. Not before. Otherwise, if you are going to be critical of yourself and feel you know you're not worthy of anything. When you see those forces. So if you see the faults in your partner as well. She's not kind enough, she doesn't work, she doesn't put her way in the family. And as far as he only ever does, he just, you know, sit and meditate all day instead of sort of helping around the house. He calls it meditation. It's just goofing off the lazy bum, whatever it is, sometimes that we can be just to fortnightly if you're angry at other people or I know is that means you're angry at yourself. That's how it manifests. If you're at peace with yourself, you're always at peace with others. If you're kind to yourself, you're kind to others. It's the same attitude. It's the same mind when it looks at one person or looks at yourself. So when we develop the peace for ourselves in the stillness of our heart, we realize, yeah, I'm just a human being. You know, I'm stupid sometimes. And I say silly things, you know that I've given so many talks. You know, here in other places. I always put my foot in it sooner or later. What was it the other day? I hope they're not here. But the father came with his daughter and I called his daughter. Is that your wife? Don't know what she fell. I do apologize, but please have a sense of humor. I did make these mistakes quite often. Or when that person came, they were getting married. And this young Thai girl came in with this old Australian man. And I talked to him and saying, are you the father in law? I said, no, I am the groom. Oh, a classic case of the feudal service, because the funeral service is supposed to be somber. And so we're doing this service for, you know, this. I actually knew the, the children because they used to come to the temple very often. I'm doing the, the service here for, you know, so-and-so's, uh, mother who passed away recently. And that's when this old lady got up from the back and said, it's not me, I'm alive. It's my husband passed away. So very embarrassing at a funeral service. You know, when you, you, you know, you say the wrong person is dead. Sometimes it gets a bit difficult. Oh, yeah. That's who you are. That's who you are as well. So I accept myself. And I just laugh at myself. Like, share the stories with other people. You see how you can love yourself and have fun when you make mistakes. It's not really a mistake anymore. It's just part of the fabric of being a human being. It's part of your nature. It's part of our nature. And if we were all so damn perfect, it'd be such a boring world. But because we make mistakes and we can laugh at them, we can love ourselves and love life and love our partners. Where do those teachings come from? Did they really come from book? Actually, you can read them in a book. Open the door of your heart by someone available. The cards were there. No, no, that's not what I meant. It's not coming from books. You know, that book came from my heart. So please get it in the right order. Those Buddhist teachings which you can see in the the the bookshelves over there. You know, which people say, you know, they're the source. They came from the Buddha's heart. So they came from the same place which you can go to. So go to the source of those teachings. That's why it's true that this is what this is, a Buddhist Bible, the meditation, not the books. Can we go to the books? That's when we we really get the religion part and we get the dogmas. We get it says in chapter two, verse five, now thou shall not sort of laugh. You know, when I jump out and picks his nose. That's bad karma, whatever it is. But you know, it's worse than that. You know, they say you know that. You know, if you say have an abortion as a woman, you're going to go to hell. What does that do? You know, to a person who makes his terrible, difficult decisions. That. Does that help? And of course, as many women probably had imagined, maybe 50, 60, 70, 80% of the girls here may have had those abortions and some time in their life. These things happen. How does that feel? Does that really help saying such things? And if if I saw that in a Buddhist book, I'd say that was wrong, because that doesn't come from the heart. That's not how it feels. It's not kindness, it's vindictiveness. And it's why when I read those Buddhist books, it was it was much closer to what I found in the heart. There were people in the time of the Buddha actually tried to assassinate the Buddha. A whole series of men. Because the Buddha had some enemies. It doesn't matter how good you are, you always have some enemies. And these enemies try to assassinate the Buddha. And the Buddha sort of sussed them out and caught them. And what did the Buddha do once he caught the people who were about to kill him? He said, as long as you agree, as long as you acknowledge that you had a bad mind, stay and don't do it again. No worries at all. And then he taught them some Buddhism, and they all became so once streamliners. It's amazing. Just know the power of a Buddha. But he didn't sort of go and dob them into the police and go and get them arrested. He just forgave them straight away. That's why. Here. Now, to put that in an Australian context, I call it the AFL code. You all know what the AFL code means. Acknowledge. Forgive. Learn the AFL code. So when you've made a mistake, you acknowledge it. Yeah, I was stupid. I did the wrong thing. Next one. Forgive no punishment. The Buddha never punished anybody. Learn from it. Had knowledge. Forgive. Learn. So if anyone comes up and says, oh, they've been terrible, they've done this terrible crime, they would do terrible things. Acknowledge it. Forgive and learn. There's no punishment at all. And that's what I read in the, in the, the books. Even for monks, whenever we do a mistake her knowledge forgive learn that way. Had this wonderful kindness. Its wonderful softness. And it is psychologically powerful. It means you do grow into better people by acknowledging forgiving land. When it's deny, punish and you know, never learn. You can imagine what comes in the opposite of, uh, you know, when you do something which hurts another person or hurts yourself. But a lot is out in the open. Be mindful of it. Forgive it out of kindness, and learn from it. Use wisdom to grow. That's what the Buddha said. This would call this growth in Buddhism. When I read things like that, I said, wow, that's how I feel in my heart. That's why it was true. But that comes from the heart. The book is not the source. It comes from inside of you. When I heard ideas like that from my teacher, and I was such a great relief, because if if you go into a library there, I think in just as you go in, in the left hand side, turn left, go to the right. You see all these, these scripture books at the top or in Pali? Some have been translated in English. This, and about 60 of them, 60 volumes. And I first saw that as a Buddhist. Gee, if I got to read all of those to be a Buddhist, there's many more than in the Bible. I thought, wow, you don't need to. Because all of that comes from the same place. All of that came from a Buddha who just looked inside of his heart in stillness and in peace. So exactly what you can see right now in stillness and peace in your heart. So don't read what the Buddha wrote. Read where the Buddha found those truths. Read the stillness to peace. And then you don't get into these dogmas. You don't get into these, uh, proclamations from on high which said, you shall do this, and you shouldn't do that, but it doesn't make any sense to you at all. That's why that sometimes it's very hard to have an organized Buddhism with the monks, or the senior monks or the senior nuns or whatever, telling you what to do. Hopefully we never do that. We'll never tell you what to do. We'll just tell you how to find out what to do. Show you the way to gain your own wisdom, to understand your own virtue. I think really, when you do that. So I started off this talk. You would understand. You will feel for yourself that things like stem cell research is a virtuous activity. It's not wrong. Doesn't feel wrong. No reason why it should be wrong. Only because people should stop at words written in books which they don't really investigate or challenge. Only then do we have these terrible barriers to a more happy, peaceful, harmonious life on this planet Earth. So, as I said among said books, books, books to many, to many to many dustbin, dustbin, dustbin and instead spend more time in stillness. Meditate, be still, listen to your heart and find your truth. As a thought for this evening. Thank you. Okay. Has anyone got any questions, comments or complaints about the tortoise? The Bible of Buddhism. This talk is cool. Yes. Ah, yeah. Oh, yeah. If you teach your children meditation. Because teaching your children meditation, not teaching your children religion, it's not sort of saying this is what the Buddha said. This is what you're supposed to learn. Don't do this. Do that. It's teaching your children you know how to be sensitive, how to how to care for this moment, how to be peaceful. And they can find the truth in themselves with that. So in many places they taught meditation in schools. There's been some people here taught meditation regularly in schools. There's one guy he was studying in Rockingham or safety based somewhere with and had great results. People have done it, but they haven't done it systematically. Over in Wellington, in UK, a public school, a couple of years ago, somebody started teaching meditation as a compulsory subject. With enormous results. Kids got better grades. They were sort of more at peace with themselves, more harmonious in the classroom. It was a girl who used to be the vice principal of rolling Stone Primary School, taught year six. So I went over there and talked with the headmaster, who was a Christian, who said, I defend this lady to the max. I've seen the results of what she's done. I'm just so impressed. She taught. Didn't call it meditation. Called it quiet time. Started off five minutes. Was his year six. Started off with five and it's the beginning of the year. Ended up with about 10 or 15 minutes. I remember her telling me once there was about to be an argument in her class. You know, someone was irritating someone else. A girl put out mace. Can we have quiet time now? So they're all just meditated for five minutes and the whole argument just faded away, and everyone was friends and carried on with their class again. So it's not just meditation in schools. I want meditation to be in the Federal Parliament. Every time is an argument. The speaker quiet time and John Howard. Yeah, it should be. Kids are great. Kids actually love meditation when they get into it. So ask you a question, sir. There was a question over there. Yes. Well, not all wrong, people, right? Yeah, I like that. Yeah. Are. We. Okay. The example of the Buddhist monks in Burma recently. Um, there's many things you could say about. I can give a whole talk about that. Oh, what else happened over there? But I think one of the lessons I think the world will learn from this hasn't learned yet, because it hasn't evolved to such a state yet. There was a couple of thousand of Brown Road monks. We call it protesting, but apparently from what I understood, have happened this. They walked together through the streets and they were chanting the metta suta as the same Suta as some of you chanted at 7:00 here. This is what should be done by one who is skilled in goodness. They chanted that they weren't sitting down with the government. Out with the junta. More. More rights for monks. More meals a day for monks. We know what they weren't demanding things. They were doing this beautiful chant of peace and kindness and love. And many of them, they were smart enough. They knew what would happen. And many of them are probably dead now. Those who aren't dead may be in the prisons right at this moment, having their nails torn out, being beaten, tortured. But they know that there was something important there, a very powerful message of not having suicide bombs. Not driving trucks into into airports laden with bombs. But people willing to give up their lives. He were willing to be tortured for the sake of peace. There really is peace, not for political end. The sake of some which each one of us noses is good. Harmony. Peace. Lack of oppression. They are willing to do that. And I say it hasn't evolved yet. Because from this I've read of the newspapers. Sort of the. There's no more protests in the streets of Rangoon. No monks are visible. And some of the monasteries have been emptied out further from the used as a crackdown there in that land. But something is moving. Just that question came from you, and that question has probably come from thousands and billions of people from throughout the world. Something has happened there. A peaceful protest which has. I don't know if it's ever been seen in the world. And that has a power. I'm not quite sure when that seed will bear fruit, but one day there will be peace in that land, simply because people willing peacefully with kindness to show an alternative. I've got this incredible understanding and faith in the power of such peace. You can kill it. You can torture it. You can't destroy it. It grows sooner or later. So whoever does those terrible things. Will have to leave their positions of power. It has to be that way. It's a cause and effect relationship, you can see. So there's a powerful message. So whenever you're upset, there may be your boss or your partner in life. Remember how those monks. Protested. I didn't shout at their partner, you shouldn't do this. You shouldn't do that. They didn't act violently against the government. They marched peacefully with kindness, willing never to harm another being, but willing to accept the harm of others. I always remember Gandhi saying, I could see a thousand reasons for giving my life for a just cause. But I can't see one reason for taking the life of another under what happened with Gandhi. It's a powerful statement. So anyway, that's some of my feelings on that issue. Does that sort of answer your question somehow? Okay. Last question from Eddie in the back and then. Your remarks were supporting the supporters, but certainly the monks in Burma, they did sort of hit the headlines throughout the world, as many of them there were peaceful. As far as I read that they asked the Dalai community to please don't march with us because they knew that they committed to march would be really harmed and hurt. They didn't want to take that and make other people get harmed. And let's see what happens over the next 12 months. Sometimes when a huh when something bad is happening, it takes a while for the whole thing to unravel. But once you start the unraveling, it becomes unstoppable. Maybe that's what's happening. Let's see. But anyway, what a wonderful thing it is to see what the the beauty of being able to to chant the methods to, to to know to this is what should be done by to be. That's where we got to save. Just like a mother loves her only child. It's a beautiful teaching and I think it's very powerful. And I think maybe soon we might see some results there. Let's wait and see. Okay, so that is the talk for this evening. Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! One time the b. One day me. So ah ah ah ah ah. What are the more da manana. Sorry. So party portable A water song a song. Sun come upon me.
