Talk Your Way To Happiness

Talk Your Way To Happiness by Ajahn Brahm Okay, just for tonight's talk, I'm gonna pivot into a couple aspects of the Buddhist path and audio file path, especially just a couple of factors how they play with each other to create a more peaceful, wise, caring, uh, still existence. The two factors of how the correct or the proper, uh, intentions and the skillful speech. And for those of you who know classic Buddhism, there is the path. The practice of Buddhism is called the Eightfold Path. And those are number two and number three of that path. And again, one of the reasons which I mentioned these two factors is because the first factor of the intention is just a basic kindness and gentleness. The compassion which Buddhists are usually generally known for, and to allow that to come out into one's speech as a very effective way for a living in this world, and to allow that speech to, in return to cultivate nice ways of thinking. So these two are the intentions and the speech coming together and supporting each other on a path of peace, compassion and gentleness. And the reason why I chose this subject was because it's coming back from a trip to Sri Lanka, giving many, many talks there and seeing some of the ways that people talk to each other, especially, you know, a couple of my supporters, husbands and wives, you can usually tell by how long a person is married, by how much they bicker together. There's this old story, this old joke in the first year of marriage. So the husband listens to the wife. In the second year of marriage, the wife listens to the husband in the third year of marriage. The neighbors listen to both of them. In other words, they argue so loudly. It's not just that. It's such a shame that you listen to the way people speak to each other, and it's such a harmful way that we interact socially. And it's not just in marriage. Sometimes it's with friends are picking faults with each other, sometimes it's in the office, in the workplace, and sometimes that speech which we use can cause such a lot of misery in our lives. Really, we don't know how to cultivate friendship with others, or we don't cultivate friendship. And this beautiful relationships with other beings that we can't really cultivate a positive relationship with ourself. And when we don't have a positive relationship with ourselves, we end up getting very stressed out. Our lack of self esteem, depression and everything else. How so? We we look at the intention behind our speech and the right intention. The second factor, the Eightfold path, is one of the most profound of all those eight factors. That said, one should cultivate thoughts and intentions of letting go, especially letting go of one's sense of self was one's ego and not worrying about what other people think of you. Not needing to be the best, or not even need to be anybody. Just to let go of that sense of self and that ego, that pride. How we often focus on the deeper teachings of non-self. In Buddhism, at least, this is a teaching which everyone could appreciate and understand. So the bigger the ego, the bigger the problem which you have in your life, and the more arrogance, the more proud you are, just the harder it is to make good friends and the more sort of selfless you. I'm not talking about a fake humility where you sort of put it on that you're worse than other people because that just makes you even more depressed. I'm talking of just being yourself and not measuring yourself against others. A letting go of this idea of a self which measures itself by possessions and by other people's opinions of you, or of your attainments and spirituality. What I was following, I made a lot of the terrible perversion of spiritual materialism because, you know, you know, in this world that people often measure themselves by the size of their houses or by their bank balance or the size of their car. And people say, oh, you've made it in life because, you know, now you can retire only 50. But what have you made in life? You know, you made a big bank balance, but is that what life is all about? So when you say people have made it, sometimes you question that. I mean, listen to that materialism. No. Which many of you are understand has not really been produced for real meaning and happiness in life. Otherwise you wouldn't be here this evening. But we have a similar problem with spiritual materialism. In other words, there are people to see how good meditators they are, or how much they know about dharma or spirituality or about anything else. And I know many of the people from Sri Lanka here may appreciate that. So many people I found in Sri Lanka were so concerned of whether they were streaming his wife's return as non-return as or whatever these stages of enlightenment, and almost like wearing them like badges. It was like another thing to add to their big house in Colombo seven and to their big car. Now they've got they've got everything in life, not only they've got material wealth, but they've got a spiritual wealth. They're enlightened. And such ideas were going completely against what I understand as being like a Buddhist, a letting go of the sense of self and letting go of the sense of ego and sort of being free from the demands of having to prove yourself to other people and even to prove yourself to yourself, so that this is part of the intention, the right intention, the movement of the mind which the Buddha pointed out that if you follow that type of even spiritual materialism or ordinary materialism, trying to acquire things in life, you're just asking for more problems, more suffering in life. Other things come into our life, but we tend not to own them and tend to share them with our family, with our friends. We don't measure ourselves by our our wealth, either material or spiritual. And that way, when we don't measure ourselves by these things, that sense of pride and keeping up with the Joneses and keeping up with the person next to Saint tends to disappear when it tends to disappear. The struggle to achieve things, either in your spiritual life or in your material life tends to to lessen. And that struggle which we have to get on in life to achieve, you know, how much stress and eventual depression that causes it causes stress when you really work so hard. Extra hours which are put on you trying to keep up the lifestyle which someone tells you you you have to have. I was very surprised many years ago, even when I found out that people, poor people on Social Security in the UK. They were given a TV and a video recorder because that was considered to be the basics of human existence. I could understand that you need sort of a house to live in, but, you know, having a TV and video recorder as an essentials of existence was soon to be going a bit too far, because certainly in our monastery, none of us have any of those things. So we're living way beyond the poverty line. And I'd imagine that if we really wanted to, we could sue the Buddhist society for torturing us and keeping us so without the necessities of human existence. Well, obviously that was going far, too far. But you see that sometimes what we take as being essential and normal and have to have. You can also question that. And this particular aspect of the Buddhist part is saying that you don't know if these things come fine. If they don't come fine. In other words, you you can have them, but you don't need them. It's a necessity, part of materialism which causes a problem. And it's nice to have them if it comes, but doesn't matter if you don't have them. And the point is that you can have that beautiful attitude towards the possessions of life. Okay. Take it or leave it. No, they're not essential to your happiness. And the reason why they're not essential to your happiness is don't you don't measure your ego by these things. As I've mentioned in many meditation talks, and I gave a short meditation retreat in Sri Lanka, and it's a it's a fundamental principle of meditation that when you actually focus on something, you actually focus in on a thing and what's on the edges of your awareness fade off. And the simile I've often given is watching a TV screen, because when you watch a TV screen, it doesn't matter what size it is or what shape it is. I know that most TV screens are rectangular, but if somebody came along and had a designer TV set, which was a circular, that'd be sort of a new thing to have a circular TV set. You find that after a while, when you look at the center of it, the edges disappear. You don't see the edges. And that's the reason why when you look at a movie on TV, it looks as if you're right there because the edges of the screen would remind you that it's just a an image on a box. Next time you watch the TV. Just noticed after a few minutes the edges disappear and you're in the center of that screen somewhere. And it doesn't matter how big that screen is, because when you focus in the middle of that screen, it can be one of these huge plasma screen TVs or just a tiny. So mobile TV screen in your mind it looks the same. And I've mentioned that a few people I remember mentioned that on my last retreat, which I gave here, and a couple of the retreats were very, very happy that they said they were just about planning to buy a plasma screen TV for 2 or $3000, and I saved them all that money. I think they gave 50% to my retreat center, which was very good business because you actually don't need it the only time. It's impressive. The only time a plasma screen TV is impressive is when it's not turned on, and then you see the whole big thing. Otherwise it looks exactly the same. You try that out. You know, the the mental image. You know, when you're actually watching a movie on a small screen or a big screen in the mind it appears the same because you just focus into the center and that's all that's left there. The size is immaterial, except when it's not turned on, then it oppresses the neighbors. Fair enough. But why do we want to impress our neighbors so much? And this idea of like, pride and spiritual pride as well. So sometimes you have to combat that to say the whole point of the past. And this is a saying of my teacher, I just try not to get things, not to attain things, but to let things go. Note, sir, to cart this this attachment. When the ego and its possessions are what it owns to be something, who owns nothing, who can actually have things that come into your life. You can enjoy them, but you don't own them. You don't possess them. You don't control them. You can see the beauty of that because if you have something which you really possess. It's a delusion because nature possesses these things. Your car. You don't possess a car. Nature possesses it. When it crashes. You don't own it anymore, except you own just a bunch of metal. One of the disciples. His only possession or his main possession, which he had, was a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, which was, I think, worth about 40 or $50,000. Those motorbikes can be very, very expensive. And that was all his assets were in his motorbike. Who told me once he parked it in one of these shopping malls, and he went to do some shopping. When he went back, it had gone. Someone had stolen it. And that was all he had in life. In a 40 $50,000 motorbike, he said he was very impressed with himself because he'd been coming here long enough. He said, oh, well, it's not mine anyway. He just comes and goes. He sings, I can live without it, you know, even though it's a loss. But, you know, never mind. He actually let it go. He realised he did not own these things and he was so proud of himself. It was only then he realised he noticed he was on the wrong for the car park. They went down, there was his bike and so he was. He was a double winner. But the thing was the great test of him. So, you know, he was very, very happy, number one, that he sort of learned how to let go. Number two, he sold his motorbike. But there's a little test for you because, no, we we don't own anything. We don't define ourselves by our possessions. So it's much easier to be free that way. So please, whenever you come into this path of Buddhism, please don't get into any spiritual materialism and just define yourself by how much Buddhism you know, how how many know how much, many meditation retreats you've been to or or just argue with other people about your understanding of dharma? You know, the Buddhist teachings and who knows the most. And who's been at the Buddhist society longest, and who's the cleverest meditator and who's the most enlightened, and who can sit for meditation for the longest period of time. Sometimes people get into that, you know, on these retreats, they see if they can beat their record of sitting down still half an hour. Yeah, I did that years ago. 45 minutes I'm up to now. That's nothing. An hour. I can sit for two hours. That's nothing I can do five hours. As if you're going to get into the Guinness Book of Records. But I remember my teacher used to say, if it really depended on how long you sat still for, if that was really a measure of enlightenment, then all the chickens in the world would be enlightened. Now, because they sit still for hours on their eggs without moving at all. So it's just carrying away this attachment to the sense of self and measuring yourself by achievements, if not in the physical world, in the spiritual world. And spiritual pride is one of the worst things I've seen. It's even worse than material pride. When people go along and say how holy they are and how enlightened they are, or how wise they are. Is this a sign of actually no wisdom at all? Of no holiness at all? It's when one disappears, the one gets holy. What does the whole mean, anyway? A whole is like nothing in it. That's why it's called a whole. That's why it's called the Holy Life. No one's in there. It's a holy inside. So when one understands that, understands that this first part of letting go is letting go of the sense of self and ownership. So I can literally be free. It's even when I do go travelling and I travel very, very light, I usually just have my bowl and my little bag and the bag I've got here behind me somewhere. And so often that I've gone through that airport in Perth, and even this last time, people ask me once again, where are your bags? I say, this is my bags, my bag and my ball. And they said, you know, where's your suitcases? So I've got no suitcases. Even though you go away for two weeks, that's all you carry. And then they say, oh, yeah, because you're a Buddhist monk. That's very good. Well done. That's what a Buddhist monk should do. And it's so much easier because wherever you go, you have very little to carry. Then you don't have to wait for these carousels, you know, with all the other people waiting for their bags to come around. And you can just go through the customs and immigration very easily. So that's a wonderful thing to have like a few possessions. But why is it that we measure ourselves by how many possessions we have in this world? And because of that, we strive and work so hard, because we strive and work so hard, we get so tired and have so little time for each other and the better things of life. So be careful about possessions, both spiritual and material. The first aspect of that right intention is just to have few things. In other words, to own little ownership. So no ego and no pride over the possessions you have are no sense of ownership either. That's also the case for ownership of your children as well. But there's another big problem, which I was reminded of in Sri Lanka, same as in Australia. Here, too many parents own their children for too long. In other words, they get to 21, 22, 23 and they still the parents won't let them go because they're concerned about them. They'll go out into the big bad world or go to nightclubs or whatever. What will they do? They'll have drugs. They get into bad influences. Are you going to allow the kids to learn? Sometimes the hard way, sometimes allow them to make mistakes so they can learn by their mistakes, as we all had to do now. But sometimes it's not even just 20, sometimes 30, 40, 50, 60. I was talking to one guy today, he's 60 and he still has to call his mother every day. And if he doesn't call his mother, she's very worried about him 60 years of age. So that really is a bit too possessive. So it'd be great. And it's it's good for us, and it's also good for our kids to give them that little bit of freedom and give them that responsibility. I must just really praise my own mother, because when I was only 17 now, all I had was a guitar and a sleeping bag, and off I went hitchhiking to North Africa. She must have worried herself silly, but she trusted me. And it's with that responsibility of going out and learning how to look after oneself and how to survive that you you had that sense of responsibility and toughness which everyone has to have. Obviously up to a reason. But it's good to be able to give your children that freedom to learn. Away from home. So don't possess your kids either. And obviously know that sometimes that when your child gets married and they find a partner in life, just how many mothers just they still get controlling of their their son or daughter once they're married, which is why we have all his mother in law jokes in the world. And then my favorite mother in law joke, you know, comes from this comic, I think I think was Les Dawson in UK who said, um, my mother in law's been coming around for Christmas Day for the last nine years. Every Christmas Day she's been coming around. This year we decided to make an exception. We let her in the house. You know, why do you laugh at that? It's because it's true. So mothers in law have got a really bad reputation. And that's not just in the West. That's in Sri Lanka and Thailand all over the world and Singapore especially. So we have to be less possessive of things, which is like the first part of the right intention and how to let things go. Don't own things. Then when you don't own things, you like me, you travel light in the world. You don't. Don't carry so many burdens. You know your financial burdens, your family burdens, and even your spiritual burdens. It's amazing how many people you know when they go on meditation retreats are so worried about what they're going to achieve and what they're going to get. That's not why you meditate for you meditate. As I said, this is Ajahn Charles. Great teaches you meditate to let go, not to attain things. To see how much you can sort of abandon. And the more you abandon, the more free you feel and abandon all the fear of the future. What might happen, all the memories of the past, all the ego things which wants to own and catch on to everything. That's what we mean by attachment, is that owning things and grabbing on to things we don't own, physical things. We own our children. We own our intelligence. We own our abilities. Instead of just allowing them just to come and go and flow. But the second part of the right intention, of course, is the best part, I don't know. Well, I don't know if it's the best part, but it's one of the great parts. It's like the compassion and kindness we should always have, like thoughts of kindness, which is a hard thing to do in a marriage, in an office, anywhere. Because sometimes people irritate us when we hear they irritate us, what would we do? We start planning how we're going to murder them. But of course we don't go that far. But sometimes we think like that, or hoping terrible things happen to them on their way to work. And sometimes it's amazing what you think of to your partners or to the person who employs you. So if you look at those stories, I would have said no, no, no, no. Don't ever cultivate bad thoughts, but also but just cultivate thoughts of loving kindness. Now the door of my heart is open no matter who people are. Because no is anger. It is. Anger is often coming from just delusion, not understanding the way of the world, not understanding that that's the way husbands are. All husbands are the same. Are there enough counselling in marriages now to know that all husbands are exactly the same? So if you get divorce and get another one, you'll find to your surprise that it's exactly the same. Different on the outside, but same on the inside. It's like a different model car, but the same engine. And you come back and I say, I told you so. And the same with the wives. They're exactly the same. Maybe, you know, different color hair or different size. No body, but they're basically the same. So that way, you know, this is husbands being husbands, wives being wives and mothers and all being mothers and all monks being monks. No bosses being bosses. It's just like that story I told you. My book, Open the Door of Your Heart, that just that man actually was in Leach Highway on a hot day. And many years ago, you pulled up, uh, because it's like, uh, uh, three was, uh, three lanes going in either direction, pulled up at the red traffic light. And because I was in the passenger seat, my window was open. The right next to me, maybe a foot away, was a driver. His, uh, window was open as well. He got caught at the red light, and he was raging at the red traffic lights. So you stupid damn lights, you know, why do you have. Why did you have to change now? I was late, not. This is not the first time you've done this. You did it last time. And he is screaming and shouting at the traffic lights. There was a great assembly there because now the traffic lights have got no bad intentions nor good intentions. Everyone on sort of a computer system according to their nature, and it's just traffic light being traffic lights and it's the same. Why do we get angry at our husband or wife? They're just husbands being husbands. That's just what they're like. You can sort of shout at the traffic light, it's not going to do anything. And how many times you shout at your husband, has that worked? Of course it hasn't. I shout at your wife. So when you understand that how anger is just a misunderstanding of the nature of human beings and trying to forget, we get frustrated when they don't go according to our plan. So instead of actually trying to change the traffic light or change the plan, we actually changed our attitude towards these things to accept our husbands as they are, to accept traffic lights as they are, to accept life as it is. In other words, to be a bit more or less demanding of of life and of nature. And that's what loving kindness means, is like an unconditional acceptance that the Lord. My heart is open to traffic lights no matter what they do. The door of my heart is open to my husband and I, no matter who he is or what he does. And all my heart is open to my wife, my kids, my boss, unconditionally. There's there's such a beautiful attitude when we do that to people, then we do it to life. Then we do it to things. It's wonderful to have that beautiful, unconditional, loving kindness. The traffic lights, the traffic jams. So no aircraft being late, taking off. When we do that, we have this beautiful, peaceful attitude of life. And don't think that that's letting things just slide, getting worse and worse and worse. It actually makes things much better and better and better. You try that in your relationship, in your marriage, or with your kids. You find it doesn't make things worse. It's the anger makes things worse. It's the controlling makes this work worse. It's demanding too much, which makes things worse. But it's actually the kindness which encourages. When I get around to speech, I'll mention that and a few examples of how like kind speech is by far the best way of encouraging the behavior which you really want. And the last part of the right intention or skillful intention is actually nonviolence. There's actually the three right intentions of letting go kindness and gentleness. And so often in even in Buddhist circles, sometimes we forget gentleness, especially when we're in a hurry and we've got something very, very important to do. Too often we can actually go. We can run too fast, charge too fast, and too forcefully, thinking that the end justifies the means. But the the means is the end. The gentleness of life, the gentleness to your partner, the gentleness to your body. Especially sometimes being too forceful for the body. And I try and do some exercise, but a lot of times the exercise is gentle exercise. I'm not quite sure, but I think the many doctors would probably know that if it's too forceful exercise, you ended up injuring your knees or injuring your back, or injuring something or other because it's too hard on the body, especially when you're 55, you've got to go gently look after your old body, just like you know you have a car. You know it's not a Ferrari. You got to sort of don't push that pedal down too hard. Things are going to fall off your car. Things rattle. And that's what happens when you get in your 50s. Very often, many things rattle. If you go too fast, they fall off. But not only just when you're old. Even when you're young. That gentleness seems to be such a beautiful part of Buddhism. I know we used to have the words before being a gentle man, and this was supposed to be your aim in life, to be a gentleman or a gentle woman. But nowadays we've got far, far more aggressive in just the way we walk, the way we do things, the way we drive. It's such a beautiful thing to see that gentleness there and that courtesy. But it all comes from the thoughts of gentleness, of non-violence, of non-aggression. And that's also my spiritual part as well, because I've seen people on meditation retreats write, this is it. I'm going to become enlightened. I've only got nine days. I've got to get it out of the way, because I've got many other things to do in life. I'm going to go get it, because that degree of aggression, I've seen that so many times in meditation retreats, they just get to a brick wall very quickly, get really frustrated, really tense. And you have to, you know, just if they don't leave, you have to tell them, slow down, be gentle, go and take a good rest, because the gentle approach is by far the best. And then this is actually basic to the Buddhist path. This is straight from the word of the Buddha. This is actually your intentions are where your mind should be moving in. Like letting go non-controlling, not owning. And, you know, uh, kindness and gentleness and how that comes out in speech is so important because too often our speech is just now too controlling. No, it's too hard and hurtful, and it's not gentle to it's very violent sometimes the way we speak to each other. And one of the obvious things, I'm sure you know this people are very critical. We always tend to criticize other people. About things which, you know, we're probably even more at fault with. You know, in Sri Lanka, the couple which would drive me around. Now one of them is saying, oh, she's always worried about you and making sure you get there on time. And actually, he was the one who's worried about whether I get there on time or not. We always tend to criticize other people about what's actually inside of us. So I notice even that monks who criticize other monks are being lazy. It's the lazy ones. It seems to be. If that's a fault in you, you're very aware of that failing in life and you see in other people as well, which is why you criticize those things. But those that sort of critical mind is just very, very hard to bear, especially when you see the way that most people talk to each other is mostly criticism, putting each other down or putting the world down, or putting the soccer team down, or putting the government down or putting somebody down. It's very, very hard to bear in my life now as a monk, you know. You do see politicians. Actually, one of the things which I did when I was in Sri Lanka was have breakfast with the president, Mr. Rajapaksa. And I was in his palace. So I went to the president's palace, and I let you into a secret in the president's palace. He serves you baked beans. I always thought that in such sort of high society, always get good baked beans. And it was very delicious. Beans for baked beans for breakfast. Served by the president. So I think somebody sort of tipped him off when I like. But anyhow, sort of I always feel a lot of compassion for people in such positions of authority because not they're not just in positions of authority. They're also positions where they're attacked from all sides. You know, by especially the press and by the public. This is so tough, though, being a leader, simply because every good thing you do, every kind thing you do, every positive thing you do, is always taken for granted in any mistake which you happen to make. That's the one which is remembered and recalled and publicized in the newspapers. And sometimes you read the newspapers and newspapers is not a very gentle or kind medium. I know it was true that somebody was actually suggesting. One of the monks I saw in Sri Lanka was wanting to start a like a Buddhist news channel, and he said, know a good news channel, let's just run it as a Buddhist news, you know, on the internet and make sure it's this a positive things which are happening in society. And I told them that's been tried before. A newspaper once started in the United States, a good news newspaper. They won't put any tragedies or any bad things which happen, except if somebody really cared and help, like, you know, like the bushfires down into welling up, you know, the nice things which people did. That's the sort of stuff they put in the newspapers. But of course, no one bought them. And they, they the company went bankrupt within a few months. And it's why is it that we like, you know, to hear bad news? Why is it we like to speak badly of other people? Criticizing them, putting them down is obvious is because when we criticize someone else, we're putting them down. And that means our ego gets higher. And a lot of times all criticism comes from a sense of personal superiority, as if we could do better than John Howard. I probably could do, because that's not really a good example, but. You know, it's not easy being a politician. So I understand it's just some of those politicians have to have such thick skin because of all the flack they get from the left and the right. And sometimes they do try and make compromises. But you know the old saying, even about the Buddhist middle way, remember the old saying, he who walks the middle path gets hit by traffic coming in both directions. So, you know, you do get it from both sides when you try and be a mediator, but it's not so much of us receiving that bad comments, but just watching our own mind. Just how much do we use? You know what in Buddhism we call like unskillful speech and unskillful speech, the Buddha said, is always harsh speech. Critical speech. And he said, the opposite of that is speech, which actually goes to the heart. You know, which people like to hear, which is encouraging and positive. And that type of speech is not just sucking up to people. It's not just like smarmy weasel words, as they say. It actually is very positive. It works. And you come to the goal, which you really wanted to come to in the first place, far more efficiently. Because why is it that we get so critical of each other? Because we see faults which need to be mended. Most of speech is like management speech, fixing up faults and errors in another person, or in the government or in the House or something. No, it is coming from fault finding. And that's part of our life. We have to find fault to improve our situation. However, to actually to get to that goal of improvement, you will always find that kind, gentle speech always is far more effective on getting to the place you want to go to. When it comes this. I first learned this in education. Before I became a school teacher doing some courses in educational psychology, there all positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement in the school. They tried many, many times when a child made a mistake, get punished, tell them off, scold him, begin of a black mark a bit. Cross next to the next to the problem. The opposite is you forget all the faults. You don't even say anything when a child makes a mistake in maths or English, but when they make it correct, they get the answer right. You praise them and say what a wonderful child you are, how intelligent, how great it is you seeing this and time and time and time again in that very clear situation of education in school, they found so many times that when you give that positive reinforcement, the child learns quicker with less emotional problems. They don't lose their self-esteem. They like to learn instead of getting negative to the classroom. And how many teachers know how negative many students are in the classroom? Why is that? Because of too many, much scolding and punishment. Less encouragement. And just as that works in a schoolroom, that works in life too. If you encourage people rather than scold them. Praise them for those things you want to see in them. In other words, when they do come home early, just show them how much you appreciate that. You know when your kid does do well, great, wonderful. Praise him. But please don't always keep demanding. Your kid comes now in the top 5%. That's one of the things I said both in Singapore and Sri Lanka on this trip. If your child comes in the top 5% on TV or at school, or in the bottom 5%, they're not a good Buddhist. If your child comes in the top 5% or more than 5%, they're not good Buddhists. Buddhists believe in the middle way. So come in the center somewhere. That's a good Buddhist, the middle way. You know, you're supposed to avoid extremes. And it's true because the kids in the top 5%, sometimes they get so stressed out trying to keep, you know, up there. And the bottom 5% think they're useless. No, both the top 5% and the bottom 5% are all freaks and not normal. So when you look at it that way, you understand what the Buddha meant by the middle way, and it takes away all this pressure on achieving if you get there naturally, fine. But if you have to work so hard and stress yourself out and create so many emotional problems, that's not a good thing to do. But that encouragement of right speech and kind speech and gentle speech, people don't realize how powerful that is. When I gave a talk in my monastery last night and at serpentine about the power of gentle, sort of loving, kind speech, because what it is, is get everybody behind you. They want to work with you rather than having this terrible antagonistic speech which is always putting people down, always trying to control them, scold them through anger, through fear, to see who can shout the loudest or who can actually be the most cutting in this, in this satire of the cynics of cynicism. And sometimes, you know, you, no matter how good your English language is, there's always somebody who, you know, who's more sharp with the way they use the words. You can't beat that. Oscar Wilde, his greatest putdown I ever heard when he came out of some sort of nightclub or some bar, completely drunk. And of course, and this was a time when being drunk was even worse as a social stigma than it is today. Actually, probably in Australia, it's not a social stigma at all, but an accolade. But anyway, in those days when being drunk was considered to be sort of socially unacceptable, he came out drunk and his woman said to him, sir, you're drunk. And he replied, madam, you're ugly. And that is the kidding phrase was. And the difference between us in the morning I'll be sober. Now, that is a good example of harsh speech. Not the sort of thing about what this would do, but it's incredibly cutting. And if you get into that game, you'll always find somebody who's got a better riposte than you have, and you get cut down to shreds. And that's not a good game to play to see who's the sharpest, who's got the the biggest sort of cut down and negative response. And whenever I've seen that, I said I'm not playing those sorts of games because it's just ego trips again. Now, who's the sharpest and who's the best as far, far, far more appropriate in our modern world to use words which instead of build this terrible antagonism between people and this separation between people, which actually get people onside, which actually create bonds between people, kindness between people and friendliness between people. And you really just have to be very careful the way you speak, so you don't antagonize each other in this world. Now, it is very easy to be fragmented and with the availability of all sorts of weapons and bombs and goodness knows what else, we can't afford to antagonize each other. And a lot of times it's just unskillful speech. Which antagonizes each other. Instead of likely praising and praising the moderates and praising the kind people praising the goodness in another person, or in another religion, or in a politician or whatever. Because whatever you focus on or whatever you praise, whatever you look at and, and let's put the spotlight on. But with your speech, that does tend to grow. So it's a policy of mine over many years, and being a teacher in a monastery is actually to be very, very uncritical of the monks. I'm supposed to be training, but being very, very praising of when those monks, you know, start to keep their rules, well, start to be more restrained. Start to meditate. Well, now use the way of positive reinforcement to create a harmonious community. And having learned that, that works very well in the confines of a Buddhist community, a monastery of men living together without many arguments, you can actually see just how that can work so well just in family life or in the office. See that sometimes is what I hear, what happens in office and politics and backstabbing. And that just hurts everybody. It hurts the company. It hurts the people there. It hurts the families. When you go home with all that negativity, why now? Can we speak kindly to each other? I really mean that. Just those who speak kindly and show each other how much we appreciate them and say thank you, and I really appreciate what you've done and that extra work which you did. Could you do find that people actually work with greater harmony. You get more things done, you get more energy because it's just motivation. A little bit of kindness in your speech, a little bit of gentleness gets you far further. So if there is a problem there, don't go shouting at someone because you know when people shout at you, what happens? They shout and scream that you made a mistake and you shouldn't do that again. That's not why we employed you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No. Do you really take that person seriously? Do you really? Listen, I just want to get out as soon as you can because you're embarrassed or because you're afraid. And it's really unpleasant. You don't really listen to what they're saying. The message hardly gets through. And it's a much more effective, you know, to take the person aside and realize that you know that you're behind them. You want something to, uh, improve in the company, but not at their expense. How can we help? Now, look, there's a problem here. Speak softly, speak gently, and also take your time. Sometimes it's not just the words we use, but the the speed of our speech. Did you notice that when you slow your speech down and you speak much softer, has this beautiful result of calming people down? But when you start to raise your words and to speak very loudly and very quickly because you want to speak quickly, and I'd say people who really excites people. I remember when we went to the auction for the nuns monastery land there, we were sort of, you know, with our treasurer at that time. He's here this evening, the old treasure. And they were having an auction for this land where Nuns Monastery is. And it was amazing, actually, to see this auction of the way they started and say, oh, this is amazing piece of land here. And we think it's probably worth maybe no 1 million. So let's start with 1 million Australian. Anyone for 1 million Australian. And then he sort of started bringing it down. And once we got the first bit I think it started off about 500, 500,005. And we've got (525) 525-5255 5555. He started speaking really fast to try and excite people and get them upset. But fortunately, being Buddhist monks, we could outwit him by our calmness and stillness. And so it's great having a Buddhist monk at an auction to cool people down. But you can actually see just how the speed of speech actually affects one's, uh, uh, the effect it has on your listeners. So if you want to create more peace and calmness in this world, especially in your marriage, when somebody is shouting at you, you just be very calm that she speaks softly. If you speak softly and calming, actually you calm the other person down. If any other person has some sort of tragedy or whatever, you speak softly. I always remember this great example of my predecessor here, Ajahn Chakra in Thailand. He was a senior monk there when this lady came in one morning while we were eating our breakfast, our one meal of the day. And, uh, it's so unlike a Thai person that she'd come in there and just rush into the room and start waving her arms around and screaming something out. She was obviously very, very upset because the Thai person doesn't usually act like that in front of the monks. And so we were looking at our senior monk at that time at San Giacomo to see what he would do. And he just looked at her and then stopped and carried on eating. He completely ignored her. And at the time I thought, that's really been a bit disrespectful. This woman's in problems. But it was such a beautiful response because he'd never actually, uh, responded or accepted. So the way she was acting, then she actually calmed down and calmed down. And once she actually calmed down, and then it was a time that she stopped eating and he asked, what's the problem? And then she told her best friend had just shot herself and she found the corpse. He said, obviously a big problem there, but the way it was dealt with was so wonderful. No, he would not sort of encourage exciting speech with more exciting speech, because then he would just be part of the problem putting fuel on the fire. He waited for the excited speech to die down, which it would do with inattention. And then afterwards, you know, he started with this very soft and sort of, uh, investigation of what's happened, but using a very soft and kind tone of voice. So your voice, the way you speak, has enormous power, which is why the Buddha said, now, cultivate with mindfulness, uh, skillful speech, no kind speech, soft speech, you know, don't speak too much, otherwise people won't value it. Don't be sort of no motor mouse, you know, because with your motor mouth and people never actually listen to what you're saying because here they go again. Rah rah rah rah rah rah. So it's wonderful to be silent a lot and to speak when it's necessary. As one wise person once said, if you can't improve upon the silence and don't speak. What a wonderful saying that is. If you can't improve upon the silence, then be quiet. So when we learn these skillful speech, it actually goes back in the way we think. Because when we don't speak angry thoughts or critical thoughts of others, but kind thoughts, when we actually speak gently, we find to our surprise, that becomes also the way we think as well. We are kind thinkers and we are gentle thinkers because these two actually condition each other with their thoughts, which is the inner speech and the outer speech. So the more you put restraint on the way you speak to each other and you deliberately so I'm going to speak kindly and gently and frugally, you actually do find that you are thinking kindly and frugally because that inner speech is actually your talking. But to yourself now. And the way you talk to others is the way you talk to yourself. If you learn how to restrain your your speech to others. So you're kind and gentle. You find you think kindly and gently to yourself. And that is one of the main points of my talk tonight. By learning how to speak to others, you're learning how to have a beautiful attitude towards yourself. And a quiet moments are when you're supposed to be quiet. In other words, there's no one around you. The way you think, the way you look at yourself, the way you speak to yourself becomes this beautiful, skillful encouragement. Rather than always putting yourself down. Always finding fault with yourself and shouting yourself and being aggressive and violent to yourself with your thoughts. And of course, that's what the cause of depression, lack of self-esteem, the inner negativity that stress is not liking yourself. The accumulation of a lifetime or many years of negative thoughts to yourself. Simply because that's the way you've been conditioned to speak. It goes back to you in the end. That's almost like the Buddhist law of karma. What you say to other people, you get back because that's the way you speak to yourself. So if you're very, very negative to others and always forcing them and scolding them and picking fault with them, that's how you look at yourself. You'll always be scolding yourself, picking fault with yourself, never being kind and forgiving to yourself. You know what it's like when you're like that. You have no peace, no happiness, no joy, but worse, no encouragement in life. No. By speaking kindly and gently to others, you're actually encouraging them to the proper goals of success solving the problems, harmony, whatever else you want to achieve in life. And by having that same inner speech towards yourself. Those are the goals you're going to reach. You're going to be more peaceful, more happy, even more successful in your own inner life, in your spiritual life. So as we speak to others, so we think to ourselves. And that becomes so, so important when you meditate. Because when you meditate, you have an attitude towards your meditation. And if you spent your whole life scolding other people, when you start to meditate, you scold yourself, I'm not good enough, I can't meditate, I can't get still. You can see how you're scolding yourself. Those thoughts you have, you know, in your mind or you're too aggressive, you know. Come on. No wife. Come on husband. So get your act together, you know, just get somewhere in life and have that same attitude towards yourself. We have that kind, gentle speech towards others. Then you have that kind, gentle attitude towards yourself. You're encouraging yourself. And just as in I learned in educational psychology, that gets the most out of the students you love to learn. You get encouragement to be successful. You learn much quicker. You enjoy your time at school. You want to go to school in the same way that when you are encouraging yourself that way, when you're kind to yourself and praise yourself when things go well, forgive yourself when you make mistakes. People love to meditate that way. I just love to be here instead of always trying to escape and go somewhere else. All of the other bad acts of virtue in our world are from escapism. Now we get too anxious to escape from the present moment, to escape from ourselves. We don't like ourselves. We take drugs. You know, we go into the sensual world of sex with other people, people's wives or husbands or partners or whatever. Just escapism. That's all it is. Then what are we escaping from? Is now where we are, what we have. So this all comes from a lack of kindness, a lack of gentleness, and not a lack of letting go of our ego, instead of like, building up to be some big shot or some power guy or power girl. So these two factors, they work together overnight. The thought, the intentions one has and the speech which comes from those intentions and the speech reinforces the intentions, the way the mind works. If we could only have more kindness in our speech, because that's something you can actually work on the thoughts. Sometimes you're not too aware of those things, but at least if we control our speech more mindful, more careful on the way we speak to each other, not only will have a greater harmony in our families, in our office, in our monasteries, in our societies, instead of being so critical of our politicians or our police or whatever, it's amazing reading the newspapers, how it seems the whole society is falling down, the education system is shot, the police system is corrupt, the politicians are lazy and incompetent and everything is falling apart. But if you go to that third world countries, you realize what falling apart really means. This isn't falling apart, you know? This is a country which is quite successful and it works reasonably well. So but why do we think like that which is so negative in our thoughts and so negative in our speech? No wonder we have so many people depressed and anxious, who can't live with other people, who can't live with themselves, who is a suicidal or onslaught of drugs either prescribed by a doctor or just walked off the streets. We can do a lot better than that just by having some positive speech and positive, uh, compliments and just some gratitude. The gratitude for life, the gratitude for ourselves, the gratitude for our partner in life, the gratitude of our government. The gratitude just for life and the gratitude for ourselves. Just politicians are just like, um, the old, uh, traffic lights. They're just being politicians. They're trying to do their best. It's not an easy job. Just like your husband or wife. Not the best, but they're doing their job as best they can, and they're all trying their best. And you're trying your best to. So please be more accepting of yourself, more kindly yourself. Start with your speech to others and from your speech to others. See if you can actually develop those beautiful thoughts. The inner speech follows the outer speech, and the inner speech is what gives you the peace of mind, the gentleness of your heart, and the freedom of inside. So that's just how skillful speech is. The skillful thought is the happy person. Thank you. Okay, so who's got any comments or questions on the talk this evening? Yeah. Okay. So in Soweto, that's a dangerous place. So what happened? So you went to the very poor places of a very dangerous place. Uh, you have a boy who had his doubts. You didn't know. You didn't do. Yeah. Hey. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he was. Named. The next day. He was very unpleasant on the part. He is my other way. He goes up, I come back there again, and then you. Thank you for meeting me. Yeah. And so I was at first, and it was all, like a hundred. Oh, yeah. Well, we put his head away. Yeah. Just to say how that those sort of attitudes of, like kindness and letting go and not comparing yourself with others was what kept Seoul, South Africa, from exploding after apartheid was destroyed. And so true just now. What are we aspiring for when we do aspire for material wealth is for the inner happiness and the peace and the prosperity of the heart. And sometimes, you know, we wonder, what are we sacrificing as you, sacrificing the very things we want money for? By trying to work so hard to get it? No. Our happiness. Ah, togetherness. Our kindness. The joy of just being with friends. That's one of the wonderful things with being with a friend. You don't have to pay for that. You're with a friend. You just spend time together and no one charges you for being with a friend. You don't charge for being with your your wife, your husband, with your kids. Nicest things. We don't charge for coming to the Buddhist center here. Beautiful things in life. So you don't need any money to come and be a Buddhist and be here. Isn't that wonderful thing to be? Okay, so please be kind with your speech. Be gentle. And that way, it's, uh. You make a better world and more harmonious. What? Are. Some are some good. I go. Back a wonder. Happy one day. So of course, I go to the mall, the Manama song. So party part of our song. A song called Song Gangnam on.