The Meaning of Life

The Meaning Of Life by Ajahn Brahm So I decided to give her talk. And an old staple. A very easy subject. The meaning of life. You could kiss with a talk like that. You can usually talk about anything and see what comes up. And it is important you know, that. One of the reasons I give these talks, I just remember that just before I came in there, one, uh, person just asked me, he's got lots of pains in his body and said, what the purpose of having these pains. Because when unpleasant things happen to in life, especially unpleasant things, we always try and ask the question, why? Why is this happening to me? Why do I have to endure this? Well, you know, this is what life is all about. It's amazing how many people ask, what is the meaning of life when life is difficult? But how many of you ask, what is the meaning of life when you're having a good time? Well that's it. Both should be investigated so we can actually find out, you know, what is the purpose of our life? Because we don't know the purpose of a life. Very often we don't live life with a purpose when we don't know a purpose. And when you don't live life with a purpose that sometimes we just wander around, we could live a a pretty meaningless existence. And in the end we sort of get depressed and sad and think, well, what have I spent my life doing? What was the point of all of this? It's one of those questions which no sides can't answer, and psychology struggles to find an answer. But as religious people, we really always have some sort of answer. But some of the answers which religions give, you know, doesn't really make much sense. And I'm more like like this, like the spiritual answers. I know that sometimes people are asking me that question is Buddhism a religion or is it just a way of life? Is it a philosophy? And I always answer that Buddhism is a religion, especially when we're applying to the government for tax exemptions. At other times it could be a philosophy or a way of life. We've got to be practical. But certainly that it goes much deeper than anything you can read in a book, and also anything which is a dogma, because that's what books are. They just tell you. Dogma seems to believe we use those dogma, do those books as like maps. But remember, the map is not the territory as they say. Those books are just signposts pointing at something, and I much prefer things to go to the territory itself and start talking about that. So, like living life is some sort of meaning and some sort of purpose. Uh, again, I remember one lady in Singapore about a month ago. She's about to get married. And you think that at that time in her life that she would be quite excited, but actually she was quite worried and concerned and this was what she said. Now, what is the purpose of life? I'm about to get married now. What's the meaning of this? And I really valued her question because it was coming at a time when she was quite happy and she had something to look forward to, but she didn't know quite what it was. She was going to look forward to her read only a few days ago that people said that marriages are made in heaven, but then so is thunder and lightning as well. We had some this morning, but and I said one straight answer, which was a very deep answer. Uh, which leads on to other questions. And that's sometimes the right answer to make you look more deeply. So the purpose of life is finding the purpose of life. It is almost the purpose is actually the search to find out what this means. And that's an important part of life, because as human beings, we will always be asking that question. And why? Always searching, trying to find out, trying to understand. And that's such an important part of life that is almost like a purpose to try and find out what is this life all about? Who are you? Why are you and what are these emotions which run our lives? What are they? And that's finding the purpose. Searching now, not becoming philosophical. Because philosophical is just a game played with concepts and words, but being more experiential to find out, you know, how you feel. And what is these things. And that's actually where like a spirituality, like Buddhism is very, very strong because, you know, we always do want to find out. One of the great things with this part is you can ask any question whatsoever, and every question is respected, no matter how stupid you think it is. The very fact is, a question asked from a sincere place means it's respected. So we can ask questions to find out deeper answers and to find out what the question, why and indeed that are one of the questions which I always remember the answer to. It wasn't my answer. It came from another monk in England who was once asked by a pair of English Buddhists. They just had their first child, and they asked the question, now we've had a son, how shall we bring him up? We're both Buddhists, but we don't want to indoctrinate our child. Shall we take our child to the Buddhist temple when he grows up? Or shall we take him to the Buddhist temple on Saturday? In the church on Sunday, the mosque on Monday, the Hindu temple on Tuesday. There's enough religions and cults actually to fill out a whole week. Actually. A whole month probably. Or should we just leave him alone and not take him to any church or village and not fall and just leave him to be, he said. All those alternatives don't make any sense to us. We don't want to indoctrinate our child. We don't want to confuse our child by taking to all sorts of religions. But then again, we want to help our child. It's our duty to try and encourage him. And this man gave a wonderful answer. And this is an answer which each one of you can take on board as well, because it's a question which we can relate to. His answer was teach your child two things. Teach him to be honest and to question. Those are the only two things you need to encourage in your child, because as long as he's honest, he will always be not dishonest to others, but honest to himself for more importantly, honest to truth. So he will never take anything which is obviously nonsense. He never believe anything which makes no sense, which flies in the face of reason and experience. And he will never believe and know some of the sayings in some of the scriptures, like, you know, like a person built a boat and had two of every type of animals for 40 days. And some of those ideas are complete, absolute nonsense. And sometimes it concerns me that some people who have had an education can believe such nonsense, which flies completely against reason. It's dangerous when people do believe in such extreme things because of that. It's wonderful if we encourage honesty first of all, which is a commitment to truth no matter what. And even, you know, the Dalai Lama was quoted as saying he was asked that question once, know if science comes along and disproves some very fundamental parts of Buddhism, what would you do? And he said, I'll give up those fundamental parts of Buddhism. And that was, I can answer, which is almost fundamental to Buddhism in the sense that, you know the truth. Reality always has to take precedence over any theory or dogma which we have. So we have to be honest to our experience and honest to truth, and even be able to discard any scriptures, any dogmas, any ideas if it does go contrary to what is clearly the truth. So if you encourage your child to be honest and number two, encourage your child always to question, because this questioning is the tool by which we can always dig deeper into the reality of life and find out for ourselves what this life's purpose truly is. Now, through questioning and that questioning means you cannot be lazy because many people, they give up their questioning just because they get tired and they say, well, you know, this might not be the truth, but I've had enough of all this questioning. I just want to relax and take it easy. Now, stupidity is an option for lazy people, but really, I think many of us, they can't really just rest in their lazy stupidity for too long. Eventually we have to sort of find some sort of truth and some sort of answer. And that actually introduces laziness. And stupidity is a good opportunity for today's joke, which I tried out earlier that few people know about these two very lazy and, uh, quite sort of stupid young men who happened to be in London on a working holiday and running out of money. They were looking for a job, and they saw an advertisement outside a police station. And he did. Police officers says that this is a good job. Just now, stand by the side of the road with his lovely cameras and charged people for speeding. But anyhow, they went inside for the interview and first of all, they had to have their medical. The first one who went in. The officer looked at him. This is so small and scrawny and weak. He said, well, you can't be a policeman. Get out of here. It's not even worthwhile giving you a medical. And he said, well, I'm with my mate, my friend. He said, I just go over the road to the pub, wait for your friend over there. And then his friend went in and there's this big guy, really strong and fit, and there's sort of the officer doing the interview saying, hey, you know, they're just the guy we need. We need some more big, strong policemen like you, you know, you know, I don't need to give you a medical. I tick all the boxes, you're fit enough. We want you in. He said, no, we have to have the intelligence test. First question. Now, what's five plus six? Who's counting his fingers down your ten fingers. So it's a bit difficult, he said, listen, how many people playing a soccer t? He said 11. Well well done. Correct. Next question in history. Who killed Julius Caesar? You see Julius who? Julius Caesar, who killed you? Look, we really what you as good as in. You know, you can just count yourself have got the job. But we want to get this answer. We've got to do the intelligence test. Who killed Julius Caesar? He said, well, I'm not really sure. He said, look, it's almost lunchtime. Come over the road with your mate. Know, do some research, ask a few people. You can come in in the afternoon and tell me the answer. So if he goes to the pub and his mate says, how did he go? In the interview he said, oh great, I'm in. In fact, they like me so much they put me on my first murder case. Okay, it's not a good show after all these years. I was getting a bit hard up for new jokes. At least that's one I haven't told. I'm in public before. But actually. They do have to keep that. Why do I give these torches to the jokes that you think people come here for? Anyhow, so stupidity and laziness. Sometimes we can be spiritually stupid and spiritually lazy, not wanting to ask the questions and just believe what other people tell us. And of course, that's not really good enough. The purpose of life is actually to find out. We have to ask those questions so we can question everything, but we also have to know actually where we ask those questions. The purpose of life is not asking the intellectual physical. So the philosophical questions, we actually base the questions on our own experience of life. You know, we start to ask those questions. You know, what is now, what is happiness and what is love now? What is peace and what is the most important thing in life? That's a wonderful question to ask you. What is the most important thing in your life? And we forget the answer to that question very often as we run around doing all of this busyness and all these jobs, and sometimes we forget what's important. For example, even people of religion, we can forget what's really important. Very often at interfaith meetings, I've told people the meaning of the word church in English. No, church never meant a building. The church was the night. The name for the congregation of people who met together. And sometimes they meet together in a barn. That would be the church, the people. But somehow, in the history of our world, the church became identified as the name of the building in which the people met. And as soon as that became the most important thing to build, we started building this huge edifices, great cathedrals, and spending all the money on the building and forgetting the people. Which is why many of those churches, even though they're magnificent buildings, are mostly empty because the meaning of the word changed from the people to the things. And to me, it's really important that the people are more important than the things. The people who come here are much more important than the infrastructure of our Buddhist society. Because here you are here first. The infrastructure comes second. And even in my monastery, I always keep remembering it's the people are more important than the things. Sir, for a good example of that. When I was in Singapore, they were doing some fundraising for me for our retreat centre, which is going really well down at serpentine if you want to have a look on the internet. We started the bricklaying recently of our retreat centre should be finished by the end of the year so people can do more meditation retreats down there. But they were doing some fundraising and because they didn't lock away the donation box, somebody stole it. And so the person's responsible. And the treasurer of this Buddhist fellowship we know which I look after. She came to me and she was crying and so sad. She said, look, it's my fault. And I don't know how many hundreds thousand dollars or whatever we lost because we retreat centre because someone stole it. And I felt so terrible. And I just wrote to her and said, look, and what are these donations for anyway? These donations are there to make people peaceful and happy there for the for service. And so the point is that don't be upset about that. You're more important than any donations. People are more important than things. And how can you put a price on a person's happiness so that the person has stolen that money? But please don't let them steal your happiness. That's much more important. So please never feel guilty about what happened. It wasn't intentional, it was just these things happen. Sometimes you are more important than that money. That's why I prefer you just let that money go and smile again. The same point to remember that actually this one story, which I don't know the last time I told us, but it's certainly not in my book. If I ever write a sequel to that book, Open the Door of Your Heart. And actually, by the way, the latest translation is in Hebrew. I just got a note the other day that someone's translating to Hebrew. I hope they also translate into Palestinian as well. And then we got something. Maybe open the door of that barrier between Palestinian Palestine and Israel. But anyhow, one of those stories is lovely story about a monk, an abbot, who was woken up in the middle of the night. There was some noise coming from the main hall. There wasn't a monks chanting, so he went to investigate. And of course he found a burglar trying to open up the donation box. And the burglar had a knife and threatened that monk give away. Otherwise I'll knife you. And the monk only said, if you wish to open up that donation box, here's the key. They gave him the key and he said, keep away. And the man said, when was the last time you've eaten? None of your business. He didn't actually say that. He said something much worse. But this is on camera and I cannot go too far. And I might say, look, there's some food in the cupboard just above you there. Left over from this morning's alms offering. Help yourself. The fellow was hungry. So, with one eye on the monk. He so grabbed some of the sandwiches and left over food. And he opened up the donation box, filled his pockets with some of the food and said, don't call the police. So we weren't. That's donations. That's for poor people like you. Go in peace, take them and take some more food. I won't call the police until much later. I got a call to talk to my committee. First of all, sir asked. The faith thief went with the contents of the donation box and the bank later on told to his committee about it. And he said, much better to have a happy person, a peaceful person. Nurse Beasley, what happens if somebody steals from us as monks? Now, if we found out that someone's been stolen afterwards, we give it to them. So they don't make such bad karma. They got it anyway, so why not donate it to them if we possibly can? So a few days later, that thief got caught while robbing another house as they too. And a monk saw him in the newspapers. He got sentenced to many years in jail. Several years later, when the thief was released from jail, he came back to that temple. He faced that monk again, got out his knife and said, monk, I remembered you from last time. I come here to steal again. The monks was about to get out the key to the nation box. And the thief said, stop it. Last time I realized I stole the wrong thing. I come here this time, he said, putting away his knife to steal your compassion and kindness. I've been thinking about you all the time. I was in jail. You never did call the police. You never did threaten me. But you help me. He was this the kindest person I've ever seen. That's what I want to steal. Your kindness. Compassion. Please ordain me as a monk. Isn't that what's really important? That's where that person is a mythical story. But I know many other stories where that has happened. I remember the story in the time of Thailand 200 years ago, when a similar thing happened in those times in the town of Ayutthaya. Monks temples never had cars because all transport was by rivers and canal. So every monastery would have a boat where they would go for arms round in the morning. And the abbot actually was woken up because someone was rattling the chains, and it was a thief trying to steal a boat. So the apple told him. Take it. I give it to you. And in the morning, when there was one row less and the other monks found out, he said, well, that somebody was staring it. He needed it. Let's give it to him. We're supposed to be kind and generous, compassionate monks. And so the next day, people were so impressed with that. Like a real monk who cared more for people than things. But he got about five boats donated the next day. So that's also good business sense. Because what's more important in life? What's the purpose of life? Sometimes those acts of kindness and generosity, when they come like that, they're just really amazing to see. And that gives life a purpose when you question honest that generosity. As somebody was asking me, there was going to be a some sort of function or conference or speech on organ donation, sir. And unfortunately, that that's the time when I'll be teaching a nine day retreat in North Perth. And so I can't go. But I told him, whoever you take, you asked to go there to tell this following story, which is an inspiring story again from Sri Lanka. Now that Sri Lanka, being a Buddhist country, has the highest number of organ donors, especially donors in the world, because being Buddhist, we say, well, once we die, we don't need our body anymore. What a wonderful thing to make this wonderful last act of karma and give your organs whatever you want to people who need them more than you. And we're not superstitious, you know, say that if you give your eyes, if you're blind in heaven, or if you give your legs, you know you have to live in a wheelchair in heaven. That's ridiculous. What some people think. And it's obvious, you know, you will know if you question. To be honest, if you give an organ when you're about to die in the last moments, you're still alive when they take those organs. But you can't feel anything at that time. At the end of your life, you know you're not feeling any pain. So get them whatever you want, whatever they want. It's a wonderful gift to others. That's karma. Good karma. Compassion. Generosity. But sometimes people give their organs when they're still alive. Organ donors. Some years ago in Sri Lanka. There was, uh, one of these evangelical Christians who was going around converting all the Buddhists to being Christians. He had kidney failure. So they did a match in the island to find a donor. And they found a perfect match with the Buddhist monk. It's like, you know, a West Coast eagle being asked to give a kidney to a Dockers. Dockers fan. And they asked him, said, look, you know, perfect match. You know, you're a blood donor. And we got your, um, blood match and your kidney matches this. No Baptist born again Christian. Who's going around converting all of your disciples? Will you give your kidney? He said, of course I will. It's no problem whatsoever. It doesn't matter who they are. When you're generous, you give indiscriminately to whoever needs it. And so he was went to hospital and he gave his kidney. So that the opposition, if you like, made them really think of them as opposition. So another person could live. And of course, that got in the newspapers. I even saw it in the newspaper here in the West Australian. And what a wonderful act of charity that is. And, you know, to give to somebody. I was just wondering whether Born Again Christian would actually give their kidney to a Buddhist if they didn't. They don't know what love is all about. What kindness can you see? There's something very meaningful in that. There's the generosity of the heart. The selflessness is what gives our life meaning. And when you start to think of the times in your life which is inspired you the most, which you find is most purposeful and most meaningful. They usually are times of selfless compassion and generosity. When you've seen something which needs to be done and someone has just done it. The next story which comes to mind. I was told by some of our fellow Western monks the first place we went to to start a monastery after living in China for many years was in England, in London. Now we have many flourishing monasteries in that land now, but they're all out in the countryside, in the forest, or in the the rural parts of that land, because we're forest monks and we like to live, you know, next to nature, you know, where there's lots of trees or mountains and wildlife. But when they first arrived in London, they were put in a house in Hampstead, in a suburb just to the north of London. And this monk was telling me just how depressed he was getting, because London is very grey, especially in the winter time. And in fact many people don't care. Was it seasonal affective disorder? It's called Sadie. Sadie, a nice acronym for the word. In other words, in the Northern hemisphere, sometimes the sun doesn't come out till maybe ten in the morning and goes down again in two in the afternoon. There's hardly any light. It's dull and grey and cold. There's nothing to really sort of enliven you or inspire you because of lack of inspiration. And many people get depressed at that time of the year, or they go to the pub and just get drunk or take drugs or whatever. But he was, because his mug was used to the bright forests of Thailand for many, many years. And now he was stuck in a small house in a terraced house. Now in London, you say one day he was just looking through the through the window and just getting warm or bored and saddened and depressed, wondering if he should go back to Thailand. He noticed this was early in the morning and it was grey and drizzling and cold outside. He noticed just on the opposite side of the street in a few, uh, 20, 30m down. He noticed there was a homeless man hunched in the doorway. He was hunched in the doorway to try and escape as much as possible from the wind, the cold, and especially the rain. And I remember from my own experience living in that town, even though there's much wealth, wherever there's wealth, you'll always find great poverty. And there are people who have no place to stay. I know those people who live on the streets of London, especially in winter. They have to use alcohol to keep warm and it shows you the very cheapest type of alcohol. What is sold in usually the hardware stores is methylated spirits. And I remember meeting many people who had that problem being addicted to this very cheap and very dangerous form of alcohol. Stinking dirty. There's a particular smell I remember from my youth. For these people who actually were on the streets taking methylated spirits just to keep a bit warm. And this guy was one of them. And then as his mum was washing him through the the drizzling rain, he noticed walking on that side of the street, going towards the doorway where this man was hunched. Was there a man, well-dressed, going on his way to work? This was several years ago, when people would go to work in the City of London dressed in their uniform, which was a bowler hat, a nice suit, a briefcase and an umbrella. Here's what you see in a movie sometimes. And this was a man impeccably dressed and groomed on his way to work. And he saw this very well dressed, cleaned, well-groomed businessman stop at the doorway and lean over to this poor homeless man. Say a few words to him which he could not hear, and then put his arm around this homeless guy and pick him up and take him to a cafe for breakfast. Even though he knew, as I know, the smell of that man would be on his suit, he be late for work. He didn't need to do that, but he did when he smoked on with that story. He said all his depression and boredom disappeared, and as if the greyness of London suddenly disappeared and everything was bright. When he saw an unexpected, unneeded act of kindness and compassion which cost that businessman. Now that's a wonderful thing to see in our life. Now those are the things which give life meaning. And I ask, have you done that? Have you stopped for someone who really needed you? Doesn't matter how busy you are. If you won't get the sack from work, and if you do get the sack from work, you should be working for such a ungrateful company. Isn't it wonderful when we can't stop and help and be kind? Well, that is telling you what the meaning of life is. We question and we're honest. How does that feel when you do an act of kindness like that? An act of goodness, an act of charity, an act of selflessness, something you shouldn't really be doing, but for the heck of it, or the inspiration of it for the meaning of it, you go ahead and you do it. That's what life is for. To be able to help and serve like that. It's an act of love and compassion. So whenever that opportunity comes and it only comes, rarely take it. Stop and help. He will never regret it. He will give your life meaning, and it will inspire others to also find that meaning. That's why the compassion, which is the heart of generosity and love, is one of the important meanings of life. Sometimes people think that love just means the love for your partner. Sure, that gives your life meaning. No, your partner, which you choose to live with in life. But you know that type of life if it doesn't sort of grow and develop into something more selfless, more compassionate, more freeing. I've mentioned here before that the love of a marriage is usually very selfish. Love what you can get out of that partner, what you can get out of that relationship. But if you're very wise and you work at it, your relationship can become something much deeper, more compassionate and more freeing. Which is that, uh, phrase which I use almost every week to say to your partner, whatever you do, wherever you go. The door of my heart is open to you to give them a compassion which doesn't ask anything back in return. With no strings attached. Tied, no strings attached. Now that's like a compassionate, a high, deep, meaningful love. Assess the same love which you give your children. No matter where they go, no matter what they do. You really want them to be happy. But if it's with you or with someone else, that's not the most important point. The happiness is the most important. And if you think that you have that type of love to your partner, a freeing love, you just want her to be happy that their happiness is the most important thing in the world to you. I ask people to do this following test. This is a little exercise to see what type of love you have to the person you live with. Imagine you come here on a Friday night, alone one night and you hear a talk on loving kindness like this. The door of your heart is open to your partner. Whatever they do, wherever they go. You just want them to be happy, that's all. And when you go home, you find on the front door of your house or apartment, there's a note waiting for you from your partner. So why are you at the Buddhist temple? I've run off with your best friend. We're now incapable. B's groom having a dirty weekend. Having a wonderful time. Bye bye. How would you feel if you really loved your partner? You would say. Oh, wonderful. Tremendous. They're having such a happy time. In fact, they're having more joy with my best friend than I ever had with me. Oh, your happiness is the most important thing for me, darling. Could you do that? No. So really, that's not true. Is that your part has happened? This is not the most important thing. Well, this is getting real because we do have attachments and what our needs. And every now and again we can go a bit deeper. And I don't know what it is, but this week we had four funerals to go to. And I did two of those funerals. And I often mentioned that story about opening the door of your heart. And to say one of the most meaningful things of life is when you can say to your partner just before they die. Go in peace. Go with my blessing. I will miss you, but I love you so much to free you. And that's the love which is a generous love. Which is not wanting something for yourself because it does hurt. When a loved one dies, whether it's your partner, your parent, your son, your daughter, your friend. But it's a wonderful thing to see that when people have enough wisdom to understand the purpose of life is to enjoy the company of your loved ones and then let them go to give them the ultimate gift of love, to free them. Go in peace. With my blessing, I'll always remember you. And I've seen moments like that, especially in funeral services or just beforehand. And those are things which I really remember as having huge purpose and meaning in life. There's something which is holy in that really spiritual, which is religious. You know, I found more meaning when I see moments like that than I ever do in any books or any sort of, uh, written words. This is life. This is its meaning. This is its purpose to enjoy. And let go. When we understand that, we understand that, yeah, we're here to enjoy these moments, to learn from them and leave them alone. Let them go. We do have much fun in life, but it's also so part of the purpose is also to understand the pain of life as well. Because sometimes, especially young people, they come and say it hurt so much. It hurts terribly when the person they love, they do something wrong or it breaks down. And when relationships don't work out as they should do, or so you think they should do. And you get many, many broken hearts. And that's not just for young people as well. For many of you who've been through breakups, of relationships and it really, really hurts, what's the meaning of that? What's his purpose? Especially for those who are young when they go through their first breakup? We always tell them this, and I tell them this with absolute sincerity. How on earth can you love someone when you haven't known her hurt and pain? Hit those breakouts which tell you how to laugh. Which teach you how to laugh? Because the breakup comes first. When you realize the pain, and only when you realize the pain can you realize what love is all about. Love is not just having a good time. Life is about being able to embrace those difficult moments, not just to love the nice stuff, but love the other half of life. As well as one of the other sayings which I remember from a long ago. People say they love life, but really, most of us only love and accept the good part of life. The pleasant part and the part which is a bit painful to bear or difficult to bear. We look at that as some big mistake, something wrong which is to be fixed after a while, especially of questioning and being honest. We find that the pain and difficulties of life are actually part of life. It's not as if something goes wrong. This is part of the whole journey and we can't expect life to be any different. Somebody had mentioned this last week to the monks when they asked me, quick definition of suffering in Buddhism what is suffering? And I asked answered them straight away because they were in a hurry, like most people are. Actually, I was in a hurry as well, so I couldn't feel my explanation. I said, sir, suffering is asking from life what it can never give you. Asking from life what it can never give you. And if you look every time you suffer today or last week. I was suffering today because part going through our our monastery and our retreat center, there is a road reserve now which was supposed to be a connecting. Some neighbor's land was never made up, but we had to excise it from the land so we can build our retreat center over it. And so I started a whole process about 18 months ago, and now we're getting so close to building it's crunch time. The bureaucrats, you know, in the land office or whatever, they were taking such a long time. I was ringing them up and and faxing them and doing all sorts of things, and I needed a day. I went there and got sort of an offer on acceptance from the had to do it myself, taken so long. And I said, why does that have to happen? I realized that I was asking from life what it can never give me. How can you ever ask for bureaucrats to do things on time? Now I'm asking for suffering, aren't I? When you ask for life, what? It can never give you that suffering. When you ask from your partner what they can never give you. Now, why do you always like this, darling? Of course I can have their bad moods and their good moods. So you accept your partner for who they are. Otherwise you'll suffer. You know, asking from yourself. You can ask from yourself what you can never give yourself. It was going to be an a tired, sometimes a bad mood, sometimes a good mood. Sometimes. Sometimes you're going to stuff up and make big mistakes. But if you ask for perfection from yourself and you're asking what you can never give yourself. No wonder you get suffer suffering and get upset. So suffering is asking from life what life can never give you, asking from another person or they can never give you this mercy. Asking from yourself what you will never be able to supply. So a lot of understanding the meaning of life is understanding what life is and what it can give, what it can't give, what it can give is everything you want. Sometimes you get what you want. Sometimes you just have to bear with it for a while. This one particular man I said this afternoon was worrying about the pain in his body. He was getting quite old. How can you ask for a healthy body? As you get into 60s and 70s and 80s? No more than you can ask that your car will never break down. Especially when it's 510 years of age. 15 years of age. What do you expect? Your car is rusting. It's falling apart. It's decaying just like you. You're falling apart. You're decaying. And some of you here are decaying quite a lot. We include. Now, if you ask some life, your body, what it can never give you. That's called suffering. So you can expect to be no slower, sicker. Forget things. No, you do sort of forget things. And old friend, we saw today of nothing for many, many years at the funeral service. It's amazing how many old people you made a funeral services. Some are usually so old you wonder why they leave the chapel. They should just stay there. Tums, counselor. I never heard that joke for someone else. Very funny. Where he left his car keys. You know, on The Son of Sea. And of course, in. Anyway, he's in his 80s now. 90s, I think. So. What do you expect leaving your car keys all over the place? So. No, it'd be embarrassed about that if you embarrass us, go suffering. So just accept the fact you forget things now and again. That's just old age. They're wonderful. Be wonderful. We can actually forget the right things. And I forget all the sort of the pain of the past, the difficulties of the past. Now if you can't get the right thing. I think Alzheimer's is very close to enlightenment. Sometimes I say being because I'm not. Not a very bad thing. And what else worries about you? A lot of times people don't want to be like that. And so not wanting it, it's just like the pain in the body. You know, we have to accept and embrace pain sometimes. Sometimes there are pains which you can fix up. So you go to the doctor, you get medication, you do some mindful meditation on medication or whatever you do. Sometimes you can fix up pains in the body, but sometimes there's things you just can't fix. Why? What's the meaning of that? The meaning of that is to learn to embrace the unpleasant part of life, as well as a pleasant part, to love both. And it's a wonderful and amazing, actually, to see people have done that, even though they are in great pain. They could be at peace. This again in Singapore. There was one lady, she was following me around Singapore and Malaysia. So when I was there a couple of weeks ago, following me around from talk to talk, to talk, to talk. When she came out of LC to say why there was one of these other cases, said, thank you for saving my life. I know it's wonderful when that happens because I really mean it because of the teachings which I'd given over many years. She fell over and sort of had a very bad accident, and she was in very, very bad pain for three months while her shoulder and hip or whatever else healed up. She could not sleep, so she would end up pacing the pacing her house through the middle of the night. But because of the teachings of just letting go, being mindful and being peace, not wanting anything else, not expecting anything else, she said she would give up all her medication or her painkillers, and even though her body was in pain, her mind was at peace and she said she never believed it could be done until she did it. And she did it because it was suggested by monks like me. And we gave her the means to do that. Stop fighting. Make peace. Open the door of your hearts to the physical feelings of pain. You can't go to sleep. Don't want to go to sleep. This work will throw you half rather than fight against it. Make peace in every moment. Stop worrying about the future. Just stay in this moment. For three months he did her. Now she's totally healed. She can sleep again. But for that time, a great pain. She could do it. And she was amazed at herself. And the reason she could do it. Because she found teachings such as these. And those teachings gave her the understanding of why we have physical pain, physical pain, disappointments in life, broken hearts, tragedies, deaths. In Buddhism, we call these messengers of truths. In the traditional story, before the person who became the Buddha has sat under those boti trees. He saw her old man, sick man, dead man and holy man, especially the first three who called messengers of truth. They really made it over. Everyone gets old, everyone gets sick. Everyone gets stuck, gets, dies. That was really quite an important lesson for him. Know that sickness is not something which is wrong. Surplus is part of life. That old story I told here. And I know that you follow these stories because a doctor told me this. They said this person came into my room, did this, and I told him there was some, you know, got this disease or that disease. And the person said, oh, doctor, there's something wrong with me. I'm sick again. He said, I've heard that from that young bum. You must go to none. I said, yeah, I go to another mother every week because that's one of my stories. Now the hands up anyone here who's never been sick, put your hand up. If you've never been sick in your life, no one's got their hand up. You've all been sick from time to time. Actually, it will be quite unusual and very strange. If at your age, you've never had any sickness, you'd be a freak. So because everyone in this hall has been sick. Sickness is normal. It's par for the course. Is usual. So why is it that when you're sick, we say, doctor, there's something wrong with me. I'm sick. There's nothing wrong with being sick. There is something very wrong if you've never been sick. That's why I say you'd be a freak. You'd be unnatural. You'd probably be from Mars or somewhere. An alien in our midst. So because Cygnus is normal, sickness is okay. It's right. Which is why I told everyone who comes here. Next time you go to the doctor, because you've got some sort of illness, you should go to your doctor and say. Doctor, there's something right with me. I'm sick again. Now, what I was saying there is very deep, because we have this psychological negativity to some of the painful experiences of life, like sickness or like no bad shoulder or arthritis or death or, you know, we lose our job. We lose our the loved one. Why do we have this psychological negativity? We can actually say, there's something wrong with me, I Zimbra. Now my partner has left me. There's something wrong with me. I've got sacked. There's something wrong that somebody has died. Now you see that when you say there's something wrong that gives the psychological negativity to the experience of life instead of learning from life. We're in denial about life, and we're missing its purpose and meaning. But where we tend to actually become real and say, this is part of life, it's not some it's gone wrong. This is the life of a human being. We understand that. We understand that, yes, these are things to be accepted, to be learnt from. And what we learn from the painful part of life is how to appreciate the pleasant parts, how to bear with that which is what we don't like, and learn how to be content. No matter what's happening, when things are painful and difficult, when the life is black and dark, we can still have a peaceful heart. We can't control the world, but certainly we can always control the way we regard it, the way we react to it, what we think about it. The world just goes according to nature. We can always adapt our attitude, and that's one of the wonderful things which I have learned as a monk. The purpose of life is learning what we call light view, changing our attitude to things. When I see someone dying, I think it's a beautiful experience. You may think I'm weird, but sometimes being counseling people at the end of their life, it's like I compare it to. So the last part of a great symphony. I remember when I used to go to these great symphonies, one of my favorites, Grieg's Piano Concerto, the very end, everything came together, this beautiful last little portion where all the different themes just came together as a crescendo at the very end. And I was finished. And that was like a person's life. The very end. And when all the loved ones are around and remembering all the things they've done. This beautiful finale of your life. Wow. That was amazing. And being like a monk, I'm privileged to be there at many people's finales. Please invite me to yours. And of course, afterwards, we have the funeral service. I love funeral services. I don't know why people don't like them. Because people start talking. They come to my once anyway. They people start talking. It's amazing stories about people's lives and how much they meant. It really understands the meaning of life. Sometimes those funerals are much better than coming here on a Friday evening. In fact, I should put those funerals down into sort of the the upcoming sort of events so people can actually go to them, take time off instead of coming here because there's something beautiful about that. Sometimes in the pain of life when people are sick. Sometimes it's great seeing people are really sick and just seeing what they can do with that. This inspired me so many times. People dying of cancer who smile and laugh. People in great pain who just look at you and you can see the inside there at peace. It's amazing what I've seen, what can be done when you understand that you understand the purpose of life is learning about that, learning how it's done, and this is how it is done. Stop trying to change the outside. When you're sick, you have that pain and try and get rid of it. This makes it worse when you see someone dying. All the tears in the world will never bring them back. But sometimes when people break up in a relationship, they always say, oh, at least we can be good friends. Yeah, sure. When it's gone, it's gone. It's wonderful. If we can learn how to change that attitude to some of the difficult things in life to embrace, accept, forgive and move on. And never carry the pain of the past, nor even into the next moment, let alone into the next week. But to use that pain, you know that story of digging in the dogshit under your mango tree. And this is what the meaning is. To get sweet mangoes, we need heaps and heaps of dog shit, especially here in Perth, because the soil is not that good. So the more you can actually dig under the tree, your sweeter your mangoes. Now you know what I'm talking about. The meaning of life. Those pain and difficult experiences which we all experience from time to time. That's what makes you sweet and juicy. That's why the difficulty you have in your marriage, if you know how to dig them in, rather than throw the shit at each other, dig it in under the mango tree. Then you can actually get this beautiful, sweet relationship when you know how the pain of life worked so you can get incredible, powerful, beautiful compassion and wisdom. So now you know what the meaning of life is. All of these experiences you have. They're your teachers. They're showing you something important that messengers of truth. And your job is to make peace with the truth of your life. Also, the happy parts of your life make peace with others as well. Don't rush through them too fast. Just linger and taste them when you're having a good time. Well done. Please enjoy it and don't rush to too far. Don't expect those happy moments to last forever, and we expect those happy moments to last forever. Again, we're asking something which life can never give us permanent happiness when we know they're not going to last forever. We know the relationships never was going to be like this. The children we have assumed to grow up and leave our bodies are going to get sicker and older. When people have their birthday, I always tell them, look, you're not as young as you used to be, but you're not as old as you're going to be. So enjoy today when you still can. So when you think like that, that fuzzy red shirt. You're not as old as you couldn't be. You know you're not as fit as you're gonna be. You're not as clear, and you're not got as good memory as you're going to have in a few years time and make use of it while you have it. This is why we can enjoy this moment when we realize it's going to pass. Everything is going to be here forever. You don't enjoy it as much, which is why we have this wonderful attitude, even to the happy times of life. So embrace and be at peace with them, knowing they're not going to last, that impermanence, that wisdom. Her selflessness gives us a wonderful meaning, basically, because the time is going. What we're finding is compassion and kindness. Understanding what life can give us and what it can't gives us the deepest meaning of life, which is the peace of mind. You can make peace with everything, no matter what you have to experience. And that is the greatest gift of all. To have this amazing peace. So that when life is going well, you're at peace. For life is difficult. You could even find peace there. And you've got a bad body which is really aching and in pain. You can still make peace with it. You can laugh at everything with a peaceful mind. And if you can find that peace of mind in the middle of life. And of course, you can easily find peace of mind when you meditate. Bored of you who are meditating for half an hour. Where are you struggling? Why do people struggle when they're meditating? Because you're asking too much. You're asking from your meditation, from your life what it can never give. You may have become enlightened this afternoon. Please, this evening. Because tomorrow of a busy, busy day. Can we get enlightened now? Please, please please please please. In a week or two, his time on teaching a meditation retreat for nine days. Fortunately, there's not a money back guarantee. All of us. Many people are somebody, but I don't expect so much. Don't ask for so much from this very moment. Make peace, not war. I used to be a young hippie. I didn't take drugs, but I still had the long hair and the frayed jeans. And I used to go around in the late 60s with my fingers up like this. You remember? Make peace, not war. Make peace, not war. I haven't changed. I just understand what peace is a bit more deeply. So don't make war with your life. Don't make war with your partner. Don't make war with your body if it's getting sick. Make peace. Make peace, not war. And you find you can make peace with your life. With your old age. You can even make peace with death. But don't make war with it. When you can make peace, you understand in the mind. Where peace is made is far more important. This body. You can find. Why cultivates in the mind his peace, not war. You find the deepest meaning of all in life, the beautiful peace of mind. You never asked people to find peace of body. We never say that's an important part of life. Peace of body? What does that mean? We only say peace of mind. That's the purpose of life. To find that the purpose is gaining peace of mind, not just in a monastery when things are going well, but find peace of mind anywhere, no matter what's happening in life. No promises. Yes, it can be done. And there you are. You have the meaning of life. Peace of mind. Thank you. Well. So does anyone want to give me a piece of their mind? Any questions or comments over the top to see? Here's a quick question over there. Yeah. Open the door. Hi. Japanese. No, listen, I don't know what happens. This is that. Open the door of your heart. It's nothing if I can remember all this. It's now been translated into Indonesian, Korean, Chinese, Thai. Uh, Sri Lankan, a Russian Hebrew is the latest one. A Danish. Dutch. Portuguese. German. Czech. Yeah. Thank you. I don't know, sometimes his people just. They just send me these new, new editions. If there's any Italians here, the, uh, the mindfulness book, Mindfulness Blitz and beyond, we've got a copy in the reference library in Italian. I don't understand a word of it, but that's what it says in the front there, so I don't know if it has been yet. I'm sure it will be sooner or later, but it's a wonderful thing to have that no book actually translates into many languages because it has helped many people. That's why I thought if I told this story last week or whatever. But about 4 or 5 weeks ago, lady came from Germany all the way to my purse and from actually from Switzerland. She made the journey all the way from Switzerland to Australia for one reason. That was to see me to say thank you for that book, because she were had anxiety disorders, depression, was under a psychiatrist for many months, all types of medication. And somebody gave me a gave her a copy of that book in German and she read it. And within a few weeks her psychiatrist told her, you don't need to see me anymore. Medication was stopped. She was completely healed. Just like a change in attitude towards the things in life was much more powerful than the medication. So a psychiatrist said, don't need me. You're free. You're okay. And so she decided to spend the money to get an airfare all the way to Perth, just to come and see me in my monastery. Fortunately, I was there. It was a lucky thing. And she came out and she had the Germany. She got a German edition, but it was all battered because he had been reading it, and she told me that she this book had saved her life. And she said, I always remember this. She said, would you mind so much? Would you be offended if I asked you to sign it for me? So of course, no sign. Heaps. So I signed it and I was watching it. As I was signing it, she started to cry because it meant so much to her and that meant so much to me. That's the meaning of life, you know that. It feels real, holy, spiritual. That's what Temples of Religions should be really about. Just those moments. Those moments when you've really given without expecting anything. But it's really changed someone's life when they know how to make peace with that most difficult parts of their life. And they're free. Wow. That's really cool. Okay, I don't know if that. So. No Japanese yet, but any Japanese people get translated. So thank you again for coming. We'll be going a bit later now. So if you have any other questions, please come up and ask them personally. Remember what I said. Honesty and questioning are encouraged. Ha ha ha ha ha. Some assembled about a foot long ago. Wanting to be what dame? So are Carter a what? Adam or the monomer? Sunmi. Sir. Patty Panabaker. Water sa aka Songo. Song. Kana. Mami.