Episode Transcript
The Meaning Of Life: Peace of Mind
Okay. This evening I have a request to give a talk on a particular subject. I'm sure I'd given a talk on this before, but it's a very easy subject. This is a subject on the meaning of life. In particular, I'm going to focus on basically the answer and then work backwards from there, because as far as I'm concerned, I've met a very lovely way of describing the meaning of life is that to find this thing which we call peace of mind. So instead of actually quoting the 12th The Meaning of life, it's going to be more about peace of mind because that is something which everyone really aspires to. Even much more so than wealth or fame or love or whatever. Find out peace of mind. Now, wherever you are in whatever's happening, it's almost like the the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the thing which many people aspire towards, even though that may be in some parts of your life, we feel that we are aspiring for something else, but really what we truly want, the purpose of our life is to somehow, somewhere, in some way find this elusive thing called peace of mind. The times when you have been the happiest. I like to ask people to reflect upon us so far in your life. The times of the most greatest happiness or contentment. You'll probably find that those were times when you experience this amazing thing which we call peace of mind. But those times when you have had that wonderful experience of peace of mind, first thing I'm going to ask you was, was everything so perfect? And usually if I wasn't so perfect, it was as if that we could find peace of mind, even though what was surrounding us was not so perfect. It's as if we find peace of mind in spite of the difficulties and problems and imperfections of life. That's one of my first important points. Never think that you can find peace of mind after you've finished all your business, after you've fixed up all your problems, after you've retired from work, because by that time you're too old anyway. There are other problems when you retire. Sometimes we always think that later on I can find my peace of mind, my happiness, my freedom. But I've always been looking for. For. The first thing to know is that you can only find this great thing called peace of mind. Your meaning in life. In the beautiful imperfection of life. And what do we mean by learning how to be at peace in our mind? Even though everything is so imperfect, the reason is, you know, that this is the nature of our world. And a lot of times, as I've said here before, there's something to do. We do it. It is nothing to do. We make peace and leave it alone. And you should know by now that so much of the things you worried about, you've strived and struggle with. Have you really made them better, or have you made it worse? So much of our struggle and striving was counterproductive, and sometimes one of the best things you can do is just make peace with it. You make peace of mind in imperfection. A good example to be topical. How many of you were at peace with the weather today? For how many are saying, oh, it's so hot. It's too hot. Every time you thought it's too hot, why is it too hot? Did that make it cooler or hotter for you? And of course, it makes it harder for you. Every time you complain, it makes it hotter. So instead of complaining. And people have actually told me this, I read this somewhere. On days like today, people actually call up the weather bureau. You can find their number in the telephone directory and complain. You are supposed to be the weather bureau. Why do you make it so hot? Because it's not their fault. No one. Who can you complain to anyway? No one. We know we can't complain about the weather. So can you complain about other things in life? How many of you complain about the government? I. Come on. We just had a change of government in Western Australia. Hasn't it dawned on you yet that all the same with minor differences. But that's what the government is like. So it's just this is just the life in which we have to live. So the only way we can find a bit of peace of mind is not trying to make everything so perfect and so nice. It's understandable. The peace of mind comes from. Another thing is that a sense of accepting and understand you can bear with these things. You've been in hotter days like this. You've been in more difficult times than this. They've all gone through this ups and downs of life. We all remember that the ups of life always followed by the downs. No matter how down it goes, it has to come up again afterwards. This is a yo yo world. And, um, sometimes when it's down, we forget it's going to go up. And more importantly, when it's up, we forget it's going to go down. And if we understand this is the nature of life, we understand the nature of life, then we can make peace with her. It's only when we don't understand, when we think that somehow or other we can make it different. If we struggle, if we strive, and if we really give those people in the Weather Bureau a peace of mind, not peace of mind, but a peace of our mind, then tell them off. Then somehow, another way they can get their act together and just make things more comfortable. But we understand that we can't control this well. We can't control this world and change it to be the way we'd like it to be. And anyway, if we did change it the way we would like it to be, what about other people? The way they would like it to be in the end? Would have to have a committee and make a committee decision on what temperature we would like today. That is more suffering. Has anybody who's been on a committee knows. So instead of doing that, we have to learn how to make peace with things, even in imperfection. And it's a wonderful thing if you can't change things, you can make peace with them. Another thing you can't change with people also creates a lot of problems in life, which stops to having peace of mind. What's the most obvious thing? You cannot change the past. It's already finished. It's gone. It's done with. But still, people keep lingering over the past and worrying about the past and feeling so guilty about the past, or so angry about the past. The only difference being guilt and anger is anger. Is that somebody else. Guilt is anger towards yourself. That's all it really is. And I also like grief as well. Anger about the past or what's happened to you and all of these things we know we can't change these things is fixed, is gone. So instead of getting angry about these things, we can make peace with our past. And how do you make peace with your past when there's so much unfinished business be done? We make it finish. It is one of my favorite stories, and his story is in Opening the Door of Your Heart, which is on sale in our library at a very reasonable price. And that that is a wonderful story of this monk who was building his main hall in his monastery. And of course, it takes a lot of time and effort to make a big building like that. But it got into the time of the the rainy season, the monsoon season. And in Thailand, as in most Buddhist countries, when it comes to the wet season, all the monks go on retreat. We have a three month retreat period. And so the abbot of this monastery told the builders that we're all going to be meditating for the next three months, and anyway, it's going to be raining. It's not the best time to build anyway. All the builders, you can go home and come back in three months. So he sent all the builders away. So a few days later a visitor came to the temple and they saw this all. Incomplete. And so just in general conversation with the ABA, they ask, when is your hall going to be finished? And the ABA replied, it is finished. To which the visitor was quite stunned and said, what do you mean it's finished? There's not a roof on it. I'm gonna leave it like that. There's no glass in the windows. There's pieces of wood and old cement bags all over the floor. What do you mean it's finished? To which the ABA replied. His immortal words, sir, what's done is finished. And after that the ABA got up and went to meditate. What a beautiful response that was. What's done is finished. That way you can actually find a bit of peace in life, because if you want all your holes to be finished, if you want all your jobs in the house to be complete, if you want all your letters and emails to be replied to before you stop and give yourself a bit of peace of mind, you will never find peace of mind because there's always more things to be done. Isn't that the case? As I've often said, the only place in our modern societies you find people resting in peace is where. In the secretaries, when it's too late to enjoy it. So I say, R.I.P. now why you can enjoy it. Because I'm making that observation. The only time you can find some peace is actually to realize what's done is finished. The past is gone. Let it go. Sometimes people think, oh, no, it's important to remember the past. And because you keep on carrying around that past, you will never find any peace of mind. Sometimes people really think that they should make amends for all the terrible things they've done. I haven't seen this because I don't watch TV, but apparently there was a TV show called Something About Earl, or I'm called Earl or something, and a TV show was about this fellow who he must have become a Buddhist or something, because he had all this idea of karma and all these terrible things in his life, and he was apparently going around trying to mend his bad karma by trying to sort of find out all these people and to do the right thing by them. I'm not sure. Is that the right name of it? I'm called Earl or something. My name is Earl. Okay, I think some of you may have seen that TV show. And is that what you have to do to find some peace, to wrong, to right all those wrongs you've done in the past? And of course, sometimes it's endless. Which is probably why that show us having many, many reruns. And of course, you don't have to do that to fix up all of the past. It's only when we are burdened with the past we think that we have to pay off all those debts, rather than just writing a line underneath them and letting them all go. What a wonderful thing it would be to be able to do that. And why not? You know what that's called? It's called forgiveness. One of the great things about spirituality, with a sign that you're actually in a place which is teaching true spirituality and, I don't know, care what it's called Buddhism, Christianity, Islam or whatever. Real spirituality can be measured by how much it can forgive and how it encourages forgiveness and letting go of the past. I was once asked in Singapore. How many times should you forgive? And I replied, always one more time, which means forever. There's a beautiful thing to be able to do now. Of course you can forgive other people. Well, some of you can. Sometimes you think there's some things a person has done that don't deserve it. What's the opposite of forgiveness? Revenge is only those two. You either forgive or you want revenge. You want to hurt them. You want to give them a lesson. Make them pay. That word which I said. How many times you should you forgive? Always. One more time. Was a quote which people put in a calendar. And because I was giving all these quotes, they asked for some more quotes. I said about forgiveness always one more time. The quote was never got in the calendar and I don't know why. Because one of my best quotes, what I'm most happy about is don't. You don't need to seek revenge because karma will get the buses anyway. I don't know why they didn't like that. Because I'm using the vernacular and you all use that word at home. But it means that people remember it. So why do you need to seek revenge? Seeking revenge doesn't help the other person. And actually, it cripples your happiness. You never find peace of mind when you want revenge for whoever's hurt to and harmed you. And the wonderful thing is that you can forgive. It's allowable to forgive your praise for forgiveness, and you grow through forgiveness. It's a wonderful thing to be encouraged as if spirituality is in the spiritual way of things. The more that you can forgive, the richer and more you're respected. The richer you are, and the more you respect it, the more you can have forgiveness. And you all know that because forgiveness is one of the most beautiful things you could ever see. The many, many acts of forgiveness. I've told many stories of forgiveness. You may have your own wonderful stories of forgiveness for those acts of forgiveness. Now what's that? I'm sure you must have heard this maybe about two weeks ago. I don't know the last time I told a story about that. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, just after apartheid was dismantled. And Nelson Mandela was made the president of that country. And instead of seeking revenge, instead of punishing all those people who punished him. He, with Desmond Tutu, established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a brilliant way of dealing with the past. At this commission, anybody who had done what would be a crime was able to go to this commission and in front of everybody else to confess honestly what they had done. And as long as they truthfully said the horrendous thing, which they did, they would be given amnesty for just being honest, admitting, and they would be forgiven. That's exactly just what I learnt in Buddhism so many years ago, which these days now so people can remember these things. I've called the AFL code, you know, which many of you know, they acknowledge, forgive and acknowledge it and learn from it. That's all one needs to do. That's basic Buddha's teachings. Call it AFL because, you know, that's the Australian Football League. People can remember those words. AFL acknowledge forgive that. That's exactly what they were doing in this Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Acknowledging what they'd done in public amnesty was forgiveness so everyone could learn from that. And one of the most moving events is most moving. But typical of many things which happened in that first and reconciliation commission was when one of the South African policemen. Was recounting how he tortured and killed a black African activist, an activist from the ANC in front of the man's widow. Imagine this scene. There was a woman whose husband had disappeared, probably in the middle of the night, and she suspected what might have happened, but never knew the true story. And now she was facing the man who was confessing in detail how he tortured and killed the husband of this woman, the father of her children. And apparently, if I remember accurately. This police officer, this white police officer was shaking, trembling, as he recounted the details of what happened facing. The wife of the man he murdered at the end of his testimony. Shaking, the wife rose from her seat and went for him. The guards were supposed to stop her, but they froze. She went for him. The murder of her husband and put her big black arms around him. Hugged him and said, I forgive you. Notice those two people? Apparently the whole room wept. These are sort of beautiful acts. If you want to know what religion is or should be, that's encapsulated in that moment. A black woman, a white man hugging the murderer and one of the victims, the murdered wife saying, I forgive you, beautiful. And how much people would move on and become better. People learn from that terrible act, never do it again. But not just not do those things again. So learn real compassion, real wisdom, and real way of moving forward. Already, does that particular example move me pretty to try and move you? If a woman could forgive the murderer of the man she love, can't you forgive? Haha. Lesser crimes. So as it can be done and how beautiful it is to be done. And why shouldn't it be done? Let's do it. Because when we have such great forgiveness, we are actually letting go of the past. The whole business is being settled. Imagine just how much thinking, how much action, how much worry, how much planning does, how many headaches, how much space it takes up in your mind and in your life when you think you have to seek revenge? But as soon as he say, I figure the matter is dropped and it's no more business for you. You literally can be free from that terrible thing of the past which does eat you up, which does create the cancers and the sicknesses. You're free of that, and you can move on at peace with your life because you become at peace with your past. Beautiful acts. And I mention that often, because you may be able to forgive other people to have hurt you. You don't need to keep carrying it and carrying it and carrying around so long. So time to let it go. Otherwise, where else can you find peace of mind? What's done is finished, said that great man. Therefore he could go and meditate at peace without worrying about the unfinished hall, or even the stuff which you have done with all the guilty stuff which you feel terrible about. One of my favorite stories, which isn't in the book, but I've said him many times. I don't really feel guilty about this, even though I broke a promise to a lady by telling you this. Part of my job. We do counselling and talk to people. And this particular woman was dying again of cancer. So she came and I was talking to her most of the evenings. And then she decided she really wanted to have like a bit longer time and having a bit of a heart to heart. And part of this, because I knew that she was about to die soon. I wanted her to become free from her past so she could die well, so I asked her in confidence, what's the worst thing you've ever done? What's that act which is hidden from other people, which you might carry to your grave and feel terrible about? Can you tell me this? Obviously, after many weeks of getting to know her, she could actually trust me. And she said to me, is that the worst thing? It took a while to get it out of her. The worst thing she'd ever done was that she'd kissed another man while she was married, not her husband. I said, that's the worst thing you've ever done. Yeah. I never told my husband that I kissed another man. If that's the worst thing you've done, you've been. You've done a pretty good life. I sure as many of you have done much worse than that. But what really struck me for her. There was such a release. That is, to tell someone this thing which was eating her up inside, but not only just to tell someone. The very fact that she told me and saw my reaction, she realized for the first time it wasn't that bad. But where do you keep it to yourself? These small little things which you've done, you made them to be huge scenes, as if you're going to go to hell for this, as if you're going to be punished for eternity for kissing a you know, another man when you're married to a girl or whatever. Man, as I know she was married to a boy. That's right. It's hot weather. My brain doesn't work. But I forgive myself that. When actually you acknowledge it. And actually, many of these things which you feel so guilty about, especially if you tell it to a good friend and you find out it's not such a big deal anyway, and you can let it go. She could actually let that go now so she didn't feel so guilty when she died. Sometimes you need to acknowledge it first of all, and then forgive what you've done in the past. Now, one of the nice things about being like a monk for so many years, but many people have told me their secrets. It was interesting experience when I first started this sort of job. And if any of you are counsellors here now, you probably have the same experience which I had as classic counsellors experienced. And first time someone opens up to you here. Oh, that's really interesting. And the next person who opens up to you. I've heard this before. The next one who comes to you. Here we go again. People think that, you know, that they're so sort of individual and they're sort of, you know, wrong actions that no one else has done. Those as if you know that somehow that you know that your actions are just the worst in the whole world. But whenever actually people actually open up, they are all pretty much the same. So the worst things that you have done, you know, probably pretty much the same as the person sitting next to you, maybe different in slight details, small variations, but pretty much the same. Because we're human beings, that's all. And so when we accept our humanity. And we don't demand perfection. We can be at peace with ourselves, with the imperfection of our past. We can actually let it go. We don't need to mend it, to change it, to fix it. There is such great fixers in life. We want to fix up the problems and there's no end of problems. That's why we say we're in a fix. We're trying to fix things. We don't fix things. We let them go. We leave them alone. The past is finished. We'll never find peace of mind until we get this state of forgiveness. And also forgiveness of ourselves. Letting go of guilt. That's number one. Number one. Those two. Sometimes, again, people ask, how do you forgive yourself and others? And of course, the rate of forgiveness is to realize that you are worth forgiving and the other person is worth forgiving. I always say that's a step, number one, to let go of the path to forgiveness, to realize that that person and yourself are worth it. Sometimes it's so hard when we see someone say, who's that woman seeing the murder of her husband? How can you forgive that? To see that human being? She saw him just weeping and shaking with fear, with his feel so bad about that. She saw something in that man who killed her husband. Something she could respect. Something worth saving as she forgave that beautiful thing inside that murderer. Policeman. That's why you've heard me say here before. There is no such thing as a murderer. The person is murdered. There's no such thing as a thief. As a person who stole. There is no such thing as a cheat. As a person who's cheated. If you understand that, you understand why forgiveness is possible. Because there's something more than that act which is so upset about in the same way with you. No matter what you've done, which you feel guilty for. There's something more inside of you, and there's 1 or 2, three, four. I don't know how many acts which you may feel terrible about. Let's get specific. And how many girls in here have an abortion? Have you forgiven that yet? I do still carry that around inside of you, thinking what a terrible thing I've done. How I'm evil. I'm gonna have to pay for this. Oh, please. You know, hopefully in spiritual religion, village like Buddhism, you are forgiven. You don't go to hell for these things. We don't have going to hell for anything if you go to hell. You said yourself down there it's your fault, not sort of anybody else. You're completely free. Hell is a is a place with an open door. You send yourself there because of guilt. You can walk out at any time if you understand what love and forgiveness is. There are those people who have had abortions sometimes. Our society, our society makes you afraid. Says the bad thing to do in some religions, which I really don't sort of agree with, those are the religions which condemn people for doing those things. And you may notice that the people who condemn you are all men who never been pregnant and don't know what it's all about. They've got no right to even have an opinion about this because they don't know what they're talking about. Literally. What really should be doing is forgiving, accepting, understanding. Being with a person who makes such a difficult decision. There should be no guilt, no fear, no sort of idea of revenge. The toughest decision any girl has to make. The job of any or any friend, any spiritual leader, is literally just to be with them and to help them through whatever way they decide to be kind, to allow them to move on and to let go of that past. What's done is finished. Can we forgive? If you do ever feel guilty about that, you know why? Because we focus on that one act that I'm an abortionist. Rather, I'm a girl who's done one thing. What else have you done in that day? In that week, in that year, in that life? Please keep it in proportion. You're worth. Forgive me. You're much more than that. Then, even if it's a bad act at all. Because I can't judge that I'm a man. I'm a man. I've never been pregnant, so how would I know? But what I do know is forgiveness is the most important part. We can let it go. And this is just an example. If we can't let go of that, well, first of all, we let go because we know we're worth letting go. And the other person we want to sort of have revenge while we get angry out there worth forgiving. Try it out, because when it's you, they're worth it. That person is worth it. You're worth it. It's also a worthy thing to do. In other words, it doesn't make the matter worse. It actually makes a future better through forgiveness. So it's worth a person's worth forgiving. And also, it's a worthy thing to do to create a more peaceful, happy future for everybody. Punishment never really works again. Every time I was punished as a kid, what I ever learned from those punishments was to try and not get caught next time. This made me more sneaky. More clever not to get caught. That's what it means every time that you've been punished. With a speeding flight. Does that stop you speeding? Or just to be a bit more careful so you know where the speed cameras are next time so you don't get caught? A lot of this, a lot of people are like that, aren't they? So it's instead of sort of worrying about this punishment, we want something else to actually inspire us and make us better people. Forgiveness is a wonderful way forward. So to have some peace of mind, we can let go of the past, forgiveness and letting go because you're worth it. And it's a worthwhile thing to do right away. You have a huge amount of peace. But the next thing which worries us is what's going to happen in the future. How can you have peace of mind when we've got global warming, we've got credit crunch, we've got what else is happening these days? There's wars. There's Aids, there's cancers. There's I don't know what else happening, but the idea was, why do we worry about these things? If you can do something about it, it's worthwhile worrying about. If you can't do anything. Why worry? The main thing which overcomes the worry about the future you can have peace of mind is. Understanding that now is where your future is made. And every time you worry about the future, you. Because you're worrying right now, you are creating a causes for a bad future for yourself. Now is where the future is made. Now is the only time you can do anything. Now is where you can actually ask, so what are you doing in this present moment? Worrying is just making things much worse. Instead of worrying about things. Make peace in this present moment. Be kind in this present moment. If you can do something in this present moment, at least that way you are doing the very, very best to create a positive future for yourself and others. Every time you worry about the future, you are actually neglecting the future. Every time you think about the future, what are you going to do tomorrow? Next week? How is it going to work out? It means you're not acting right now, but do something about the future now. So what's the most wonderful thing you can do about the future is to make peace. Be kind. Be gentle. Right now, you can always do that. And you are making this beautiful causes for a wonderful future for yourself and others. Now is where you make future. Every time we worry about these things, we're actually neglecting the future. And also sometimes we worry about these things, but we don't know what's going to happen. No one can predict the future. Understanding that the future is totally uncertain is why worry about it? Now, one of my classic stories I when I was a school kid. Maybe I'll actually learn this a long time ago. Don't worry too much about the future. A long time ago when I was a kid. I had bad teeth and I had to go to the dentist and I was telling my mum, mummy, don't send me to the dentist. I had an appointment the following morning. I said, you got to go to the dentist, darling. And I said, I tried to use psychology. I was pretty smart, even about a seven year old. Mummy, you don't love me. You're sending me to the torturer. I do love you. You got to go. And every trick I tried didn't work. So I went to bed that night thinking, I've got to go to the dentist. And I didn't sleep well that night because I was worried. Only a little fella don't, like, go to the dentist. It's not like these days. The drills were sharper and blunter. They used to hurt much more. So by the morning I had to try again. Mummy, don't send me to the dentist. And she was dragging me to the dentist screaming and crying. I hated going to the dentist. I was very upset at my mum for taking me there, but when I got to the dentist surgery, that's when I found my appointment had been cancelled. All that worry. All that crying and it never happened. And that's probably one of the very important experiences of my my youth, what I learned. Why worry about a future that is going to happen? Because something which you have experienced already in life and you've worried about things and it hasn't happened. You build confidence about things. It has all gone wrong. This is what happens in life. It's completely unpredictable. So why worry about it? Understanding that means you can learn how to have peace of mind in this present moment. Even though all these other things are going wrong, I think, uh. I think I told recently about the story of the, uh, which is one of the stories in the book about the man in the the British soldier in the Burmese jungle. There's another story which is similar to that in my book, about the man who's being chased by the tiger. And this is another classic Buddhist story that once there was a man being chased by the tiger in a jungle, and the tiger had almost caught him. But he was desperate because tigers eat people and they can run much faster than any man can. But he spied in the jungle an old well, and he managed just to jump into that world just before the tiger could catch him. But as soon as he committed himself to jumping in, he realized he'd made a big mistake because that well was dry. And at the bottom of that, well, he saw a big black snake. And instinctively he reached out to the side of the world and grabbed on to a tree root which was pushing through the wall of the well. He grabbed onto that, and it stopped his fall. And when he came to his senses, he looked down. The snake could be woken up and had lifted its head and opened its hood was trying to strike him at his feet, but his feet were just too high. The snake couldn't quite reach him. They looked up to see what happened to the tiger. Tiger hadn't given up yet. The tiger was leaning over into the well with his paws, trying to paw him, but his hand was just too low and the snake couldn't quite reach him. So there he was, a snake underneath, trying to bite him at his feet. A tiger above him tried to claw him. I wonder what's going to happen next. He noticed out of a hole in the side of the well. Two mice came out. A black mouse and a white mouth, and they started chewing at his root, making it. So it wasn't going to last very long. So as this all was happening because the tiger was trying to paw him, and as he was pointing him, he was actually his backside was rubbing against the tree, making its shape on a branch of that tree. Right above the well was the bee's nest. Bees were okay, but the honey started to drip out of that business right down into the well, and it managed to put his tongue out and taste the honey. I was so delicious. And that's the end of the story. With a beautiful story. Because the survivor has such deep endings. That's what life is like, isn't it? You know, we've got environmental catastrophe above us and credit crunch below us. We're really in a mess. And so the black and white mice, that's night and day chewing that our precarious hold on life. That's a cancer. And the other stuff which we've got in our bodies. So credit card lowers environmental catastrophe. Climate change above us. And we got cancer at the same time eating in our life. So what do we do? You know, there's always honey dripping down. This is so delicious. If you know the meaning of that story, you know how to have peace of mind. Be able to enjoy the honey which is always there to be tasted, even though you've got a snake below you and a tiger above you, and you're not going to live very long. Understanding that that's possible, you let go of the past. You let go the future. The future is uncertain. Traditionally, that's how the story ended. Which is why I like it. Because life is always incomplete. But being at home, I added my own ending to that story, which is very plausible. This could have happened because I know that sometimes the tiger's leaning over. Sometimes you do lean over a little bit too far, which the tiger did, and he fell into the well. But surely you missed the man that fell on top of the snake, crushed the snake to death, and broke his own neck. So there you go. The man could actually climb out of the world at his leisure and go off. Sometimes that can happen, and sometimes things like that do happen. We think the worst is going to happen. Terrible things are going to go on. And there's a solution which we never anticipated comes along, and all our problems are fixed until we fall into another well and get chased by another tiger. But at least there are many, many moments where we could be enjoying the honey. And because we are worried, anxious, afraid, we never enjoy the honey which comes to us. It is why we never have peace of mind. You can't find peace of mind anywhere else except halfway down a well between the tiger and the snake. That's where you find peace of mind. Because that's your life. When you understand that, why do you get peace of mind? We don't know what's going to happen next. Perhaps we can let go. We don't need to go and think in all this negative ways. We can enjoy this moment. We can have peace of mind. Within the imperfections and uncertainties of life. You don't need to be perfect to have peace of mind. This, again is a big mistake of human beings. We want to have safety, security. We want to have everything just right before we can have peace of mind. Is that never work? We have peace of mind now. It's a hard day today. I mean, this peace of mind with it. There's lots of funny happened today. Lots of joyful experiences. If people were complaining. Oh, it's too hot. Oh. It's hot. I don't want it to be hot. Then you can't enjoy the honey of today. Or when it's too cold. It's too cold. Oh, and it's. I don't know what else is happening. You got a tummy ache. Oh, you got sort of a headache or you got some other ache. There's always some ache going on. So instead of that, you can have peace of mind even if you are sick. Oh, what a wonderful thing that is to know you don't have to be healthy to have peace. You're terrible too, because we're always, you know, sick sometimes. It doesn't matter what's happening. You can always make peace with things and you can have peace of mind it even when you're dying, why not have peace of mind when you're dying? Isn't it wonderful? I'm now dying. I'm out of here. No more worries about tax, global warming or anything else. You're free out of here soon so you can have peace of mind in when you're dying. And the thing is, though, you don't know if you're going to die or not. I was actually on Charles grade teaching when I was sick in the hospital. He came to visit me. He gave me one of those great teachings, this one liners. You keep on remembering this for the rest of your life. Why don't you get some wisdom? It sticks with you. He told me I'm a one. So you're either going to get better or are you going to die? Now that really hurt at first because that wasn't what I expected. That wasn't that the usual bedside manner of your best friend? But it was so wonderful after you started thinking about this. It means, no, the sickness isn't going to last. Oh. That's literally. Going to get better. You gonna die. What's the problem? The understanding that I can make peace no matter what's happening. It's great you don't know which one it's going to be because the future is really uncertain. Sometimes people that go hospital with a toothache and they die. Sometimes they got no incurable cancer. Three days to live this life. 20 years later. Totally uncertain. I understand they don't have to worry about anything. They know what's going to happen next. So it means you could be at peace no matter what's happening in life. And fortunately, you've seen people like this. You know, people who you look at them and they're sick. They're sort of dying. They're supposed to be in agony, but they end up so telling jokes. They're happy. They're peaceful people. Actually, that I tell my joke this evening because I do it now. It's actually had to be peace, because sometimes those dogs bark and this is what dogs do. And I let them because sometimes even that noise makes people upset. And so this is a little joke about that. This is a courtesy of Garcia's. Not here. Came to my monastery a few days ago. I told him I would I would acknowledge the source of this joke. This is a story about brown paper Bob. This fellow, many years ago in the United States, in the Wild West, he rode his horse into town and he stuck to this town, and it was deserted. There was no one. There was like a ghost town. So he wondered what was going on. He managed to see this old man outside the saloon said, where is everybody? And he said, oh, they've gone to the hanging of brown paper, Bob. And this visitor said, why did anyone call himself Brown Paper Bob? He said, oh, he's a bit of an eccentric brown paper Bob. Instead of having a proper cowboy hat. He puts a brown paper bag on his head. He doesn't have a shirt and a jacket. He has a big brown paper bag. He cuts a hole in one side, a hole in the other side. He puts his arms through that. Not even any trousers. You guessed it, another brown paper bag. He does wear proper cowboy boots, but everything else is brown paper. I said, well, what are you hanging for? Oh, for lastly. It's a family joke. There it is. So let's get back to my peace of mind. See where you get a bad joke. You can still make peace with it. It's just, you know, it's just that you should expect that. Those of you who've been here many years. So after a while, we could find peace in even imperfect times and other imperfection in life. The important thing is to understand that the imperfections of life, the imperfections of you, the imperfections of everybody else, this is what life actually is. We can always make peace with it and accept and enjoy the honey, which is there from time to time. When we understand that, we can understand how to make peace of mind. But before we run out of time, peace of mind doesn't mean you just sit there and do nothing. Sometimes you can make peace with whatever you have to do in life with your duties and responsibilities. And I sometimes actually not this evening because I was in a good energy this evening. But sometimes when I come here, sometimes I'm really busy or sometimes even sick. I don't want to give a talk tonight. Well, I always have to give a talk on Friday night, because we may think that, you know, you've got a choice. You can come here. You don't come here. As for me, I'm stuck. Doesn't matter. You feel like you don't feel like you just do it and make peace with it. I don't argue with it, but you make peace with things and you make fun with things. It doesn't really matter. Then you could always have a good time giving talks, whatever you have to do in life. Of course, I'd love to be able to sit in my monastery. I've got a beautiful cave, which is really cool now because it's beautifully built and night time temperature, daytime temperature, maybe half a degree. Even today, 22 degrees inside my cave, even though it's about 40 outside, it's about to just about 3:00 before we left. 23245 no air conditioner. It's just natural. It's a beautiful thing. I don't want to come out into the heat. I want to stay in my case. But no, you make peace with your lifestyle. You make peace with what you have to do in life. So making peace doesn't mean you get your own way. I just make make fun with what you have to do in life. So this is my job. I have to work giving talks and arranging things, talking, counting to things. So instead of complaining about it, I just make peace with it and enjoy it. The same with you. The get peace of mind does not mean that you do what you want to do. Let's never find peace of mind that way. Find peace of mind by making peace with whatever is you called upon to do in life, whatever happens in life. So whatever your role, your job in life happens to be, you can always like I have to do like I do, do make fun with it, enjoy it, put happiness into it, make peace with it, and you can make peace with anything and have fun with anything. Wonderful, wonderful things to do. Go to some of these places and have fun. I remember the the autopsies. I've been to have great fun in autopsies. I remember this because I saw in the newspaper today there was a picture of this Professor Hilton. I think he was a pathologist in Perth. He's retired now with something with some case of a dead baby many years ago. But some years ago, the most, well, actually allowed to go to see an autopsy. He was the guy doing the autopsy. And as soon as they opened up the stomach, there was all these, um, what they called mixed vegetables, like peas and carrots. And he said, that's amazing. It was the Scots fella, this fellow. He said, it's really amazing. Just like Saturday night on the buses in Glasgow. That's what actually you see on the floor. You get the idea that people vomited because in Glasgow that town people drink too much. And what would actually come out of this summit was actually mixed vegetables. And they said, oh, so I see. Even in Perth I'm expressible in the state of stomach. In a great sense of humour. Why not a doorstop so you can have fun? They had very, very different places of life. You can enjoy yourself. You can make peace and have fun anyway. What a wonderful thing that is to know if you can start to do that. You notice that it doesn't have to be perfect. You don't have to do it this way, in that way, before you can make peace of life and have peace of mind. Peace of mind is not found in some detail in some perfect monastery, in some wonderful place called the Himalayan Mountains. If you're looking for peace that way, you're looking for what Ajahn Chah says. The turtle or the tortoise with a moustache. That's not how you find peace of mind. Peace of mind you find just in. That's one of his great sayings. Finally, the tortoise with a mustache. People have been looking for that for years and never found it because it doesn't exist. That type of peace of mind. No. Waking up of the peace of mind is in this life. You have now halfway down the well in great tragedy, great difficulty. Yes, you can find peace of mind. What a wonderful thing that is to know. So doesn't matter what's happening in your life. There is peace of mind. You find it right now. How do you find it? Letting go of all the past. Forgiving and then letting go of all the guilt. Not worrying about the future. It's completely uncertain. It's a great mystery. It's an adventure. This thing called life. We never know what's around the corner. And also just learning to appreciate this moment, doing your duty, pulling fine into whatever you have to do. You can do that no matter what it happens to be. You can find peace of mind anywhere. It's as free as the air. That's why no one can sell it while we don't charge. When you come in to occupy the center, no more than you can sell the air. Peace of mind is here for you, so please drink it. Enjoy it. Keep it. No, it's always there. Whenever you want to have another taste of the honey, that is peace of mind. Thank you for listening. Okay, so that's the talk on peace of mind. Does anyone want to say anything? Any comments? Yeah. Why not? Why not? Sorry. Now, first of all, people go to monasteries looking for peace of mind. It's a wonderful way of actually getting really deep peace of mind, especially in meditation. But teaching this evening is the peace of mind is found within you wherever you happen to be. A lot of times I started out looking for the perfect monastery. He wrote this monastery, that monastery, and it can never find a perfect monastery. So then I decided to go and build my own monastery. It's still not perfect, but it's good either. The question over there. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. That peace of mind is real happiness. And any other happiness in life, you know, such as? You know, your football team wins the grand final. You fall in love, you know, you get your first house or whatever. Many other happiness is happiness in life. When you really understand what the true happiness is, what you really seek for is that inner contentment, that peace of mind. That's the true happiness. But sometimes all the other happiness is, you know, you get the house and you get a nice partner because you think that's going to give you peace of mind. You're going to be able to live happily ever after and get contentment. It's a peace of mind which is the ultimate happiness. Any other questions? Okay, so we can finish off this evening so I can have a bit of peace of mouth.
