The Real Life Teachings of Ajahn Chah

The Real Life Teachings Of Ajahn Chah by Ajahn Brahm Transcription Okay. Since I was last giving a talk here a week ago, I've been conducting marriages, giving talks. I've been to Thailand and back, so I'd have a very busy life. Anyone that says, oh, if you want to become have a peaceful life, become a monk. Even though I travel very much and do many things, instead I was talking to one of the most in Thailand. He said, how come that you do so much but you can still meditate so well? And it's always the case that because of the training in Buddhism, especially as monks and nuns, we do actually learn how. If I ever go to Thailand, I don't take this temple with me. You are not allowed to carry a temple on the aircraft, which means that I don't carry all those burdens with me. You let them go in the past. When I come back here, I don't bring Thailand back with me. Which means that whatever you do, you just do this one thing at a time. You do really, really well, and you don't allow these things to keep accumulating in your brain and worrying about them and planning about them and doing such things. And so even you can work very hard, but you can stop. Very quickly. It is true that sometimes I'm out of work, which I do is like. You know, I feel sometimes like I'm like, I'm a big truck, like one of these big road trains, but I've got these incredibly powerful grates. And even though you're going very fast, you can stop very quickly. And of course, stopping is important. You can't fill out for gas when you're on the move. So you have to stop to get a recharge of gas. It's the same way that we learn through our power of meditation. Then how to stop so you can recharge your energies. But the reason I was over in time, I only just returned at 4:00 this afternoon, was for having a meeting at the memorial service for my teacher as an Sharon. Because hanging out with all your old mates, there's all my old mates and talking about old times and just doing ceremonies for your teacher. It brought back all these wonderful old memories of the life, you know, with a mark like ascension. And that's going to be roughly the talk this evening about some of the wonderful, inspiring things, which meant that Buddhism was taken out of the books and put into real life. And it was a very impressive. I have my own story. I was already a Buddhist when I was 16. Reading books. And of course I listened to many talks. I already had some meditation experience, but it was a real eye opener, actually, to go to a place where what you read in the books was actually being lived, and that made all these teeth in which you hear here to so alive and vital. And it is as simple things of like, you know, just kindness and compassion. It's amazing how many Buddhists aren't compassionate except in public when they're supposed to be behaving themselves. They're always compassionate when they come to the temple, but I don't know what they do to their partners when they go back home. Even before they get back home, someone cuts in front of them at the lights and you already lost it. But one of the great things which I saw over there was actually people were living this actually that when this morning just in the airport is Singapore lady, you fed me some breakfast and I, she gave me an article about this old Zen monastery in California. It was built in 1967. And they said that they went to visit him, but they met somebody at the bottom of the hill there because, uh, somebody was going trekking up this path of this very beautiful part of California, and they were sick, and all these cars were passing them, you know, going up to their monastery to do a meditation retreats. And they were trying to flag them down because their child was sick, and not one of them would stop. But then, gee, what's up in meditation? Is that so? They this man wrote an article in the Straits Times of Singapore, and I got a copy of it and he said, I know in Zen they have a saying, insane. If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill it. And he said, no, that's not right. You meet the Buddha on the road, give him a lift. In other words, be compassionate to people and kind to people instead of being hard and harsh. And that was one of the wonderful things which, you know, I saw and I learned from those times. And one of the wonderful teachings which I found, which really informed me about what Buddhism really is and the training of the heart, which makes you wise, compassionate and peaceful. Because you're not born peaceful, are we? As soon as we come out of the room, we start crying and we cry ever since. I know that as my personal experience, especially on the plane this morning coming from Singapore, all these babies were crying. Gee, if I hadn't got my meditation together, I'd go crazy. I became a monk to have a peaceful life and all this crazy I cry. But which shows you proves that you're not born peaceful. And also, you know, when you're young, you're very self-centered. You're not born compassionate. These are things which we learn. And that learning doesn't stop at school. In fact, you know, some of the stuff you learn at school is not going to help you at all. Well, maybe help you get a job or not help you with life. But certainly you come to places like this and you learn how to be peaceful. You learn how to be kind. And one of these stories is, oh, I went to go and visit some of these great monks in time. It's not just my own teacher, Ajahn Chah. I once went to go and see one of the other great forest teachers. This was Ajahn Mahabir and the one teaching which I got from him. I was only staying with him for six days, was a great teacher. He once told me that when he was a very young monk, my many monks in the forest of Thailand, he got malaria. It was like just par for the course. He said, what you get when you were a monk living in the jungle. But he decided to fight his malaria, you know, to be a tough guy. Okay. It's just the body. The mind is more powerful than the body. So when it came for the afternoon chores, the monks didn't work all that much. They went on a walk for alms in the morning and just do a little bit of chores in the monastery in the afternoon for half an hour. So when it came for the chores time, even though he had a fever and it was really sort of weak, he decided, no, I am also going to do the chores. So he got up there and even though he was staggering and shaking, he would sweep and sweep and sweep. Just to show that the mind is more powerful than the body. But the teacher over there was a medicine man, and he called a meeting that night. To tell this man cough. He said, that's not what Buddhism is. You don't fight these fevers, you investigate them. You get to understand them not fighting and controlling. And that was his talk which he gave that evening, teaching that what Buddhism is, you don't fight and control life. You understand it because in the understanding of it, that's where you get your freedom from. Not by fighting. Because you can't fight your body, you can't conquer it. I, I would love to be thin. I got all this criticism by my fellow monks saying, oh, I see, I'm glad you're putting on weight. And I said, no, I am a carbon sink. I am doing my bit for global warming because when you take in more carbohydrates, you are actually taking the carbon from the atmosphere. Thereby you are carbon sink. So anyone else is overweight but you are global warming. You are helping out. Well, you think maybe you should take it more carbon. So to get out of the atmosphere, I've always got an excuse. But just talking, talking with. Sometimes you can't control your body. It gets sick. It hurts. And this is one of the great teachings which I read in the books. But then you see it being practiced. Now people are living it. Okay. You try and look after your body as best as you can, but you know what happens. He gets older and when he gets older, it gets uglier. It gets smelly, it's falling apart. It's decaying. So we've got many decaying Buddhists here this evening. Isn't it great? Being a Buddhist could actually say such things and get away with it. The nice thing about it is just so let it happen instead of trying to fight it. Instead we understand it. When we understand these things, it gives us an enormous sense of freedom for staying with know these people that, again, what you read in the books. Again, they were really practicing there because they were living a simple life. It was a revelation because we always say that, you know, as human beings in this age, we should try and have less possessions and live more simply and be more peaceful and kind. What do you really need to be happy? You don't need that much and we don't need that much. You means you don't have to work so hard. We didn't have some work so hard. You get less stress. You got more time for each other. But we worked so hard these days, I don't know how many people complain about stress and how many hours you have to work, and how intense you have to work, and how you have to struggle to keep up with the latest whatever it is and how to compete for the promotions. I tell people that, what do you want a promotion for? You're crazy. If you want a promotion, it just means more stress. Haven't you got enough stress already? People think the promotion has given them more status. It's not status, it's stress. And you get a bit more money. But that's just a bribe to make you work harder. So I say, I say no. Stop the promotion. No. I was very unlucky as a monk because I had this really nice setup, because for many years I was number two monk. And number two monk is really, really nice because you got someone else in front of you, like on the convoy. The car in front takes all the wind and all the bugs and everything else. So I was nicely tailgating another monk, and then he just disrobed and let me in it. All my plans went wrong, but it just showed me you can't sort of plan anything. It's just life. This happens. And this again was what we were taught at some times. And this was true in that life which I had under oath like that. And so you were happy staying in a monastery? And then he'll come up to you and say, I'm going to send you to the other part of Thailand. I say, well, next week they said, no, half an hour get packed. You never knew what was going to happen next. And of course, the teacher did that on purpose for you, to keep you in the present moment because all your plans are what you had to do. He just wouldn't let you get away with that. I remembered one story when I was I told this to some of the other monks when I was over there. A couple of days ago, a good sense of what, like wisdom in action, truly is. There's one of our monks. Uh, some of you may remember me. Visited here some time ago. And Nando, his name was now. He was, uh, he was in the Vietnam War, and he's a marine. And he got shot in the back of the head, and he had, like, a depression in the back of his head. Unfortunately, that after some years he developed a tumor and he died from it. But this was 35 years ago, and we just started a new monastery for the Westerners. Again, it was very wise of that teaching not only taught us know Buddhism and meditation, he also taught us how to run monasteries. By actually saying, here's some land. You go off there and learn how to run it by yourself. I'm next door to fix things up, but you learn by experience. So I was one of the first six months to go to this monastery. It's what? Not our chart. And. The saddle monk Ananda. He asked if he could go over there as well. I remember at anchor he would go and ask the teacher Ajahn Chah, and he said, why do you want to go over to that monastery? For he said, because I want to help build this new monastery. He said, no, you can't go. But he really wanted to go. So he asked the second time, I said, I want to go over to this new monastery, why do you want to go for? He said, oh, I think it's very simple. It'd be a very good practice for me, living on the simplicity. Could we slept on the ground? There was no huts or anything. And this was jungle forest. I still remember very clearly, just meditating there and seeing the snakes slither by. It's very fortunate. I didn't know what one snake from another. I was just hoping that wasn't the dangerous one. I was only later on that somebody told me 100 species of snake in Thailand, 99 of venomous. And the other one strangles you to death. They're all dangerous. He just watched them slither by just in front of you. And you're meditating now? Sometimes at night you'd be laying down and they'd just slither past you. Fortunately, they never slithered. Actually, sometimes there's this slither up here. I remember this wonderful occasion. We were doing some chanting and the monkeys doing the chanting. Ah, so it was another man. The man sitting next to me who saw a snake come off his back, go all the way up his back. When he had the snake, got up to hear, the snake turned around and a monk turned around. Now here is one of the most wonderful memories I have. And the two? The snake in the back were eyeballing each other. And so the man just gently pushed his robe down, and the snake slithered away. Because the snakes were friendly. They were Buddhist snakes in Thailand. They're very respectful of monks. But anyway, now that he's. So, he went another day to see her and she says, oh, well, I didn't. I said, no, you know, he can't go and stay. He said again, why do you want to go there? And he said, oh, and I think that I have a very good meditation there because it was a cremation ground. There's lots of ghosts there. And I said no. And he had all his excuses for going. Then one day this man Hernandez. He said, I want to go to this new monastery. Why do you want to go out there? He said, because I just want to hang out with my other Western friends. Okay, you can go. That's true. That happened. Because we wanted honesty. It didn't matter that you had your desires and you wanted things. The most important thing was being honest and truthful to yourself and these great monks. Now, they did read your mind, and they knew exactly what you were up to. And of course, they had compassion as well. They understand. Okay, now, being a Westerner in a foreign country, you like hanging out with your friends, speaking English and just cracking jokes together. But all the teacher wanted was honesty. Not only honesty, but patience. Because I remember another story. I get my predecessor, Etienne Jacquot. After being there for one year, Ajahn Chah was sending this monk Jacquot off to another monastery. And so he told me, I'm going off to this monastery. It's called Suing Glory, like banana plantation monastery. And he said, I'm going there. Then he went up to after 2 or 3 days he hadn't heard anything. So I went to see her and she said, where am I going? And I just said, oh, not sure yet. And when? Another day. When am I going? Oh, I'm not sure yet. And I remembered Sir Ashton Jacquot talking to me, said, I don't know when Ashton shows up to. I keep on asking me when I'm going and he won't tell me. So one night he went as he, night after night, asked him when he was going to go and the one night he never went. The next night at Jantar sent him. He said he was not impatient. He wanted to know what the future's going to be. And this is a sign of what Buddhism is in practice, which is adapt to whatever happens. Because how many of you have had plans for the future, which haven't turned out exactly the way you wanted? Actually, all of you. And it happens every day. This is what the future is. The future is something else other than you think it's going to be. It's one of the great sayings of the Buddha in the Buddhist scriptures. Whatever you think it's going to be. It would always be something different. When I heard teachings like that, I thought, wow, that's great. That's very deep. Whatever you expect it's going to be. It would always be different than that. When you really get your mind around that, what it means is what on earth are we spending all this time wasting all this time anticipating, thinking and planning when it all goes wrong, when it's not like that? And so in these training monasteries where we were, we were always kept on our toes in the present moment, not having to plan our future. We didn't know what was going to happen next. You know, that was incredibly freeing. Peaceful and creating much more happiness in your life when you didn't actually plan, you know, your week's activities and what you're going to do when you're going to do and how you're going to do it. When you become more adaptive now to life as it happens, rather than always trying to fix it, because you know what happens when your plans get frustrated? When it doesn't work out as you expect, you get angry. A lot of anger comes from that, from frustrated plans. And one great way of overcoming anger is her not having any plans, no expectations. Of course, you can't do that 100%, but at least the less plans, the less expectations you have, the less anger you have, the less frustrating not fighting life. You're not trying to make life fit into your schedule. You're becoming more adaptive. And again, that's the sort of things which we learned, not just simplicity in material things. We didn't have hardly anything. Now literally no. Sometimes again. Didn't have any shoes. Now that you think that's okay, even these days, you know, people in the hot weather that maybe go down the beach, they don't wear shoes. But this is Perth. Imagine not wearing shoes when there was all these creepy crawlies about not just snakes, centipedes, Scorpions. And many other things I didn't know the name of, but they considered you and said dinner. There were these ants, and I saw them again. My old friends are called the mottling, the black biting ants, and they pack a punch. If you step in them. When they bite you, you jump. I remember once again at nighttime, going back from the evening meeting in a dark, dangerous jungle, and you stepped on them because you didn't have any shoes. I had a flashlight, but I dove one way. My flashlight jumped another way. Well, that was very dangerous. There I was, stuck in the jungle. These ants were all around, and I didn't have a flashlight. It was in the bush somewhere, so they were very dangerous times. But I never expected anything. They always managed to find your way back to your hut somehow or other. But what I was teaching you is it doesn't matter. Don't worry about such things. It'll all be okay. Life in the present with no expectations. And what are you worried for, anyway? The one side was actually very healthy as a young man in Thailand. I think maybe because my attitude was always really positive. But one of the I mean, my the first bit of positivity, which I learned from my teacher, I first went to Thailand, you know, when I was 23, and I got up to see it and I was only, um, good in 1974, I think 84 now. Yeah. 74. That's about January 74th. And it was just his mother just passed away. They were preparing a funeral service for her, and for some reason, Ajahn Chah decided to make her a like a mountain made out of bamboo baskets, cover with papier maché. I don't know why he was doing that. Made no sense to me, but I, like everybody else, joined in making these, uh, little baskets out of bamboo. I remember it's very difficult to do because I was a theoretical physicist. I wasn't good with my hands. I remember my first experience with the teacher. He came up to me and told me, are your baskets very beautiful? And I looked at him and I looked at other people's baskets and I'd say, what are you talking about? It's a mess. But this was the beginning of the attitude. It doesn't matter if it's a mess. Praise gets you everywhere. That little bit of praise, you know, got me as a disciple. So remember, if you're going out, sometimes some of you might bring your girlfriend or boyfriend here if you want them to like you. Praise him. Say what a great guy you are. Oh, what a lovely, charming girl you are. It's amazing how much more traction you will get in life when you praise your partner more. And it's basic Buddhism. Flattery gets you everywhere. It's positive reinforcement. And it's not just praising your partner. It's what we call the perception of the beautiful or the positive. It's the opposite of the fault finding mind. And this was my first experience of that. If Ajahn Chah was a Western monk, he'd probably said, that's a terrible basket. You're doing that, G. Where were you brought up? Can't you even weave a basket? What do they teach you in the West? He's hopeless. Scallywag. Hopeless. That's sometimes the sort of thing we say in the West. We criticize each other when we make mistakes. But how does that feel when you're criticized? When I got the praise, I realized this was a different type of environment, a different culture outside of monasteries in China is still criticized, but in the monasteries you are built up and praise. You were valued. It was compassion. There was a compassion on a very, very deep level because it was actually encouraging you to be at peace with yourself. And actually the next basket I made was even better, because now once you get praised by the teacher, you want to show off and live up to that praise. You see what happens when you praise somebody and you encourage them. So I said, if you got kids, always encourage them. Doesn't matter what they did in the, you know, the TV scores, at least they didn't come bottom. At least I got some marks. What's the bottom mark in the TV? Is it zero? Can anyone get zero? I usually get zero. You got one mark or two bucks, whatever. In courage. Because when you encourage somebody, you build them up. And actually they do better next time. And that's what I learned. It wasn't any of this criticism business as encouragement all the time. Even during the chanting, some of our chanting was hopeless. I had to learn all this chants. Now there's sort of the stuff, the rituals of Buddhism. And sometimes it's very difficult to do those chats. So again I tend to I would take compassion on it. He said look, doesn't matter when you go in front of all those laypeople with doing this chanting, he said, just open your mouth up and down, up and down, up and down, and no one will know that you're not shouting. That's what he said. Doesn't mean he compassionate to us. But it wasn't just compassion. He would give us heaps and heaps of wisdom. And I just know that on Wednesday morning I walked over from what not. I chat to walk by Paul and I went past an area when I would go an arms round, and very often I go in the same route where church and I went on and I remember him the place because he got all these nostalgic memories. When you go and visit the place where you grew up as a monk. I remember the place where he stopped, and he did do picked up a stick from the side of the road, and he turned around and said, A boomerang, sir, because that's my name. The full name is Boomerang. Sergeant Brum is only the shortened version. Boomerang. So how heavy is this stick? Before I could answer, he threw it away in the bush. He says, see, it's only heavy when you attach to it. And there are simple teachings like that which you got all the time from these great monks. So it's easy to say, oh, you shouldn't be attached, you know, you should grasp onto things and hold things. He should be simple. But you show him why, in a very simple teaching, that if you hold on to something for too long, it gets heavy. That is why you suffer. So how many of you have felt grief when somebody dies? Okay, you can feel sad when somebody close to you dies. But why do you hold on to it for so long? Okay, pick up the stick of grief and throw it in the forest as soon as you can. Then it's not heavy. Then you don't suffer so much. It's because we hold on to things too long. It's why we suffer. Or what somebody said to us there. And how many people just worry about what he said to me? Where did he say, oh, five years ago? He said, yeah, come on. Can you let that one go? If it was this morning. Fair enough. You know. Just give him a hard time for a day. But, you know, by this evening. Okay? Enough. Now, why do you always hold on to the past for ages and ages and ages in Buddhism? That's absolutely stupid. A good example of that was the Cambodian community, what they went through during the Killing Fields years. And then obviously, because most of the Cambodians are Buddhists, the ones over here, you get to know very well known for 25 years, and they've got no hatred for what happened in the past. They never let it go. Now, one of the most beautiful ceremonies I saw this was not from Thailand. This is over here. I let him go. Ceremony. One of these. The men. One of the leaders of the Cambodian community here in Perth. I was actually retired. Now is quite old. He was a monk before, but he was forced to disrobe by the Khmer Rouge when the Khmer Rouge took over. Cambodia is actually death or just disrobed. So he chose to disrobe. I mean, he got married and lived in the Crimea, but he was one of the people like in that. For those of you remember the film Killing Fields, who escaped from the commune, went through the jungles and got over the border into Thailand with his wife. He made it into safety. However, during that journey, his wife contracted malaria and died in the camp. It was such a sad thing because it almost got to freedom and just, you know, they were in Thailand, they were outside of the country. But his wife had brought malaria with her and threw the check through the air, trekking through the jungles. And it was too far gone. And she died. Now, this was a refugee who had lost everything. There's no way he could organise the funeral or do any services for her. So he just put it aside for her. Eventually he was resettled with many other Cambodians here in Perth, and after 2 or 3 years in Perth, he invited me and some other monks for a ceremony. In his house. It was in Bentley in one of the the the units up there and where we were doing the chanting. Quite unexpectedly, he came to the front and from his shirt pocket he took out a photograph. It was dog eared and creased, and I saw it was the only picture he had of his wife in Cambodia who died in the camp. He was already remarried here in Perth, and his present wife was standing behind letting him do this. He took out the picture, put it in front of him, put his hands up, and while the monks were chanting, he cried his eyes out. He wept. This was how he hadn't had time to deal with his grief over 2 or 3 years now. This was his chance. The monks were there. We were chanting. The chanting only lasts about 15 minutes. When we finished the chanting, he wiped his eyes, stopped the cry for the photograph back into his pocket and joined in the ceremonies, happy and free. Is one of the most beautiful ceremonies of how we deal with these things. We don't just hold the stick all the time. No, he couldn't throw it away straight away because he had the trouble of being penniless refugee, trying to find a new life. The first opportunity. He threw that stick away in a beautiful way and a wonderful ceremony. And that's what the sort of thing which adventure would teach us not to keep things even one of the most famous stories, which, because I was there at the time, is one of the great stories in the book. And, you know, the book opened the door of your heart has been translated in many languages, including Thai. When I was over there, the publishers in the Thai translations and over 100,000 copies have been printed in Thailand. And while the monks over there, you know, he sort of commented to me about this story, which is why it's in the front of my mind. And it's the story of the the three Western monks is myself is the novice called Gary. And there was the translator, whose name was Prabhakara, and that Jen Shah was in the passenger seat. And as the driver had been taken to the railway station from the monastery. And that was when Adrian Cha turned around in the car and he looked at this. He looked at this novice Gary from he was from New Mexico. And he said to him, you're thinking about your girlfriend. It's very dangerous to be in a car with a monk who has psychic powers. He had read this young novices mind. He was thinking about his girlfriend and his porn. I can always remember the face. This poor, poor novice, Gary. His face went white. His jaw dropped. Really embarrassing having a mind read in public. But then our judge said something else. He said our witnesses for the translator said, oh, we can fix that and said, next time you write to your girlfriend back in the United States, ask her to send something of hers, something personal. So when you miss her, you can take that out and it reminds you of her. And then he replies through the translator. Is that allowable? Now. It's okay for monk to have things like that. No sort of keepsakes of your girlfriend, in case you feel lonely now. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, you can do that. And this poor novice are even great teachers are romantic. And I wasn't because what I just said. So the interpreter took a long time to translate it. He was kidding himself. Laughing. He said next. Next time you write to your girlfriend back in the States, ask her to send. Send you a bottle, a small bottle of her shit. So the next time you miss her, take out the shit like, oh, that's my girlfriend. Ah, because it is very personal, isn't it? You can't get more personal than that. Well, that was actually the great teacher that you had. That's what I got all the time from these people. And these were teachings which were funny. You will never forget them. And they really helped. Look, I mean, when you fall in love, what do you fall in love with anyway? How many people say, oh, I love that. I love all of that. Every bit of it. Not just now. Love is more than skin deep. Yes. So that way we're not loving a body. We're loving a person. This is much better because bodies change. So again, I was teaching us how to really let go of things. And this was why it was not so. Just a Buddhism of theory. It was not just like going to a lecture and what it's like at school or university or college. You listen to lectures. And so these are the sorts of things you have to learn. And it's all just book knowledge and it's just theory. But the training in which you got in these places were not theory was actually living practice. And sometimes you thought, wow, if the Buddha was alive, this is probably how he would have taught. Look, taking these problems of life, this things will stop you. Being free will stop you being happy. All these things we worry about, you know, like, you know, like the grief there are like the, uh, even like the status. There was somebody who reminded me of this story, which had been told here, that there was one of Argentina's all disciples named one of the Filipino figures. One of the people from the town had helped him for so many years, and this man had been, um, elected into the government as an MP. And so he went to actually to go to Argentina to actually basically to say, look, I'm an MP now and give us a blessing because it's a celebration. How can you also celebrate, you know, the fact that I've won in an election. And so when he saw that my catching show was up in his room, he saw the man downstairs. How can he come and call Argentina? And he also gave him his card. And the MP so and so. And then a monk took that card up to see Argentina and had sent the message down. I don't know this guy. What do you mean you don't know this guy? So I've been with attention for years. But then the disciple got an idea. And so he crossed out the front of the cart. And on the back of the card, he just gave his ordinary name and said that up I came down. Oh, it's nice to see you. Well, he was teaching day, he says, outside of a monastery. Yes. Status counts, but inside of a monastery? No status. Everybody. Man, woman, rich, son of a poor. Were your high society or low society? He doesn't care. He would judge everybody individually, personally. He always did that. And I was wonderful to see outside of a monastery. Okay. We have the status. We have the business people, the rich people, people from big families, royalty, generals or whatever inside a monastery because everybody was equal. And that was wonderful to see. One of my wonderful memories of being in Thailand after coming over here to Australia for about now, 4 or 5 years, I went back to visit Thailand. And of course, when I went back to visit Thailand and visit this old monastery where I grew up for nine years, all these villagers in this little village said they supported me. I was actually one of them, I was family. And the first time, because you arrive in the afternoon, go straight into the monastery. The first time the villagers see you is on the morning, arms round, and all the monks go in, file silently to collect the alms food. And when I went in that first morning, few people looked up. Oh! Above. They started crying. They were weeping because it was somebody they knew would come back to their village again. And it really moved me to she were really parts, you know, their village was only one of the old people there. So now I remember him telling me on Thursday morning, he said all the other people, the old ones had gone. All new people now, poor son, it was really nice to see this, like your old friends. And even though they're Thais, even one of the old men there, he was featured in one of the movies about Argentina and poor arm because he was an old friend. When I went back one time, he was dying, so I went to see him in his home so he couldn't come to the monastery and started talking to him in Lao. We're talking about the old times, and he used to be the herbal doctor in the area, and he actually learned that his story was that he was a fisherman. When he asked that, and Charles said, look, I've got a lot of faith in Buddhism, but, you know, I have to catch fish, and that's what you have to do. When I was first in Thailand, people told me that in Thailand. And how can you catch fish if you're keeping five precepts as a Buddhist, not supposed to kill anything, one of the Thai people in Bangkok said, that's okay, it's okay, it's okay. Because here in Thailand we don't kill the fish. We just take them out of the water and they die by themselves. And that doesn't make sense to me. But that's what they told me. But anyway, this, this young, this young villager, he was a fisherman. And he said, look, I need to fish to feed my family. And again, the teachings of Buddhism were always very practical. This man said, okay, this is Ajahn Chah. I said. Catch fish. He told him, you know, he can't keep your five precepts. You've got to look after your family. This is compassion for not just fish, but for your family as well. Catch those fish, but only enough to feed your family and yourself. But not for making any more money. Don't sell them, he said. At the same time, like many of the forest monks, they had to learn about the plants around them. Because of the medicinal qualities in there, every monk would actually learn about the plants and their how they could be used. He became like a herbal doctor. All those old forest monks became herbalists, and that sunshine knew about what type of plants, what problem. And so he taught this to this man so he could have another career. And little by little has he got to know herbal medicine from the plants and the roots in the area. He never needed to fish anymore. He got his income from from this. And I was talking to him just before he died. And I remember one thing he said was this really remarkable. He said, I've been living here for such a long time, and I'm the herbal doctor. One thing I've noticed is that, you know, before they had the hospital in town, people were so much more healthy. And now they have the hospital. Everyone gets sick. That's what he told me. It's fascinating. The connection between building hospitals and having more sickness and nature of the mind is so powerful. Sure, there are sicknesses, but sometimes the more doctors we have, maybe the more sickness we have. What do you reckon? Well, that's actually what he saw for a guy who'd been in the air for such a long time. But anyway, that when you actually see how these things were teaching. When I got sick in hospital. Now. Jen Shah came to see me this one time. I know you've heard this story before. This is again Shah stories. And it's a it's teaching. This is actually what you learn and how you learn Buddhism. Not from theory, but these experiences. They really sort of free you because we. I had typhus fever. We never knew what it was at the time because in this particular monastery where we had actually sleep on the ground, which we often used to do outside of our huts. Now to practice being simple monks. There were these little mites, small insects on the ground which carried typhus fever, scrub typhus, and because all the local people in the area had developed immunity over the generations, it's only when the Westerners of foreigners came into the country, we were the ones who got typhus fever. And so the town doctors, they never thought it existed in that part of the world. Later on, it was actually found out, yet there was typhus. So when I got my typhus fever, it went into hospital. And you really feel sick? Very sick. I was a very healthy, fit young man. I got so sick and felt so terrible. And then it quite depressed a life away from home. There was a time when first evening was in this hospital with a drip in my arm, feeling like death. And at 6 p.m. it was in the monk's ward, about a dozen beds, with a nurse having their desk at the front of the ward. The nurse, a male nurse, left by seven 8:00. The replacement nurse hadn't come in. So I asked the monks sitting next to me, you know, in my broken tie. When is the replacement nurse coming? Should we tell someone they haven't turned up? And the monk next to me said, what do you mean, night nurse? There is no night nurse. We only have a nurse during the day. And if something goes wrong at nighttime, it's just bad karma. You know that. That never really helped. I was terrified, so that was the situation we're in. Third world country, third world hospital. And you were very sick and you felt depressed and and weak. And then. And then Ajahn Chah came into the war just to see me. But even by then, there was this great big monk and now your hero and teacher, and he came all the way just to see me. And as soon as I saw him walking the ward towards me. Ah, you felt so uplifted. It's great having visits like that in the hospital because it just gives you more. More, uh. Was it. It builds up your morale. You feel good that someone actually cares for you. And light has come all this way to visit you. And he came right by my bedside. And I didn't feel sick at all for about a minute. And that's when he told me, this is the teachings you get when you're sick. He said, Ajahn Bob. He didn't say. Then he said, sir, you'll either get better or you'll die. And then he walked out. Thank you very much. Great tea sir. And it was a great teacher because, you know. Afterwards you think about that. How could you find fault with that? My problem was, I didn't like feeling sick. You know, being sick. That doesn't feel nice at all. It's painful. It's humiliating sometimes, but it doesn't matter. Remember, the next time you're sick, it won't last. You either get better or you'll die. Either way, the sickness won't last. What a bit of teaching that is. Because why is it when you're sick, you get upset? You can't stand the pain, the sickness, the weakness? Isn't it nice to know it won't last? You'll die. So there is all sorts of wisdom teachings. You've gotten so straight away. And you had a sickness. You remember? No, it's only body. You're going to die anyway. Might as well get it over and done with as soon as possible. But you are going to die anyway, aren't you? Do you really want to die when you're an old age? Have you ever been to old age homes? So it is not very nice sometimes. So why don't you say when you get to be 16, you got cancer? Well, P. I don't like to go to old people's home. They got a really weird idea about life and death. But of course, in Buddhist countries, we believe in reincarnation or rebirth and karma. Just really, Buddha shouldn't be afraid of death. And that's when the other things I learned by staying in these places, whenever anybody died, we would actually have the funeral out in the open. There's a cheap box. He would put the, the the corpse inside. And there were the villagers would collect the wood from the forest and put it into a pie and put the coffin on top and burn it right there. But before they burned it, all the monks would go up and have a look. There was a wonderful thing to do to see a real dead body. And this was not an embalmed body over here in Australia. But before you can see it, it's been embalmed. These guys in the funeral parlor, or girls they injected with so many chemicals. They make sure the mouse was smiling and they looked peaceful. How many times when you go and see a loved one, you say, oh, they look so peaceful. This is the dead body. The dead body is not peaceful. That's just the skill of the undertaker. You see a real dead body. They look gray, no color in them at all. Mosely, the mouse is open. But because of funeral directors, they just do that to make you feel good. But sometimes just making you feel good is actually taking away the truth, the reality of these things. So because people couldn't afford these things, it was just no reality. You really saw dead bodies and they never looked like what I see these days when I go to funeral services. And it was great, you could touch it and be with it and realize today you one day you'll be the same. You know, it wasn't scary at all. It was actually liberating truth. Reality is never scary when you really understand it. It's the other thing which causes the problems. Now the fantasies, the dreams, the lack of reality in our life when we face death. Ours is a relief in a sense, because our body, we don't want to keep this body going for too long, and it's a release. So when you actually see this and also so you've also learned about, you know, how to actually do a cremation. Because sometimes I don't know if you know this, but over in those cremations they always put the body on the side. If it's going to be one of these open air cremations. And I always saw these villagers, it always makes sure that the body was on its side. But sometimes it actually would because of its an open fire turn on its back, and then you realize why you'd never burn anybody on their back. Because this is the nature, the heat and the muscles. Something contracts. Something expands because of the muscles being burnt. And I saw once the body liner is fat because the muscles contracting, sit up. Not only sit up for the right arm, lift it up to. And a finger came out. The door to do that. It's very spooky. It's only nature. But that's why that's what happens. And so these actually, you know, what you were dealing with as a young monk. So you, you really light up there face to face with old age sickness and death. Sometimes people think, oh, you monks, you'd just live in a, you know, in the real world, you know, you don't have to go to we don't have to face the things which we have to face. But a lot of times as a man, you see things which no one else can see. You're not allowed to see it. So you see a lot of really fascinating and interesting truth about the nature of life. You know, we don't just do sort of I say marriages and funerals. Now, I was saying in Thailand, we do this marriage ceremonies. I think we should start a Buddhist divorce ceremony as well, because, you know, when you have the marriage ceremonies, you know, the two people go up there together and they make their vows and they exchange rings. And they say to us too, how much I love you, and I will love you forever. My daddy can do a divorce sermon as well, but as divorce, only the two of them get up there together and they say, I hate your guts. I don't know why I ever married him. I miss them exchanging rings, I guess. Right? Now, I don't think I've put this divorce. Divorce? Emily would ever have much weight. It's a rite of passage, isn't it? I suppose, but anyhow, these are the things which you learned from Thailand as those monks. So it's actually really. It was real Buddhism, actually. And he saw that people who lasted the course, that the monks who stayed there for a long time, when you were seeing this, you became so detached from the world, but still have lots of compassion. No sickness. No. You get better what you do. You didn't worry about it, which is one of the reasons why you got a lot better in any sickness. It's a mental stuff. The worry. That's the big killer. It's the same these days are when people do get a cancer. Now, you've heard me say this here before. Say enjoy your cancer. Now, that's not just, you know, being flippant. By changing their attitude to the disease which you have. You're giving yourself an increased chance of survival. Just attitude is the half the problem. Well, I'd say more than half the problem. And so this is what I've learned over there. Maybe because of those attitudes. Not the not the fault finding and a worrying mind worrying about what might happen in the future. Who knows what might happen in the future. Whatever you expect it to be, it'll be different. So because you learn how to let go, you didn't carry your cancer around or your divorce around or whatever. You throw things away very quickly. You saw that you practice that. You learned that you did that. And so going through this training, you see, it wasn't just sitting on your cushion on your back meditating all day. It was just learning from the lifestyle. Oh, I should actually mention the arms round because when I first did the arms round I was really embarrassed. Because I came from a rich country and there I was now, man with a big degree, coming from a rich country, begging for food from these people who were dirt poor, subsistence farmers. I got felt very guilty at first hand. How could I receive food from these people? I should be going back to England and working and sending them donations and money. And then one day we were invited to a house to get our food. So we did go on arms round that morning. And that afternoon the headmen of the village came to see us to apologize. And I couldn't understand this. Why are you apologizing for that? We didn't come in arms around. You'd have more food today. You should be happy. Ah, those beggar monks haven't come today. But they were really upset that we never went to their village to receive food that day. That's when I started to understand what this alms food is all about. What generosity is all about. It's not that I needed to accept their food was they really needed to give. And I just opened just a huge wisdom about giving and receiving as a as a monkey. Yesterday morning in Bangkok airport yesterday evening, rather, this woman gave me some new shoes. They were terrible shoes. I hope she's not listening to this, by the way, in Bangkok. Or maybe I've already done it. Now I'm in trouble. She gave me these terrible new shoes and of course, my last comfortable shoes as I put away. And I wore her shoes in the airport and she was so happy. I wore her shoes. Of course, as soon as I got to Singapore, I took the bus from where? My old bus. But this is how what I learned. It's not that I need shoes. Many of you would say I've already got a good pair of shoes. I don't need yours. Take them away. Never do that because she needed to give it to me. And I needed to make her happy. And that's what he learned. Of what ails food business. The reason why, monks, we've got no money. We can't handle money now. We can't keep food. We can't cook food. We are deliberately, intentionally dependent. And how many people want to be independent? Self-sufficient? I don't need anyone in this world. It's a terrible world to live in. Being independent, self-sufficient. I don't need anybody. The Buddha told his mother. You have to be dependent completely. I can't eat tomorrow morning without somebody coming to give me some food. Even the clothes I wear, given everything I have, is given. This is a beautiful tradition. What it means is connecting with another person. Please understand that if anybody, especially your loved ones, if they give you something, even if you don't want it, please accept it because it's respecting someone has gone out of their way to actually offer you a present. Please respect the gift or rather the attitude, the thought behind the gift, and accept it and wear it, even if it's only just for one day. When I come back and see you again, take it out of the cabinet. Wear it again. Make them happy. And when I understood about what generosity was as a Western, I never understood that before. I always thought in a generosity meant, oh, you know, the orphanage needed something. You give it to them also because they needed it. I never understood that generosity because was I, as a human being, need to give to others? And these days, because I got no money to give, I just give my life going around all over the world, teaching this and teaching that work on my butt off and getting really tired. But I don't care. I have good fun because even though you really give, give give give give give give give give. I know what it's like. Even at the airport in Bangkok, I saw a couple of copies of my book on. So I went into the bookshop with just a couple of cups of my book I'd sell. And then the guys would be looking at it and recognised me and said, oh, would you sign his books? I thought, gee, everywhere I'd go after slide books. My poor had even come back here this evening. I have to sign books, but I don't ride. It's just my way of being able to give something. Oh, look, I just come back from a long trip overseas Friday, and I had to go give a talk. No, I enjoy this because my way of giving is not that you need to listen to a talker. Someone that I need to give. It's part of being a human being. So these are the things which I learned. Compassion, what real generosity is and how to accept gifts and how to be dependent. How to form his relationships with other people as well. Giving and receiving, knowing how to do that properly. There's another positive reinforcement that's a beautiful basket you've made there. Even though it doesn't matter how much I praise, probably, I know that I won't sort of, uh, I'll be true to it was a lie. It was a terrible basket. They did that just to give a bit of praise and encouragement. And it works. And it's not attaching to things, not worrying about the future or the past. It's all gone. Learning how to forgive. Not worrying about old age, sickness and death. This isn't this beautiful freak. You talk about detachment and having no craving and being peaceful. Being kind. This was actually in action. And so you lived in these monasteries and people were just living that life. And that was the most inspiring thing of all. You can read about it, you can discuss it, you can write essays about it. But seeing and actually practice of lived. That's the most inspiring thing of all. And the last story. I'm going over time now, the most impressive memory I have ever will have of my teacher adventure work. Now I'm going to tell two stories. Have you done right? Just the last. When he became famous, all these famous people started visiting him and giving him six. And he always was saying, because this is what generosity is. I remember when this Thai general came to see me. You all know, even I don't think it had done if they formed a new government yet in Thailand. But there was a military coup. The generals in Thailand have always had a lot of power, and this was a time when they had absolute power and there was always military people running the governments. So this general came to see us and Shah for a blessing. As then this agent. I was sitting on his seat and his big general, and had all his other military people were there in the back on his off side as the teller generals or majors or whatever whole convoy came into the monastery. This general came up and said, can I have a blessing and have some holy water blessing right outside in heavily holy water? He said, no man, come over here. And this guy bent in front of him and as a charge spat on his hair and rubbed it in. And I was sitting at her older. I said to his God, over the top. This time he can't get away with this. He did. He rubbed it in and the touch had all side to side to side to side. How can he get more holy water than at his own spit? Who's a joker? I said, so it was great to be around because I always kept you on your toes. And this was actually the rituals of holy water in that water story. But then, anyway, there's one last story I saw. Asked me to go out to his room. I need only ever allow just. I think usually the one man who looked after him. Do you ever go up to his room? They asked me to go up there to get something. I always remember this. I was so excited. At last I can go and see how my teacher lives. I've seen him in action. I've seen his teachings. You won't actually see how he lives now in public. Some people are one way, but in private they're another person. And when I went up into his room, I almost cried. There's nothing there. There's a mat, a grass mat, a wooden pillar, one robe or something on the line. Nothing else. No knickknacks, no sort of pictures on the wall, no photographs, nothing. And this was a monk at the height of his fame, having all these very wealthy people offering all sorts of stuff. He kept nothing that's the sign of an enlightened person who lives in this world fully famous. Her piece very beautiful, very kind, very wise. You go and see where they live and there's nothing there. That's what I remember. Buddhism actually being lived around. Sometimes I would. Oh my God, why would I want to be watched? So I can tell by the anonymous on. Third party panel I go, I go somewhere else and go.