The Right To Believe?

The Right To Believe by Ajahn Brahm For today's talk. I'm always trying to apply the Buddhist teachings to the problems of everyday life and typing I'm going to be talking about this evening. It's a challenging topic is the the right to believe, and this was motivated by many things in the last week. One was seeing a documentary which somebody showed me on a DVD from channel four, BBC of Richard Dawkins The Root of All Evil, which was all about the problem of fundamentalist beliefs in our world, which was quite shocking, just to see how the sorts of hatred which can be inspired by a belief that it makes you start to think of your beliefs and just how solid they are and whether they are going to be dangerous. But it's also because that a belief in many different ways really affects, you know, our society. And sometimes you ask the question, you know, with religious freedoms. Have you got a right to believe in whatever you want? And if so, what? Why are they supposed to be restrictions? So this is a very powerful topic. I'm not sure whether I can do justice to it because, as usual, it's always temporary without any plan of what I'm going to speak about. But based on some of the understandings of the dharma of Buddhist teachings and the nature of the mind, and how the consciousness works and how beliefs are formed and the danger of following those beliefs. So this is a talk on the right to believe, and I would actually say that most of us would accept the fact that some beliefs, one does not have the right to believe in anything, and to point out the reason why I say that there's some times that people do suffer from that terrible disease of schizophrenia. You know, where they can believe that someone is speaking to them to kill all prostitutes. All, I've had a command for what they think is of a God, you know, to sort of, you know, blow up the government, whatever it is that those beliefs which people have and their sincerely believed in, they are obviously regarded by our community as a source of beliefs which you have no rights to believe in at all, because they're dangerous to yourself and dangerous to others. And such a person would, uh, be seeking or be obliged to take some medication. There are extreme views, which I think everyone would say, you have no rights to believe in such things. And that's an extreme. But that establishes the fact that we have no right to believe in anything. And there are other sort of beliefs which may not be as dangerous, but can can be so dangerous can be almost as dangerous. Certainly we talk about the beliefs of the suicide bombers, the beliefs and of the people who throw the aircraft into the Twin Towers and the beliefs in people who would oppress, you know, the female gender or people would oppress those who are following a gay lifestyle. Have they got the right? To hold that belief that say homosexuality is a sin. I think that many of us here would actually say no, that that is the wrong view. And they have no right to believe in that, because such belief is not a personal issue anymore, because beliefs aren't something which one just carries around in one's head, or which one just expresses on the Sabbath day, or the Sunday, or the Saturday, or here on a Friday night by coming to a Buddhist temple or a mosque or a church or something. The beliefs which one has, that's what informs and generates one's actions. The way one speaks, the way one acts, what one does in life or comes from one's beliefs. And so if in a society we identify that some beliefs are dangerous, should they be allowed to exist? Is that sort of, uh, not being responsible? For our society. There is a huge problem here on the right of beliefs. But you understand what I'm talking about here. I think the most. The problem is that the beliefs are usually in the wrong things. We do have what we call most like a priority list of beliefs. Now, what is the most important and what is the least middle importance of what is the least importance in our belief systems? And what I understand in Buddhism is like it's a categorization. It's a priority of beliefs when they are not put in the right order, create the problems of violence and the dysfunctional society. Basically, you know, we're believing in the wrong things first when they should really come. Second, some years ago I remember reading an article. It was many years ago, maybe 10 or 15 years ago, when some fundamentalist, I think it was, it could have even been six, or it could have been Muslims in north of India that they burned a stall and killed the proprietor and his wife of a tiny store. Because they sold liquor, they sold alcohol. At the time I thought to myself, yeah, and I don't agree with selling alcohol. You know, as a monk, you know, that sort of. We have five presets. We're not supposed to have alcohol. And even just the other day, I caught a Amandus and he had this, um, this is our one of our Agaricus. He had some soya sauce, so we had to get rid of it because the soya sauce had 2.5% alcohol. And even that amount is very dangerous to monks. You can imagine the boss shaking soya sauce and getting merry. Actually happened once that. Not sure when the last time I told this story. The four monks. Actually one of them here was was here a few days ago. A few weeks ago, visiting, not Argentina, but it's another man. He's actually a person I don't mind telling the name. He wouldn't mind. He received some wine gums from his family in Canada for Christmas. And, you know, usually wine gums. You think they're just sweets, but these wine gums had real wine in them now it's okay. You know, maybe, you know, the last time you had alcohol was maybe on a year ago, or I hope not five minutes ago. But if it was like a monk many, many years ago, your sensitivity to that really goes up. And so just wine gums, you shared it out with three of his friends and we had four very merry monks. I got I got my funny stories. Now, I can't resist this story either, because, you know, many of you, you know, you know, with great love and respect. Argentina. Damo, you know, he was he was here again very recently. He stayed such a long time in our monastery. He's a very wonderful monk and a good friend. I just he called me up on some other business yesterday, but apparently that he was on a flight from Adelaide because that's where he was born, in Adelaide, back here to Perth, because he stayed in Perth when he's seven, 8 or 9 years or something. And it was a really nice monk, a very good monk, very well behaved, good meditator, great sort of speaker. And when he came off the plane in Perth, he smelled like a distillery. He literally did. He told me what happened. He said when he went on the plane in, in, um, Adelaide, he was sitting next to this business person who was terrified of flying. But that was the only way to get to Perth quick enough. And the only way to overcome his fear was actually partaking of the free alcohol, which was given on board. So he had a glass of whisky as soon as they took off. And he had kept on getting more whisky and more whisky. And so he was talking to Argentina. I was sitting next to him and just, you know, trying to find some ways of overcoming his fear. And Argentina was teaching him some Buddhism, but he was still drinking the whisky. And unfortunately, by the time they get to Perth, it's only a maybe 2.5 hour flight. He had so much whisky. He was already a sort of, you know, not all that stable. And they hit turbulence when he had a full glass of whisky in his hand, and it went right over Argentina, the most rope. And it was just before he landed. And so that's why when he came out, you know, he smelled he reeked of whisky. And that's the story he told us. I'm not sure it was correct. It was right. It's very embarrassing. It's a bug. You know, when you smell of whiskey, especially a stadium rock like that. But anyhow. So a lot of times I did get into this story. Oh that's right. In beliefs. And I know why I see people have these very, very, very strong beliefs. And what's the effect of those beliefs? Now this the priorities is a problem. And I think that there was a story which I told here many years ago, which, you know, is important to understand why beliefs. We got to have a policeman make sure the most important beliefs are held first and topmost. You know, it's a story which I actually tell at every wedding ceremony. And it's actually in that book, open the door of your heart. I don't mind telling it again, but many of you know the story, maybe even by heart, about the chicken and the duck story. And it's important to understand the story, because I'm going to expand it afterwards about just how it's a prioritizing of beliefs causes a problem. It's okay to have beliefs, but make sure the most important beliefs are held first of all. And that was the story of the couple just freshly married, going for a walk one evening in the forest when they heard a sound. Quack quack quack quack. And straight away the husband said, oh, listen darling, that that's a chicken. It's a chicken. And I thought I said, what do you say, darling? I said, it's a chicken. I know, I said, look, darling, look, chickens go cock a doodle. Do ducks go quack, quack. That was a duck, okay. She said, no no no no no no, that's a chicken I'm sure. Husband said no, it's a duck. And it went quack, quack again. He always said duck. He said no, it's a chicken. He said, it's a duck. She said, it's a chicken. He said, it's a duck. D you c k duck. Have you got it? She started to cry and she said, bup, bup, but it's a chicken. And then he realized what was very important while he married her, he thought, squeezed her hand and said, I'm sorry, darling, I think you are right. There is a chicken. And it went quack, quack again. And the pair of them walked happily all evening without any problem. Now, those of you who have heard the story before, you will know that every time I tell this story, I switch it around. Who says it's a chicken and who says it's a duck? Otherwise, people will really get me for gender discrimination. In that particular case, it was a man who was a smart feller. He was a compassionate, wise one for two reasons. Number one, is it really important being right about chickens or ducks? Is that really important what that man realize? It's more important to have harmony and peace than to be right about whether it's a chicken or a duck. He had his priorities right, and this is why I told his story again here. And number two, I often say, is sometimes you really think that what you believe is right when it could be wrong. That could have been a genetically modified chicken. Man made us out like a duck. Now you can see how beliefs cause the arguments and the problems. During the meditation we had wonderful argument back there there, which I'm sure you heard as I heard in the house next door. Why do we have arguments like that between our loved ones? It's because one we believe we're right. Another people have actually told that story. For so many years now. People have actually given me articles. They gave me an article of this one person. They had a chicken, and it was raised with a group of ducks. And it is a chicken, which actually does go quack, quack. Literally there are such beings around. So, you know, you can be wrong. But actually that gives me another reason of telling that story, gives me the introduction to tell this evening's real joke. And this joke is dedicated to Argentina Gyatso in Sydney, who told me this joke yesterday morning. And it's about the two chickens. So another story. The two. The two ducks. Even I get it wrong. But these were two ducks swimming in a pond. Two ducks swimming in a pond and one duck went quack, quack. And the other duck said, damn it, I was going to say that. It's a stupid joke. It's so funny. Anyway, back to the reality of like, beliefs. The point was there that that man. Or when I tell it the other way around, when the man says is the chicken and the wife says, oh, you're right there, the most important thing isn't the most important thing. Just having peace and harmony together. So if we believe in that first we believe in peace. We believe in harmony. We believe in love, number one. And then whether it's a chicken or a duck or whether God created the world, whether is reincarnation or whether you know that Allah was the last prophet or whatever, keep that secondary. And if we have the right priorities for our belief systems, I think then, you know, we have solved much of the problem about sort of the beliefs in the world and the way they create difficulties and problems in the world. And the other example of that, which I love saying is, you know, that story some years ago, when the Marines in Guantanamo Bay flashed a copy of the Koran down the toilet. Now, you all heard about that. And when they flushed the Koran down the toilet, there was a big uproar in the Muslim world. And at the same time, here in Alabama, a couple of days later, someone asked me at Question Time, what would you do if somebody flushed a Buddhist holy book down the toilet and you could see those Buddhist holy books? We got them in the library. They're the thick volumes. What would you do as a Buddhist if someone flushed a Buddhist holy book down a toilet? And I said, if they flushed the Buddhist holy book down the toilet, I'd call a plumber. That's most important. To get. But more important than that, and the reason I get to tell this story is his priorities. I said, you can flush the Buddhist holy book down the toilet, but I'm not going to allow you to flush Buddhism down the toilet. You can blow up the Bamiyan Buddha statues, but I'm not going to allow you to destroy what the Buddha taught. Peace. Forgiveness. Harmony. You can blow up all the temples, the Buddhist temples in the world. You can kill all the monks and nuns. But please never allow them to kill your peace, your harmony, your forgiveness, your love. Because that's the most important. What it's doing here is understanding the difference between what I call the containers and the contents. And I think it's the contents has got always higher priority than the containers. And the containers are the Buddha statues, the books, the monks, the nuns, the temples. They contain something which people really believe in. Why you come here? You don't believe in. Not a mirror. No, that's just a suburb. Even this center here. You don't believe in the bricks and the the roof and the concrete here. You don't even believe in the monks and nuns. At least I hope you don't. Otherwise, you're missing the point. You certainly don't believe in the. The bronze Buddha statue over there. It's just a piece of metal, that's all. But hopefully you believe in what it stands for. But, you know, you do really believe in the power of peace. You really do believe in the power of light. Forgiveness now. In love, in freedom. And these are the things that once you prioritize those sure that if you do destroy the temple and somebody comes and blows it or burns it down tonight. You don't allow that to destroy what this whole temple represents. And the peace, the freedom. That's why you come here for. So it's important to actually prioritize our systems of beliefs. What's the most important? First of all. And I think if all religion could only see the contents of their containers, are the books, the symbols, you know, even that thing about the cartoons, they're just worrying about the containers. Why allow a few cartoons to destroy the peace, the love and the forgiveness? The mercy. If we understand that what's really important to prioritize, then we can believe in what's really, really important. First of all. I think it's because of that that the right to believe should be prioritized. First of all. So we believe in the important things, first of all, and the secondary things here, we can, you know, believe in them, but not at the expense of what's really, really important. When you understand the prioritizing of beliefs, I think then you can understand that why there should be no absolute right to believe in this sort of secondary or the tertiary beliefs, you know, things like what religion you want to believe in or what practices you want to do when it really infringes on the primary beliefs and the sorts of things like peace and freedom and love and forgiveness and nonviolence. I think those are primary. When we do that, then we can understand that when you come to a place like this, but what we're really teaching is not sort of a cult. Because it's interesting actually, that talking about those cults, when we first opened shop here in Perth, 24, 25 years ago, we had a small centre in North Perth which many of you know, were there at the time when we opened up that centre and, you know, one of our caretakers, now that, you know, she, uh, was there in those early days and she said yes, early days. She received a visit from the cult buster of Perth, who was trying to find out whether these Buddhists were a cult. Now, being a really nice Australian girl, just very kind, just really down to earth, really pleasant. The cult buster was taken aback by her just friendliness. So this can't be a cult nice Australian girl like this. You know, being friendly and inviting me in for a cup of tea. But actually, when he went into this small house where we lived, he had the room with the Buddha statue. It's the same Buddha statue was in the room just over there, which we moved over here. And as soon as he saw that, ah, he screamed and ran away. So sometimes they think that just because his images were about a cult. But over those years, obviously we're not a cult. As I keep on saying to you and to my monks, my main purpose in life as a teacher is to get rid of you, not to get more disciples. Just like as a school teacher, you know, you teach the classes, you want people to graduate. You want people to know exactly how to live their lives, and about wisdom and how to meditate so they don't need to come back anymore. I must be a terrible teacher because some of you keep coming back week after week after week. Talk about remedial, slow learners. But of course, the whole purpose now of this type of religion is not to take your power away, but to empower you, empower you to find your way through the thicket of views, as the Buddha called it, to find your way of, you know, through this idea of beliefs and which is the right one, which is the wrong one, and how can you decide? Again, right and wrong. Put that all in terms of those prime primary beliefs, the highest level of beliefs, because you realize that that is really important. That is what inspires you. That is what liberates you. That is what you everybody wants to see grow in this world. And forgiveness, love, peace, freedom, whatever. Those high level plays cut them number one, and then you. It's very easy to find your way again through those thickets of views. Because you see now what actually gives rise to peace, to freedom, to love. And what gives rise to, uh, what's it called? Imprisonment and manipulation. Now, what are those, uh, things, which is the common cause, uh, for imprisonment is like the power which comes from imposing people's beliefs on others. And that's one thing which we have to be very, very careful of. And I've been very, very careful of in all the years I've been a teacher, to make sure that you're not imposing beliefs on other people. You're not brainwashing people. You know, one of the best ways of brainwashing people is getting them very quiet and silent for half an hour. First of all, so the brains are open. But no, it's important to encourage people to question. And that brings me on to this wonderful piece of advice, which I heard from one of the monks of our tradition in England, because he was approached by this Western couple who had just given birth to their first child, and now they were inspired to follow the Buddhist path. They were Caucasians, and they came out to this monk and said, look, we just got a child. How shall we bring up our child? Should we bring him up as a Buddhist, or is that indoctrinating our child? Or should we take him now to all the different religions and confuse the hell out of him? Or should we do nothing at all? What should we do? And this is a very good question, which we need to ask because some of you have got your children. You don't want to indoctrinate them. But what you really want to do is to empower them to make wise decisions for themselves. And the answer which this man gave is just so Buddhist, but clearly so. He said, encourage your children in two things. Number one, to always question, keep questioning and questioning and questioning and questioning. And when your child questions and you say no, just believe. Don't do that. Encourage their questioning. And number two, encourage them in honesty, not just like speaking truthfully, but at the honesty of the mind. So you won't accept something if it does not make sense. So keep on questioning and only stop when you can honestly say to yourself, yeah, that fits my experience. That makes sense. Okay. I'll accept that for the time being because he said, with that honesty, that intellectual experience or honesty and that always encouraging questioning. He said, your in empowering your child to find the truth for themselves, no matter what that truth happens to be, they will find it for themselves with those two tools. And that was encapsulating something which encouraged me to be a Buddhist. Because you were always allowed to question, you were encouraged to questions, and you never put off questioning. And if you didn't get a straight answer, you can actually say, I don't believe that. And the monks and the teachers I had said, fine, you don't have to believe that. If you don't know, if it doesn't make sense, but keep on questioning. Keep on being honest. Checking your experience. That seemed to be the way of actually finding out, you know, a solid basis for a belief. But then it went further than that because as a monk, I was taught how to meditate. And when you meditate, the mind gets so clear, you find out where all these beliefs come from and just why. Some people hold on to beliefs so stubbornly, even though they know they should know it's really wrong. And it's that stubbornness, the way we hold on to beliefs even though they're completely ridiculous. Which really always interested me. Because why is it that people believe in some of these stupid things? Apparently there was a programme on Scientology a few days ago. Somebody was talking to me about that this morning and say, how can somebody actually believe in such stuff? And that's a great question to ask. Why do people have these beliefs? Where do they come from? And it's the psychology of the mind is such that however, you start with the belief, a lot of times, you know, it's because you have your authority figures, you know, you take them, you know, they must know. And some of those authority figures, they're not just monks. Sometimes people ask, you know, people like Madonna or sort of Justin Timberlake. And he said it. It must be true. We have these celebrities who may be like good musicians, but they haven't got a clue about philosophy on religion. But still, people actually believe what they say. It's amazing to us who in our society we give authority to, and those authority figures have that first influence on our beliefs. Obviously, our parents and our first teachers influence our beliefs immensely. Our peers influence our beliefs. But once those beliefs get in their. It stokes a whole cycle which no other Buddha pointed out is just the way of the cog. The delusion of the cognitive process, I call it. Because once you have a belief, then you perceive according to that belief, and actually what your senses bring to your conscious mind becomes filtered. You don't see or hear or even feel what's there. You see, you feel. You hear what you want to experience or you don't like experiencing. That doesn't even reach conscious consciousness. It's a filtering process happens. And I think you've all experienced that from time to time. When you've fallen in love, when you've fallen in love with that beautiful woman. She is the most wonderful, beautiful woman in the whole world. And you're so lucky that she has chosen you. And other people think, ah, you could do better than that. That's called cognitive distortion. Because. Because you're in love. You want to see the very best in that person. But then, unfortunately, in our society, there comes a time of divorce. And then she looks at him and think, why did I ever marry that guy? He says, no redeeming features in him at all. He's ugly. He's selfish. He's cruel. He hasn't got a caring bone in his own body. It's amazing. But when you've got anger, you can't see any redeeming feature in them at all. Have you ever noticed whenever you get really, really angry at somebody, you're so surprised that other people actually like them? So. When you're very angry again, you're in denial. That belief that they are a terrible person, that they are awful. They are rotten. That actually filters out any redeeming feature coming into your conscious mind. This is just an example amongst many that you actually see. You feel, you hear what you want to believe and what's actually true. This is where beliefs distort our perceptual process. I still remember that time when I had my first glass of beer and it was disgusting. Beer. So English beer. Bitter. No sweetness to it at all. It tasted rotten, but because everybody else liked it, I had to like it pretty quickly. And that's all it needed. And after a few months, I liked the taste of beer. And why is this why you call it an acquired taste? Why is that? It's because we had to like it. I'd already mentioned to you some of the food which I used to eat in Thailand. Like frog on rice. Like grasshoppers. Now, I already heard a few people just, you know, almost right when I said grasshoppers. But you know that the fried grasshoppers, they were actually quite delicious. I quite like them. But what I say that obviously you think. Yuck because of your belief that distorts your perception. And if I gave you a grasshopper to eat now you say yuck. You probably throw up not because it tasted nice or didn't taste nice, but because you believed it doesn't taste nice. A few years ago, many years ago, about 18 years ago, I was invited to Rolly Stone Primary School to teach a class on Buddhism. And again, you know, sometimes it's so busy or you think you're going to teach this year sevens or something. But they gave me year one. How on earth do I teach Buddhism to year one? But always being up for a challenge. This is actually I dealt with it and it was. It's actually I'm quite pleased, you know, that I came up with this idea had about 2 or 3 classes of year ones there. And I asked them, put your hands up if you like rice pudding. Here's the rice pudding story. And about three three kids put their hand up. No sorry. Not they liked if you hated rice pudding, if you didn't like rice pudding, three kids put their hand up. They hated rice pudding. And the other kids looked around, you know, like year one, sir. And so a few other kids put their hand up, too. And it only took about five seconds. And the whole about 50 kids had two hands up. Yes. We don't like rice pudding. Put your hands down, kids. Now put your hands up. If you've ever eaten rice pudding and about six kids put their hands up and all the other kids laughed, so did the parents and the teachers. They got the point. I taught them Buddhism. Just about you distort your likes and dislikes. The peer pressure of your friends, what you really like, what you don't like. Now you understand the peer pressure of belief systems while you go around with other buddies and you think, yeah, Buddhism is the best religion where you go around with Christians who think Christianity is the only way where you hang out with Muslims and you think, you know, we should make Australia a muslim state. Do you understand how this works? Just explained it with the rice pudding story. A lot of times we just assume these things even though we haven't experienced them. And this is the most one of the most important things about the Buddhist teachings. How to overcome these stupid beliefs is actually instead of actually just believing it, just on hearsay, or because it's our tradition, because everybody else believes that, yeah, we don't like rice pudding and you all stick up your hands. Well, yeah, we don't believe in reincarnation, but we do believe in reincarnation. Or we believe in the barn. How many of you believe in Nibbana? Do you even know what you're talking about? What Nibbana actually is. So instead of actually having these beliefs. First of all, we understand how beliefs actually distort your perceptions. So once you have these perceptions now you only receive what confirms what you actually view. Now people look into the sky and they will, you know, if they're a Christian, they're actually see a picture of like, you know, Virgin Mary or something looking to the sky. And you were, say, a Buddhist. You might see Guanyin, the goddess of mercy or whatever. It's amazing what people see. And what they're seeing is not what's there, but what they project onto reality. And once you have your perceptions, you form your thoughts from your perceptions. You think according to how the data comes into your consciousness. Your whole thinking process then reaffirms your view. Yes, I was right. A very stunning example of this was actually in Raymond Moody's book, I think, Life After Life. It was a book of like people who had out of the body experiences on near-death experiences and a classic cases of floating out of your body going to the light. But this particular part of the story was who you saw when you went to the other side of the light, because I don't know if any of you have had those experiences or know people had those experiences, but some people actually, they go to the light and they see Jesus Christ and they come back afterwards. Christianity was right. I've actually seen Jesus in that near-death experience, and I go to church every week after that. But this said Tom Moody, because Doctor Moody and Tom Moody was a cricketer. Sorry. Doctor Moody. He was in one of these very, um, poor areas in these hospitals where they had people from different faiths. It was a multicultural society around the hospital. So it didn't just get Christians, not just Protestants. He got a few Catholics as well. When the Catholics went through the light, they didn't see Jesus. They saw the Virgin Mary. So it's quite clear to them that Catholicism was right. And this was their experience had actually seen the Virgin Mary. But there's also some Hindus, they saw Lord Krishna. Some Jews, they saw Moses. Some Buddhists, they saw Guanyin. And there was even atheists as well. And guess who they saw, Uncle George. And when I read all of that, it was really fascinating. What's going on there? And I wrote about this in a little book about mindfulness, bliss and beyond. Is it the case that, you know, when you go up to heaven there, there's a big waiting room and sort of, you know, all these people there know Jesus is there, Virgin Mary is there is there. Moses was there, Buddha is over there. And they were waiting to see who's coming up and say, oh, said Catholic Virgin Mary, you'd better take care of this. Now here comes a Buddhist, you know. So, Kwan Yin, you look after this one. It's one of yours. No, it's an atheist. Uncle George, come on, your turn. Obviously that that's just being being a cheeky. That's not what happens, obviously. And because I know the nature of the mind, I know exactly what happens. This is how I see it. Everyone sees the same thing, but if they add to it, if they're a Christian because of their beliefs, their perception as to what they see, and they take that and what they see, this beautiful light to be Jesus of the Catholic, they see it as the Virgin Mary, or if they see it as a Buddhist, they see it as who they expect to see when they go up there. And that perception is so strong, it actually changes just the way you view things. You don't see what's there, you see what you expect to see, what you expect to feel, what you expect to know. And you come back from those experiences and your original belief system gets even stronger, is what the Buddha called the danger of our beliefs. They are always self affirming. No matter what belief you have, the craziest of beliefs will always prove themselves to be true. If you believe in something, you'll perceive accordingly. The perceptions will create the thoughts which are the building blocks for the views. When I read that and I understood that, I saw how dangerous beliefs are because everyone who believes in whatever they believe and you always think you're right. I think it was even Aristotle said this, but I worked this out separately. You can never believe you are wrong. That's a logical impossibility. You believe you're wrong. You believe you were wrong. But you think you're right about that. Every belief. You always think you're right. That's why people have arguments outside. We always believe we're right. And the wisdom is when we understand the nature of beliefs, we can always take them as not so important. What you believe to be truth is not so important as the higher beliefs to trust in peace and harmony. Forgiveness. If we don't have that higher priority, there is no hope for this world. We have to have that higher priority of beliefs. Otherwise, in the end, we just go and kill each other or just wreck the whole planet and no one will. I suppose that said in the Bible, the meek shall inherit the earth. But that was before they knew about global warming. So, you know, do you want to inherit that type of verse? So it's much, much better to actually to do something about this belief system by encouraging this questioning and dishonesty, but not only just a question in the honesty, but also the stillness of the mind to go to experiences. One of the biggest delusions in the world is just trusting our thinking process. It's the intellectuals, unfortunately, create the most problem the books of the problem. Because most of the agents hit themselves over the head with their books. Instead of having the books, and the intellectual is much more important to actually to feel the truth, to experience it. I was telling the monks, and you've heard this in some of the meditation instructions I've given to you over the years. The story from Taoism, from Lao Tzu, where he would go for a walk with his disciples or with one disciple every evening. One day he went for a walk with a new disciple. They had a golden rule. You weren't allowed to talk, you know, when you were walking with a master. But this occasion they reached a hillside, a a a sort of a a crest of a hill, and it was sunset. And the student couldn't help but say, wow, what a beautiful sunset. But which the master turned around, who would never allow that disciple to go on a walk with him ever again? He'd broken the golden rule. When the other students say, why are you being so strict? The master said. And this is the most important point. When that student said, what a beautiful sunset. He wasn't watching the sunset anymore. He was only watching the words, his watching the words, not the sunset. And this is a problem with beliefs. When we watch words rather than the thing which they're trying to describe, we usually get it all wrong. When we watch the read the books, either thinking what the books, what they're pointing to, we get it all wrong. So it's important that we become much more experiential than intellectual. You know, with our search for the right truth in which to believe in. And again, this is what the Buddha was saying. By practicing your meditation, you're actually empowering the mind to become more, uh, truthful in the way it experiences the world. Instead of just experiencing the world in darkness, we have a bright mind which can see and perceive far more deeply than ordinarily, and with those deeper perceptions, what we call in Buddhism insight, we can really undermine some of these very ridiculous beliefs which people have. And ridiculous beliefs are very important to undermine. Otherwise, we're going to destroy ourselves on this planet. It's a belief that, you know, if you sort of kill for the love of God or the love of Buddha or whatever, you go to some heaven. Well, and if you follow your internal sort of, uh, experience or feelings, that can't be right. But if you go to the books and the peers and you don't question, you have no honesty, people can believe that it's the right thing to do to go and kill for the sake of God. It's a very dangerous belief. If we could only start to get people to be still and see for themselves rather than believing in the thinking process, then we may have a chance to actually to undermine those dangerous beliefs and to reinstate the more important beliefs and the priority of beliefs, which I said earlier. And so as Buddhists. Yeah, I'm a Buddhist, and it's the peace and the freedom and the the the harmony, the love that I was most important. Then I say, well, you know what type of Buddhist are you? You know Theravada. You know, this is I'm supposed to be a Theravada monk or the Mahayana or Hinayana or Vajrayana. It's got the, uh, the Dalai Lama coming soon in a few weeks time. And he's supposed to be a yarn. And monk, I'm supposed to be Hinayana monk or Theravada. Another monk. Some Mahayana monk. We all know which Buddhism I follow. It's not Mahayana. It is. Haha. That's right. I like to follow the Mahayana school of Buddhism. Have you been a fan of gays with your spiritual life? Don't be so serious. It's very hard to blow someone up when you're laughing all over your face. I'll get into a big argument with somebody. Have you ever noticed how laughter creates harmony amongst people? When you laugh, you always laugh together. So sometimes when you crack a joke with, oh, what's that? Another thing about beliefs. I don't know when the last time I told this, this old joke about the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury deciding which was right. Christianity or Catholicism or Protestantism. And they had a big debate and having a debate about these things, they got nowhere deciding. So they decided in the end to have a golf match. And because, you know, obviously, you know, there's only one God. And if God was a Catholic, he'd make sure the Pope won. If God was a Protestant, then the archbishop would win. So to let God decide, you know, through the game of golf. Who was going to win? So they decided on this and the the the, uh, the terms were if the Pope won and the Archbishop of Canterbury and all the Protestants would convert to Catholicism, and if the Archbishop of Canterbury won, then the Pope would become a Protestant. So it's big stakes. So you can imagine what it was like, really, really nervous. And it was a very, very close contest. All came down to the last hole, the 18th hole. And by that time the Pope was two strokes ahead. However, however, the archbishop, you know, he did a good tee shot. He was in the hole in three. And the Pope got into the green just in two. If he holed his putt, he would win by two strokes. So he asked his caddie, who happened to be a nun. For his putter. And he got his putter. He lined up and he was a pretty on good form. And the Pope lined up the putter, and he hit the ball straight for the hole. But it went too hard. It rhymed the whole when? About three foot the other side. And because of his excitement, the Pope said, damn it, mist! He swore. And the nun crossed herself and said, you know, Your Holiness, you shouldn't swear. You know, that's the game. You know, against what we're supposed to be doing. You're the Pope, the leader. You should swear like that. And the Pope said, I'm terribly, terribly, terribly sorry. Just the excitement. I do apologize. I know this is important. You know, now I have to hold this one to win. And if I don't hold this one, I'm in big trouble. So he. He threw out his putter and he hit the ball. Went way past the hole again. He said, damn it. Missed. And I said, look, I warned you. Crossing herself, you shouldn't tempt the Lord. And he said, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I've got this part to draw. And if I miss this one, I'd have to become a Protestant. And so he took the pot putter and he hit it this time, went straight towards the hole, but stopped a millimeter short. And he said dab. It missed. And before the done had a chance to cross herself, there was a big roar of thunder from the sky, and a lightning bolt came down and hit the nun and killed her. And the voice from the sky came out. Damn it! Missed. I'll show you how that one before. So whatever. That's no way to settle your differences and find out who's wrong and who's right. So when I believe this, and you've got to be very, very careful to understand where beliefs come from, always to challenge those beliefs. Because this is, you know, that's a joke, but it's an important problem in our life. Please remember that story of the chicken and the duck, because a lot of times our beliefs, you know, we think being right about a chicken or a duck or being right and about whether God's a Protestant or a Catholic or a Buddhist or whatever, those are stupid questions. We should not give them importance. Otherwise we create so many wars, we'll not have any harmony between the peoples of our world. Isn't it more important we put things like compassion, peace, freedom, love, even wisdom, if you like, high up. So if you come here and people say, well, you know, you're a Buddhist, what do you believe in? Do you believe in Buddha or do you believe in God? Or what do you believe in? Do you believe in reincarnation? Wouldn't it be a wonderful thing to say? I just believe in peace. I believe in compassion. I believe in investigation and questioning and honesty. You say you believe in those things. I think you are telling other people what's really, really important. And I think that if they're a real good Christian or good Muslim or good Jew or whatever, and they say, wow, yeah, I can believe in those things as well. We're having a belief in something which is important, which is not going to create problems and difficulties in the world, and we have a right to those beliefs. But I don't think we have the right to abandon those beliefs, to destroy those beliefs for something which is secondary. I don't think anyone has the right to destroy their marriage over being right by whether it's a chicken or a duck. That is stupidity. What I think, do we have a right to destroy our world by abandoning peace, compassion, forgiveness, harmony for just whether you should be a Tibetan Buddhist or a Thai Buddhist, or a Buddhist or a Christian or a Protestant or a muslim or a Jew or whatever. I think those are lesser beliefs, although we have a right for that. So the right to believe. What is that right to believe and what is belief? So those are just some reflections for you to take home with you, hopefully to create a peaceful, happier and wiser world. Thank you. Okay. Any comments or questions about that? Yes. We did the whole process. Um, so the opinions are not here now. So, uh. We got to see the problem at the time we moved from this crisis. We will be anonymous from. The. End of 1979. But before I got. Okay. You asked me the question for the tape about living in the unknown. And, uh, so suggesting that many people they adopt a belief are because that of, uh, to overcome the fear of the unknown. And it's two aspects of that which I got from your question, which I just, uh, summarized in brief, first of all, the unknown of the future. And sometimes some of our belief systems are there because they're guaranteeing that's what they say anyway, guaranteeing happiness, success, freedom, whatever it is, I bless for the future. Believe in this. And then you go to heaven, or you get the the virgins or whatever else you believe, and you can believe in that particular system of, uh, beliefs. And it is one of the important points to people to understand is that the only way to get a happy future and a successful future, a safe future, is to invest in your energy, in the present moment, because this is where the future is born. This is where it's generated. This is where we build our future now. And putting off that, building that work to create a good future till tomorrow or even the next moment is too late. That's why when you understand how this present moment builds our future, and we understand that it's not sort of just trusting in the unknown, we're making that sort of indeterminate future more productive, more safe, more happy. The more we look after this present moment, by looking after this moment, you're creating a positive future for yourself. In other words, by making good karma now you get the results in the future. I love karma, but I just put it in knowing that the future is generated here and now. There's also the the fear of the unknown. What's working, what's happening? You know, who am I? What's the meaning of life and all those sorts of questions. And again, I think that is because we're not encouraged actually to do the work to empower person to ask those questions, to feel them, to know them for yourself. You don't need to be university professor to know the answer to those questions. These aren't intellectual questions. A lot of people because they didn't do so well at school, because they're not university professors in philosophy. They think, how am I supposed to find out the answers to those questions? We're usually in many of those mystic traditions. It's a simple people had the greatest wisdom. What is actually saying? You don't need a degrees to be wise. You don't need to have, you know, got the Beazley Medal to be the smart person. You know, really, that wisdom is nothing to do with the learning we get in schools. In order to know, we need to be confident that we can know. And that's you know what? Sometimes our grading system in school takes away from us our confidence. And that's exploited, you know, by people who want to impose a belief on you that you can't know for yourself. They say, so believe in us and Buddhism say you are all fully competent to know for yourselves. And Buddhism will help you give you the tools to know for yourselves. That's what mindfulness is all about. Being aware. Not the thinking mind, but the knowing mind. So that when your experience in life you know what's true, you can feel it and you trust in that. And my job and other teachers is to give you confidence to trust in that, rather than any book or any teaching. So the answer the two parts out of the question. First of all, the fear of the future is understanding the importance of the present moment. Go off calm if you like. And secondly, the fear of you know, of how can I know that is by monks like myself giving you the confidence and the tools. So here you are. You can do it. Go and find out. I'm not exploiting people. I'm thinking, no, I can do it. Yes. A question from over here. And I want you to. You know what I mean? Okay. Because Tara Varda is saying, if you are a follower of Terra Vada teachings, do you become Terra Vada ists? I tried my best to make a joke out of that, but I think some people get it. Though of course, because it's important not to be someone who destroys things. Even if so, you disagree with somebody, don't destroy them. Like you can see the argument in the back there. You know, when we're meditating, there's people destroying each other. That's not the way to be able to talk to another person. You have to get that empathy. First of all, you have to get that friendship that takes a lot of time to get friendship with another person. And then when is friendship? You can actually talk and understand each other. You can listen to each other. Communication only comes from trust. If we don't trust people of different beliefs. When is that fair? There will always be arguments. Trust has to come first. And a good example of that. I'm just saying this the other day. Every year I go to Christchurch Grammar School to give a talk there because father Frank and he's a great guy, kind of Frank Sheehan. He was, I think it was a Catholic, then became an Anglican. Most people go the other way around, Anglicans and Catholics. But you know, he being available went the other way round. So I remember the first time I went to give a talk at his school. Standing there, you know, outside. Because the whole day I was giving talks there, starting off with the assembly in the early morning, and the principal was outside there with the canon faction, who was the, uh, the chaplain of the school and myself. And the principal turned around and said, this is a Christian school, Christchurch Grammar School. It is so funny. When we go, there's a shrine to Jesus Christ. He said, when we go in, we usually bow to, no, uh, a bow our heads a little bit. But you're a Buddhist. You don't have to do this. And I decided to rebel. I said, why? I demand my right to bow to Jesus Christ. And I did that just to stir it up because he really got. You know what's going on here? Buddhist monk doing this. But it gave me the opportunity to say, I can always see something in that shrine which I can respect, and I'm going to bow not to Jesus Christ, because I'm a Buddhist. I'm going to bow to what I see in that image, which I really respect. That's why I compare to it. So what I was doing, I was saying, we've got some common ground that we can always find some common ground. Let's start with the common ground and celebrate our common ground, first of all. And then we can discuss our differences. But let's start with the common ground. First of all, if you don't start with common ground, you start with the differences. You're not going to get nowhere with your wife, with your husband, with your kids, with other people. So that's where we can get. That's why I keep getting invited back every year. So that's actually how we can break down those beliefs, find some sort of common ground, celebrate the common ground. And that common ground would always be peace, freedom, compassion, love. That's more important. Uh, some are some. But about a foot long ago, wanting to be what made me. So uncomfortable. A a a a a more dharma, a Masami. Seperti piano, a water song, a song. Sung Kang Amami.