Unceremonious Buddhism

Unceremonious Buddhism by Ajahn Brahm For this evening's talk, I decided today to talk about unceremonious Buddhism. In other words, that many people sometimes see the ceremonies in religions like Buddhism as having no meaning and sometimes being a barrier towards the real understanding. And I know that many modern people, the more ceremonies they have, the more etiquettes they feel they're obliged to keep than the more or the less likely they are to avail themselves of the beautiful teachings of temples to religions like this. And I know that, uh, some years ago, just, uh, a couple of Buddhists from Perth, they were travelling around Australia and they went to Brisbane and they were looking for the local Buddhist center to find a place where they can listen to some dharma, some teachings, do a bit of meditation. And so, not knowing the area, they rang up one temple and there's only meditation. And then going on there, and straight away they asked, what tradition are you from? And they said, oh, we're from Theravada, which is, you know, our tradition here. And the person on the end of the family said, oh, I'm into their ethnic Buddhism. They called it as if like, you know, terrified. I was just ethnic and just culturally based. And recently, actually, yesterday, I was caught up by one of our monks in Sydney, and he was saying they just got some a document from the immigration in Canberra. They wanted to find out there was a different types of Buddhism in Australia. And we asked, what should we call us now? Is this Thai Buddhism or Sri Lankan Buddhism or Cambodian Buddhism? Is it terrified? Is it Mahayana? What type of Buddhism is it? I started to put down, which is certainly not Thai Buddhism. We've been trying to untie this Buddhism here for a long time. It's not like, you know, Burmese and it's just Australian Buddhism. So because we're Theravada said, call it Australian Theravada. And it means that, you know, as Buddhism goes from place to place, we do adapt slightly. We make new ceremonies, make new ways of doing things to adapt to the local population and to bring people together. Because I know that many of you have come from all sorts of different lands. And, you know, we do keep some of our culture, but there's some of it we leave behind. And I know that many sort of Thai people become here. They lived here for many years. When they go back to Thailand, they think it's home, but it's changed just the same way that I was born in London. Go back to London now. You change is not the same and you're not really English anymore. It's the same with each one of us. We all change our cultures and when we come to a place like this, we want to have some sort of essence of Buddhism, but also that sometimes the ceremonies are helpful. And I know that if you don't have any ceremonies at all, you know, you if you just like muddle through, then you got like not real Buddhism. You go not the middle way, you get the muddled way. And that's sometimes what happens, you know, sometimes, especially Westerners, they throw away so much there's hardly anything left. And that's called a muddled way. However, one of the nice things about this centre over here we do muddle through is like a core. Now what everyone can actually recognize as being Buddhist. And that's why we've been very successful here, you know, getting people from all the different ethnic communities coming together with some Asian Singaporean Buddhists, the ties, the Sri Lankans, the Burmese. And there's look around me, there's people from all of those communities here that Cambodians come along and invite us to go to places that are ours. And so it's been a great success that year to get all the ethnic communities together, plus the Westerners. And why is that? It's because the we manage to actually try to present an authentic, genuine Buddhism, which actually has some ceremonies but takes away the meaningless ones so we can get to the heart of the matter. And this is really what I want to talk about this evening, about what are what are these ceremonies, not just in Buddhism, but in other religions and why do they sometimes create so much difficulty for people? Because people, they just they want to actually to find some meaning in life, some wonderful tools, but for which they can progress and create greater happiness in their life. And when I started looking at Buddhism myself, I look at the story of the Buddha. So this is actually exactly what the Buddha did and how Buddhism started. And he was born into an age where there wasn't a Hinduism. It's wrong to say that Buddhism came from Hinduism, because the Hinduism as we know it today only developed much, much, much later. There was this Brahman ism, this uh uh, religion, if you want to call it that, built on the ancient Vedas, much of it just ceremonies of sacrifice. If you aren't lucky, just go and kill a couple of cows or whatever, and therefore you'll be lucky. You'll be perpetuating the gods. And all those little ceremonies had been there for thousands of years, or at least hundreds of years by the time of the Buddha. And like many people today, they were rebelling against those ceremonies. Why? They became meaningless. And there was a ceremonies which were actually stopping people going to the heart of the ancient religion. So the Buddha rebelled against that and made things incredibly simple. The trouble is, when we make them simple, then people make ceremonies of simplicity. It's terrible just the way that human beings, they love ceremonies so much that when we just do something very, very simple, like have a cup of tea and then we make the tea ceremony out of that. And there's nothing to it at all. And it's like one of my favorite stories when I favorite stories. And I think some of you have heard this before, is that the, the, uh, the chicken ceremony, that chicken ceremony was developed when one person had just had a terrible argument with their wife and went to their favorite monk. So I say, look, I've said some terrible words to my wife. I'm just so fed up with this. When people do have arguments, they may not admit it, but both sides feel terrible. And so the husband went to their favorite man. I feel so bad. What I said to my wife, can you actually do some ceremony or help me sort of overcome my sense of guilt? And he said, yeah, I've got the very ceremony for you. The chicken ceremony. One of the famous Buddhist ceremonies. And we should really do this more often here. Whenever you had an argument with somebody, you can come and do the chicken ceremony. And the chicken ceremony is this he said to this man, said, go to the market and buy a dead chicken from the market and bring it back to me in this temple. And on the way to this temple, I want you to pluck it, take all the feathers out and throw them away. Because now when you come to the temple, I want to pluck chicken, but make sure it's dead first. Correct. Compassionate. So? So this guy didn't know what he was doing? Like many ceremonies. Haven't got a clue what it all about. Because the monk says, okay, we'll do it. And so went to the market. He bought an old chicken and he sort of on the way home, he pulled all the feathers out and he gave it to the bank. Now, what's the second part of the sermon? What do I do next? He said, and the monk said, very good. Give me the chicken. Come back in the morning. So I went home, didn't know what the heck he was up to, and the morning he came to the temple again, first thing I said, now what do I do? And the monk gave him the chicken back and said, no, go back to the market on the same road you came last night. Pick up all the feathers and put them back in the chicken. He said, I can't do that. I probably won't even be able to find the feathers. Then I don't put them back again. They're taken out. And the monk did the last part of the ceremonies, said sir. That's the same. Everything which comes out of your mouth is like a feather plucked from a chicken last night. Once it's out, you can't put it back in again. A lot of the time, you can't even find it. Once it's out, it's gone. And that's a chicken ceremony for you. Which? Which shows you that you better be careful what you say, what you speak. Because as soon as it comes out of your mouth, you can't catch it and put it back in again. And that was the meaning of the ceremony. It was just a skillful means, a way of teaching someone to be more mindful, more careful of what they say. That's all. And most ceremonies started that way, something which was very simple as a very sharp and wise skillful means invented by some monk or nun many, many years ago to actually to help that particular situation. And somehow it gets frozen in some sort of ceremony which people keep on doing time and time again, thinking it has to be done this way. And if you don't, you're going to go to hell. Or even worse. And this is one of the problems with ceremonies. Fortunately, the essential from the very beginning of Buddhism, he said, look, look at these ceremonies. If they're useful for you, then do them. If they're not, don't do them because the ceremonies is just not just what you do. It's a meaning behind it. Your mind, the intention that is paramount. And this was one of the famous and powerful teachings of the Buddha. He's saying karma and what you do and its and its effect in your life and the life of others, that karma is intention. It was an equal like E equals MC squared. Karma is your intention is your meaning. Your goal is a mental thing more than anything else. And that would actually just put it right where it really matters. It does not matter what the ceremony is or what you do. What's most important is why you're doing it, the meaning behind it. That is what is really important. However, for people who have got mindfulness, carefulness, and they know what they're doing in their minds, they can actually see their intentions and they can actually guide their intentions in a proper way for sure. For such people, you don't need to do ceremonies. You can just make that resolution. You can see exactly what you want to do. And and that works. That's good karma. However, for most people, just thinking about it, just their mind is is so muddled that they need something more than just intention. They need to make it physical. They might actually to do something. And this is actually where we take these mental intentions and we sort of bring them out into the world in some sort of action or some sort of speech in order to reinforce and make those inner intentions more clear to ourselves and clear to others. And that's what the meaning of ceremonies are, and externalization of these inner intentions to make it more profound, more pronounced. So we can hear it, we can know it, and so can others. Which is why we have ceremonies. It is why when a person moves house, they want a ceremony. When they get married. They want a ceremony when they become a monk. They want a ceremony. We want to become a Buddhist. They want a ceremony. When they die, they want a ceremony. And there's a monk. I have to do all those ceremonies, and I'm getting fed up with it. Because the ceremonies get more and more complicated. Because people forget what the meaning is, is there are the troubles. You know, sometimes you get, like, the house blessing. And I don't want it once. I want it every year, simply because the person next door had it every year and they said you went to their house, you have to come to mine. And then what? This is actually what happened to those people in Sri Lanka. You know what happened? You went to a house, you did a little bit of chanting, and then somebody else wanted some longer chanting. You said three months to one house, but the other house because it was just convenient. You had five months. So they want five months as well. Why do you only sell three months to us? We want five or so. And then someone else said, no, we're we've given more donations and they have said several months, as if the number of months, you know, means that they're a better family. And not only that, the number of chants you do. So now can you chant, you know, not just for half an hour. Can you chant for one hour? And it got so bad in Sri Lanka that now you have these ceremonies where monks have to chant all night, literally, you know, from late in the evening, and I don't finish them till the morning. And what are you doing that for? What's the meaning of that? Actually, what you're doing is I remember Venerable Ratna telling this sometimes that because he was the only monk, he had to chant. He had a cold. He had a terrible sore throat for days afterwards. What have you done to this poor monk? What's the meaning of this? I saw this happen when I was a young monk in Thailand. Because in those days, in these monasteries, they used to actually keep the bodies before they would cremate them. And it was getting so ridiculous that you keep your, your and so your, your father, your grandfather in the monastery sort of embalmed in this big building and it is full of coffins. And the idea was the longer you kept them. So, you know, the more times every six months or every year, you'd do a sort of a donation to the temple. And some people kept on keeping these coffins, not just one year, two years, three years, four years, five years. And it became like keeping up with the Joneses. You know, how long have you kept your father? Only five years. I kept him ten years ago. Absolutely ridiculous. So everybody was keeping their coffins on and on, and no one would bear it. No one would actually do any ceremonies simply because it was just like a status thing. Until the ABA has a say, everyone gets burned this week. Nazi anywhere. They could stop that rubbish. And sometimes these ceremonies get out of hand. So we have to know what the meaning of these ceremonies really are. What's the meaning of a funeral ceremony? What's the meaning of a marriage ceremony when we don't have ceremonies at all? Sometimes the. There's no meaning going on. It's like, you know, when, like a boy and a girl, they just decide to live together when there's no ceremony involved. It's a different ballgame when you have a little ceremony there. What it actually means, the marriage ceremony, is that these two people, they come up and they want a religious ceremony. I'm very happy to do that because I realize this will give their marriage meaning. We'll give their commitment meaning they come together and they make this affirmation not just to each other, but to all their friends and relations. And if they got some sort of spiritual person, they look up to some priest or monk or something or none in front of them. Because, look, we really respect you and we wanted something spiritual to say, I really mean this. I'm not just saying it. When you do a ceremony like that with all the preparations, what it really means is when you say those words, they are powerful. Much more powerful than you've just come up to your, you know, your loved one. And what are you going to marry? Say, you know I love you and I'm going to commit myself to you. We're married now, okay? Yeah, sure. Good enough. Even though that you may have that love, that actualization, that verbalization, that ceremony does give power to the intention. And that's the whole meaning of these ceremonies is somehow emphasizing what's in the heart, what's in the mind. And that's why we do marriage ceremonies. And the point is, it doesn't matter what that ceremony is. There is no fixed Buddhist marriage ceremony. There has to be done this way, and it can't be done any other ways. The whole point is that we want to get this intention, the meaning of the heart of the ceremony, and actually bring it to life by whether it's words, whether it's music, whether it's actions or whatever to emphasize. So it has more psychological meaning. It's the same with a funeral ceremony. What is the right funeral ceremony for a Buddhist? It doesn't matter exactly what you do. What's important is you have the meaning in your heart. But you want to sort of release this person who you've been with for many years, who you've loved, you spent time with. You've enjoyed their company. You want to release them so they can go off to a new birth. But also you want to release your heart. You know the pain, the attachment, the grief which is in there. It's a letting go ceremony. That's why the people, when they have like an idea of a Buddhist ceremony or any religious ceremony, you don't need to freeze it. In the past, you can innovate. And that's why I know sometimes what people do is they take these helium balloons outside, they let them go. Yes. You can actually see the symbolism there. Now you have a balloon and it floats up into the sky. It's a beautiful symbolism of in your heart, you're meaning to let this person go. Let the past go to float up somewhere. Now, I mentioned this in my book. I went to a ceremony at a funeral ceremony yesterday. There's so many funerals. I spend so much time in the crematorium. Sometimes I think I should just camp out there and wait for the next one. But like all the time, we have again stuck here this idea of, you know, first of all, it has to be burials. It has to be in the mausoleum. And people say just how much it costs to go in these mausoleums. Please keep it simple. It's a meeting of just whatever's a possibility of letting a person go and let them go. One of the best ways this is the old. Even in Buddhism, we used to do this. It's not just a Tibetan way. This was actually done in Thailand years ago to subscribe burials. I just put the the body out in certain places and the vultures will come and eat it all. It's called recycling. And it's a environmental, the best possible way of disposing of a human body. And it's a wonderful way because you actually feeding birds or you give it to science, you give your organs to, um, whoever needs it. Be an organ donor. Sometimes people say, oh, ceremonies, you know, you can't do it that way. You've got to sort of bury the whole body. Or if you give like your liver, you know, to somebody who needs that when you go to heaven, you won't have one. Crikey. That's not true. If you give your liver to somebody, you have 3 or 4 in heaven. You have an extra one. Because whatever you give, you get back many times over. If you give your eye, you probably get a third die the next life, I don't know, but certainly whatever you give, you always get back again. So please understand the meaning of these things and don't just get stuck in his own little ceremonies, which, you know, sometimes make people, especially relations, so scared of what they're doing to their loved ones. And so that, you know, when we have these ceremonies and these cremation, the first time in character, whenever you put the is in cremations, they'll try to imitate burials. And so every time you put that, um, uh, they still have this in character, you put the, uh, the box on the, uh, the die and you press the button and either one has to press the button, and he goes down as if I was being buried. Now, what does that mean to people going down? Most stupid thing to do. And it's always the case. Whatever they press, a button goes down. Maybe you've got everybody nice and peaceful. You talked about Darwin, but you got people to understanding. It's not the person, it's only their body. They've already left, you know? It's not them. Uh, they start crying every time you press that button. And so I put this in my book. Why don't we actually, if we, if we're going to have ceremonies, let's innovate and make them beautiful ceremonies. And so I put this in my book. Next time we build a crematorium, that's when we press the button. Let's have the body going up. A hydraulic lift is all you need. And a body goes up and have this beautiful, like, um, uh, was it the, uh, the clouds of dry ice and, like, big clouds and get this incredible, beautiful music happening, like heavenly music, like chamber music or some orchestral or whatever, and this beautiful, heavenly music as it goes through a trapdoor in the roof. And when the ice disappears, it's just gone. Now, wouldn't that be uplifting? Wouldn't that be meaningful for most people that say, wow, that's really great. Now that would be a ceremony. That's an example of a meaningful ceremony. You're letting it go and you're encouraging people. The person is actually going upwards and away. But remember when I first mentioned that some years ago, somebody said that that would take away from the integrity of the service because they say that sometimes they know that person in the box would never go up there. So to adapt the ceremony, I decided we could have three buttons one for up, one for down, and water for sideways, in case, you know, because most people you don't really know some good, some bad. So do the sideways button. And I thought to make funerals really interesting. We could have a vote on which buttons to press. Give everybody a reason for going. But the point is, when they say the ceremony officer wouldn't do that because they always have to be meaningful. And obviously, if you just make it too, um, ridiculous. It's not really a funeral sermon. It's doesn't really match the feelings of the people who were attending. So the ceremony has to be appropriate. And I think that's why that, you know, if ever you've been to my funeral ceremonies and if you haven't yet, one day you will. You will find that no two are ever the same. And you do always adapt. And this is one of the trouble with sort of organised religions sometimes is ceremonies are just too frozen and you can't adapt them to time and place. You have to adapt that. And whether it's a marriage ceremony, you have to adapt to the people because the ceremonies are there for the people. The people are there for the ceremonies. The ceremonies are to give meaning to what's in their hearts, not meaning to what's in the scriptures, meaning to what's in people's hearts. That's what the ceremonies are, therefore. And that's how we've adapted these ceremonies over the years. And Buddhism has always been adapting like anything else. You adapt or you die, you become irrelevant. I think there's too many parts of Buddhism have become irrelevant, and it's usually the weather, suburb's people and Sri Lankan people, the Thai people, it's they're the ones who tell me, look, you know, we like to come here rather than go to the Thai temple, the Burmese temple. That's what I can tell, because it's not relevant for us anymore. Our kids don't understand it. They do all this chanting, all this bowing. Was it, for no one ever explains it to them. It's not really relevant to their hearts. And sometimes that happens with the Christian churches. Soon will happen with the the Muslim services or any other services. No religion. Spirituality has to have meaning. Otherwise why come? So this chanting business. And what does chanting actually do for you? And if we do chanting number one, if we know what the meaning is. Oh my goodness, I can really inspire you. This is a monk, I love chanting. The reason I love it because I know party and the chance there. And for me, that party is this beautiful language, the language of the Buddha and some of the words. Like any language, you can't sometimes translate the meanings. You can get close, but you know, you can't actually convey from one culture to another what those original meanings are. So sometimes when I chant in Pali, sometimes to myself, not to do any ceremonies just for the meaning, it inspires me and it teaches me these incredible teachings of the Buddha. That's why, you know, sometimes when I listen to party chanting and get all emotional, it means something to me. But if you've never understood Pali, if you don't understand what these words mean, what's the point to you? He said. You don't get that benefit from understanding the meaning, but sometimes you can get the benefits of doing training simply because it makes you feel peaceful. Now there is something which resonates in inside of you, which is why that to this day that many Catholics and I will still want to go back to the Latin Mass. I don't know, it's got something to it, and maybe just the conditioning from the past, which makes them feel peaceful, which inspires them, which gives them this inspiration. Fine. Do it if it works for you. And this is actually why that sometimes, you know, we have chanting, long chanting, small chanting in this language and this or that language just to suit the different people. You know who who come along. Some people were like a lot of chanting has meaningful meaning for them. It's like the same as the the inner chants you do sometimes when people do meditation to have these chants, these mantras, they say to each other or say to themselves, rather. And I know that in some traditions, like in TM, you're not supposed to tell what your mantra is. And sometimes they say that some mantras are more powerful than others. And you know, in Thailand you use the mantra of butthole, which is a very famous meditation mantra, but that works for Thais, who got a feeling for what the word Buddha means. And so that is like almost like a little very easy ceremony. But it's powerful because these are people who've been brought up with Buddhism, who's now known the word Buddha since the time they're very small. But you find it doesn't really work for some people, for Westerners especially. So because of that, that I've developed another mantra which I found incredibly powerful for Westerners. This one I always teaches her my retreats. The Buddha mantra is, first, as you breathe in, you're supposed to say the word silence itself, but as you breathe out, ho ho, put her with your breath. But the one I wish I found more, more successful for Westerners is when they breathe in. They recite the word to themselves, silently shut as they breathe out, up. Shut up. Shut. And that's much more powerful than butter. Because it means so to live. It tells what it's supposed to be doing. Shut up! Stupid. So this is actually what the ceremonies are there to do, to give you meaning and to assist you in whatever the part is supposed to be. So, you know, we have all these other little ceremonies like, you know, when you become a Buddhist, sometimes people come up to me and say, look, I want to be a Buddhist. What do I do? Do I get sort of like baptized or something? Certainly not. This way they'll give you a cold. And that was so that was actually not a Christian sermon. That was a very old Indian ceremony, you know, just, you know, washing in the Ganges. That's the that's still going on now. But even at the time of the Buddha, all these Brahmins would go and wash in this river and wash in that river. And this is to show you how iconoclastic the Buddha was. Now when this Brahmin said, no, you know, you should go and bathe in the river as well, you know, wash away your sins, the Buddha. That's what he said to the Buddha. But he said, look, if that was really true, then all the fish and the frogs which live in that river, they'll all be enlightened now, because they've been washed every day of their lives. And that said, the ancient suits us so much for baptism because all the all the fish would be baptized so many times. But that doesn't make you wise. It doesn't wash away anything. So the point is that Buddha was actually very iconoclastic. He said, look, challenge it thinking out. Be reasonable, work it out. It's not that these ceremonies are wrong. They are very useful. If you understand what the meaning is, and you use it in the right way to make the meaning in your heart, in your mind more pronounced. Which is why that if a person becomes a Buddha. Buddhism, a Buddhist, we don't baptize them. We just three refuges and five precepts, this beautiful little ceremony. And it is so simple that in a couple of minutes. But the reason we do that is simply because sometimes the person feels they're a Buddhist. They want us to commit, they feel inside is a meaning in there, but they want to externalize it. And when they sort of take this little ceremony with the three refugees. And what that really means to them is what's in their heart. They're speaking out in front of somebody else. And it means much more. It gives that intention, that karma, more power. And the same way when you go through a marriage ceremony. That's much more powerful than if you just decide to live with somebody. The same way, if you go through a little peace ceremony. It really means something, especially if it's with your favorite Mancunian, if it's with your friends, if it's with the people who mean a lot to you. What you're saying is, I like this path and I want to follow it to say we're taking these five precepts. And how many times in Buddhist ceremonies I give these five precepts. And I do this because sometimes people need to keep hearing them because they're not keeping them. But this is actually how the Thais please, please. I'm sure this will. Aikins well I shall. I'll hit the slogans as well before I hit the Thais. First of all then, because I'm sure the Burmese do the same and the Westerners are just as bad. Some years ago, we were given the five precepts. Now everybody's ceremony to the Thai people, and they'd be putting their hands up to take the five precepts, as they usually do. And then we saw that some of the people had a finger down like this. We couldn't figure out what they were meant. I mean, I suppose, but all your fingers up, you know, it's like the, the just the way that you see people here when they sort of bow afterwards, they put their hands up like this. What are they doing with one finger down? And so we asked that. So what do you do? And they figured out themselves. It became like a little fad amongst the Buddhist at the time that if they were in a ceremony and everyone else was chanting the five Buddhist precepts, they wanted to do the chanting as well. When they put one finger down, even though they're chanting or five, it means that only keep four. That's what it meant. So they chant all five, but they still like to keep force, like crossing your fingers behind your back. And once you saw this, I was actually more looking more carefully. And sure enough, I saw some people with two fingers down. Subway. Some people all have to come up and say they want to keep it at all, and I don't want that is the meaningless ceremonies. And if you don't get to keep these precepts, don't do the chanting. This is the same. This was in the, uh, in Melbourne. The place which I go, there is many, many street Lankan devotees. And if they're listening to this, I've told you this before, that sometimes you give the five precepts to them on waste day, and then they go out to their car and get out the whisky and start drinking, even in the carpark of the temple. And what's the point of that? Now it's okay if you're going to drink, drink, but don't sort of keep the precepts because you know, what you're saying is not what you're doing. It's like an empty ceremony. It makes the whole religion meaningless. It's because of meaningless ceremonies like that that people actually turn away from religion. If a person wants to keep those precepts, it's their own free will. They don't have to. You can come to any Buddhist ceremony and you don't have to keep the precepts. Everybody is welcome. You don't reject anybody. There's no excommunication in Buddhism. So everybody is welcome. It's up to you where you're at in your life. If this is what you want to do, fine. If it don't work, if you can't do it, fine. You'll be treated equally. This is a marvelous thing about now. Buddhism is the equality of the way you look at and, and, uh, and relate to other people. There's no judgment that one person is better than another. In the same way, there's no judgment in a school which child is more intelligent than the other, the one in grade 12 or the one in grade one? It is. You can't compare people, people in other children. Grade one I've only just come to school. The children grade 12 and 12 years. Some pupils might be your first human birth after many lower ones. So some people have been reborn as a human being. Many times will come from the devil elves. How can you compare people or judge them? So if a person can't keep any precepts, they can still come here and I can still be their friend and they're still welcome to join the Buddhist society. And we don't have any judgment in there. So a person, they don't need to do these ceremonies, you know, just to, you know, for some sort of status at all. If you come from the heart and this is why we do little ceremonies like the five presets, because we feel we want to take them in front of a monk. And for the Western is this marvelous. And I'm very proud of the Westerners, because sometimes some of you've already taken it once in front of the monk, maybe on the way out there, you come up here, you say, I really want to do this. Five precepts. I want to live by this. You take it once and you keep it for the rest of your life. It's hard and sad and subtle and it's inspiring. And sometimes it may be a Burmese person. I've already hit this with icons and the natives. Now the Burmese turn. Sometimes the Burmese that are how many times they've taken the five precepts, but they still don't keep them and tell me which one is better in the sense of I'm more happy that someone uses a ceremony for his purpose. They want to really say to themselves, yes, this is what I want to do. This is my guidelines for life and they follow this. Saying without the ceremony of borrowing, because I sometimes some of you would come here and you see some people bound, some people don't bound. That makes me so happy with everybody bowed. I'd be a bit afraid that you're not really understanding what goes on here. You just many people will be bound just because other people do. So just out of no fear or out of etiquette, not really knowing what the meaning is. If you're bowing to something. It has to come from your heart. In other words, the borrowing is like just a respect in the same way that, you know, even in Western culture, Borg is not Asian. In Western culture, you know, you're supposed to bow. Remember, you know, being taught how to bow at school. You know, girls used to curtsy. If you saw the queen, you would bow. Whatever it was. Never seen the Queen anyway. But that's what's supposed to do. When the whole purpose behind that is just just all, all all people. The head is very high. What are you doing? You're lowering your head for somebody else knows what I was like. More respectful. More respectful. Whatever you allow your head down to. And the other something else is higher than you. That's what you show respect to. You may have seen me sometimes, you know, maybe blessing a Buddha statue. I hold it up here, you know, all I'm doing is just holding above my head. Or like Sri Lanka, sometimes you carry relics. You're holding above your head. What you're doing is. I really respect what this means. So the the act of bearing is just an act of showing respect. Something which you really think is worthy, somebody which you really love, you see value in, is what you worship. Worship means worship. And so because of that, I was taught a long time ago, whenever you bow, don't just bow as a ceremony. Be mindful what's in your heart? Why are you bowing? And to me, whenever I bow to that Buddha statue or any Buddha statue, I don't bow to pieces of metal. That's why when people say, oh, you Buddhist, you just bow to idols. You don't bow to idols. If you want to find an idol, go. What was Australian Idol or American Idol? This is nothing I'd ever seen a Buddha on any of these shows. You bow to what that thing represents. So when you're about to a Buddhist statue, I bow to virtue, peace and wisdom. Compassion. Basically, for those of you who know the parties, see the summary. The virtue is what I bow to, first of all. And I love virtue, goodness, piano, a good speech, kind speech, gentle actions. No, which is not harmful at all. I really, really value that. And so that's what I bow to, because, you know, to me that the Buddha is a symbol of virtue, of goodness. He never went angry or hit anybody or turned people out of any temples or shouted at anybody. You're reading his life story, reading the accounts of his life, which you know you can only account we have. It's believable. He was his very good person, and so I bow out of that as a symbol of virtue for me. If ever I think of my teacher at Changsha, he was just so virtuous, so gentle, so compassionate and kind, is so easy to bow to that as a symbol of virtue. That's why many people like me have got a picture of him on the shrine. And I don't worship the picture. It's just a piece of paper. But I worship what it represents to me for virtue and peace. The meditation stillness is the best thing I have ever done in my life to be able to meditate. Someone was asking me this question the other day. When was the first time you fell in love? And I said I fell in love? When I first meditated, I fell in love with peace. I never thought it out. In love with peace. My first and only true love. Peace. Stillness is just delicious. So I like to hang out with peace as much as I can. And I worship that peace. So that's what I bow down. I bow down to peace, to stillness. That incredible, tasty, delicious stillness in deep meditation, the last thing I wish I bow down to is like wisdom and compassion. I put those two together because now I know the life story of the Buddha. Just so compassionate, so wise. And we haven't got really a word which encapsulates both of those, but they have to go together. There's no compassion without wisdom. There's no wisdom without compassion. They go together. I bow down to that. I worship that there's so important wisdom and compassion. So when I ask you to bow down to that, when I'm actually saying in my heart, the meaning behind it is these things are valuable. They're really important to me because they're important to me. I raise them above my head, and the only way I can do that, because I can't live that Buddha up is too heavy. I'll go put my head down. I put my head down. I'd value that. And every time I do that mindfully. In other words, I remember what I'm doing that for is not just some empty ceremony. What it really does is reinforce those qualities inside me every time I value things like virtue, peace, wisdom, compassion. It means psychologically I reinforce my inclination to make those qualities my own. Every time I remember virtue, I will become more virtuous. Every time I value peace, I will find more time in my life for such silence. Instead of rushing around so much. And every time I bow down and worship compassion, I know I'll become a much more compassionate person. As a result. The ceremony has meaning and the meaning produces the effect. This is why we do these things, and so that when we understand the meaning behind these ceremonies, it gives a whole thing. This is power, this life. Even a Buddhist statue becomes meaningful and we can have them in their houses, not just as some curio, because Buddha statues are becoming fashionable now, just like some people wear these red Kabbalah strings. It's just in time, a Buddha statue. But it's a waste of time having it there. Just, you know, as a as a piece without knowing what the meaning is behind it. So know what the meaning is, is to remind you of those things. I remember going to All Saints College about 15 years ago, and the old headmaster of that school would have given a talk on Buddhism. He invited me into his study for a cup of tea. Just a chat. The first thing I noticed on his desk, he didn't have very much. Had a Buddha statue on his desk. And this was a Christian school and said, what are you doing with a Buddha statue on your desk? I can't see any Christian symbols here to the governor's know about this. I thought, it's okay. And he said, look, you know, I'm not a Buddhist, I'm a Christian. But every time I look at that Buddha statue, it gives me peace and serenity. And I said, you know how to worship the Buddha. You don't have to be a Christian. But worshipping what you're worshipping was. Isn't that smart? In that serenity of a Buddha, you're worshipping the peace. And it's true. Every time you look at that, you reminded of peace. And that makes you more peaceful in your difficult job. Yeah. That's right. But that's what these ceremonies are all about. And understanding their meaning, and then making that meaning more powerful by going through some sort of ritual. That's why our forest tradition. I tell Avada Tradition now, it started from the Buddha just taking away all of the extras, which weren't really necessary and what was necessary, giving it meaning. Ordination ceremonies had meaning. If you come to any of the ceremonies which we've had, you can see there's something there. Even giving food to the monks, it has meaning. We always tell it to you that you're giving life to the monks and to the nuns. You're allowing us to actually to teach, to practice. So by so doing, now you're part of the team. You get a piece of the action. Literally whatever the monks or the nuns do, whatever meditation they achieve, they can't do it by themselves. It's teamwork and you're part of that. This Buddhist society of West Australia is not just a committee. It's not just monks and nuns. You are part of it. So this is when we do any dharna. You're part of this. We will help in our own different ways. And that's why that sometimes, you know, people have actually compared sort of the Sanger's, the monks and nuns to the footy team. And you all are supporters. You are fan club. So when we do well, you know, when we win these of the Premiership then you really get excited. Because we're in it together. Just like, you know, whether it's Fremantle or the the Eagles, you know if they do well you know you you know you might be in the stands you know even kicking a ball. But when they win it's like you've kicked the goals as well. It's the same way when any monk becomes enlightened you also kick the goal as well. This is where we get inspired. So this is actually where we have the meaning of why we go to temples. And one of the other reasons why I'm giving this talk is this ceremony is coming up soon. On Sunday, there's a ceremony at the nuns monastery to start the rains retreat. And a week afterwards that our monks monastery to start arrangement with these assemblies. Why go there? Why actually take all this food to the monks? The body too fat. They don't need any more food. If ever you go there either to on Sunday to the nuns monastery, or the week afterwards at the Max monitor. You see so much food there. This happened to one of our monks when he first went to England, and some of the Thai people served in food or have it in this big bowl. You see the bowls we have, this English word came along and he didn't understand anything about Buddhism. And he looked inside this monk's bowl. He said, bloody hell is enough to feed a bleeding army. He said, please excuse me if that's what he said. Enough food in there to feed a bleeding army. There was a lot of food, but that wasn't the point. The point was that people needed to share. People needed to give them. I didn't need that much. This happens to me all the time. Sometimes. Sometimes it's very rare. You manage, actually, to choose your own food and just get the right amount. And then somebody comes and I said, you didn't take any of mine. Put it in. So every time I eat, it's a ceremony. It's not for me. It's a ceremony, is the meaning of that ceremony is not to feed me. That's not the meaning. The sermon I've already to fit. The meaning of that ceremony is actually to give people a chance to love and care. And we usually express that by giving. Giving is the most beautiful ceremony because it's always a it's a mean. What do you mean when you give something to somebody? It's an expression of love. If it's Valentine's Day, you give something. That's how you express your love. When you get married to exchange rings, it's a birthday of your kid. You want to give them something. And this is if it's your favorite mug. So now you want to give them something, please. Because I respect you. So they give me things and I give it to somebody else afterwards. If I don't eat it myself or it doesn't really matter. The point is this giving becomes a beautiful ceremony. And the meaning of it is, is people are saying, we're sharing with you. We care for you. I just feel like I just want to give something. I mean, you know what? I how terrible it is sometimes, but he got no one to give to. No one. You really care for many very lonely people in this world. I remember this my grandmother, whenever I used to visit my grandmother's house, and sometimes in the middle of the afternoon to watch some chips. Didn't matter when she just peel some potatoes, chip them up and make me some chips anytime. My mother would never do that. It's bad for my health. If I was going to be a dinner afterwards when I graduated, might. She just wanted to give me things. That's why I loved my granny. And. It just never did matter if it was I needed it or not. That was not the point. She just wanted to give. Isn't it lovely that when we have this beautiful ideas we want to give to each other? So that's why. It doesn't matter being a nun or whatever. If anyone ever gives you any sink, please, please accept it. Because they need to give it to you. If there's a policeman escort you speeding and they give you. But that's not the giving of charity bids. But it's just the way that we express our love. And so the giving is a beautiful ceremony, and it has meaning to it. And that's why does most religious festivals, festivals means like feast, divorce. That's where the word festival comes from, is always a feast in the beginning. And it has all relations to this. What's the point of having feasts? It's not a eating, which is the point, is the giving and the preparing. That's what the point is. So what? I've expressing your care, your love. If you know what you're doing it for. All this service has incredible meaning. And sometimes, you know it doesn't really matter if you're doing a fundraiser. We had a fundraiser last week for a retreat center. Does not matter how much money is race was most important is that people have the opportunity to come together, have a great time, enjoy themselves and doing something good. That is what's most important in the ceremony. What's a man given is not important while is given is important. So we do have ceremonies in religion. We do have ceremonies. We make up our own ceremonies. Sometimes we have an incredible, powerful ceremony for the forgiveness ceremony. I should remember, uh, mention this. This is part of the Buddhism which I've grown up with, if ever any right to monks have an argument in the monastery. In my mind, she has seen this years ago. Number one, it doesn't matter who's right and who's wrong. Never think about that at all. These are the smart one. The one who gets all the kudos is the one who asks forgiveness first. Doesn't matter if they're right or wrong. I ask forgiveness first. And I've taught that encourage that. And so of monks is a pretty good at that in my monastery. They just rush up to be the first to say sorry. And in order, if you just say sorry to someone that you know the with our government trying to have some reconciliation with the indigenous owners of our land, just saying sorry is not enough. It has to be done with a ceremony with meaning behind it. Because when we do like a ceremony with meaning, then it's more powerful. So just saying I'm sorry. So we always try. Our tradition is to get some flowers and incense or something and put it on a tray. But for many years I had hayfever. So I said, look, stop following that stupid ceremony. You say forgiveness, you give me all these flowers and then making me sneeze even more. So you have more things to say sorry for afterwards and say a tray of anything you want to give or something. If you want to say sorry to your wife because of something you did or sorry to your husband. Doesn't matter what you put on a trade, some sort of gift. Find something they like. You know what you think they really need. And to silence. Listen, darling, I don't know what I've done or said without you. My wife, I love you. Now, please, I ask forgiveness. I'm a human being. I make mistakes and there's no set formula. You say it from your heart. You make it up as you go along. And then that ceremony has meaning. And when you do, that ceremony is so powerful because it moves the other person, and the other person says sorry back, and they give you a gift back. It's a beautiful ceremony which keeps people living in harmony and peace together. The forgiveness ceremony. And sometimes you have to forgive yourself as well if you've done something bad. So do a little forgiveness ceremony. We should make up. That ceremony should go along. Some people do make it up. They come here for an evening and they just give a flower to the Buddha or something. Or the lights of incense or light a candle. Whatever it is doesn't matter. And it is by asking forgiveness of people that are asking for forgiveness for themselves. It's only a piece of metal. There is no magic. The magic is in what it represents. It's simple. And that way a person, if they've done something terribly, terribly wrong, they can come up, dust off a flower or something. Look at that Buddha and see the compassion and peace. Is there a Christian that can go to church in front of the altar and think of a compassionate Jesus? Does it matter? What would Jesus say? What a Buddhist say. They would say, I forgive you. So coming to do that ceremony by coming here or going to a church or doing something, it actually causes what's in your heart. It makes the karma, the intention more powerful by doing the little ceremony. That's what ceremonies are all about. They're so meaning. It's not that Buddhism doesn't have its ceremonies. We do. But we try and make them meaningful. If I don't understand them, I just don't do them. There's some ceremonies. I'm sure if I really understood, I should really do them. But I've got my limitations. The same with you. If you find Boeing meaningful, do it. It doesn't matter if you're a Christian, a Catholic or whatever. I told this story just before I came in here. I gave the an assembly, this little sermon at the assembly at Christ Church Grammar School some years ago, a couple of years ago, when I walked in there before the kids had already assembled in there, I was outside with Karen, Frank Sheehan, the chaplain and the headmaster and myself, just the three of us and the headmaster, who didn't really know me, turned around and said, look, there's an altar in there, a Christian altar. You know, the canon, and I will, we will bow, but you don't need to bow. You a Buddhist. And I said, why not? I said, I demand my right to bow. And he asked me why, and I said, because I can find something in there which I value. And that's what I'm about in what I value in that altar. So when you understand what the ceremony is, there's nothing wrong with a Buddhist bowing at a Christian shrine. Nor is there anything wrong with a Christian bowed to a Buddha. You're not bowing to an idol. You're bowing to a quality, something which you see, which you worship, which you find is wonderful and beautiful. And when you bow to that, that ceremony enhances in your life, in your mind, whatever you're bound to. That's why we have ceremonies. So whatever ceremonies developed in Australian Theravada Buddhism, then always be meaningful. They sometimes we can trace them back to the time of the Buddha, tracing back to the time of Christ or whatever doesn't matter. What's importance is we don't ossify them and freeze them, and it has to be done this way. It can't be done otherwise, otherwise it dehumanizes them. It becomes organized religion. And for those of you who've been here many times, you know this is not organized Buddhism. This is completely disorganized. I've gone over time. He's always things wrong. Internet is down the last week. This is completely disorganized, chaotic human Buddhism. That's why I love it. So thank you. This is a tour today on ceremonies and unceremonious Buddhism. So any questions or comments about the talk this evening? Yes. I will. Strongsville. Gorilla fighting for equality. Amen. First of all, I was little. All I can tell you. No question. I think that is a wonderful thing to go and visit other sort of shrines of other religions. Now, just because the main reason you do that is actually just to worship the mutual respect. And I make that ceremony of, you know, that you want to respect other people, not necessarily agreeing with them. And we all have our different interpretations of the world and of truths. We may not agree with you, but at least I respect and I worship our friendliness between different peoples, and it is so important and necessary. That we actually learned to live with each other. And this is you can't have too many more terrorist bombs. This how much chaos and how many tears, how much pain that causes. And it'd be marvelous to invite every terrorist to come to the Buddhist Society of West Australia and worship here. And I'd go and worship at your shrines. That's our deal. And I'd be friendliness to say, look, we're not against you. We're on your side and we're on the side of human beings and understanding each other and respecting each other. And that's what we can worship. Mutual respect. Even when? Right when. I especially if they're positive places you're asking, is it worthwhile to go out to places like Israel, the holy places in India, and absorb into their vibrations? Yes, wonderful thing to do so. But, you know, sometimes it's not good unless you're very strong spiritually. It's actually to absorb into the negative emotions. You tend too much to go to the negative places. Sometimes you just get more and more how weak and depressed. So maybe every now and again, maybe once in your life, if you have the opportunity to visit Auschwitz, to feel the energies of what happened there. But if you go there to Spartans, start by going to inspiring places as well. Because if you just go to the negative places, sometimes you lose your hope for the world you just become. It is not one sided, but it's great to be able to go to those places where amazing, wonderful things happened and it inspires you. The worship of those shrines, of beauty, of wonder and it makes you a better person. It inspires you. That's why it's one of my sayings, is you don't learn from the mistakes of the past. You learn from the successes of the past much better. It's a much better way of learning. Don't dwell too much on the mistakes and the force of the things which went wrong. You don't learn so well that way, but learn from the beauty, from the successes and the wonderful things of life. You tend to imitate them more. You learn from successes much better than you learn from failures. Don't start seeing what went wrong. Try and find out what went right and do it again and again and again. Yeah. A lot and I feel they owe me money. If. You ask many people these days, they decide between them that it's not worthwhile going through a ceremony when they live together. And is that, uh, okay. Of course it's okay, because these services have to have meaning for you. If you find it has meaning, go to a service and go for it. There's nothing wrong with ceremonies, but there's nothing wrong with no ceremonies. That's why the personally, I'm very pro having ceremonies for gay couples to commit themselves, not have marriage for gays, if you like. Simply to go through some sort of ceremony doesn't have to be a marriage ceremony, but civil ceremonies, sometimes it's just not spiritual enough and come and do a ceremony up here. I'd be very happy to give some blessing, water or whatever. And that's it. Exactly. So what is meaningful is a personal thing is great, but sometimes the ceremonies help to make that meaning more powerful. Sometimes not. Yeah, according to the conditioning. Yeah. Some people are very averse to all ceremonies because they've just been over ceremonies for the for the whole of their life. And that becomes just one long ceremony. And I know that because there's sometimes in these monasteries I used to hang out as a young monk, sometimes there's sermons that go on for so long and I couldn't understand what they meant. And so you became negative. You turned away from it as many people in the Western world and, you know, all these ceremonies, you have to do you have to do it this way. You can't do it another way. Why? Why are you doing this? Remember this one fella? He's a, uh, an ex Jew, married to a Thai, and his father died. His father was a devout, practicing Jew. And because he was his son, his oldest son, he had to go through this ceremony of tearing his shirt and beating himself when I was fierce. And so what am I doing that for? Just shout out, this is what you gotta do in the end. He just got so upset he refused to do it. Because you know, what are you doing there for? What's the meaning behind it? And then sometimes some villagers are so stuck in ceremonies without any meaning that people turn away. So in a marriage ceremony, people turn away from marriage ceremony because they forget what the meaning is. It's just a meeting for, you know, the. The girl always has to have y and the groom always has black. And I said this before. You know why the the bride has to wear white the marriage ceremony. Because white is a symbol of their purity. That's why they have to wear white. The girl always has to wear white at a marriage ceremony. And so why does the groom have to wear black? Because it's a symbol of his. You think it means? Yeah. Can you have a more meaningful relationship? We always hear what you say. There are many people who have actually gone through no service at all, but wonderful, meaningful relationships. So people have gone through ceremonies and they've got no meaning in in a relationship at all. Correct? Yeah, I agree with each other. What I'm actually saying, that's very, very true. But sometimes it's ceremony can help. It's not the total. There's many more factors in there which are important. Sometimes ceremonies can help. And even if you haven't actually, uh, gone through some marriage ceremony, I'm sure that in relationships which haven't gone through a formal marriage as many other ceremonies which you develop in your own way, and this is the point that you don't freeze ceremonies in one particular way and no other way, even though that little ceremony is, you know, you just take out your partner on the anniversary of the day you met them. You just give them a special, special little treat. And every now and again that you have on their birthday, which is a ceremony, you really treat them extra special. There's always ceremonies we have on on Valentine's Day or whatever. And then hopefully if you want a successful relationship, you know, you give your partner something special that day. Whatever it is, ceremonies sometimes help. They're there to be made use of, but they're not there to oppress. So it doesn't have to be a marriage ceremony. There are many other ceremonies, and I'm sure that everybody who is has any relationship. They do some little ceremonies every now and again. Even if, you know, a Christmas ceremony or whatever doesn't matter. Even as a Buddhist monk. You know, when it became 25th of December and we used to say in our monastery, in time we should celebrate Christmas, when we invited Shah over on 25th of December every time to give a talk. And he used to come over every 25th of December. It's rather Western monastery now to spend that day with us. He was in almost like our own little father, Buddha, miss. You know. This is just wonderful. And that's what he used to call it. Used to call it Budapest Day. That's what he used to call it. But, you know, it was a ceremony because we'd been brought up with this ceremony of peace and goodwill to all beings and being extra kind to people on that day. And he said, oh, yeah, we can celebrate that. You found meaning in it. Even as Buddhists. So yeah, you can always. But I think I've got the meaning of the talk through today. The ceremonies are useful if you really want to, but don't be oppressed by them. Don't think they have to be done this way. I'll be. I'll fight tooth and nail when we have all these ceremonies. This is the way it's supposed to be done. Why do you have to have when you have a funeral? Have to have the funeral? You have this big limousine, like yesterday. This big limousine behind. You don't need that. Go in your own car. Instead of wasting all this money on a big limo in the back. And don't just follow just traditions without meaning. Think it out for yourself. What is meaningful? Okay, now, Bianca's partner, Ron Battersby. Whatever. Uh, great. Members of our Buddhist society. We did his funeral ceremony here, and he went to the crematorium in his youth. He was a builder. I was that was amazing. That was really beautiful and inspiring. And just outside here had all his friends cheered him off when he went to the crematorium. so now there's a ceremony which had meaning. They've been for his whole life. He was like in the building industry. He went on his last journey at the crematorium in his yurt. That's meaningful. That's what celebrities should be. Don't need a big sort of hearse. Like this is not here this evening. This is a father of many years ago. He was like a white water after he spent his whole life that he doing himself and, uh, his little business of arranging for other people to his white water rafting. So when he died, we built a little coffin for him. Like trying to save, like a boat. We couldn't even do it. Like a boat had a couple of oars on the top of it. This is what made the ceremony meaningful. And that is amazing. It becomes beautiful. And I better be meaningful because it's gone over time. But it's not. We don't have to finish at 9:00 every Friday. You.