Dealing with Anxiety | Dharma Talk with Ajahn Brahm

In this Dharma Talk, Ajahn Brahm explores the subject of anxiety. Ajahn Brahm tells his experience of how fear turned a mouse into a tiger and explains why we shouldn’t be so anxious about our future.

Transcript

Okay,

So those of you who want to adjust your posture by going out,

Or adjust it by scratching,

Whatever,

And in a few moments I will start this evening's talk.

And this evening's talk,

Because of much input from the last week,

Is going to be on anxiety and how to deal with anxiety and totally transcend anxiety.

The reason I'm going to talk about anxiety today is because today is the 31st of January and is an anniversary,

The 31st of January,

29 years ago,

The 31st of January,

1991.

On that day,

It was the hottest day ever recorded in Western Australia.

The temperature exceeded that temperature,

Which was 46.

2 degrees or something.

It exceeded that a week or two later.

And on the first time we reached that hottest temperature,

Still I think the second hottest temperature,

We had a big fire at Bodhinyana monastery,

A crown fire.

And I was there at that time,

So 29 years ago,

The trees were exploding,

Boom,

They went.

Now I used to do that at the beginning of the talk to make sure everyone wakes up after the meditation,

They come out,

And they can actually listen.

It's exploding,

It was amazing to see,

Simply because it was so hot,

Any sort of eucalypt trees,

Gum trees,

The eucalypt oil would evaporate,

Mix with the air and just a little spark and bang,

It went off.

So we were there at the time just watching these trees explode until eventually we had everything under control,

Just in our hall and just we had all our fire equipment,

The fire fighting hoses,

All of the equipment on.

We'd all been trained for this moment,

So we were just going through the training.

But then,

Then,

Sort of they were told that when the fire front comes,

Go into the hall,

Just take cover for a little while,

And then go out and just mop up afterwards.

That's what we were supposed to do,

We were doing really fine until one of the bush fire fighters came and said,

Get out,

Get out,

Get out now.

He was the one who was anxious and panicking.

So we said,

Okay,

Everyone gets to get out,

We get out.

So we went,

And of course that was just really wrong advice,

You never try and run away from a fire right in the middle of it.

Well before,

We had all the equipment there,

But anyway he told us to get out,

So we left in the cars immediately,

And the fire's all around us.

And I have to tell you this story because it doesn't matter how many preparations you do,

Especially how much emergency training,

There's always something which no one would ever expect could happen,

Happened.

And that was one of the people staying there with us,

That he decided,

And I asked him,

Why did you decide to do this?

He said,

I don't really know.

He decided to change his trousers.

So when we evacuated,

He went,

Wait for me,

He didn't have any trousers on,

And he's putting up his trousers to put them on.

And we stopped for him to make sure,

Because we went away,

Where's he gone?

He says,

He's about in the back,

They're running towards us,

So come on,

Stop,

We've got time to pick him up.

So that's when we were all evacuated.

And I still remember that time,

Because that evening,

That evening our dentist had to go back to his mother,

A dentist saw me on the TV that night,

Either Channel 7 or Channel 9,

Interviewed,

Because it was a big event,

And a big fire,

46.

2 or 3 degrees.

Oh 46.

2 degrees,

That was before the fire came.

Once it came,

It was much hotter than that.

And you could see even we had some,

We always do with some people,

Rubber hoses,

They all got melted,

Lots of stuff,

You know,

You think it's amazing how hot that fire was.

But anyway,

We had all our stuff on,

So we were quite safe.

Anyway,

I was interviewed and the lady who interviewed me,

She was actually quite surprised,

I didn't realise,

I said,

Oh the fire came and just went that way,

And we had everything under control,

But they told us to leave,

So we left.

And she rang me about 3 or 4 weeks later,

She said,

I haven't been able to get you out of my head,

Ajahn Brahm.

I said,

Why?

She said,

Because this is my job,

She was an interviewer on emergency things for the news channel.

But everybody else,

You know,

When they have these really dangerous emergencies where people could lose their lives so easily,

They're always just so tense.

She said,

You were just so peaceful and so happy and so joyful after losing your monastery.

I said,

Oh yeah,

That's what monks are like.

But she stood out so much,

Said,

Can you come back on,

I'm in a new program now,

I'm managing or sort of directing or something.

And it was,

I don't mind saying this,

It was a program called the Hinch Report.

She said,

I want you to come on that program.

And at that time Ajahn Chakra was the head monk,

Said,

Oh,

They've invited me to go on the Hinch Report.

I said,

Well,

What is it?

Because we don't watch the TV as monks,

But apparently there was a very hard program and sometimes they take some and they didn't like them and he knew how to say this and say that and tear you apart.

So he said,

Better not go.

I said,

Okay.

But whatever happened,

It was really peaceful.

Even Curtin University came out to do an interview on us,

For the psychology team about the trauma of bushfires.

We didn't have any trauma.

Then you wake up in the middle of the night thinking the monastery is exploding and flames are now,

It's not on fire anymore,

It just stopped.

And it was just so unusual for Curtin University's psychology department,

They never ever published it.

They just put aside anomalies.

It didn't fit,

No one would take it seriously.

But what I'm saying therefore,

That's actually how you can deal with problems.

Does anxiety help?

I've already been a few people on Wednesday,

This Wednesday coming,

Just travelling over to Thailand to teach a retreat and give some talks and places.

That's my job,

That's what I do.

People say,

Oh,

Ajahn Brahm,

You mustn't go,

You mustn't go,

There is coronavirus.

You'll catch it on the aircraft,

You'll catch it in Thailand,

You'll catch it somewhere,

You mustn't go,

Don't go,

Please don't go.

Oh,

Come on,

It's only the flu.

Anyway,

I don't get the flu,

I get sort of irritating coughs every now and again,

But that's all,

I'm a pretty healthy monk.

And anyway,

Is that going to stop you getting the,

I don't know,

If I was going to Wuhan in China maybe,

But no,

If I was going to give some talks in Wuhan,

That's the epicentre apparently,

Then that'd be great,

I'll go there and just do some chanting and just cure everybody,

Wouldn't that be a good idea?

But anyhow,

Just to know where I'm going,

There's no problem.

But why are people so anxious?

And people showed me,

Showed me even today,

That there was,

What was it,

Somebody showed me a marriage,

I don't know,

They didn't say where it was happening.

And everybody at this marriage,

The bride,

The groom,

The best man,

The bride's maid,

The whole family,

They were all wearing these big masks.

What type of marriage was that?

So there is sometimes anxiety goes way over the top.

And it's not just like,

You know,

You see that and you laugh at it,

You realise there's something very wrong there and very dangerous,

People are just overly anxious.

And of course,

Many of those stories and okay,

The one which comes up,

Which is always I've said this maybe too many times,

About the great American philosopher,

One of our,

Actually it wasn't actually American,

It was actually English,

We was taken over by America later on in life,

W.

T.

Poole,

Full name,

Winnie the Pooh.

You know sometimes,

Don't laugh at this,

Some of these simple sort of stories are some of the best philosophy and psychology.

Winnie the Pooh and his little friend Piglet.

Piglet's small,

Small people just always overreact.

Well not always but you know sometimes,

That's why I put on extra weight and I never looked upon as being a small,

I've got gravitas.

But anyway,

Winnie the Pooh was walking with his best friend Piglet,

They were inseparable and they were walking through the forest when there was a storm came,

A really bad storm and trees were coming down,

Branches were falling all over the place,

It was really dangerous there was no place to go,

There was still a long way from home and it was scary as it would be just walking through a forest which is so dangerous and big twigs and branches and old trees coming down and poor little Piglet got more and more scared and poor little Piglet got so scared he grabbed Poole's little paw and said,

I can't go on,

I can't go on,

What would happen?

What would happen if a tree fell when we were underneath it?

There was a possibility,

It could happen but Winnie the Pooh,

Somehow or other,

Like many sort of round people,

He has wisdom.

Winnie the Pooh said,

What would happen if a tree didn't fall when we were underneath it?

And that was all that Piglet needed.

Why is it we always look at the future and see what will go wrong or what might go wrong instead of looking into the future and seeing what might go right which is far more likely.

How many people walking through the forest holding onto a little Piglet will get killed by a tree?

If you walk through the forest,

Yeah it's dangerous but the chances are the odds are in your favour so it's not such a big worry.

But why is it that when there is a slight danger we get so worried that we have what's called anxiety and that does not help us at all.

I still remember,

I think about a year afterwards I was visiting London after the big tube bombings,

Was it just in one of those stations,

I think just by King's Cross or somewhere,

That somebody,

A terrorist,

Blew up a whole underground train.

And after that people were just so scared they didn't want to go on underground trains anymore.

It's dangerous,

What happens if someone blows up when you're inside one?

But then somebody else pointed out,

I think the very next day I saw it in a newspaper that more people die in cars,

There's more deaths in cars every day than in the tube train.

So,

But does that stop people driving in cars?

Of course not.

Sometimes it's just the way that we are convinced,

I would say brainwashed,

To be anxious about some things.

We're not anxious about other things.

The point is that chances of you getting blown up in a tube train of zero and in fact even when we had those recent people getting eaten by sharks in the Australian sea,

Are you anxious to go to the beach and have a swim?

You think,

Oh,

I'm going to get eaten by a shark,

I can't go into the beach,

At the time.

Again,

I read another article someone gave me,

Just how stupid anxiety is.

More people in Australia every year die from something as simple as falling out of bed than being eaten by sharks.

Just falling out of bed,

That makes you,

Kills you much more so than being eaten by sharks.

So does that mean when you realize that,

That you make sure you don't go to bed tonight?

It's very dangerous.

So many people die in bed.

But anyway,

I told a lot of people when I read that,

Look,

I don't worry about going,

I don't go to the beach because I've got no bathers,

Nothing to put on and I'm not going to do that,

I don't want to embarrass any sharks.

Anyway,

But I do go to bed,

Do I?

Actually I mention this and it's true,

You can actually see it,

I'm probably the only living Buddhist monk in the world whose bedroom is a tourist attraction,

It's called my cave.

How many people here have had a look inside my cave?

Look at that,

That's my bedroom.

How many people have looked inside your bedroom?

And you see,

That's where I live.

And you can see that I haven't got a bed there,

Sleep on the floor.

That's one of the reasons,

Once I read that article,

I'm far too afraid to sleep on a bed because I've always been sleeping on the floor.

Over here I sleep on a bed because,

That's what I remember because I had a carpet on the floor then and one day I was sleeping on there and just got some hay fever,

Some sort of allergy from,

I don't know,

They just cleaned the carpet or something so I didn't sleep well that night,

So they put a bed up there so I just sleep on there,

That's good enough.

But anyway,

Why is it we're anxious about the wrong things?

What it does,

It actually does cause us a lot of problems.

It means that you're afraid,

Just have a nice wedding without masks on.

You can go for a swim in the ocean,

You can go travelling,

It's okay.

Yeah,

I mean sometimes,

Sometimes you'll get some sort of sickness.

I think they know that the sickness I get when I go travelling is called terminal illness.

I said this so many times,

You must remember this joke.

Terminal illness,

Go to terminal 1 in Perth,

Terminal 3 in Singapore,

Terminal 2 in Bangkok.

I go to so many terminals when I go flying,

I must have terminal illness.

Okay,

Anyway,

Never mind,

I do try.

But instead of being afraid,

Obviously we just take precautions when we're needed,

We don't overdo it.

And the dangerous part of that,

When we do overreact,

Is also next Tuesday,

Before I go over to Thailand,

I'm going to be giving a lecture at Solaris Cancer Care.

I go there every year and it's next Tuesday,

It's my yearly visit there.

And I've been going there for now 27 years,

I think,

It was 26 years last time.

27 years,

Every year I get invited to give a talk to the centre there.

And recently,

It's a huge centre now because they got a big grant from the state government when Cod and Barnett,

That was his area there,

He was a local member,

A big grant there to have huge renovations.

So they got care for all sorts of people with all sorts of different types of cancers.

And so they had the opening there about 3,

4 years ago,

I forget now.

But anyway,

They had two VIPs there,

The premier at the time,

That was Cod and Barnett,

And the other VIP was yours truly,

Ajahn Brahm,

Just those two VIPs.

So I got,

I got to be able to get the holy water to bless the place,

They wanted holy water to bless the place,

And I got to bless Cod and Barnett as well,

The premier.

Anyway,

I bless anybody.

So anyway,

I asked,

Why did you invite me?

Why do you keep on inviting me?

Why me?

Why not an archbishop or a rabbi or something?

Why me?

Or some big donor?

I haven't given any money to the place,

I've just given my time.

And that's when they told me the reason.

The reason was this,

It's a wonderful story which fits into this talk.

First time I went there,

It was 27 years ago,

After my talk on how to meditate,

Good attitude,

Don't be afraid,

How to deal with cancers,

Only a sentence,

So it's only a word,

It's not a sentence,

Just take it easy with these things,

All those nice little words.

Question time,

I love question time because that's where people give an idea of.

.

.

Here we go.

.

.

It's done,

Okay,

You put it in,

Here we go,

This is holy.

Under her leg,

Okay,

Anyway,

Ooh,

Ow,

Yes,

Of course you can,

No trouble.

Ooh,

There we go.

No,

Don't be sorry,

It's wonderful,

Don't be anxious,

Yeah.

But anyway,

Okay,

Twist it around a bit,

Have a bit of a hop around,

Whatever,

Okay.

Anyway,

Back to the talk,

It's okay,

I don't mind at all.

So,

When the lines come in,

They'll fix you up,

They'll bite it off.

Okay,

Okay,

I'm going to walk around a bit here,

There we go.

Anyway,

Where was,

Oh yeah,

So question time,

Sony put their hand up and this lady,

She'd had breast cancer,

She had a mastectomy,

Radiation therapy,

Chemotherapy,

This was 27 years ago.

And afterwards she said it was really hard but now she was in full remission and she said,

To me,

He said,

I'm so afraid it might come back,

If it will come back again I don't know if I could handle it,

It was just so really painful and unpleasant.

And then she said,

What can I do?

And my answer was,

There's many people asking questions,

Couldn't go into a deep discussion,

I said to her,

What would happen if it didn't come back?

And she was so quiet and we could see that somehow rather she was having a eureka moment,

A light bulb moment where she could actually see that she was always thinking what would happen if it might come back,

What would happen if it might come back,

Looking in the future with a negative mind and I was just suggesting to her,

What happens if it doesn't come back?

Which was far more likely and she said,

Oh thank you.

And she was one of the leaders of that group and that's why that she comes back every year,

The cancer never comes back but she comes back to see me,

To say thank you.

That is one of the reasons I've been going there for such a long time.

Now take that example,

If she was afraid,

What would happen if it came back?

If she had kept on thinking like that,

That negativity,

That tension,

That anxiety,

That would have probably sort of brought it back for her,

At least increased the chances of something terrible happening.

The anxiety increases the possibility that what you're afraid of is what will happen.

But if you're not afraid of that,

If you think what would happen if it didn't,

Looking in the future with a positive mind,

Not with anxiety,

But with a positive mind,

It's less likely to come back and in her case it didn't.

Or another example of when I went to Singapore some years ago.

When I did go to Singapore some years ago,

That was right in the middle of something so similar to the coronavirus,

It was SARS crisis,

Sudden acute respiratory syndrome.

And as I got off the aircraft in Singapore,

As I prepared to actually to meet my hosts and give big talks,

Four nights in a row in Suntech City Convention Centre,

I think about 4000 seats every evening,

One,

Two,

Three,

Four days in a row.

Imagine how much investment that had taken.

And I saw on the newspaper in the plane,

99 people in Singapore had SARS.

In big black letters,

99 people were ill with SARS.

And the people outside,

They were just so afraid.

They were anxious.

And as I came out through the customs area,

They said,

Ajahn Brahm,

Shall we cancel?

Shall we cancel?

I said,

Why?

I said,

99 people have got SARS,

All the schools are being closed.

And the Governor said,

Please don't have any big meetings.

I said,

Come on.

You're all business people,

Highly educated.

What is the population of Singapore?

He said,

Oh,

Maybe about 4 million.

So why did they not put in the Straits Times newspaper headlines 3,

999,

901 people have not got SARS?

Why didn't they put that there?

And it's amazing,

The change in their facial expressions.

Oh,

We never thought of that.

So when you think of how many people are sick,

Ooh,

That's scary.

When you think of how many people are not sick,

Oh,

That puts things into perspective.

Because I was a mathematician,

Theoretical physicist,

I said,

Let's do some statistics.

3,

000,

Is 40,

000 to 1 chance you're not going to get SARS.

Only 99 had it and 4 million,

That's,

Yeah,

40,

000 to 1.

That's pretty good odds.

Is the 40,

000 to 1 chance you're going to be safe by just walking out the door?

I think that's a pretty good odds.

So what are you worried about?

So of course,

Once I put it that way,

They said,

Oh,

Let's go ahead.

So we had our,

And I did actually add a bit extra to this to say,

Well,

You know what my talks are like.

I always tell a joke here,

A funny story,

It's supposed to be jokes,

Sometimes you laugh,

You can never really predict,

But at least you get your lungs moving.

When you get your lungs moving,

That's called exercise,

Laughing,

Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

The lungs are moving,

The air is going through,

You're cleansing your lungs,

Immune system is being enhanced and your lungs are getting stronger and for acute respiratory system,

Your lungs need to be strong to fight that.

Immune system needs to be strong.

So if you have good immune response and you're happy and you're laughing,

You don't get sick.

Sold.

And of course,

No one got sick.

I think the first day,

People didn't believe we were doing this,

Only about 1000-2000 people came,

But we kept on going,

Going,

Going,

And last day was a full house.

And people were just so appreciative because when we get into anxiety and negativity,

It can really build up and the whole group gets negative,

The whole society gets anxious and we're just negative people,

That's no way to live.

I'd rather die by eating by a shark who's got coronavirus in a bush fire than have such anxiety.

I'm sure it can happen.

But what if… yeah,

You see,

You're getting your lungs moving,

Well done.

Because I don't know,

Since my 68th year now,

My 69th year on planet Earth,

You've seen so many people get negative and just what type of life is that to live?

Or you would rather have like happy,

Positive people and just then it builds you up,

Sees a good side and you find that bad things don't happen to you.

Weird,

Isn't it?

You know that sometimes,

Again it's strange,

I also,

There was another person who told me,

A very senior monk whose name will not be mentioned but he passed tigers,

No not tigers,

Snakes,

King Cobra's on the head,

I think you all know who he is,

He told me,

Ajahn Brahm,

You must stop eating oily foods and too many sweets,

You must do that.

No way!

I'm not going to allow someone else to control my happiness.

Because the last time I saw this monk,

That was in the demilitarised zone.

I mentioned that story a couple of years ago.

I went to Korea,

South Korea,

And I was having a peace movement at the time.

That was a time when,

You may remember it over a year and a half ago,

When Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un fell in love.

That's what it said on the newspapers anyway.

So anyway,

So they wanted to move on that and just have this big peace conference up there.

So I went there to join in and I thought it was a really worthwhile thing to do.

But then I had this big senior monk,

I was one of the senior monks,

They wanted us to go on this walk,

Meditation walk,

Inside the demilitarised zone.

Wow!

The senior monk,

No,

He couldn't go because he was busy.

Ajahn Ganha,

He was sick.

So that left your own Ajahn Brahm.

Would you have allowed me to do that?

It was a three hour walk,

Really fast,

No rest.

Whoa,

Whoa,

Whoa,

Leading 6,

000 Jogja Buddhists over into the DMC,

Demilitarised zone,

Walking.

Yeah!

So off I went,

Just doing that,

Had a wonderful time.

Could you do that?

Would you be anxious?

No,

I wasn't anxious at all.

But I must admit,

I did mention at the time,

There was a lot of shooting in there.

There was,

I can't lie to you,

I was shot a few times,

Actually many times.

Click,

Click,

Photographed and videoed and stuff.

But anyway,

That's the whole idea of,

You look at Ajahn Chanha when he was alive,

He never showed any anxiety no matter what he was doing.

But what actually is the anxiety,

How it works,

Is you get some sort of fear coming up,

Some sort of negativity,

Fear is negativity.

And you build on that negativity,

It gets worse and worse and worse.

And after a while you make idiot of yourself.

One of those times I remember when I got so afraid and what happened after,

I was like,

Stupid monk,

That was when I was meditating in the jungle.

This was in Thailand,

Real jungle,

I mean,

Must have been at least 40 years ago,

45 years as a monk,

Yeah about 40 years ago I think this was,

Meditating in the jungle in the north east of Thailand.

There was many tigers there,

Bears,

Snakes,

Many animals looked at you as their dinner.

So when they saw you,

Oh look at that,

Western food.

They're bored with eastern food.

So it's just like you get a new recipe,

Comes to town,

Of course you want to try it.

But there you are by yourself in the jungle,

No protection at all,

Just sitting down on the ground,

Just meditating.

And of course it's usually very noisy at the beginning of the evening,

The old shikadas,

But then it calms down.

And sometimes it's just so peaceful there,

In nature it's cool,

And in those jungles it was always,

This is one of the wonderful things about the rainforest in those days,

It was always a beautiful scent of some flowers,

Something was always in bloom.

And you could actually smell the fragrance of some flowers somewhere.

And that was just such an amazing,

Wonderful part of living in the jungles.

Anyway,

You sit there,

As long as you're quiet and peaceful,

Usually animals don't bother you,

Even the mosquitoes leave you alone when you're very peaceful.

But anyway,

There I was sitting down quietly,

And then I heard it,

Something was moving towards me.

It was pitch dark,

I only had a flashlight.

I didn't want to use the flashlight because there's no place to get replacement batteries,

You just had to try and preserve your batteries with your flashlight as long as possible.

So I was sitting there nice and quietly,

So I decided to use my mindfulness.

I've been around a while,

So you can actually tell whether it's a big animal or a small animal.

So I closed my eyes,

And just out of my eyes closed,

It didn't actually matter,

Eyes open or eyes closed,

It was pitch dark,

And you're all alone.

No one was around for a few kilometers.

And there was no,

Even if you did have a,

Actually there was no such thing as mobile phones then,

Even if you shouted,

No one could hear you,

You were in the middle of the jungle,

Alone,

In the darkness,

With all these wild animals around you.

Would you be scared?

Oh come on!

So I heard the sound of this animal and I just,

I stopped my meditation just to listen,

Listen with mindfulness,

Without any fear,

Just to see how big it was.

When I heard it,

No it's only a small thing,

Probably a little mouse or something,

Or small animal,

So I didn't bother about it,

So I closed my eyes and started watching my breathing,

Breathing in,

Breathing out,

Nice and peaceful.

Then it came closer,

So I listened to it again.

As I listened to it again I realized,

Because by the sound of it,

You know,

Crunching the twigs and the grass on the ground,

It was bigger than a mouse.

It was probably the size of like a civet cat or a mouse deer,

Had in Thailand at the time.

Just very nice,

Very peaceful animals,

They're not going to harm you,

So it's okay.

So I closed my eyes again and then it came even closer and you could hear,

Actually this was much bigger than that.

You could hear just the way it crunched the ground and just as it brushed past the twigs and the leaves in the forest,

I thought this is quite a big animal.

I said,

No,

It's not a danger,

Not a danger.

Breathing in,

Breathing out,

Breathing in,

Breathing out,

Breathing in,

Breathing out.

And then I heard it,

It was coming really close,

This was a big animal and I got really scared.

This could be a tiger,

It could be all sorts of other animals in the forest and they would attack you.

I told the monks this the other day,

Even Ajahn Chah would tell me that tigers do not eat monks.

But then I thought,

How do you know?

Because I was a scientist,

I was logical,

I said,

If a tiger did eat a monk,

Number one,

There'd be no evidence the monk would confess he'd be eaten.

And the tiger certainly wouldn't admit it.

So I wasn't convinced at all,

I thought,

Oh my goodness,

I'm going to get eaten by a tiger.

And so anyway,

I opened my eyes and I got out of my flashlight.

I didn't have to worry about wasting batteries,

This is important,

This is life-threatening.

So I turned on my flashlight and looked for the tiger,

The most stupid thing to do,

Because then if you can see the tiger with the flashlight,

The tiger can see you.

But anyway,

Just when you're anxious,

You don't think like that.

So I was looking for someone that big,

I should be able to see,

It was over there,

I could see it.

Then I actually saw it,

I saw it,

It started moving away from me this time,

A tiny mouse about this big.

I loved telling that story,

It was a tiny mouse.

And I thought,

Oh my goodness,

How come that really sounded with all your mindfulness and wisdom like a tiger?

And I realised that's what fear does.

Fear and anxiety is part of that fear.

Turns a mouse into a tiger.

It turns a disease into something which is about to catch you and kill you to bits,

Painfully,

Without being able to breathe at all.

The virus is coming.

When I,

I'm only going for a few days to Thailand,

I'll be back not next Friday talk,

But the Friday afterwards for the talk.

Actually that's the 15th,

Isn't it?

So the day after,

The day after,

The day after Valentine's Day.

On Friday?

I'll be coming back for Valentine's Day.

So I'll have a gift to give each one of you,

Coronavirus.

How many of you would be too scared to come in here?

I'll be all the back.

Of course,

I promise I won't get that.

But what it is,

Is you can see how things happen.

Just how,

Because of fear.

That is what creates a tiger out of a mouse,

Out of a little itch in your throat,

A big virus.

How it means you don't travel on the buses because you're so scared.

So be careful of negativity.

One of the reasons why when that old story about the three bad bricks in the wall,

Two bad bricks in the wall,

When I saw 998 good bricks for every two bricks,

Bad bricks in the wall,

You never want to destroy anything.

Why is it that people see faults and they never see the positive?

Even giving talks.

I was never anxious when I gave public talks,

Even on TV,

Live TV.

You know why?

Because I thought,

What's wrong?

If I make a big fool of myself on live TV when I give a talk,

Wonderful,

Then they'll never invite me again.

Yay!

What if I give terrible talks over here?

Yay!

And I'll never get invited again.

What if I talk too long when the lines come?

Then Eddie will never let me give talks.

Another ten minutes?

Oh excellent,

Great.

Sorry?

Okay,

Yeah,

Ten minutes time.

Are you sure it's a line and not five little mouths?

Did you check carefully because it's dark outside?

Yeah,

Just ten minutes is fine.

So that is actually with fear.

So please,

There's so many other places in life where you're anxious,

Anxious with fear and that makes you fail.

You go to play a tennis match,

You go and suffer interview,

You go to a,

What else,

An interview for a job.

Ah,

I'm going to fail and of course you do fail.

But if you keep the positive mind,

That's what we do with our meditation,

We train ourselves that way.

We train and train and train.

Even just when one of the first year I was in Thailand,

Ajahn Chah's brother died.

He was a lay person,

Had his ceremony right outside Wat Phapong.

So I was there for the ceremony and I said,

I'm just going to go and sit by the corpse.

And the monk said,

Are you going to sit next to the corpse?

Aren't you afraid of ghosts?

And I said,

I tried to say,

I'm not afraid of ghosts.

Wow,

That's amazing,

How come you're not afraid of ghosts?

Well,

If the ghost says anything,

I can't understand Thai yet,

So I don't know what the ghost is on about.

Those sorts of jokes,

That type of attitude is why we can overcome fear and anxiety.

So again,

It's 45 minutes of talk and I said I was going to do 45 minutes.

There will be some questions I'm sure from overseas,

So we're going to finish the talk now.

A few questions from overseas and then we're going to have the lions coming in.

But any questions from here before we finish off?

Anxiety.

Oh,

That's my.

.

.

See,

It worked.

See,

You're better now.

Okay,

Here we go.

So a few questions,

I'll be quick with these because we have the lion dance because it's Chinese New Year.

From Poland,

What.

.

.

Oh,

This is a deep question.

Once we get enlightened,

We start fading away,

Vanishing.

Does this mean we cease to exist?

What is the benefit of getting enlightened?

Well,

You get enlightened first and you find out the benefit.

If you don't like it,

Then you can just come.

.

.

No,

You can't come back again,

It's a one-way street.

Listen to more of my deep talks,

Especially the sutta classes.

How do you treat anxiety if you're not ready to die yet and how do you take the fear out of your loved ones who are scared?

You're not maybe ready to die yet,

But you don't have to die yet and even if you do die,

You get reborn again and so it's not really the end of things,

So it's so difficult to disappear.

So why are people afraid to die?

Sometimes people say,

Oh,

They're too young to die.

How many people here are too young to die?

Only one.

Over there.

You're not paying attention,

Are you?

That's what I was afraid of.

Now anxiety,

Anxiety brings more problems than being peaceful.

When you're anxious about something,

You increase the possibility of negative things happening.

So first of all,

Just try that.

You don't need to think about the bad things of the future,

Think of the good things in the future.

So it's just changing the mind state through meditation.

And how do you take the fear out of your loved ones who are scared?

Oh,

Just crack jokes is a good way of doing it,

Tell funny stories.

And it's okay to be scared properly when there's something really to be scared about,

But a lot of times what we're scared of,

We don't really need to be scared of things.

So after a while,

You find that by practicing meditation,

All of that fear disappears.

The last question,

Some psychological thought states,

The unconscious sets the agenda for how life,

How will Buddhism deal with these hidden forces?

You let them go,

There's no such thing as hidden forces.

Every force in the world you can actually see and watch.

Yeah,

There's dark matter and dark forces,

Scientists say,

But even so,

The real things in your mind,

You can see everything.

And anything which is dark from the past,

You can let go.

Abandon it.

Why keep dark things or scary things,

Bad memories?

You can let everything go.

It's really up to you.

It can be done and of course,

Monks like me,

We teach that,

We do that.

Why not?

Simple to do.

Reviews

Absolutely lovely and very helpful. The jokes made me laugh, too!

I've really benefited from what he is teaching here. I will listen to this over again to garner even more insight. Thank you.

Best box ever. Thank you thank you thank you

Thank you very much 🙏