Having A Good Relationship With Life | Dharma Talk With Ajahn Brahm

Ajahn Brahm teaches the importance of having a positive relationship with our experiences in life. Ajahn encourages us to embrace our life’s unpleasantness, learn from it, and make peace with it, rather than become upset or anxious.

Ajahn Brahm is a popular Buddhist teacher to a growing international audience of people keen to learn meditation and develop a deeper spiritual understanding. He is also the founding father of an emergent Australian forest tradition of Buddhism.

Transcript

Very good.

I know people come to our Buddhist Centre on a Friday night for all sorts of different reasons.

Some just come because it's a Friday night and it just starts the weekend off very well.

I could not believe it once,

Many years ago these people came and they were really,

Young people,

Young man,

Young woman,

And they were both really dressed,

You might say,

Like,

Fashionably,

Provocatively.

I said,

What are you doing?

So we come to the Buddhist Centre first of all to do the meditation,

Listen to a talk,

Then we go night clubbing.

So,

Ah,

I understand that,

You make all the good karma first of all so you've got enough to spend at the night clubs afterwards.

They were very nice couples though,

Why not?

Anyway,

I'm sure they did good things,

Young people enjoying themselves.

But nevertheless,

The people come for all sorts of different things but there's one thing I was first taught to try and do something which is very useful is,

You know,

One of the parts of Buddhism or meditation which is so powerful is actually whatever you come here for,

Sometimes the people are upset or they're anxious or afraid,

They're fed up and sometimes they're,

Why?

Can there be a solution to things like anxiety and fear?

And of course there is.

But it's learning how to look at it in a more positive way.

But to look at it in a more positive way,

I say most of these things are called relationship problems.

It's our relationship to what we have to experience in life.

And of course,

You know,

Being a monk,

I've been a monk now for 46 years,

I know all about relationships.

The relationships with myself,

With my mind,

With my body,

With my life,

With success and failure,

Things going well and things not going so well.

And that relationship is actually almost the heart of what we do.

Recall what happened,

What you have to deal with right now,

Recall that result of old karma is here.

And sometimes people may be sick,

They may be healthy,

They may be wealthy,

They may be poor,

They may be beautiful,

Whatever it is which they have to deal with.

Here it is right now.

Or the people you're living with,

You know,

The partner,

The children,

The parents,

The job you have,

These are the people you're living with.

Old karma.

Now the point with the law of karma,

It doesn't really matter honestly the sort of people you have to live with.

What's,

Or who you are.

What really is important is what you do with what you have.

The relationship you build with whatever you're experiencing in your life right now.

And a good example of that is over the last six months or nine months or however long it is,

So many people get so worried and anxious about things like COVID and other politics and stuff and they think,

Oh,

I can't go overseas,

What can happen?

But,

We call that sort of fear,

Anxiety,

It's called looking at the future with a negative mind.

When you have a bit of negativity,

You can see all the things wrong,

All the things which could go wrong,

All the mistakes,

And that makes you very negative.

If you have a relationship with a partner and you're upset today,

You can see all the faults,

All the things wrong with them and you wonder why did they ever decide to live with them.

If you look at yourself with a negative mind,

You see all the faults in yourself,

All the troubles in yourself,

You think,

Oh my goodness,

I'm a hopeless case,

I'm really stuck now because you can get rid of your job,

You can get rid of your partner,

It's very difficult to get rid of yourself.

That's one of the reasons why Buddhists,

We don't agree with suicide,

Because if you kill yourself,

You're back there again,

Called reincarnation,

It's no escape,

Not that way anyway.

But instead,

We don't try and change what we're dealing with,

We change the way we deal with it.

Very simple difference.

You don't try and change the world,

You change the way you look at the world,

How you relate to it.

So,

Instead of being afraid of the world,

What might happen,

You change the way you look at it.

And instead of looking at all the things which might go wrong,

You look at all the things which might go right.

Which is amazing,

I've lived long enough now,

I realise that a lot of stuff in life will go right.

Oh no,

That's okay.

Very good.

Oh,

They're going to go somewhere.

Okay,

Bye bye,

Have a nice day.

You look at all the things which might go right in life,

Instead of all the things which might go wrong.

And that has been a great balm in my life.

Whenever I give talks and people walk out,

And I think,

Oh my goodness,

I said something wrong.

But many years ago I thought,

Wow,

If more people walk out,

Then Dennis won't ever invite me to give a talk again,

And I can stay in my monastery peacefully meditating,

Relaxed to the max all the time.

Either way,

I look at it so you win both ways.

And I tell many people,

Even relationships,

I wasn't born a monk.

Even though my mother did tell me,

I don't know if I remembered it correctly,

But I sort of remember her telling me that when I came out of her womb,

I had no hair.

It was a sign.

It was an omen.

But anyway,

I was just a normal boy.

And I still remember just being dumped by my girlfriend.

Oh,

Many people in that long relationship,

About six months,

And she dumped me.

But you know,

I never felt sad.

Weird,

Isn't it?

Instead I thought,

Freedom.

Maybe I can save some money now.

Because it's true that even boys these days tell me that girlfriends are very expensive.

You be careful,

You know,

They really cost a lot of money.

They don't really,

But it seems that way.

But when you had a positive attitude towards life,

I thought,

Well,

You know,

Just come and go.

Old karma is gone now,

And I can maybe do something better.

And of course I became a monk,

Which was,

Woo,

Thank you girlfriend for dumping me.

If she hadn't dumped me,

I may not have had that chance.

So you always look at things in a positive light.

You may have lost your job.

Great!

How many people complain about having to go to work on a Monday morning and all the stress of life and all this stuff.

And you lost your job.

Yay!

Now Monday morning I can have a rest or do some meditation and just enjoy myself.

But a lot of times people don't ever see the benefits,

They always see the faults.

I lost my job,

I got no money,

Why did they sack me?

To this day I've gone to places in Hong Kong and Singapore and other sort of modern economies and I say whatever you do,

If somebody offers you a promotion,

Don't take it.

You're crazy to want to be promoted.

You know why I say that?

It's because you get promoted,

You do get more money at work,

That's true,

But it's never enough.

Doesn't matter how much you have,

It's never enough.

What's really important is if you get promoted,

You get more stress.

You've already got too much of that for sure.

So why get promoted and then just get more stress in life?

Who wants that?

Do you want more stress?

If anyone wants more stress in life,

Come over here,

I'll join you on the committee.

No,

It's not a stressful committee,

I want it's good fun.

So sometimes we look at things in a different way.

What is our purpose and meaning in life?

So we don't look at the future and think of all the things which might go wrong,

We think of all the things which might go right and if they do go wrong we make them right.

Whatever happens in life.

You know that's been a whole journey of the Covid thing,

The last,

How many months has it been now?

It's been a long time.

Anyway,

January or something,

All year.

But anyway,

We can always make something wonderful out of it.

Weird isn't it to say that?

Yeah,

Some people die and that's always a tragedy for many people but when they do die,

Sometimes we look at death,

That's a really important part in Buddhism,

We're always thinking of death but sometimes as a Buddhist we realise that we have many lives,

So we can come back again.

What would you like to come back as?

You know I've got this little piece of paper in my,

In my little bag here and it says,

A little question,

Who am I?

Who am I?

I can get up in the morning and I don't need any caffeine to actually be cheerful as soon as I've woken up.

And I can eat anything at all,

I never sort of complain.

And people can actually ignore me sometimes because they're too busy to look after me in a bad mood,

I don't mind,

I'm always happy.

And I can just live just very comfortably anywhere,

I can sleep anywhere and when I do go to sleep I don't need any alcohol or drugs to be able to have a good night's sleep.

And who am I?

Yes,

The family dog.

I think of a family dog.

Family dog,

They don't need a cup of coffee in the morning when they get up.

They're always nice to you because we went to a house today,

Two beautiful dogs at the house,

A big one and a small one.

I was surprised how big the one dog was and how small the other dog was but they're really nice dogs.

And you can see just how relaxed they were,

They could eat anything.

Even though the owners were vegetarians,

We had some meat,

So you know,

We'd just slip a bit of meat to the two dogs,

They were very happy.

I had this,

When I was a vegetarian many years ago,

I was staying in a house with a vegan cat.

At least the owners tried to make their cat to be vegan and they feed it soya milk.

I was a vegetarian at the time so when the owners weren't looking,

I slipped the cat some milk.

Oh,

The cat really loved me for that,

You know,

Some cow's milk instead of soya milk.

Poor old cat.

Anyway.

So the relationship we have to what we have to deal with in life,

You can get very negative and upset and that's not a way to treat a cat,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

But not a way to treat a dog.

But anyway,

When we talk about like the bigger picture of like rebirth,

It means you've got lots and lots of chances.

Many of you come here because you're having a difficult time.

Don't worry,

They'll pass.

But I'm dying.

Don't worry,

Your next life will be better.

Bah,

Bah,

Bah,

Bah,

Bah.

Sometimes when you see a bigger picture,

It makes,

You know,

I always think that one life is not enough to do all you need to do and to learn what you need to learn and to grow as much as you need to grow.

Look,

Even make a simile of like schools and universities.

Can you just go to university just for one year and learn everything which you really need to learn at university just one year?

Of course not.

Even if you work very hard and study very hard and just go to every class,

You still don't learn everything.

Even one life,

It's been so short.

Even I'm old.

How old am I now?

About 69.

Oh,

It's gone so fast.

Oh,

How many more years have I got?

When I start saying things like that,

A few people start to get worried.

They say,

Oh please,

Please,

Please,

Please,

Please,

Please,

Please,

Please live a little bit longer.

That's really unfair,

Really unkind.

You know why it's unkind?

Because the older you get,

The more you ache,

The more your legs get weak,

The more your arms get weak,

The more your eyes start to go and you kind of hear very clearly.

But one thing I've noticed with elderly people,

The older you get,

It's true,

Your arms get weak,

Your legs get weak,

Your eyes get weak,

Your ears don't work as well,

There's one part of your body which gets stronger every year,

Which gets even tougher and more powerful.

This,

Your mouth.

Old people can really talk.

And I prove it.

So I may not be able to walk,

I may not be able to lift my arms or see or hear,

But I'll still be able to give a Dharma talk every Friday night for the next 30 years,

Dennis.

But anyway,

Yeah,

So,

The relationship you have with life,

You can see already,

You can see how you can give a positive aspect to whatever happens in life.

Something you can learn.

So when it gets down to life,

This is what life is.

Disappointments,

Not going the way you expect,

Aches,

Pains,

Difficulties,

Separations,

Deaths,

But it's what you make with what you have.

Your relationship to life.

And to make this very clear,

Long time ago I asked people,

Are you one of these people who love life?

Do you love life?

And a lot of people say,

Yeah,

I love life.

But you love the nasty part of life,

The disappointing part of life,

When life doesn't go the way you want it to.

Do you love that part too?

If you love all of life,

Even the difficult parts,

The sicknesses,

The deaths,

The losing your jobs,

If you do like that part too,

Then you're somebody who has a very good relationship to life.

Because that part will happen too.

So how can you change your relationships so that whatever you have to experience in life,

That you know,

You can have some fun with,

Some joy with?

I'm going to start this explanation with something which I used to call the 70% rule.

And the story behind this was a time when I was,

Believe it or not,

A school teacher,

Because I taught in a high school in Devon in UK,

Many,

Many,

Many years ago.

And as part of this anecdote,

Nothing to do with the main part of the anecdote,

You know in those days that you had to spend one week taking the morning assembly.

It was a state school,

Mostly Christians,

But I was a Buddhist then.

And I asked the principal,

Is it okay if instead of just reading a book or something to the 650 students,

11 years of age to 17 years of age or 18,

You know,

Co-ed,

Is it okay if I teach them some meditation?

And that was in 1974.

You know,

No,

Yeah,

1973 I think.

And so for five days in a row,

Monday to Friday,

In 1973,

I got up on the platform there in front of the headmaster,

In front of 650 high school kids.

And I told them,

Okay,

Cross your legs,

Straighten your back,

Close your eyes and watch your breathing.

And they did.

That was one of the most amazing things that they,

All,

Every one of those childrens complied with my instructions.

Not one of them messed around,

Even though they'd never heard anything called meditation before.

And for five minutes they watched their breath.

And then afterwards,

Okay,

Come out now.

I still remember this,

No exaggeration,

That at the end of that five minutes of silence,

Which the teachers said,

The hall's never been this quiet.

And they actually clapped,

They gave me an ovation for that.

That was such a wonderful thing.

I know that many people teach mindfulness in schools these days,

But I was far ahead of the game,

That was 1974,

150 kids all silently meditating.

And of course,

What's the result of that?

Ah,

Many years later when I was visiting the area,

This gentleman came out to me and asked this question which you should never ask,

Do you remember me?

And it was one of those kids,

He said,

You taught me meditation.

He said,

That changed my whole life.

I remember him saying that to me.

It meant a lot to me as well,

Something which I'd forgotten about so many years earlier.

It changed because of the relationship you had to what you're doing.

Sometimes people,

How can you just sit quietly?

You've already heard me say during the meditation instructions that relax,

How do you feel?

The mindfulness and the kindness which you learn because after a while you find that works.

It relaxes the body,

It relaxes the mind.

You never start off perfect.

Although sometimes I work very hard and I'm tired,

I'm getting old now.

Actually that's wrong,

I got old quite a few years ago.

But there are a few things,

Aches and pains and how am I going to deal with that,

Got some hay fever as well.

How do you deal with that?

It's karma,

This is real,

I can experience it.

But how do you experience it?

One of the things which I learnt a long time ago is you can't get rid of the difficulties in life.

If I've got some hay fever or aches and pains,

You can't get rid of them and try and take some medication or drugs or wave a magic wand to get rid of it.

You're stuck with it,

It's there.

But what I learnt,

Instead of giving it ill will,

I'm trying to get rid of it and trying to change it and get it to disappear,

To give it kindness,

It's wonderful compassion to allow it to be.

To say to whatever you're experiencing,

I don't know why you're here but you're here and you're going to teach me something.

And I recall all the teachers which I had to be under at school,

My teachers,

I never liked many of them.

But many of the ones which were the most hurtful sometimes,

I learnt the most from.

And I noticed that in life as well.

So many difficult experiences of life,

They weren't pleasant at the time but later on I said thank you for being there.

I learnt so much from you.

So I realised that all these achy painy difficult,

It shouldn't happen this way,

Why did they do this to me sort of events in life which you can all relate to.

A lot of the times I learnt so much from them,

I grow so much from them.

And a simile which I've often given here,

First time this season,

Because this is the first talk this season,

They're all treading in the dog poo.

If you haven't heard that before,

I don't know where you've been.

I say this at the monastery everywhere I go,

You go home from this talk this evening and on your way before you even get in your car,

You go squash,

You know that squashy feeling when you tread in dog poo.

And it's all over your shoes.

And what do you do with the dog poo which you step in,

It's not your fault,

That stupid dog and the owner,

They should pick up the dog poo afterwards,

And that's all over my shoes.

But instead of complaining about it,

You must always take it home with you.

Get in your car,

Maybe just put your feet up or something,

Let somebody else drive so you don't get it all over the steering wheel,

No,

Don't put your feet on the steering wheel,

I mean on the pedals.

And when you get home,

That's when you scrape the dog poo off under your mango tree or apple tree or whatever else you grow in your garden.

And imagine,

Just obvious isn't it when somebody tells you the dog poo is some of the best fertilizer,

The more it smells,

The more powerful is the oomph in that dog poo.

So take it home with you,

Dig it under your mango tree or apple tree or whatever you've got there,

And I will guarantee,

One year later,

Your mangoes will be sweeter and more juicy and more delicious than ever before.

There's so many of them and they're so incredible that you even give them to monks like me,

Which is correct because I gave you the instructions of how to make the best mangoes in Perth.

And when you bite them and all the juice starts to drip down your cheek,

And you,

Oh,

The thing which people forget,

You forget what you're really eating.

It is true isn't it,

It's dog shit.

It's been transformed into delicious mango.

That's the best simile which I've got to describe what happens in life.

So all the difficulties of life,

And I tell that story a lot when I go and teach cancer groups,

All the difficulties in life you can look upon them as fertilizer,

Opportunities to grow,

To learn and to be a better person afterwards,

More kind,

More compassionate.

So when I do my meditation,

Whenever I come across in meditation,

I don't try and get rid of it.

It's too important to get rid of,

Everything is too important to get rid of.

I stay with it and let it teach me.

It's one of the reasons why that the silence of the mind is important.

Just like when I was at school,

If I,

As a student,

If I was talking I wasn't listening to what the teacher was saying,

I missed too much.

And I was so quiet that I could learn and take in lots of the information.

And that's what I do in life a lot,

Even like walking through the forest,

Being so quiet that even,

I think I showed you,

Didn't I,

I found three four-leaf clovers in monastery.

Did I show you?

No,

I showed somebody else.

Three four-leaf clovers,

Real four-leaf clovers,

Not fake ones,

In our monastery.

And a four-leaf clover,

That's supposed to be really good luck.

If I had any money I'd buy a lottery ticket but I don't gamble so.

It's still very lucky,

Real ones.

So anyway,

Why do those things happen to me?

It's because instead of walking through the monastery forest thinking or just,

Oh what am I going to say this evening at the talk in Nalumara temple,

Or who am I going to see,

Why do I have to do this,

This is unfair,

I'm supposed to be a simple monk,

I'm supposed to be saying in my cave meditating,

Why me?

You know what I'm talking about,

Don't you,

All the complaints which go on between your ears.

I just on a side here,

Somebody,

People ask,

Atan Brahm,

You've been a monk a long time,

Good meditation,

Can you read people's minds?

And I say,

Look,

Your mind's not worth reading.

To be honest.

Who wants to read a trash pulp fiction novel?

It was a real good novel maybe,

You know,

Most people's minds aren't worth reading.

So anyway,

That's the sort of mind,

You're just thinking so much,

Talking so much inside,

Worrying so much,

Which is one of the big problems with people,

Being angry,

This person did this,

This person did that,

Your relationship to the events is all wrong.

Don't worry about things,

Don't get angry about things.

Who does that help?

And who does that add suffering to?

If you get angry,

There's one person which will always hurt,

And that's you,

The person getting angry.

There's always nice little stories and anecdotes about anger and how to teach people not to get angry.

There's this one,

This was ancient Greece,

And there there was a teacher,

And he had many many students and he'd teach them everything,

But every time any one of those students did something stupid,

And the teacher would shout at the student,

The teacher would charge a few extra dollars.

It's reasonable,

It's logical,

Shouting at someone's a lot of effort.

And it's not the teacher's fault that the student did something wrong,

The student should pay the teacher an extra five bucks or something for being so stupid that the teacher had to shout at him.

So this young man,

He studied with this teacher for many years,

Every time he made a mistake,

The teacher would shout at him,

He'd have to hand over another five bucks.

When he graduated and got a job in Athens somewhere,

Every time his boss shouted at him at work,

This young man would laugh.

The boss shouted at him again,

And why do you keep laughing at us when you get told off?

Could you do that at work when somebody shouted at you?

Could you laugh?

Or was your partner,

They shouted at you,

Told you off,

And you go,

Hahahaha,

Could you do that?

They said,

Why are you laughing at us?

He said,

Well look,

When I was a student,

I had to be paid when people shouted at me,

Now get it for free.

That's why I think it's so funny.

And you can see what's happening there,

The person's changing their attitude to what they're experiencing.

They realise anger just hurts you first of all,

And anxiety.

Do you really know what's going to happen?

If you really knew what the future was going to be and you started worrying,

Fair enough,

That's a good argument,

You're worrying about something you know is going to happen,

But no one knows what's going to happen.

One of the powerful teachings of Buddhism,

The future is impermanent,

No one knows what's going to happen next.

Oh,

This story comes up,

It's one of my favourites.

It's no one knows what's going to happen,

But people think they do.

And so on this one occasion,

It was very memorable for me,

Very traumatic for me as a young monk,

Not traumatic actually,

It was good fun.

I was called to Royal Perth Hospital,

ICU unit.

The gentleman there,

A Buddhist,

Was dying in the ICU and the family wanted me to come straight away.

So I had to drop everything I was doing and just get a car and just go to the ICU,

Raced in there,

What's wrong?

And all the family were there.

There's a Chinese Buddhist man,

Not really old,

But elderly.

And so I went in there and I think I must have been doing the rains retreat when my meditation is full strength or something.

And then I really did some really good chanting for him,

Really,

Full power,

Zap zap zap zap zap.

This guy,

He had his eyes closed,

Was in a coma or something,

He came out of his coma,

He opened his eyes.

And the doctor said,

Wow,

It's like a miracle,

He's probably going to survive now.

And I thought,

So proud of myself,

You know,

Just,

Oh yes,

I saved another one.

And when I told the family,

They were so fed up at me.

Honestly,

They were really disappointed.

They said,

Ajahn Brahm,

Don't you know,

They'd actually,

Truly,

They'd already arranged a funeral service for this gentleman.

Everything arranged and they'd even,

They'd all come over from so many different countries,

From Taiwan and Hong Kong,

I don't know from where else,

To be with this man,

With the family members for the last time in their life,

We all come over to be with them and just,

We arranged a funeral service.

And they said,

We didn't want you to chant for him to get better,

We wanted you to chant to have a peaceful death.

I did the wrong chanting.

I never,

I never felt guilty about it,

They didn't tell me it was an emergency,

I rushed in there without asking and I assumed,

You always think that they want the person to live,

Surely that's the thing you want.

So they were very wealthy people,

They gave me nothing.

No unpow,

No donation,

Just get out of here.

But I'm not upset,

I'm not angry at them,

They're angry at me because I learned something.

Whatever happens in life,

You always have the positive attitude towards it to learn from it.

I grew from that.

Now,

If you ever notice,

If ever I go to,

You know,

Maybe your bedside or someone else's bedside or,

You know,

When they're sick in hospital and you ask me to do some chanting for them,

I'll always ask you,

What type of chanting do you want?

Get better soon or die peacefully.

That way I don't make the same mistake again.

So,

Whatever happens in your life,

You can always do something with it,

Which makes life free of worry.

What are you worried about?

Lose all your money?

You can always go off to Dhammasara and become a nun if you lose all your money.

Get dumped by your partner,

Hey,

Wonderful,

Now you're free.

Lose your job,

You take a rest,

Take a break.

Where's all those places you'd love to go in life?

In West Australia,

Of course,

Because of COVID.

Where would you like to go to travel?

Down to Margaret River or to Albany or Esperance or go up to the Kimberleys?

There's so many places you can go but you can't go there when you've got a job,

When you're busy working.

So sometimes,

Sometimes you look at whatever happens in life,

Wonderful,

I've got some free time now,

And see what happens next.

Because the future again,

So uncertain,

No one knows what's going to happen next.

But sometimes,

Have you ever heard of fortune tellers?

Do you believe in fortune tellers?

Sometimes I look at the horoscopes and I read them out to the other monks.

I say,

It's your birthday on Monday,

So October,

What's October?

Libra,

I said,

You're a Libra.

And then I read out the horoscope that day,

And I said,

This is the horoscope today.

And they say,

Oh yeah,

That's very good.

I'm terribly sorry,

I read out the wrong horoscope.

Because it's his birthday,

I can't resist this birthday story.

This,

True,

My birthday,

Many years ago.

And on my birthday,

It's so hard to get a present for a monk.

What does a monk need?

Nothing.

People ask me,

What can we get you?

Nothing.

I said,

But I got you that last year.

Yeah,

But I haven't finished it yet,

I need some more.

Give me some more,

Nothing.

But this fellow,

He was a Malaysian ex-lawyer,

Very wealthy,

And a very nice man,

Very kind.

So he decided,

He didn't tell me,

He just said,

You know,

About what time of day were you born?

As far as I remember,

It was about 5.

30pm,

On 7th of August 1951,

In UK.

Oh,

He said,

I didn't really know what he was up to.

But on my birthday,

He came up and he said,

I spent a lot of money getting a professional horoscope of you,

You're one of the best astrologers in the whole of Australia.

It cost me a lot of money,

But it's my birthday gift to you,

Ajahn Brahm.

Would you mind,

He asked if I read it out.

I said,

Okay,

He spent all that money,

Why not?

So he read out my horoscope for that year.

And I was a really professional,

Expensive astrologer.

He said,

For anyone who's born at 5.

30pm in UK,

On the 7th of August 1951,

I started reading out all the different signs which were in alignment or in conjunction or whatever else.

He said,

Began with this coming year,

The next 12 months,

Said the person who did the horoscope,

Would be a very,

Very good year for romance.

We never got past that line.

We all laughed our head off,

Especially me.

Totally wrong,

Because I'm still a monk.

No,

I'm absolutely here.

Instead of asking for the money back,

He said,

What a wonderful joke that was,

What a wonderful entertainment that was for my birthday.

I'll always remember that one.

So it wasn't a waste of money at all.

But the point was,

You can't predict the future.

Who can?

Or maybe there are better fortune tellers than people who read horoscopes.

So this is my teacher,

My master in Thailand,

Ajahn Chah.

He was very,

Very,

Very powerful.

Very deep meditation.

Incredible.

I put my hand up,

Ajahn Chah passed away quite a few years ago.

He did have psychic powers sometimes.

He could read people's minds.

Remember he read my mind once.

On the retreat side,

Do you want to hear this story?

Yeah,

Come on.

Because this is a deep part of this talk.

Many of you heard it on retreats.

But when people give really good talks,

I mean very deep talks,

They're inspiring.

And on this occasion Ajahn Chah came to the monastery where I was staying and he gave a talk and that day really hit the spot.

Everything being explained so beautifully and he said,

Oh your mind is so inspired and peaceful and joyful.

And then,

You know,

He'd actually built a sauna for him.

You know,

Saunas were not invented in Sweden or wherever.

They had saunas in Buddhist monasteries in India from the very beginning.

They talk about it in the ancient books.

You know,

Saunas for the monks and nuns.

And so we built him a sauna.

And he came over,

So he gave a talk.

I was so inspired.

Ajahn Chah went off to the sauna and I was basically so inspired of so many other monks looking after Ajahn Chah.

I decided just to go round the back of the hall and sit quietly meditating.

I just,

I didn't want to waste that beautiful energy.

I crossed my legs two hours,

Oh just blitzing my head out.

Beautiful meditation,

So deep,

So peaceful.

Of course when you go in deep meditation,

You just don't know how long.

But you know,

Two hours it was.

When I came out of that meditation afterwards,

The first thought was,

You got lots of joy and peace and happiness is to do something good for your teachers.

So I decided,

Well,

Probably too late,

Let's go and walk,

See if I can be of any service to him.

So off I went walking towards the sauna.

I was too late because he'd already finished the sauna.

He was walking back with his driver and another Thai man.

And we would cross the path.

And as we were about to cross,

He looked at me.

Sometimes only great teachers can really look at you,

Just looking right into you.

And for once,

For once I didn't mind him looking into my mind.

Other days,

No,

I'd be embarrassed.

But that day my mind was,

Just after a very deep,

Beautiful meditation,

So pure and so peaceful,

So bright.

And it's very hard for me to make you believe this.

But many of you know that I'm honest,

I don't gain anything out of these stories,

But you can actually feel him.

This is my perception which I remember very clearly.

Inside your mind,

Just having a look,

Just checking around,

Like going in somebody's room or house and just having a walk around.

And I just,

Yeah,

Please come in.

For once I don't mind you having him looking around.

Today is quite clean and peaceful and beautiful inside.

And then when he emerged out,

This is just how I felt,

Okay.

His body didn't disappear and just go up my nostrils or anything.

This was just his mind coming into my mind and reading everything.

And afterwards he looked at me.

Very,

You can't say kindly,

You can't say fiercely,

It was some other expression on his face,

Just grabbing your attention,

Eye to eye.

And of course my name is Ajahn Brahm but the full name is Brahmavamsa.

So he looked at me and said,

Brahmavamsa,

Quite fiercely but kindly.

And then he said,

Why?

And he looked at me with so much kindness but strength,

Why?

And I was still only a young monk and my answer was,

I don't know.

And he laughed his head off.

These stupid Western monks.

He was trying his best to try and enlighten me.

He saw I was very peaceful and give it a shot anyway.

But whenever you do something stupid like that,

Idiotic,

As far as wisdom is concerned,

Ajahn Chah has burst out laughing.

Our idiotic responses and behaviour caused him so much pleasure,

So much laughter.

I think that's why he had so many Western monks in his monastery,

To entertain him.

No,

He's a lot of kindness there too.

But then he became serious again.

And he looked at me once more,

Said,

Brahmavamsa,

I'll tell you the answer.

And wow,

I was really excited.

This great monk was giving me a personal teaching.

Just after,

Come out of a deep meditation and he asked me the question why I got it wrong.

But he wanted to tell me what the answer was.

The answer to the question why,

From Ajahn Chah,

He looked at me,

I'll tell you the answer.

I was so excited.

And he said,

My me,

Am I.

Any Thai people here?

Oh yes,

You know what that means?

He said,

There's nothing,

There's nothing.

And then he looked at me and said,

Brahmavamsa,

Do you understand?

And a lot of kindness.

I said,

Yes.

And he looked at me again and said,

No you don't.

And he went away.

Oh,

That really hurt.

But what a beautiful lesson that was.

Just when he gave me that wonderful answer.

What's the answer to the question why?

Why?

The answer is just nothing.

Do you understand?

No you don't.

For one day you will.

Seeds have been planted.

That's one of the reasons why the learning,

Difficulties,

We get disappointed,

We don't understand things,

We lose things.

Our relationship towards that,

You know,

In partnerships,

Things don't go right,

Oh come on,

Give your partner a break.

If you think that your partner is hopeless,

Terrible,

Selfish,

Mean,

Nasty,

Controlling,

Narcissistic,

Whatever else,

If you think your partner's like that,

Your partner probably thinks you're the same.

I've often said that,

You're both faulty,

That's why you're a match.

Oh that's right,

This wonderful Buddhist woman over in Singapore,

And as she told me this story,

It's actually from her real life.

When she got married to her husband,

Still together,

Wonderful couple,

When she got married to her husband,

Her father had a quiet word with her new husband.

Her father took her husband aside,

They'd only been married in a couple of hours,

And said,

You probably love my daughter a lot.

He said,

Oh she's so wonderful,

So beautiful,

So charming,

Everything about her is wonderful,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

That's what it's like when you first get married.

You think that my daughter is so perfect,

So beautiful,

So charming in every way.

But,

As I said,

The father-in-law,

After a couple of years,

You'll start to see the faults and defects in my daughter.

When you start to see her defects and faults and her mistakes,

I want you to always remember this,

The father-in-law,

Always remember this,

If my daughter never had those faults to begin with,

She would have married someone much better than you.

There's a lot of truth in that,

As well as wisdom.

So okay,

I better finish off now,

I've been wandering off all over the place with relationships,

A relationship tonight,

Some deep stuff,

Some shallow stuff,

But anyway,

I hope you enjoyed the talk so far.

And also,

Just about,

It's not what you experience in life,

That's not what creates anxiety or unhappiness or anger,

It's how you relate to it,

How you respond to life.

So instead of responding with all this negativity which creates unhappiness for you and unhappiness for others,

Ah,

Come on,

Get real.

You make mistakes and I make mistakes.

Other people just getting angry at you,

You get it for free so you can always laugh.

And whatever happens in your life,

You can always learn from it and make peace with me.

It does pass.

As a clinical psychologist,

And told me today,

She's one of our members,

She said,

Do you use all these teachings in your practice?

I said,

Oh yes.

What's the most important teaching you use?

You know,

Practice with clinical psychologists,

And she said,

This too will pass,

Anicca,

It doesn't last.

What a wonderful teaching that is,

To know that if you have COVID,

If you have schizophrenia,

If you have trouble with your partner,

If you get bored with this talk,

Don't worry,

It will pass.

And it now has passed.

Thank you for listening.

Okay,

So now we have time for questions.

Uh oh,

We have questions from overseas.

Oh my goodness,

I'm in trouble now.

Okay,

A couple of questions from overseas and then from the floor here.

First speaker,

This is from a live stream audience,

From Johnny,

How is meditation supposed to help me when I'm waking up in 26 degrees Fahrenheit,

Homeless in my car?

I'm not going to make it the rest of the month.

I've had it.

My country stripped my life for me as well as my savings.

You can always see something positive in whatever happens to your life,

Johnny.

You're waking up in 26 degrees Fahrenheit,

That's pretty cold.

Yeah.

Homeless in your car.

I have been homeless before.

Sometimes we say we're homeless monks but we have a nice place to stay in.

But you're homeless in your car.

There's so many kind people in this world.

I don't know what country you are in.

There's many kind people in this world.

You go and ask them for some help.

Be kind to them.

Not going to make it the rest of the month.

You sure?

If you think you're not going to make it,

You probably won't.

But if you have that positive attitude that something's going to happen,

It probably will.

There's one of the great novels by Charles Dickens.

They had this gentleman called Mr.

McCorber.

And Mr.

McCorber was this very,

Very positive man.

Even he got so bankrupt,

So poor,

He was in debt and they put him in the debtors hospital together with his wife and kids,

I think.

Do you have a wife and kids?

He had a wife anyway.

And they asked him,

Said,

You know,

Well,

You're in debtors hospital now,

Debtors prison,

Sorry.

If you're in debt,

You went straight to jail.

And said,

What are you going to do?

And Mr.

McCorber would always say,

Something will turn up,

Something will turn up,

And it always did in his life.

And eventually he became a very good clerk and had a wonderful,

You know,

Rest of his life.

But that whole attitude,

I remember that from the book from Charles Dickens.

They called it McCorberism.

That something will turn up.

And it does.

Which is amazing.

My country stripped my life from me as well as my savings.

No.

It's taken something off you,

But you've got something left.

Don't let anybody take away your peace and happiness and your positivity.

Mention this for many times.

Actually during the Rains Retreat,

We had a robbery in Monastry.

They broke into our donation box.

And how much did they steal?

I don't know how much they steal.

But instead of getting angry at them,

Taking donations,

I say,

They can steal our money.

They can wreck our donation box so we have to fix it up again.

But they'll never let them steal my happiness and my forgiveness and my contentment.

We wish you well with that money.

We can't get it back.

So let's let you have a happy time.

Probably smoking meth or whatever.

Do you actually smoke it or take it?

I don't know what.

I'm so old.

But anyway,

Just,

We know it won't let you take our happiness away.

You can steal everything else,

But not your contentment,

Not your wisdom,

Your kindness.

And if you protect your kindness,

Your wisdom,

Sometimes your endurance and your ability to take,

Please excuse me,

Take lots of shit and learn how to dig it in,

You'll find in your life no one can take anything from you.

Not the important stuff of life.

How do you look at things in a positive way if your body constantly irritates you due to chronic pain and short breath after operations?

How can you relax in meditation?

The meditation,

If you try and do something,

Get something,

Change something,

You're going to have more stress.

So I mentioned this to someone earlier.

What I call the emperor's three questions type of meditation.

Now is the most important time.

The experience right in front of you,

Right now,

Whatever you're experiencing,

That is the most important meditation object in the world.

What you're experiencing right now.

Not the breath,

Not nimittas,

Not anything,

Just whatever you're experiencing right now.

That is your meditation object.

What to do is to care for it.

Give it kindness.

You'll find that's incredibly powerful.

I do that a lot.

The emperor's three questions meditation.

If I'm tired,

If I'm hot,

If I'm sick or anything,

I sit in my cave,

Right,

Now is the only time I have.

It's an obvious solution.

This is the only time we have.

It's right now.

What I'm experiencing right now,

I'm going to be with it.

The suffering comes when I want to get somewhere else,

I want to get rid of it,

I want to take this away,

It shouldn't be here.

That is called suffering.

So instead of having a bad relationship to what I'm experiencing,

I'm with it.

And I'm kind to it.

Because I found that the kindness,

Compassion has huge effects on lessening the suffering and the pain.

Well the Buddha said,

You probably heard this before,

The two darts or two thorns,

The physical and the emotional.

Physical,

No,

Wound,

That's part of life.

The emotional one that you've got a lot of control over.

You can let it go,

You can be with it,

Just part of life.

It's more dog proof of my mango tree.

That is changing the emotional part of the pain.

When you do that,

You find that's 95% of the pain,

Gone.

So if your body constantly irritates you due to chronic pain and short breath,

Thank you for having a short breath.

I'd rather have a longer breath,

But short breath is wonderful,

Thank you for breathing.

You learn so much from it,

You can grow so much.

I've seen many,

Many people in my life with chronic pain.

There was this one guy years ago,

I have to mention him,

That he came up to me and he said that his pain was so great that he,

Hello,

His pain was so great that Osmond Park Hospital,

There's a pain clinic over here,

They told him that his pain,

They did the scans exactly the same as if you're having your arm cut off with a saw,

Not a chainsaw,

Two handed saw.

If you or I were cut off like that,

That's the pain you would feel.

He was feeling that 24-7.

You can see the scans on his brain.

And I looked at him and he was just so peaceful and happy.

He got used to it.

He'd actually got past it.

So life instead of pain.

And when you see what can be done,

It's a difficult one,

But he could do it.

So that's the only choice you have if you have chronic pain.

Don't try and get rid of it.

That's the key.

You have to be with it.

Take away the emotional part.

What do you do when people who live with,

Work with neighbours,

Other drivers get very angry with you?

How do you deal with very angry people in the moment?

First of all,

Run so they don't harm you.

So,

But don't just run obviously,

Just try not to go to places where angry people are.

So you don't go to the pubs,

You don't go to the football matches when somebody loses.

You just,

Sometimes people get very angry with you,

Just be peaceful.

They find they can't upset you.

There's one case,

This monk of all people got really angry with me in front of other people in the monastery.

And this monk,

And I was actually wiping my bowl with a rag,

Said,

Bum-a-lum-so,

That's a filthy habit,

You shouldn't wash your bowl with a filthy rag like that.

Was that impressive?

No,

Not really,

Okay.

Although you get angry.

But anyway,

He was so angry at me,

And I realised I had a choice.

I could get angry back,

Which was fair,

But no,

I want to try something else.

And I remember I just,

This was done with a lot of willpower,

Must admit,

I don't usually use willpower,

But I really wanted to punch him or something.

But instead,

Instead I just went over to the rag bag,

I changed over and got a proper cloth,

And started wiping my bowl.

And all the time,

I could see all the monks had gone quiet.

I want to find out what happens next.

We didn't have TV in the monastery,

I didn't sort of see anything interesting,

And this was actually drama,

Something happening.

So anyway,

I went over there,

And I just changed my bowl lid,

Changed the rag I was using,

And then I looked up at him,

And so did everybody else.

And he went red in the face,

Bright red,

Embarrassment,

And he walked away,

And he never got angry at me again.

It's amazing,

I've said this is the way to deal with anger.

To show people that it's only changing a rag,

That's easy enough to do,

But to say that I'm not going to argue back with you.

And that was a powerful lesson,

I always remember that,

And try and teach other people.

If someone gets angry at you,

They say,

Do it this way.

If other people are watching,

Other people have to be watching first of all.

And then just go and do it,

And they look at him.

Now what are you going to do?

It worked that time anyway.

William from Denmark,

The Dalai Lama says sleep is the best meditation,

Do you agree?

With all respect,

If the Dalai Lama did say that,

It can't be the current Dalai Lama,

It must be the Dalai Lama of a few generations ago.

It's not the best meditation,

Oh my goodness.

When you really get into deep meditation,

You don't need sleep,

And you bliss it out.

Wow,

That's far more powerful than sleep.

Last one,

Conrad from Belgium,

Your speeches are wonderful.

Hey,

I'm very grateful for them,

Yay.

How do you define happiness?

That's how to define it.

Go define it in words,

How about defining it in actions,

How does it feel when you're happy?

We're just too much into words in our current world,

Trying to capture them with concepts instead of with emotions.

How do you keep your happiness in a world full of fear and materialism?

It's not full of fear and materialism,

There's some beautiful people in this world,

Kind,

Giving,

Loving,

Sacrificing,

Serving.

So that's what I look at.

And lastly,

Pauline in Paris,

I want to thank you for your speeches,

2020 is a difficult for me,

Not only because of COVID and because of you I survived.

Ah,

Isn't that nice,

From Pauline in Paris,

I'm just reading it out,

That's what it says.

It is true,

Pauline in Paris,

See you can check.

So anyway,

You know a lot of people find it very difficult to accept praise,

Not me.

I don't get embarrassed.

And people want to hide criticism,

Oh no,

I didn't do that,

No no,

It wasn't me.

But I hide criticism and I keep the praise.

Okay,

So thank you all,

Any questions here?

From here,

I'm going a bit late,

But it's first talk.

Going,

Going,

Go on.

Okay,

So thank you again for coming today,

We can now bow,

Oh,

Let's do afterwards,

Yeah.

So now bow and then we can go and have a wonderful evening.

Don't forget the Kirtaner at the Nuns Monastery on Sunday.

Gittigana.

Reviews

Ajahn Brahm is very funny making his lessons very powerful

Thank you. Just what I needed. Just as it is. Let it all be. 🙏🏻

Excellent! Appreciate your wisdom and humor. Thank you. 🤗🙏☮️🧘💙

Just brilliant 🥰

An engaging discourse on how to take what comes with gratitude and equanimity. I most appreciated the lessons about not creating suffering with one’s imagination; no one knows the future! 🙏🏻🙏🏻

Such good reminder: We never know about the future. I’m laughing so hard when I heard the example 😂🤣😂 Thank you Ilan for making this available 🙏🙏

Wonderful talk. Sadhu. ☮️💖🙏🕉️