Living Simply | Dharma Talk with Ajahn Brahm

Ajahn talks about how we are afraid of simplicity and how we complicate things because we think that will solve our problems. 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

Excellent. So if you're sitting comfortably, Then I'll begin. If you're not sitting comfortably, I'll begin anyway, Because it's the time. So as usual, Looking for subjects for tonight's talk. It was a couple of days ago, I was calling one of the bhikkhuni monasteries, And I have to give a little teaching once a fortnight, It's called Awadhara, It's an old tradition. And usually I get a verse from one of the scriptures called the Dharmapada, Just very, A couple of liners, Very deep, Very powerful, But I couldn't find where I left the book. So I was in trouble, I didn't have anything to say, But I did have a copy of my first book, The one which I published, Open the Door of Your Heart. And right in the front there was this wonderful poem, Which I put at the frontispiece, To grant yourself a moment of peace, And you'll realize how foolishly you've scurried about. Learn to be silent, And you'll notice you've talked too much. And be kind, You'll understand just how your judgment of others was just too severe, Too tough. And I thought, Wow, That's a very nice little saying, And just because I remembered a few moments ago, I thought, Wow, That's going to be the subject of this evening's talk. That little old Chinese verse which I read a long time ago, And I don't know actually where it came from, But there it's in the front of the book, And even just learn to grant yourself a moment of peace, And you'll find how foolishly you've scurried about. Because sometimes to make things happen in this world, Oh, It takes such a lot of effort, We run around this way and that way, Always thinking that we have to really work hard to get results. And of course if you work hard, The only result you get is tiredness, Sickness, Burnout. There must be another way, And of course there is. And it reminds me of even the story of that book, Opening of the Door of Your Heart, Which I shared with people at the last meditation retreat. So the last couple of weeks, I haven't been sitting here on a Friday night, But I have been still giving talks at Jhana Grove, Teaching the Easter meditation retreat for the BSWA. So anyway, That particular book, Opening of the Door of Your Heart, The story behind it is really quite fascinating. It's the sort of story which is behind just how things work in life. It is how I found it works best in life. So, You know, I've been talking and giving these stories and tales for such a long time, But of course never really written it down, Always believing that if everybody else could read the talks and read the stories, They wouldn't need to actually come up here and listen to them live. I'd have no more material for my talks. I know people always say, Can you not find some more material, Ajahn Brahm? Oh, Come on, Give me a break. So anyway, Just teaching some of those little anecdotes and stories and being able to sort of make a difference in some people's lives. There was one lady in particular who was at our Armadale group, This beautiful group over in Armadale-Kemscott Hospital. We've been teaching there for such a long time and just a small group of people. Please don't think of going down there because it's always crowded. We have like a limit of how many people can actually fit in that room. So it's always pretty crowded and sometimes you have to turn people away at the door because there's no fire and safety regulations. But anyway, I remember just one lady was, She was going through a very acrimonious, Very traumatizing divorce. And those people who have been through a divorce, You notice how difficult it is. And they're painful, They're just destroying of your hopes and all the things which you build up and your dreams of the future all come crashing down. You have to rebuild your life again. And because of that, This lady, She did tell me, She was suicidal many times. The little stories which I told at Armadale group on a Tuesday evening had basically pulled her through, She'd survived. And then she came up to me and said, Ajahn Brahm, You must write those down as a story to share them more widely. And my response was, Nah, I'm too busy, There's too much difficulty. But you know this woman, She was very smart, She outwitted me totally because she said, Okay, I'll write them down. And so she wrote them down and sent the first draft to me. And it was terrible, It was hopeless. The English was just so poor and it didn't really grab the attention and it was a mess. And so I said, Well, If this is what you do, I can't let this go by me, I have to do it myself. She caught me. So I wrote them down myself and they weren't as hard as I thought because you know that when you really can train your mind just to be peaceful, To be still, Meditate first of all, You just write these things down and they just flow. But it's easy, It's not that hard when you don't interrupt yourself. You don't start judging, Oh, This is not right, I can find another one, I just write it. So I'd always do it after I was meditating for an hour or two and I'd only give it one hour, One hour just for a couple of stories, Write it down, Free hand, Couldn't use a computer, Didn't have any laptops or anything in those days, Just wrote it down by hand. And someone, Somewhere's got that manuscript because it was actually hardly any mistakes. It was nice and easy to see because when you're meditating, You actually focus and even your handwriting gets so beautiful. I know that somebody who looked at it said, Oh, I've never seen that font on Windows. It's not on Windows, It's in Ajahn Brahm's brain. So I just wrote it down very easily. And then it took me, I remember just two weeks, It's only 14 days, 14 hours to write the first half of the book. I wrote it straight through, Boom, So it was really easy. I couldn't believe how just easy it was. I thought it would be hard to do things. Because when you have a moment of peace, You don't scurry, Don't force it, It flows. I know that many athletes, There's, Oh, They're not here this evening, One of the old friends who were a monk together a long time ago in Thailand, You know, He married an Indian dancer, You know, He knows if he's ever here, Probably hearing this at home. And she was one of the top dancers in India at the time, Classical Indian dancer, He was a musician. And he, You know, He's performed his works at Perth Concert Hall. So in those very, Very highly qualified, Very successful musical family. And when she came here, You know, First time I was asking, How on earth can you perform to such a high level, You know, To be on the front covers of the Glossy magazines in Delhi? And she said, Train, Train, Train, Train, Train, Train, But when you perform, You forget everything. You just let it flow. You cannot interrupt it, You cannot control it. And certainly, You know, You cannot just think, You just let it flow. I've seen many other people say that's like getting into the zone in gymnastics, In sport, Even for Buddhist monk giving a talk or writing a book. You get in the zone, Really peaceful, And it's foolish to force it. It just flows. And of course, Once I finish the second half, We got a book, How on earth do you find a publisher? You know what happened to J. K. Rowling, You know, Her books, What was it, Seven, Eight, Nine, Because somebody just showed me one of her books a few moments ago. Seven, Eight, Nine publishers before someone accepted it. I never needed to go through that. She was trying too hard. Because I wrote it out hand, Remember just good old Ron's story, Somebody remember him. He typed it all out for me and put it on one of these little CD discs. And he gave it to me just before I was traveling to Melbourne to give a series of talks. You know, Leave in the morning, Arrive there in the afternoon, Straight to, It was Melbourne University to give a talk. And just gave a nice talk. And afterwards, You know, I had the CD in my bag, A little yarn, This thing. And then this person came up to me afterwards and said, Oh, Wonderful talk. I'm in the publishing industry. If it's any talk, Anytime you want me to publish a book, Just let me know. So I put it out here. That never happened to J. K. Rowling. No effort at all. It just happened. Never needed to post it to anybody. It was there. No rejection slips. No, You just got it there. And another part of that story, Because I was mentioning it because I saw the book by J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter, Because, You know, That's been a very, Very, Very successful book. And part of the success of that book means it's been translated into many, Many languages. And when I went to, Actually, When, Where is she? I can't see here. When one of the disciples was visiting Indonesia, She went into the biggest book store in Jakarta. It was the Grammedia chain. And she was stunned because she saw me there. She said, Ajahn Brahm, What are you doing in the bookshop in Jakarta? You're supposed to be in Perth. And she did a double take, She looked, And it was a cardboard copy cut out of me. And she took a nice photo of it. And later on I went to visit there and see it. It was just, It was really weird to see a cardboard cut out of you. It looked like me as well, A bit smaller. Or maybe I've grown since then. But because the books did very well in Indonesia. And when I went there, I just saw, You know, They have like in the bookshops, You see, Just the bestsellers. And I saw that, You know, Number two on the bestseller list was Harry Potter. And number one was Ajahn Brahm's opening the door. I beat Harry Potter, Yay! But anyway, Just why that happens, You grant yourself those moments of peace. And all that's going around, All the forcing things, You realize that that's not always the best way to do things. Not only that, You grant yourself a moment of peace like you did. And now you have to give it, Grant yourself it. No one else will give it to you. And it's not something the government will award you. You have to sort of take that. It's your responsibility, It's your choice to say, Enough for now, I'm going to rest my body, I'm going to rest my mind and give myself some peace. And once you do give yourself some peace, It's amazing just how your life goes more smoothly. That when it comes to passing exams, And this was, Wow, I don't know where I got some of this stuff from, Except past lives and stuff, But we won't go there at the moment. But even when I was at the college doing final exams, Just talking about this in the car to someone just a couple of days ago, It was weird. So why I had the courage and the nous to actually do this, Final exams at Cambridge, And there we had to do three hour exam in the morning, Three hour exam in the afternoon, On theoretical physics, Quantum physics, Astrophysics of the galaxy, Fundamental particle physics, All sorts of sounds really interesting, But you know, It's pretty tough stuff. And three hours in the morning, Three hours in the afternoon, Hour for lunch, Six days in a row, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. That was tough. But I don't know why I did this. I had no lunch, Had big breakfast, Big dinner, And then lunchtime I just went back to my room and meditated for half an hour, You know, 10 or 15 minutes to get back to your room, 10 or 15 minutes to go from your room back to the exam hall, And I meditated, And it was, I was giving myself some peace. And of course, You know, This is what you have to do to get some peace. Forget about the past, That was the first thing which came into my mind. What have I done in the morning exam? Did I do well? Did I pass? Did I fail? Who knows? But what I did know, That there's no way in the world I could change those results. I know these days some of you come to me, You've done your exams, Oh I'm not sure if I did well, You've come to get some chanting from me. Actually it's amazing to see how sometimes that works. At least, Honestly, I don't know if she's here today, But there was a lady from Malaysia, She came up here 16 times, She failed her English exam to get sort of the PR visa. What's it called, English? Okay, Whatever it is, Well you know, To get your visas. She failed it 16 times. And so she came and, I've got to go back to Malaysia, This is really. . . I said, Why don't you take it again, What's the point, 16 times I failed? Ah, I said, But you didn't get the chanting from Ajahn Brahm. And of course I only tell the stories when it works. And she rang me up afterwards, She said, Ajahn Brahm, I said, Yeah it worked, Didn't it? I said, Yes, 17 times lucky. She was really impressed and my reputation went up. But don't, Don't rely on that because there's another lady who came here and she asked for some chanting for her exams, First year at university and she failed. She never told me, I never saw her again, It's only from her friends. What she would say, She would say, Ajahn Brahm's no good. He's not a really good monk, He's a terrible monk. And so some of the friends said, Look, If that comes back to Ajahn Brahm, Ajahn Brahm's not a good monk, Don't worry about it, It's not your fault. She never did any work, Never went to the lectures, Never went to the tutorials, She was just partying, First year away from home and she just let loose. There's only a certain amount chanting can do, Come on, Give me a break. But anyway, It's best actually, Not even chanting is the best, It's just learning how to be peaceful, Learning how to let go. So in the morning, Let go of the past, Didn't worry about the future. I needed to really prepare myself now. The best way of preparation, Not to scurry about, Get the books out, Start revising, Whatever. The best way is just to relax. It's an obvious thing because your poor brain is tired. It needs to re-energize, To recharge it. And you don't recharge it with caffeine, Because if you put caffeine, You just get even more restless and more sort of scrambled. Or my favorite word you know, Discombobulated. You don't need to look that up in a dictionary, Just say the word and you know what it means. Discombobulated. I don't know what combobulated means, But anyway this is the opposite of being combobulated. Discombobulated. There's only way, Then you realize, That's not the way to get some energies to focus and some stillness, Because when you get peace and you feel peace, You feel it inside yourself, And you know it, You get used to it, You can turn to it anytime. Give yourself those moments. You have to give it to yourself. Take it. It's there for you so often. Some of the times which I've mentioned, Totally different talk, The in-between moments of life. When you've finished doing one thing, You haven't started the next job or the next appointment. You're stuck in the traffic, Red light, And you've got to just wait for a while. You can't go forward, You can't go back, You're in between. You're waiting for the talk to start, You're waiting for someone to actually finish in the toilet, Because you're right there right now and you can't do anything. So you're in between things. Those are the in-between moments of life where you can grant yourself moments of peace. Just be and stop going somewhere, Only half an hour between exams. And then you can actually really re-energize. When you do re-energize, That means that afterwards, All that worry and scurrying and working and struggling and striving, You realize that sometimes that's useful, But in these particular cases it's better just to be still, To give yourself peace. That's a very wise way of being a high achiever. Being successful, Not just in work, But in your relationships, In life, In just your own personal health and well-being. Peace. Many sicknesses, Many diseases all come because we haven't got enough peace in our life. Many arguments, Friends arguing with one another, Disagreeing, All become because we have no peace. And at this point, With arguments, I come to one of the little jokes, Which is a nice segue, Which was Dennis' gone, Because I sent it to you a few days ago and to some of the other committee members, About the wise advice from a master. It's a whole series of little cartoons. And the disciple asks his wise master some advice. And the wise old master said, I never argue with idiots. And the disciple said, I don't agree with that. And the master replied, Yes, You're right. Okay. So learn to be silent and you know you've talked too much. I don't know how many times talking has got me into trouble and other people into trouble. And sometimes for myself, I talk so much, People ask me for advice. And sometimes that, You know, When I say, Oh, You should know, They say, No, That's not good enough, Come give me some advice. And they ask me for advice on their marriage problems. Well, Come on, I've never been married. What would I know? But what I do know, When I told a few Thai people today that because it's the New Year celebration, So I gave them a blessing. I gave it to the blessing in Thai and it really translated as, Oh, You know, May you be happy and successful, Just have good health and have a sort of good life and have enough money but not too much. And because these were Thai women, Mostly married to Australian men, And I said, May your husband never complain. And they laughed at that. I must have hit the spot there. But then one lady came up and said, Well, I don't have a husband. And I said, Well, Then you're free. And all the other ones said yes. And she said, Her bad karma has now been exhausted. That was really crazy stuff they were saying to me. But anyway, So sometimes, Why do you ask me those questions? So sometimes silence, Learn to be silent and you know you talk too much. Because every time I say jokes and stories like that, I usually get into trouble, Especially, Oh my goodness, I just remembered now. I don't know if they're here this evening, But I'm doing a marriage blessing on Monday. So please, I doesn't refer to you. I did that once, I forget who it was. I told a marriage joke. And they looked at me totally stone faced and said, Ajahn Brahm, I'm going to Indonesia to get married tomorrow. I thought, Oh my goodness, What have I said? So anyway, So when you talk too much, You always love to put your foot in your mouth. And the bigger your mouth, The more chance there is the foot's going to go in there. So and sometimes silence is very good. Because in silence is one of the little techniques which I have encouraged people whenever there is an argument, Is actually to have the five seconds of silence after someone has really shouted at you, Abused you, Ranted at you. So somebody goes on, Rah rah rah rah rah rah rah rah rah rah rah. Don't use the opportunity when they stop speaking to defend yourself and for you to say something back at them. Have a five seconds of silence. Because in those five seconds that pause, When they're ranting, They're abuse, They're sort of tirade at you, Has stopped. If you speak next, It means they won't have the opportunity to reflect on what they said and why they said it. So just to give the five seconds of silence after someone has shouted at you, Means that there's nothing else they can contemplate, Reflect upon, Except the inappropriateness of their words. It's a five seconds of mindfulness, Of reflection. So sometimes that silence, That gives amazing results, Much better than speaking back. And so learn to be silent and one realizes one has spoken too much, It's not just the outer speech as well, It's the inner speech. Learn to be silent and sometimes all that commentary inside, Which is sometimes what disturbs us and can sometimes send us crazy, The inner chatter, The inner thought. We can learn some silence and it puts that inner thought in perspective. As you all know, If you have read that book, Open the Door of Your Heart, Was the story of my training as a monk. It wasn't just listening to talks like this or study, It was a lot of using life's experience and understanding from life's experience how this right attitude, Even silence works. That was when we were building the big hall over at, Where was it, Wat Ba Pong, Nine days of hard work pushing wheelbarrows. From the only eating one meal a day in the morning, Finished by about nine o'clock. And it was not nutritious at all. It was just really basic village food and working in the jungles, Sweating, Being bitten by mosquitoes, Pushing wheelbarrows, Shuffling dirt, Just nine days of hard labor. We didn't have unions in those days, Although I was thinking of starting one. Sometimes CFMEU, Construction Forestry Monks, But now we didn't have any unions there at all, It was really hard work. And I started getting upset. This is not what I became a monk for. I became a monk not to be exploited as a cheap laborer. I had a degree from university. A good degree from a good university. It might be the story here in Australia about the graduate who got a job, The only job he could get was in the supermarket. And as soon as he went to the supermarket, So the manager gave him a broom and told him to sweep the aisles. He said, But I'm a graduate. I got a bachelor's degree with honors. And the manager of the supermarket said, Oh, Sorry, Sir, I never really understood that. Here, This is the way you sweep. Good, You got that joke. So that's what I was thinking. Pushing wheelbarrows, I got angry. And as I mentioned in the meditation, You can read a person whether they're angry or not just from their face. And it's just written all over you. And so I couldn't pretend I wasn't. And that's when one of the other monks came up to me and they told me, They gave me this wonderful teaching, The whole purpose of me telling this anecdote. And they said, Pushing a wheelbarrow is easy for nine days in the hot forest being bitten by mosquitoes. Pushing a wheelbarrow is easy. Thinking about it is the hard part. And that was worth nine years, Pushing wheelbarrows if I had to, Just to get that understanding. Learn to be silent in your head and things become so easy. Thinking about it is the hard part. It always is. Even giving public talks, Thinking about it, It's important, Makes it impossible. Doing it, It's easy when you stop thinking about it. So this is one of the great reasons why when we have silence, We just literally do go with the flow, We don't disturb the flow. And we do actually find whatever we have to do in life, Even going to the dentist, Even going to a committee meeting, An AGM, Thinking about it, Even dying. You know, Dying is very easy. Thinking about it is the hard part. If you don't believe me, Try it. And afterwards, If you become a ghost, You can come and kick my backside and say, Ah, You told me it was easy. No one's ever kicked my backside that way, So it's obviously, It's true. So forgiving, Forgiving is easy. Thinking about it is the hard part. When you think about it, You just justify, They don't deserve to be forgiven, I can't forgive them, They should forgive me first of all, Whatever, Whatever, Whatever. That's what the hard part is. Doing it is the hard part. So doing it is the easy part. Thinking about it is the easy part. Another way around, Isn't it? You see, I told you, The more I speak, The more I'm going to put my foot in the mouth. Doing it is easy, Thinking about it is the hard part. That's why grind yourself a moment of peace and you learn how foolish you discovered about. Just learn to be silent and you do talk too much. We all do. And it's not just here, It's also inside our heads. We forgot the art of just being silent and just doing stuff without complaining inside. And lastly, It was learn to be kind, Compassion. And you realize your judgment of others was far too severe. What kindness does, A little kid just crying, That's what kids do. It's wonderful you bring kids into this talk because this is human, This is life, This is how this world is. You can't control life. You don't judge. You accept. You just embrace. You learn to be kind. You know, When we're kind, This whole thing about kindness, Caring instead of curing, When you try and cure a kid and say, Stop speaking, Stop interrupting, There's a holy monk up there, Must be bad karma. No, Don't do that. That's trying to cure your kid of things which is natural. Trying to cure your husband, Your wife, When things, It's just natural. Sometimes I know that a couple of Venerable Mudu's friends were here, Went to school with them, And the first thing I did was to ask them, Well, What was Venerable Mudu like when he was at school? What sort of stuff did he get up to? Tell me that he was human. Because sometimes when you become like a monk or a nun, Sometimes you think, Oh, You must have been born with a bald head, Which I probably was. Oh, You must have been born silent, Which I was. I was only asking for one or two years and then you started making, And so sometimes all the bad things which I did when I was a kid, I don't know if I told you all the silly things and stupid things which I did as a kid, But I need to say this because sometimes people think, Oh, You know, To be a monk, To be a nun, To ordain, You have to be just so pure that you were born with a halo on your head and you never got up into any mischief or trouble. So that's when I told the story of the last retreat. I was about eight or nine or ten years of age, I can't remember what, When I gave my mother a birthday present. Have I told this here? No? Okay. Not tomorrow? No? Anyway, Anyway, So I gave my mother a birthday present. I was only about eight or nine years of age, Maybe eight. And so what I did was give a nice surprise. So at that time, In, It was in West London, It was in Acton where I grew up, Right next to Shepherd's Bush, And so that's why I tell a lot of people when they say, Oh, Where were you born? I say, I was born in the bush. I grew up in the bush. I say, Really? What part of the bush? You know, Was it up in Geraldton or was it in Bourke or, Or Birdsville or somewhere? I say, Yeah, Shepherd's Bush. But anyway, That they had a craze, Like a food fad. This was more than that, 59, 60. And it was a jellied eels and mashed potato. Oh, Come on. Have you ever had jellied eels and mashed potato? How do you know? That's like, That's when I went to, This is going off on a tangent about, This is like learn to be kind and you'll realize you've judged too severely, Which is actually expanding on that because this one time I was invited to Roldy Stone Primary School, A long time ago, So I think I don't mind naming it, And I accept these invitations, You know, Maybe I should be a bit more mindful and ask, Well, What class am I supposed to teach? It was year ones and year twos. Grade one, Grade two, No one meant to talk about Buddhism. Oh my goodness, This is going to be a challenge. How do you teach? Like I think it was two classes all put together, 60 kids at that age, Teach some Buddhism. That was a challenge. But you know, I like challenges and of course, The ones I failed, I never tell anybody, But this one, It worked again. So what I did was I thought, 60 kids, They're really young, The parents were sitting in the back and I said, Okay, Put your hand up, Anyone who's ever eaten, No, Put your hand up if you like rice pudding, Rice pudding, There's Roldy Stone School, And about two or three kids put their hand up, They liked rice pudding. Oh no, Sorry, No, It was the other way around, Sorry, Let's go back a bit. Put your hand up if you don't like rice pudding. And two or three kids put their hand up, They didn't like rice pudding. Now, I think you can relate to this, You know, A group of five or six year olds. The other kids looked around and a few other kids put their hand up, You know, Because two or three kids started it, Yeah, We don't like rice pudding. And then after about three or four minutes, The whole 60 kids, They had all had their hands up. They'd agreed, They did not like rice pudding. And then, So you can put your hands down, And then the next question was, Put your hands up if you've ever eaten rice pudding. And about seven or eight kids put their hand up. And everyone else laughed, The kids laughed as well. They got it. That was actually amazing, You could actually just think outside the box and teach kids about judgments of things you've never even tried. Learn to be kind and you find out your judgments of others were far too severe, They weren't really correct. So even like jelly deals and mash, How do you know? When you went, Ugh, Have you ever tried it? Actually, You were correct, I agree with you, It's disgusting, But. . . But anyway, So you know what naughty, Saintly, Ajahn Brahm did as a kid, Eight year old, I just went, Got some pocket money and I bought an eel, A live one. Because, Live one, I could buy a live one. They didn't ask me what I wanted it for. So I already had the little shoe box and some wrapping paper, And I bought this eel in a shoe box and I wrapped it up really carefully as best as an eight year old kid could do. Just make sure it's really nicely folded, A nice little tape, And even had the bow to tie it up with a nice bow and a little gift card in a happy birthday to mummy on your birthday with love from your son Peter, That's my name, Xxx. And when I handed it to my mother as a surprise, Oh, She was just, Her heart was almost just exploding with pride, That's my little kid, He did it all by himself. And the amazing thing was, I actually could pull it off, You know, Without sort of laughing and giving the game away, What was inside? And I remember, Hang on, My mother was almost crying with pride and joy. If you get a nice present from a young little kid, Eight year old, And said, Aww, I wonder what's inside. When she opened it up and I was looking at her, Aww, What's inside? Oh, A surprise mummy. She was surprised. Because of this little eel, As soon as she opened the box, The eel came up on my foot. She screamed so loud. That was where I understood what like an exit strategy was, I'd already planned out where I was going to run and hide for two hours. So you know, That was my upbringing as a, Before I became a monk, My poor old mother. But I'm sure we get some nice stories about Vellumvudu and all the other monks when they were young. So just humanizing people, Learn to be kind. And you realize your judgments of others were far too severe. Just the way we look at other people and just look, They're the same as you. We make mistakes, We're not perfect, That makes us human. That's what kindness does. It embraces people, Allows people in, Judgments is what pushes people out. I know that time when I ordained bhikkhunis and had to forfeit membership of Wat Ba Pong and many of my friends. Somebody was actually, I remember the person, Dr. Yifa, She was from Pho Quang Shan, She was really good value for money, I don't know where she is but hope she's doing well, All the girls always remember her, She sent me this little poem. There was, What was it again? They drew a circle which pushed me out. Heretic, Troublemaker, Think someone to flout. But love by compassion and wisdom had the wit to win. I drew a bigger circle which included them in. I love that one. Sometimes you get rejected, You feel you don't belong, Other people, But you draw your circle, Don't let other people draw the circle for you, Where you belong and just, If people just reject you, Put a bigger circle which pulls them all in. The bigger the circle, The better. Learn to be kind and you realize your circle is not big enough. Expand it, Make it bigger. That's why for those people who do go to things like the sutta class, They go into Buddhism a little bit deeper, They always call those, Those four, They're called the Brahma Viharas, The abidings of the gods basically, Of loving kindness, Metta, Karuna, Compassion, Mudita, Which is sympathetic joy and equanimity. They always call them the, The upper mana, The, The, What would you call it, Without boundaries, Without edges, Without limit. And that's, I think, Wonderful description of what sort of kindness, Forgiveness, Compassion, Sympathetic joy, It doesn't have a circle of a specific radius, It just keeps expanding that until everything gets included in. When there's actually no circle, There can be no, No measuring, There cannot be any judging. How many times have you been measured and judged? By Facebook, By Google. It's great not being, Being, Having a Facebook page, At least I don't think so, But I've got a Facebook fan page or something, Yeah, But anyway, Nothing to do with me, I don't know that, Never logged on to it or know anything about it. That's a wonderful thing because as a monk, Learn to be kind and your judgment of others. Actually it's not severe, It doesn't exist at all. Isn't it nice not to be judged? In other words, How can you judge another person? Learn to be kind, Your judgment of others was too severe, But it's also, Learn to be kind and your judgment of yourself was too severe as well. That is the biggest problem, Just when we judge ourselves. Oh I'm not good, I'm a failure, I've, What else can we say about ourselves? Oh I'm too fat, Learn to be kind and your judgment of yourself is too severe. It's actually, I found out it's not fat, It's actually anorexia. Well it's true, I looked it up in a book, In the dictionary, And it said the definition of anorexia was you look in the mirror and you think you're fat. I thought, Wow, That's me. I got all these excuses. It's just gravitas, That's all. So learn to be kind and your judgment of others is far too severe. And also learn to be compassionate and your judgment of yourself is far too harsh. So this is learning how to have this wonderful wisdom and kindness and peace so that you can be free and be happy. And you can just dance through life with getting into the zone, Not pushing, Not forcing, And amazing things happen. It's almost like a secret, Not really a secret, It's a success. I don't mean worldly success, I mean success of being at peace and happy in your own skin. Happy alone and happy with others. So you always find they both work together. Sometimes as a monk you spend a lot of time in solitude and people ask you, Do you ever feel lonely? And the answer is honestly, No. Because when I'm in a cave meditating, There's always someone there. My best friend, Me. I'm kind to me. I realize I'm not the best in the world but I'm kind to me so I embrace myself. Sometimes because sometimes monks sort of, You know, We don't really get into hugging, But actually I do. Mmm, I hug myself. I do. If you want a hug, You know, Someone else actually, You don't know what trouble you might get into these days. But you know, You hug yourself, You've got no trouble at all, You can't catch any disease, You can't get into trouble with some abuse or whatever. So you hug yourself and it actually really works. Give it a try, Come on. Come on. Someone else just really get into it, Oooh, Oooh, Oooh. Now you try it. Don't think I'm that stupid when you haven't tried it. It's like those kids who didn't like rice pudding, They never tried it. You give it a try, It actually works. So sometimes people just, What sort of Buddhist center is this? We want to come here to learn the higher Dhamma, That is the higher Dhamma. That is something which you feel, You experience, Not theories anymore. Things which actually do create this beautiful sense of peace, Freedom, Solve problems in this world, Increases your health, Grind yourself a moment of peace. You realize you don't need to scurry around so much. Then to be silent. Don't complain, This is rubbish, I want to do this about, Sure, Shut up. And feel it, Instead of just complaining about it. Life is quite easy when you don't think about it too much. Just do it. Oh, You've got to think about something. This is not just leaving your brain outside and getting abused or getting into a cult. But you know, Sometimes we think too much. And of course, Learn to be kind. Basic wonderful teachings, Which you don't really need a religion to teach you that. Just be kind, Compassionate, Forgiving. Then you find you do judge others far too harshly. You judge yourself too harshly as well. So cut yourself some slack. Thank you for listening. Sadhu, Sadhu, Sadhu. Okey dokey. So what have we got here? Any judgments from before? No questions. Any questions anyone has from before? Yes, We have a question over there. Excellent. And we have the questions from the audience. Yes. Thanks for the talk. I just had a question about when should we use our mind and our brain? Okay, Find the middle way. Why should we use our mind and brain? Certainly there is time to explore. But sometimes that when we use our brain, We're thinking and we get stuck in old ways of looking. Here's what I did the other day. You just hold up a bottle. What is this? This is difference between contemplating and exploring. Contemplate it, Oh this is glass bottle, Environmentally good. It is got some nice water in it. It is, I don't know, Half full. It is yellow at the bottom. It is small at the top. Those are old thoughts. So in order to get innovation, Deeper understanding, We put it up and when we have exhausted all our old ideas, When we can't give it a name anymore, When the thinking stops, That's when we can see. That's called exploring. Otherwise you're caught in old ways. So maybe your partner or an ex-partner or something and you've already sort of think, Oh they're just so self-centered, They're just so mean, They're so nasty, Vindictive. This is old stuff. Exhaust all that and then have a look at them. Keep on looking. You'll find you see something that's totally new, Which you never expected before. Learn to be kind and you realize your judgment of others was far too severe. So if you really want to find out the truth, Be kind. Have some thinking but then go deeper than thinking. Okay here we go. What is your perfect Sunday and what do you think of meditation programs people use on their mobile phones? I don't have a perfect Sunday because it hasn't come yet. All I've got is Friday evening. So a perfect Sunday, We will find out when it happens. What do you think of meditation programs people use on their mobile phones? Don't think, Just do it. From Germany, That's from Wales. What does peace really feel like? That's a really good question. Is it a feeling or an attitude? How to find peace when the body and mind are affected by pain and burnout? What does peace actually feel like? I can't tell you that because if I'm telling you, You're not feeling it, You're just believing it, Some idea from somebody else. So after a while, You do a bit of meditation, You can actually feel peace. Okay I'll give you a little shortcut to peace. This is from Germany. So just, It takes about two minutes to do this little exercise. You can close your eyes here and in Germany, The person who asked this question, If you're listening to this, Close your eyes and just see the reaction in your mind. Peace Peace Peace Peace Please excuse me for interrupting now. I don't like interrupting myself because did you notice that when you said that word, First of all, The mind followed the direction, You experienced a tiny bit of peace and I repeated it and repeated it and repeated it and every time I repeated it, Your mind just went there until you felt peace. The word was just a signpost but your mind automatically followed it until you could actually feel, Experience what that word means, What peace is. So that's how I answer the question by leading you to actually to be peace. And the body and mind are affected by pain and burnout, You can still do that. Peace Peace Because the pain is in the body. This goes even deeper than that. You can still find peace. And anyway from UK, How do we stop giving before we run out of energy? I usually don't realize I've given too much until I exhaust myself by granting yourself many moments of peace. Grab them, Take them. And so no one else will give them to you but they're there like the air to be breathed in. It's free. So you look for peace and when you have the chance, You don't throw those chances away. The in-between moments of life, The time when many people feel they're bored and they look for something to interrupt themselves. Instead, We pause and grant ourselves a moment of peace. One of the other things is a lot of time people feel guilty they're not doing anything. Which is one of the reasons why it has to be a gift for yourself. Now I said that really naughty thing I did to my mum. But also that sometimes when people ask if there's anything you need, It could be a wedding anniversary, It could be a birthday. Why not give yourself a gift like I give myself a hug? If it is your birthday soon, Get a nice little box and put in that box a piece of paper and say peace on it. Write it out as beautifully as you can, Maybe with some symbol of what you feel peace is. Put it in the box, Wrap it up with some really nice wrapping paper, Put a nice little bow on it, A nice little card and say to me, With love from me. And then put it aside, It'd be even wonderful if you can post it to yourself. And when it arrives, I'll just hide it somewhere and discover it. I said, Oh, It's a present, It's from me. And look at it to me, With love from me. Oh, Isn't that sweet? And then you open it up and you find inside there's a little message, Peace. That's what I always wanted. So it's just a little exercise to make, So not just, Okay, I'll grab myself a moment of peace, Do something which actually reinforces that mental message, That emotional gift of giving yourself some peace. A little box, You can do all sorts of stuff in there. You can put like forgiveness, If you feel you've done something wrong, You mistreated other people and you put in there, I forgive me. Or just love, If no one else loves you in this world, Put a little heart with a little arrow through it. Ajahn Brahm loves Ajahn Brahm. You know that's not as stupid as you think, That is actually powerful. And reminds you, Oh yeah, Okay. So whatever you need in life, That's what you can give. Okay and that's how you stop giving before you run out of energy. You run out of energy, Of course you are. What point is giving when you run out of energy? So you've got nothing else to give anyway, I'll do that. You know what happens when we give too much? When we run out of energy, We get grumpy, And we get angry, We get negative, It's just nature because uuuhhh, Because you've got no energy. So give yourself a moment of peace, Be kind, Be silent and you're also recharged too. Okay so thank you all for listening today. Now follow my own teachings and I'm going to be silent.