Peaceful Activism | Dharma Talk with Ajahm Brahm

Ajahn Brahm explains how peace and empathy can resolve difficult and violent situations, and Ajahn encourages us to empathize with others to find out why they are acting in a certain way.

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

So even though that the monks,

The nuns,

Have a three month period where we don't go travelling anywhere,

That we try to make sure that we focus more on our study and our meditation and of course for me to help with the teaching of all those,

That it does mean that we don't go out into the world so much.

But it shows that it doesn't matter how much of a spiritual life of solitude and inner peace one has,

One always has to get out into the world afterwards.

Now comes that time when you travel,

You help,

You serve as much as you possibly can.

And for this evening's talk,

It's a tough talk because how we can balance the spiritual side of ourselves,

The inner peace,

The silence,

The regenerating ourselves with some of the problems we find in our world today.

There's one dear couple over in a very turbulent part of the world right now who said,

Please can you help give a talk as Buddhist,

As a practitioner,

How we can help when there's maybe corruption,

Authoritarian regimes,

Violence,

And some of our world gets threatened,

How should we do things?

And some are like Buddhism and activism.

It seems a bit strange that a Buddhist being an activist,

When we're supposed to spend most of our time sitting on our bum,

Not being very active at all.

But yeah,

We're good at that,

But we have to try and find a way of not being alone,

But also helping and serving.

I know that we always say that's one of the Buddhist sayings,

To be an island unto oneself.

But then we have like no person is an island.

And on that,

One of the comments which was made during the Rains Retreat,

About where the Dhamma,

Buddhism and modern events come together,

There's a good news that apparently the country where I was born,

Britain,

Is going to become Buddhist.

After Brexit,

They'll become an island unto themselves.

Okay,

Come on,

You're allowed to laugh.

An island unto itself,

That's like an introduction there.

But anyway,

Sometimes in the seriousness of life,

It's good to have a sense of humour as well.

Sense of humour invigorates one,

And makes one not see just one side of the story.

There's many similes I learned from Ajahn Chah,

And sometimes the simile of the hand comes up.

How big is the hand?

It's now so big I can't see anything else except my hand.

This hand becomes the only thing which I know and think about and concern about.

But when I put my hand where it belongs,

Out here,

When you see what we call the bigger picture,

You get perspective.

And believe it or not,

Things don't get so desperately important.

Even things like matters of life and death.

It's not living,

It's not dying,

It's how we live.

Not the length of time we live on this planet,

But how we live on this planet.

It's not what we achieve about goals,

But the process by which we achieve those goals.

I remember just as a student,

And I did regard myself as a bit of an activist,

A Buddhist activist,

To the point where even though I went to a posh university,

But I said I wasn't elite,

I wasn't.

.

.

Okay,

My primary school was called Dirt,

The nickname was Dirty Water Primary School in Aksan.

I was a migrant mostly,

And it's wonderful having that experience,

Just being not in an average school,

But very much a lower than average school.

But through scholarships,

Eventually getting to a place like Cambridge.

But there,

Very still,

Very socially sensitive about what was happening in the world.

But I was also really disappointed,

From all the universities in the 60s and 70s,

That there was never a demonstration at Cambridge.

We didn't even have a students union.

The students union was a debating society,

And it was not sort of the usual students union.

So you can imagine just how pleased I was when the students formed together,

We decided to go on strike and to demonstrate.

To this day,

I don't really know what we were demonstrating about.

It was just part of the students' experience at that time.

And because of that demonstration,

The first time that I got on the evening news,

And the story behind this,

I don't know why this happened to me,

That because we were having a demonstration,

We were walking in,

Filing in to one of the lecture halls in Cambridge,

And many of the people who were also walking in there were far more well-groomed than I was.

I was a typical student,

Long hair,

Beard,

Jeans,

I had holes in my jeans before it was even thought fashionable,

With a jumper which was frayed.

I really looked like the left-wing student.

And the BBC camera was outside.

And there were fairly many people walking in,

But apparently I fat the stereotype of the rebellious young student.

I found out I was on the news when my family called and said,

What are you doing?

You're supposed to be studying or working,

Not demonstrating.

I really got a lot of flack from my relations around the country.

Why me?

But anyway,

When there were things to be fought for,

I wanted to do that.

But then later on in those years,

You saw violence.

When I saw violence and sort of things thrown at policemen.

And now I knew policemen.

They were human beings.

Of course,

First of all,

You were afraid of policemen,

But the London bobby,

Which they were like that in those days,

They were very well respected and people would actually go to help them.

Although I do remember on one occasion getting very scared of the London policemen.

When I must have been about seven or eight years old as a child,

And there was a knock on the door of the council flat where I live with my family,

And there was two policemen outside in uniform.

They said,

Is your father in home?

He said,

Yeah,

He's in the front room.

Can we speak to your father,

Please?

And even though you were very young,

You still thought this was really strange.

What do they want to speak to my father for?

And then as a young kid,

You ran to the door,

That was a nice thing to do,

And the next time it caught,

A few minutes later,

Another two policemen were at the door.

Can we see your father?

He said,

Yeah,

He's in front room talking.

This is a true story,

In a large way.

They were talking to my father in the front room.

A few minutes later,

Another two policemen came and then another two,

About eight policemen were in the room.

I don't know,

Remember exactly eight or ten eventually,

But a lot of policemen were in that room.

And I got scared,

What's my father done?

Don't take my daddy away.

And then I found out,

Because I went into the front room and found out what was going on.

It was the soccer FA Cup final.

My father was a friend with one of those policemen.

They were supposed to be on the beat,

Keeping London safe.

But instead they were in the front room of my father's house,

He had a black and white TV,

Watching a soccer match.

But one of the important things which I always remember is actually that sort of empathy.

Never to work against people,

But to work with people.

To find out,

The other side,

Who they are,

Why they think that way,

Why they do selfish things.

Is it really selfish things they're doing?

Or are they acting out of fear?

Being afraid of their jobs,

Their family.

So sometimes,

One thing which I learned from Buddhism,

Which you never put the blame on an individual or a group or a political party or an ideology or anything.

You never blame the person,

You always blame the act.

For those of you who want to see this,

It's in the Arana Vibhanga Sutta,

One of the important teachings,

It's called the teaching on non-conflict.

And how to make sure you don't make that conflict worse.

If there's an Islamic terrorist,

You find out why.

I go to Indonesia a lot,

And you get to know Indonesians,

You meet them one on one,

They're beautiful people,

Nice people.

And you can talk to them,

And there's this one gentleman which I presented with at a big talk in Jakarta,

And he was,

They called him like a genius,

Because one of these young person who just passed every degree,

Was a concert pianist,

Went to Oxford to study,

I don't know what,

And was just really incredibly smart,

But very kind.

And so he did have a program on TV,

And he invited a leading Islamic terrorist onto his show.

So I should ask him,

Why,

What are we doing,

What's happening?

And to try and get in the head of an opposition,

And understand what's going on.

And because he had the respect,

And the other person respected him,

It was not trying to win points or curry favors or support anyone,

To understand,

To get a connection with the people who you want to do violence against,

And want to do violence against you.

Finding some sort of understanding and common ground.

Conflict,

You may think this is a simplistic point,

But it's one of the points to solving conflict,

Which put in a simple way,

You remember,

And you always try to use this in even the most desperate of situations,

You criticize another person and blame them.

You get blamed back,

And conflicts just get worse and worse.

But this particular method,

I remember reading about,

Hearing on some sort of conflict resolution,

Was the story of the two sisters fighting over an orange.

There was only one orange which was in the kitchen.

And one of the sisters said,

It's mine.

And the other one said,

No,

No,

You had the last one,

It's my turn,

But the last two you had,

So I should have this last one,

And this one too,

To be fair.

So they argued with decent reasons,

Good reasons,

Seeing things from a different angle,

Why they should have the orange.

And in the end,

They decided to compromise.

Compromise sometimes leaves both parties disappointed and unsatisfied.

Because one woman took her half of the orange,

Peeled the skin through the skin in the trash can,

And ate the flesh,

Half an orange.

Whereas the other sister took her half of the orange,

Peeled it,

Kept the peel to add as an ingredient in a cake she was baking,

And threw half the flesh into the trash can.

If only they had stopped arguing,

And trusted that somewhere in there is some goodness,

And said,

Why do you want the orange?

What do you really want?

And if they trusted one another to listen to one another,

And find out what they wanted,

There would be a solution,

Where they get twice as many benefits.

So much of the time that happens.

But in our modern world,

Sometimes we're far too busy to actually to stop,

Stand back,

And to see what's going on.

Sometimes in a rush to get things done because it's an emergency,

We've wasted too much time.

Sometimes in that rush to get the problem to the hospital in time,

We crash the car,

And more people die.

So that's one of the things which Buddhist monks can add.

We live outside the world,

And we don't see TV's,

And we see some reports on the internet.

But how much is a monk connected to that world?

That is not our forte.

We became monks to leave the world,

To sit and spend a long time sitting and meditating,

To understand our body and mind,

Especially understand how to calm our mind,

And make peace with ourselves,

And to spread that peace into this world,

And from the place of peace,

To see that there you can find great perspectives solving problems,

Even violent problems.

When this place was first opened,

When we never had this hall but just a community hall,

When Ajahn Jhakra was the abbot,

And I was his deputy offsider,

When we invited the Governor of Western Australia at the time,

Sir Gordon Reid,

After which the Reid Highway is named.

And I was asked to organize a lot of the event,

To get lots of chairs,

Makhis,

Especially for the VIP's,

And so I asked for the best.

The Governor is a big chauffeur,

And when they came here,

They came down Nansen Way,

And they unloaded,

I was busy helping somebody else,

And so what happened was that they delivered some really rubbish stuff,

And I never checked it.

I trusted them a bit too much.

And afterwards when I checked,

The makhi was filthy,

And the chairs were dirty,

They could all be washed and cleaned.

But what I couldn't do was actually to change the VIP chairs.

And those VIP chairs were all of a different length,

They wobbled,

A lot.

And then I started to think and fear.

We got VIP's coming tomorrow.

You can't get VIP's to sit on the floor cross-legged.

You can't get them to actually sit on these chairs and fall off during the middle of the ceremony.

Yeah,

We're trying to be simple,

But that was too much,

And so I called immediately the firm and got them before they closed.

And I said,

Look,

Do you remember,

I asked for some really good quality stuff,

And this is what you've delivered.

I said,

There must be some mistakes,

I'll change them straight away,

Late on a Friday afternoon,

When all the workers had already started their weekend in the pub.

And she went into that pub and said,

Guys,

Back to work.

The Buddhists need their chairs changed.

Now you can understand,

In Australia,

On a Friday afternoon,

The sort of response which we get from those workers.

They were really angry.

But when their truck,

Their lorry came round the corner of Constance and Nintenance,

And I was waiting for them this time because I wanted to make sure we got some decent stuff,

And they'd only just turned the corner,

Maybe halfway down Nansen Way,

One of the guys jumped out of the truck.

It was still moving,

The dangerous thing to do,

But he was so angry,

And he came running straight towards us.

Who's the bloke in charge?

I want the guy in charge.

So I walked up to him.

I am the bloke in charge.

And his fist was this far from my nose.

His eyes were red like some monster you see in a movie.

And because I'm a monk,

One of my rules is never to drink alcohol,

You could actually smell the alcohol on his breath.

Because I had to breathe in and out,

And that was the most alcohol I probably ever imbibed in all my years as a monk.

But he was eyeballing me,

Ready to throw a punch.

I mentioned at the time,

There is many other people helping out.

There are many people standing around,

Looking.

Not one person came to help me.

And I take that,

Given the benefit of the doubt,

They knew that I could handle this situation no problem.

This big Australian guy,

Drunk,

Angry,

And his little,

I used to be a thin monk at that time,

Ready to get hammered with his fist.

There is something which is called peace training.

How not to inflame conflict,

How to be in the difficult situation when someone is about to taser you,

Or hit you with a baton,

Or throw,

What's it called,

Handcuffs on you and arrest you and drag you away.

There is something which Buddhist monks and nuns can share.

And that is this,

Not fear,

Not arrogance and feeling superior,

But peace,

Kindness.

And a situation like that,

To actually feel kindness to your oppressor is a difficult thing to do,

Is how we train as Buddhist monks.

In one of those suttas,

What the Buddha said was a phwok,

It really blew me away and I thought,

This is impossible.

Until later on,

I heard these Buddhist monks from Tibet describing this.

The Buddha said,

If terrorists,

Oppressors,

If they hold you down and they torture you by sawing your limbs off one by one,

With a hand saw,

Not with a chainsaw,

Which is probably less,

This should be over quickly,

Then you should never feel any,

Even a moment of ill will towards your torturers.

You should only feel thoughts of loving kindness and well-being to those people who were unlawfully,

Unfairly causing you so much pain.

I remember reading an article by a Tibetan monk who was tortured and survived and it was amazing what he said.

He said he knew that if his oppressors made him angry,

Made him upset,

Then he would have been a loser,

He would have lost,

He would be one of them.

Anger would have come into his mind.

And he got anger,

I don't know many people say understandably so.

He's being oppressed,

He's being beaten,

He's being tortured or whatever,

But he said,

I will not give in.

That's the only thing which I can fight back with,

With endurance,

Tolerance,

With love.

It's such a difficult situation that was,

Wow,

That was possible,

Hard to do,

But could be done.

And of course,

In modern times,

Maybe a Gandhi,

I always remember that Gandhi saying,

They can see a thousand reasons to give his life for a good cause.

You can never see one reason to take the life of another.

And that was his powerful statements.

And there is this day which we may not be able to reach those heights of endurance,

But you can feel that is the way,

Peacefully,

Standing up for what you think is right.

Otherwise,

If you get angry and disruptive,

Then you lose the support of so many people.

People think you are rebels as well.

It was the saying in one of the poems again,

Which had this beautiful spiritual line which I often quote.

This was from a poem by William Blake.

A very interesting character because he was a great artist as well.

He was the artist who,

In one of the paintings,

It was of Isaac Newton,

Sort of,

I think,

Naked,

And he was drawing up something or other.

Classical art,

But also great,

Very perceptive poetry.

One of those poems was to see a world in a grain of sand,

A heaven and a wildflower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

An eternity and an hour.

It was one of those meditation poems,

Which is,

I've been talking about that a lot in the retreat,

Which I'm supposed to be teaching over in Jhana Grove,

Which I have to go back to tonight to complete.

To be able to see a world in a grain of sand,

Your mindfulness,

Your awareness gets so amazing.

And a tiny thing you can see so much,

Instead of rushing around missing everything,

Like a wildflower,

So tiny,

Hiding amongst these big bushes and blades of grass,

And looking there,

There's this incredibly beautiful heaven and a tiny little thing.

We look for big things,

But then there's so much beauty and inspiration and tiny stuff.

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

War,

Right here,

Right with you,

Everything.

Don't need to seek for a god or enlightenment or Buddha,

Anywhere else,

Just right here,

In the palm of your hand,

An eternity and an hour.

No fear of endings or beginnings.

Eternity beyond time.

And an hour,

I often say that the present moment,

Now,

This moment doesn't line with flower.

But anyway,

You can see that's what he meant,

Beyond time.

And some people say eternity and hour,

That's usually how long your talks last.

Roar!

But he also said in that poem,

In the later part of a long poem,

Vengeance to the tyrant fled and caught the tyrant in his bed and slew the wicked tyrant's head and became a tyrant in his stead.

I've been around long enough,

68 years,

To see that happen.

People who go into politics to try and do some good,

Really sort of people who you would think could actually do some wonderful things in this world,

Assist them,

Grabs them,

Changes them.

In my position as a monk,

It's weird,

But sometimes because of the respect you get as a religious leader,

Sometimes you meet politicians,

You manage to talk to them,

Even spend time with them.

Believe it or not,

Sometimes people think,

Ajahn Brahm,

You're mad,

You're stupid,

You're just too naive.

But even somebody like John Howard,

Met him quite a few times.

Maybe when he's alone and not having some agenda,

He'll be a very decent fellow.

But the one which I will never forget was the former Sri Lankan president,

Rajapaksa.

And when I met him,

Because I was a well-known Buddhist monk,

He invited me for breakfast,

My personal breakfast.

And it was him,

The first time I saw him,

He looked at me and said,

Without any prompting,

Without even saying good morning,

He said,

I am a failure.

And I sometimes will never forget that moment of honesty,

Of vulnerability.

Could never do that in front of a TV camera,

Because a TV camera,

The media will not allow the admission of faults.

Because the media doesn't allow that,

Because people will just immediately ask him to resign.

Politicians,

Leaders have flaws.

They're human beings and sometimes they get to know people as leaders,

For them to be able to actually talk with the people who they are temporarily leading and to actually see the human side of them.

What a great world that would be if our leaders weren't surrounded by security in white houses or in palaces where they could be trusted and trust the people they serve to be able to go out and talk to them without fear.

I would say Rajapaksa couldn't do that.

But when I asked him,

Why are you a failure?

Why is that the first thing you told me?

For those of you who know Sri Lanka and its history,

He said,

And I've got no reason to doubt,

That he was expressing himself as accurately as he could.

He had nothing to gain or lose by telling this to me.

And he said that he joined politics to try and settle the problems with the Tamil community in the north to create some harmony,

A peaceful solution.

He said a Buddhist solution,

But then what happened?

He was a failure and eventually he just ticked the box and wore the violent solution.

Terrible thing to do,

But under pressure.

Sometimes it takes a lot to resist pressure.

I know a little bit about that because it's the 10th anniversary of the bhikkhuni ordinations.

You may think that's a small thing,

But I lost my friends from that being expelled from the monastery where I grew up.

It's not losing my life,

But it's losing a lot of it,

The friends,

But you have to do it,

You have to,

Sometimes you have to lose,

Like Gandhi willing to sacrifice your life for something you believe in,

But not sacrifice other people's lives.

That peaceful protesting,

People think,

People won't listen to you.

It takes too long,

It's just,

We haven't got time for that anymore.

But what will you achieve through such violence,

More violence,

Legitimizing violence and the hurting of other people?

Because it worked,

You got to your goal,

Now what?

So there was,

Who was this,

A Russian,

Not Gorbachev,

There was the one who came after it,

The one who appeared on TV drunk.

Yassen,

That's right.

He once said this very nice phrase,

Apparently a Russian proverb,

You can never sit on a throne made of swords.

If that's where you got your power base,

If that's where you won sort of what you were aiming for,

If that's how you achieved your goals through violence,

Through hurting,

Through swords,

Through tear gas,

Through batons,

If that's how you won,

You're on a throne of swords,

It's very uncomfortable,

You won't be able to stay there very long.

But fortunately as a Buddhist you have a lot of hope for this world.

The reason why I have a lot of hope for this world,

Is I have a lot of hope for human beings.

Every human being I've ever come across,

Violent ones,

People who have murdered,

You come across them and you see beyond their violence,

You see into them.

That's what I did with that man who had his fist a few feet,

No a few inches sorry,

Maybe a few centimeters,

Millimeters probably,

How's that,

Maybe that's an inch from my nose.

See beyond his violence and anger,

Look deeper and deeper I saw this human being,

This man,

Who was legitimately trying to have his evening drinks,

Worked hard during the day,

During the week,

Now wanted to go home with his family,

With his friends,

Nothing wrong with that,

But having to come back to work.

You may think it's a small thing,

But I'm no person to judge that.

I could see he was hurt.

And so just looked into those eyes,

Saw beyond the shell of negativity,

So the heart inside,

Not to judge him,

But to respect him and his position and hold him,

Not with my arms but with my eyes,

With my kindness,

With my respect for him.

And he was stuck there in front of me for a couple of minutes,

Maybe three,

I didn't need any help.

In that three or four minutes,

The truck had parked in front of what's now called the community hall.

One of the head of the gang of workers came up to him,

Put his hand on the shoulder,

Said,

Come on,

Let's go and unload the chairs,

And I said,

Yeah,

We'll help.

So I helped him unload the chairs,

Because you look deeper into him than the negativity.

All those times I've gone to teaching prisons,

I respected those prisoners.

Never asked what crime they had done.

We've heard me say this before,

There's no such thing as a criminal.

There's a person who's done a crime.

There's no such thing as a terrorist.

There's a person who's done a terrorist act.

There's no such thing as a corrupt politician.

There's a person who's done corrupt acts in positions of trust.

There's more to them than what you are angry about.

And to see beyond people's bad actions or bad speech,

To see beyond that,

No matter how hurtful it is,

That is where you can make a difference.

To empathise with the oppressor.

To understand the person who's violent.

To go past that,

Deeper into it.

Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh would do that.

Amazing monk,

Because he'd been through it,

He'd been in Vietnam during the war,

He'd been in the monastery where I think the day before,

One of his monks had been shot dead.

It was a dangerous time.

And he knew and emphasised with all the people who'd gone out from Vietnam,

Fleeing for their lives,

The refugees.

And many of those refugees fleeing would get robbed of all their possessions by pirates and would also get raped.

Why?

These were the most vulnerable and just needy.

Why would such things happen to them?

But in a poem which moved me to tears,

He said,

I can't remember it totally,

I am the woman who left Vietnam,

Fleeing for her life,

With a few possessions,

Hoping that some place would find some freedom.

I am the Thai pirate who robs her.

I am the person who jumps over the boat into the ocean,

Cannot be able to stand the pain anymore.

He was emphasising,

Trying to get into the heads of the people we criticise and hate,

The tyrants,

The oppressors,

The people who do bad things.

He was going beyond the person to the acts and finding something inside that person beyond their violence,

Beyond their aggression,

Something to respect.

By going there to transform,

This world has had too much violence,

Too much burning,

People fighting one another,

But there's things to be done,

Changes to be made.

Sometimes you think,

Well Ajahn Brahm,

Living in a monastery,

Cloud-cooking land,

And you'll be dead by the time that climate change really starts to kick in.

What do you know?

And I ask,

What have you guys achieved?

Is it working?

Can there be another approach?

Can there be another way of looking at things?

Anger,

Hatred never ceases with more hatred,

With fights against oppressors,

Oppressors get emboldened,

Too many people get killed,

And that policeman,

That soldier is a person,

A being.

And we just say,

Some way of connecting,

Of understanding to get into the head.

And I must say that one of the great comments which I receive,

Praises,

You get blame as well,

You get criticism as part of being a,

Any person is a leadership position.

But this prison officer who once called me and said,

Please come back to my prison to teach,

And said,

Too busy,

I'll send another monk,

No,

I want you,

Why me?

Because all the prisoners,

Some very hard prisoners,

Violent prisoners,

Wherever they come to your class,

Never come back to jail again once they're released.

That's what he said to me,

That's why I remember it,

It really rocked me.

Afterwards I thought,

Why,

What have I done?

What worked with violent,

Selfish people?

And I always thought that was what I had done.

Same thing which I did with that man who was drunk,

About to punch my lights out.

That I'd seen beyond his violence,

Seen deeper into a person's heart,

And seen what maybe they'd forgotten,

Their softness,

Their kindness,

Their compassion,

See the compassion in your jailer,

Bring that compassion out,

So they never need to be a jailer again.

So this world can be more compassionate,

Sensitive,

And feel the pain of each other.

Never criticize or judge the person.

See deeper than that,

Into the problem.

So that's all I can really offer now,

I'm not sure how effective it is,

But maybe,

Who knows,

Maybe it will give another dimension,

Not what you've heard before,

But something maybe which could enhance what we've heard,

To be a better human beings.

There we go.

Okay,

Any comments or questions,

Complaints?

Yes?

Yes,

Welcome to the world.

I knew that we shouldn't be activists because the oppressors or whoever are a human too when we should be compassionate to them.

We should always be compassionate to every person.

That doesn't mean.

.

.

Oh,

You're an actress,

Yes.

Of course.

No.

Ah.

No.

No.

No.

You don't act against the person,

You act against the problem,

And you bring that other person onto your side.

You act with the oppressors,

Not against.

We're in this world together,

We're in these countries and principalities together.

We work together.

If you work against people,

Then the problem and solutions get kicked further down the road.

So that's what I'm suggesting,

Something different.

Anyway,

Here we go from UK.

This week protesters climbed on the roof of tube trains to protest climate change.

What is a wise response to the climate emergency these people claim we are in?

And I think that here in Australia it's very easy to see there is a climate emergency.

Having to work together,

Most people which I have seen,

Even the people who drive the tube train,

Even the people in the companies,

In places of government,

They know that that's true climate emergency.

Now sometimes you've got to make that important.

And just what I know,

As far as I know,

From the CEOs of companies,

Politicians,

They need to have a way to be able to,

Again,

Protect planet,

Look after people,

Whatever.

You don't need to get them off site.

Get them on site.

Help them.

There's many ways of doing that.

So when we just look at other people as a problem,

Then rather than getting them on board,

I think,

I don't know if there's going to be a solution that way.

There may not be a solution.

Maybe this is the end of our civilization,

I'm not sure.

But you know,

Buddhists will always be born again.

They're always going to get reborn into.

So,

But anyway,

I do know that the people I have known,

I have more faith in them,

That they have got great hearts,

And you get them on board before it's too late.

Antipathy,

Pain,

That's actually where it gets worse and worse and worse and worse.

They get stubborn.

They dig in their heels.

Anyway,

From Russia,

I like meditation but don't believe in God's spiritual entities or supernatural powers mentioned in the Pali Canon.

Should Buddhists believe in these things?

You don't have to believe in those things.

However,

As a theoretical physicist,

There's some weird things which I have seen.

Things which you keep an open mind about such things.

So you don't believe these things,

But you don't believe they don't exist,

Which is another dogmatic position.

Sometimes that's what I'd always have to be as a scientist,

The open mind.

If the evidence presents itself to see there was spiritual entities or gods or supernatural powers or psychic powers,

When you see such things,

Then you have to sort of,

The evidence is right in front of you.

You can't disregard it.

It's there.

Anyway,

I suffer from anxiety and have fear of death.

How do I help myself?

That's a big question and only one sentence to anxiety.

Anxiety is looking at the future with a negative mind,

Looking at all the things which might go wrong in your life.

When you find with negativity,

Think of all the things which might go wrong,

You actually almost make those things,

You increase the odds that they go wrong.

Again,

During the Rains Retreat,

It was contacted by the local cancer support society,

They're called Solaris now,

To come again,

Where was it,

I forget now,

For another talk I think in February,

First talk of their season.

They invited me back I think 27 years now and they asked them,

Why do you keep inviting me back?

And they told me a story,

They said 27 years ago when you first came to this group,

It was only a small group at that time,

They're in Cottesloe,

They said that one lady who had had breast cancer and had got into remission,

She asked me a question,

I never knew at the time she'd asked so many other psychologists,

Spiritual leaders,

Doctors,

The same question.

She said,

I had a terrible breast cancer,

It's very difficult to endure,

I'm in remission but I'm so anxious if it came back,

What would happen if it came back?

And my response,

It was a one-liner,

Sometimes people think,

Oh one-liner,

He just thrown these things out,

But no,

This was well considered.

I said,

What would happen if it didn't come back?

Because it was so brief and to the point,

She actually got it.

She realized that thinking what would happen if it came back,

What would happen if it came back,

What would happen if it came back,

That that anxiety,

That fear was increasing the probability that what she was afraid of would actually happen.

And I've seen that in many places in life,

You're afraid of something,

You're afraid of something,

You're afraid of something and it happens,

Simply because you almost make it happen,

With fulfillment.

So I said,

What happens if it doesn't come back?

She got it,

She relaxed and she comes back every year to see me.

The cancer hasn't come back yet.

Anxiety,

Fear of death,

If you fear death it's more likely to happen.

So it's a short answer but that's the best I can do.

Okay,

So that's it for this evening and hopefully you enjoyed it.

But if you didn't agree with it,

I don't expect you to agree with everything I say.

Sadhu,

Sadhu,

Sadhu.

And please if I can ask for no questions afterwards,

Because I do have a retreat to get back to Jhana Grove and start teaching again early in the morning.

Thank you.

You you

Reviews

Lovely talk so much good information and wonderful life lessons. Thank you thank you thank you

This talk/teaching is a gift 🙏🏻❤️❤️