Escape Your Mental Prisons - Fall in Love With Whatever Is Happening

A Dharma Talk on principles first described by Ajahn Brahm and expanded by Dr. Cheryl Fraser. What ways are you in prison right now? Learn to love what is happening right now to set yourself free and awaken yourself.

Transcript

So I started this morning by expressing my gratitude that we got together to practice sanity together,

By which I mean it's very easy to be distracted by shiny objects.

Like a crow,

We saw a beautiful,

Really big crow or raven as we were driving in.

And you know,

They're famous for those corvid birds are famous for collecting shiny objects and it's a beautiful analogy,

A little too close to home for our own lives that we run around gathering shiny objects,

Comforts,

Creature comforts for the body,

For the home,

For the automobile.

I'm not saying that's bad,

But it becomes problematic when we believe the shiny objects will make us happy forever.

This is a theme you hear over and over and over again in the teachings of the Dharma because it's drawn from the Buddhist Four Noble Truths,

That it is clinging to things that we believe will make us feel better,

That is the root ultimately of our suffering.

The teaching does not say to have a lovely bell that a friend gifted to me is a bad thing.

But if I lost the bell or one of you stole the bell because you're a crow and it's a lovely shiny object and I am upset,

Angry,

Distressed,

I have suffering in the body and mind then I am missing the point which is that objects come and go and that's okay.

In fact,

It's the nature of reality.

That's one of the reasons you were focusing on your breath because guess what?

How long does one breath last?

One breath ceases to exist forever.

It's the ultimate arising and passing away.

Meditation is breath.

Every few seconds there's something that comes into being and ceases to be.

You're practicing impermanence.

You're practicing letting go.

You're practicing enjoying the breath,

The object,

The love affair,

The health,

The human body while it's here and ideally getting to where we let it go with ease,

Without clinging and without suffering.

So I'm going to talk today on a few themes that I spoke about in a Dharma talk on the 10-day retreat several of you were at in August and I've been asked,

Sort of like a greatest hits record really,

To talk about those themes again and I'm more than happy to do so for those of you that haven't perhaps heard them.

And I want to,

Like all ethical academics,

Cite my sources and not plagiarize.

A lot of what I'm going to offer today is drawn from the series of talks by a teacher called Ajahn Brahm,

Beautiful teacher is,

I believe,

I don't know his history terribly well,

I've not met him in person,

But he's a British fellow by origin.

He was a public school teacher,

I believe,

In England and in his adult life entered the robes and took on the robes of the Theravadan lineage and became a monk.

I think he was in his 30s or maybe 40s and he's been a monk ever since.

He's the abbot or head of a monastery in Australia.

I think in Perth,

I'm not entirely sure,

You can quickly Google that if you wish,

But Ajahn Brahm has given a series of talks on the various idea of being prisoners in our own minds.

So I'm drawing some of these stories from his work and his talks and sharing them with you today and then adding some viewpoints perhaps from my own teaching and lineage.

So he tells the story of when he was first a monk,

A fairly newly ordained monk and a very,

Very poor monastery.

Monasteries survive on donations the way Dharma teachers try to and often there's not a lot of funds.

So he said the monks worked tirelessly and they enjoyed that.

They meditated,

They practiced and they did a lot of manual labor,

You know,

Repairing the monastery,

Building things,

Digging,

Gardening,

All the things one would do to keep a center going.

And he was tasked with building a brick wall along one side of the perimeter,

I guess,

Of the property.

And he took this very seriously as he tells the story.

He really,

Really enjoyed the work.

He said,

I mean,

I was a teacher,

I had no skills at,

You know,

Laying bricks and mortar,

But I took it on as a meditation study.

And he said,

You really enjoy the practice of making the mortar and laying the bricks and,

You know,

Squaring them off.

And he took it as a mindfulness practice and perhaps with a little bit of pride.

And he finished the wall and he was very pleased with his work and he stepped back and was looking at the whole wall and he noticed that there were two bricks that were off kilter that were,

He said they were sort of diagonal and sticking out.

You know,

He'd done a poor job.

And as he tells it,

His mind got very obsessed with these two bad bricks and very distressed by the two bad bricks and it focused and focused the mind.

I'm sure this doesn't ring true for any of us.

It focused on the two bad bricks and not on the marvelous wall.

And it distressed him to the extent as he tells it that he went to his abbot and he said,

You know,

Please let me tear the wall down.

I want to fix it.

I want to do it right.

And the abbot said,

No,

No,

It's great the way it is and it's part of your training to learn to be with the two bad bricks.

So Ajahn Brahm was not very happy with that,

I don't think.

And off he went on his merry way.

I mean,

He talks about a little later on in his time in those early days,

A somewhat illustrious visitor came to the monastery,

I forget who or why,

And Ajahn Brahm was asked to show them around.

And as he tells it,

He tried to sort of scuttle away from the wall so they wouldn't notice the wall and as is the nature of things.

The person stopped and took a really good look at that wall.

And Ajahn Brahm said,

Oh,

You know,

Yeah,

I built the wall and there's two bad bricks.

And the person said,

Oh,

It's a lovely wall.

What a great wall.

You know what I see?

I see 998 fantastic bricks.

And Ajahn Brahm didn't really take it in.

He went,

Oh yeah,

Well,

I went on.

But this stuck with him.

It stuck with him.

And he started to kind of contemplate it and think about it and look at the mind.

And the mind's tendency is in psychology,

It's the negativity bias is the term it's given of the human mind to seek out what's missing,

To seek out what's wrong,

To seek out what's not working.

Anybody ever find your mind does this?

Oh,

Only my hand up.

Well,

I'm going to go because clearly you're all enlightened.

So let's try that again.

Does anyone else ever notice their mind sometimes looks only at what's not working?

Thank you.

I appreciate your honesty.

And so he goes on and he teaches many other things.

And then there's another part of what he shares that I just am delighted to share.

Some of you have heard before.

Where the monastery that Ajahn Brahm is now the Abedav is in Australia,

It's right next door to a men's prison,

A maximum security prison.

So fairly long sentences,

Usually based on fairly difficult,

Challenging behaviors and crimes that these persons have been committed of.

And he says it's quite funny because often people come to the monastery because it's kind of also has walls around it and looks rather austere and formal.

People come in and is this the prison?

Like,

No,

This is the monastery.

Okay.

And they go over to the prison and vice versa.

People of course drive into the prison.

Is this the monastery?

No,

No,

It's the prison.

And they go next door.

So he tells the story about how he used to teach mindfulness and Dharma at this prison.

And then he's written many books.

He's a beautifully loved teacher and he travels more and more.

More and more commitments tend to happen.

And so he started getting his senior monks to lead the classes at the prison next door.

And then I think it sort of faded away for a while.

And he talks about getting a call from the,

What do you call them?

They're not the abbots of the prison,

The boss of the prison.

They have a name.

The warden.

Thank you.

The warden of the prison calls Ajahn Jahn personally and says,

I want you to come back and teach them in.

And he said,

I'm retiring next year and it would mean a great deal to me if you'd come and teach again.

And Ajahn Brahm says,

Oh,

What a lovely sentiment.

And I so appreciate it.

I'm more than happy to send my senior monks to teach.

It's just a delight for us.

We're very happy to serve.

And the warden says,

Nope,

I want you.

And Ajahn Brahm says,

Well,

It's very kind,

But unfortunately I have a very demanding teaching schedule.

I'm not sure I can do it.

And the warden said,

Please,

I'm retiring.

This is a request to you.

It would mean the world to me.

I want you specifically because every man you have taught,

Once they've been released from prison,

None of them,

Zero,

None of them have ever returned to prison.

Now I don't know how much you know about recidivism in a prison population,

But it's extremely high.

60%,

70%,

80% of persons are likely to commit another crime,

At least of a minor kind,

And end up in the system again.

This is an extraordinary finding.

Well Ajahn said,

I sort of couldn't say no at that point,

Could I?

And he and his monks,

Of course,

Taught again with great joy.

He also tells about speaking with prisoners,

And he speaks beautifully,

And I think we all need to learn from this.

Ajahn Brahm says,

You know,

I've never met a murderer.

I've met people who've murdered.

I've never met a rapist.

I've met people who've raped.

I've never met a thief.

I've met people who've stolen.

If all of us,

This is a bit of Cheryl,

Not him,

So I don't want to attribute it to him in case it's not skillful.

If all of us are judged by our worst acts in our life so far,

How would we look?

How would we look if we boiled down who we are to the worst five minutes,

The worst hour taken of our life so far?

So I love the beautiful dharma in the person who through their greed,

Hatred,

And delusion,

All of us included,

Commit unwholesome acts,

Even profoundly unwholesome acts.

And in the dharma,

This is still seen as a pure being with tremendous unwholesome poisons that they're working to liberate.

So he tells the stories about being with these men and teaching them.

And he tells a story about one of his monks who was over teaching and had taught six weeks in a row.

And the men were really enjoying this monk and very curious about,

You know,

What was it like to be a monk?

What happens next door?

What do you guys get up to over there?

And so they'd invited this monk to stay for the afternoon when the dharma class was over and to sort of socialize with them.

And he with great pleasure accepted that,

Kind of hanging out in the activities room and had a meal with the men that were incarcerated.

And they were really,

Really curious,

As all of us would be.

So what do you do over there?

And this monk said,

Well,

Let's see.

He said,

Well,

Like,

When do you get up?

What do you do?

Like,

What do you do?

And he said,

OK,

Well,

We get up at four o'clock in the morning.

And he said,

But don't worry,

It's optional.

You're allowed to get up earlier.

And the men all went,

Oh,

My goodness.

And he said,

And then we practice and meditate for a couple of hours.

And then we have our breakfast.

He said,

Oh,

What do you have for breakfast?

They said,

Well,

We have a bowl of sort of thin porridge is what we have,

Theravadan tradition.

And the men looked scandalized,

The incarcerated persons.

And they said,

Gosh,

We can have whatever we want.

The monks said,

Well,

Like what?

They said,

Well,

We can have bacon and eggs.

We have waffles some days.

We have sausage.

We have potatoes.

We have grand breakfast,

Fruit.

We eat really well here.

And the monks said,

Oh,

That's wonderful.

And they said,

And then what do you do?

And he said,

Well,

Then,

Well,

We usually will do some more practice and study.

And then we've got about a three,

Four hour work period.

Well,

What do you do for work?

Oh,

Well,

You know,

Dig in the garden.

Well,

You know,

Build walls.

We'll,

You know,

Do construction.

So right now we're moving rocks,

Making a big rock garden.

And they're like,

Wow,

Manual labor.

Wow,

We don't even have to do that.

And he said,

Yeah,

That's what we do.

And then what do you have for lunch?

He said,

Well,

For lunch,

We have our meal.

But they do it in the Theravadan bowl manner,

Which means the food is all laid out and each monk has two ropes and a bowl and a spoon.

And this is very traditional in full ordination in that tradition.

And you eat all of your food out of one bowl.

So as they tell it,

If it's say,

I don't know,

Shepherd's pie and peas and strawberry shortcake,

You put it all in one bowl at once.

And that's how you eat your food,

Which didn't go over very well with the prisoners.

I know that was pretty awful.

You know,

We've got lovely lunches and we have our dessert separate and whatnot.

OK,

Well,

Then what do you do?

Well,

In the afternoon,

We might meditate some more and practice more and do studies and do service.

Well,

What do you do after that?

Do you have any fun?

Do you have any leisure time?

So what we meditate?

Well,

But,

You know,

Do you watch movies?

No,

We're not allowed any TV.

What?

We've got a whole movie system over here.

Oh,

My goodness.

Well,

What about play cards?

Do you play cards?

No,

No,

We meditate or we be with our thoughts.

And the guys are getting sorrier and sorrier and sorrier for the monk.

What a dreadful,

Dreadful time of he's got it over there.

OK,

Well,

What about dinner?

Oh,

We don't have dinner.

We have our main meal at noon.

And then that's it.

We only get tea.

Oh,

Goodness,

We get like,

You know,

Steak and hamburgers and this and that.

And in the evening,

Oh,

We meditate and we do prayers and we do chanting.

And then we go to bed about 11 or 12.

And they said,

Man,

You should come play with us.

We've got a way better than you do.

And it's a beautiful story because it begs this question.

What makes us a prisoner?

We're in prison any time we do not want to be where we are.

It's that simple.

The monks want to be in the monastery.

They want to be studying the mind.

They want to be having strawberry shortcake on their hamburger and tea for supper.

They want to work and want to serve.

I'm not naive.

We've all studied our mind even for 20 minutes just now.

That doesn't mean we always like being where we want to be.

I've been on long retreats where I very much didn't like being here and here and here.

But overall,

I was there because I wanted to be.

So I wasn't a prisoner.

We're a prisoner when we don't want to be where we want to be.

So right now,

If you have some anxiety in your mind,

You probably don't want to be there.

That means you're in prison.

I'll repeat that.

Right now,

If you have some anxiety or any other unpleasantness in your mind,

You probably don't want to be there.

That means you're in prison.

Prison is the opposite of free.

In Buddha Dharma,

We talk about freedom.

It's one of the translations of awakening or enlightenment.

Freedom from suffering.

Freedom from not wanting where we are.

That's when you're free.

So if you take that,

It means if there's anxiety or grief or anger in the mind,

If there's pain or exhaustion or illness in the body and we don't want to be here with it,

We're in prison.

And therefore,

If we simply accept it and want to be with it,

We're free.

As Ajahn Brahm says in one of his talks,

He says,

If you are sad,

Love the sadness and you're free.

If you're anxious,

Love the anxiety and you're free.

Free from wanting something other than what is.

You just rehearse that.

We just rehearse that together.

We were hers to just being with one breath and not wanting to be anywhere else.

And if we caught ourselves wanting to be anywhere else,

Which we probably did a lot,

Can we love being with the discomfort of trying to focus on the breath?

If we can fall in love with whatever's happening,

Whether it's pleasant or unpleasant,

Easy or horrible,

We're free.

We're free from suffering.

We might have tremendous physical pain,

Tremendous emotional consternation,

But we're ultimately free.

We're only in prison when we don't want to be there.

Two buildings side by side off a road in Australia,

Both with walls,

One with way better food,

Way better entertainment,

Way more to do.

Which one feels like a prison?

The one we don't have a choice to escape.

We always have a choice to escape.

Always have a choice to escape.

He tells a story,

This took place in Thailand in our lifetime,

20,

30,

40 years ago,

My apologies,

I don't have that accurate right now off the top of my head.

That the inline person in Thailand to be the abbot or leader of the entire Buddhist community in Thailand was ailing and was about to die.

And his successor,

The successor by lineage and experience,

And I believe maybe the chosen successor of the one who was about to pass out of the body,

Was there ready to take on the job when asked.

And there was a second in command.

The second in command had a lot of jealousy and envy towards the first in command.

So they created apparently some false accusations of impropriety of the first in command.

And the first in command was found guilty and was imprisoned for I think about two years.

And then the person who,

Then the second in command who'd manufactured false charges against the first in command became the head of the Buddhist lineage there in Thailand.

And then apparently during this person's tenure,

They were traveling somewhere as an entourage for teaching or for meetings.

And there was the car carrying the person who was now in command who did falsely accuse the person that they'd replaced.

And their car and sort of an entourage of cars as there tends to be around an important person.

And a car coming in the other direction,

Lost control,

Crossed the line,

Smashed into the car that this person and a few others were in with all these cars around it,

Only hit that car.

And the only person that was hurt was the person and he was killed.

Nobody else was untouched,

Whatever one makes of that.

And then some investigations went on and some things were looked at and it was uncovered that the accusations against the number one who was now in prison were false and he was released.

And he was given great may have couples were very sorry that these accusations came against you.

They said,

And how are you?

How are you?

He says,

I'm wonderful.

It was fantastic for two years.

I got to do nothing but meditate.

I didn't have to talk to students about their marriage problems.

I didn't have to do service.

I wasn't busy.

I could just train in the mind.

It was marvelous.

So he was in prison,

But he wasn't in prison.

He was in prison,

But he was free.

Free because he wanted to be there.

It was fine to be there.

Wherever he was would be fine.

Wherever he was would be fine.

You can imprison my body,

You cannot trap my mind.

Where are you in prison in your life these days?

Is it the prison of financial uncertainty?

That's a huge one for so many of us.

Is it the prison of an aging or an ailing body?

Huge one for all of us at some point.

Is it the prison of a difficult relationship with a child,

A partner,

A parent,

A friend,

A workmate?

Is it the prison of just a general unease in the mind that visits too often,

Anxiety or sadness,

Self-doubt?

Is it the prison of believing we need to be something else other than right here,

Right now in order to be happy?

The prison that we need to be somewhere else instead of right here,

Right now in order to be happy?

Is it the prison of wishing you could gain more weight or lose weight?

Is it the prison of wishing your food tasted better?

Is it the prison of wishing your pet wasn't getting old?

What prisons are we creating by our mind's reaction to the present moment?

Where are we feeling in prison when we can be free?

The poisons,

The three poisons,

Are the way the Buddha teaches the three root causes of our suffering and the root hetu,

H-E-T-U,

Is the Pali word that translates in English to the roots.

And I want you to think about the root of a plant or a tree,

The root of anything growing.

Without the root,

The plant or tree dies,

Correct?

If you want to remove a plant or a weed,

That's simply a differentiation by the way that we make some things a weed versus something desired,

That's all in the mind.

And we want to remove it,

We know we've got to dig out the roots or it can restart,

Right?

Same with our poisons,

Our mental,

Emotional poisons,

I'll name them in a moment of course,

That we want to look at eventually eradicating them at the root.

But let's be real,

Most of us have some sort of plant around us on our land or apartment building or places where we walk.

We can't always get it out by the root,

We don't have the right tools,

We don't have the right muscle power,

So we might just chop off a limb for a bit,

We might do some pruning,

Right?

Make the plant smaller,

That's what we tend to do with our three poisons,

That's a great start.

Sometimes we might think we've cut it off at the root,

Right at the ground,

But we've forgotten there's all these tendrils underneath.

That's a great experience,

A great way to describe the experience we have when we try to work with our mental,

Emotional poisons,

The big three.

Greed,

Hatred and delusion.

Greed lobha,

Hatred dosa,

Delusion moha,

Those are the Pali words for those of you that like to study these things.

So these according to the Buddha are the roots of all of our mental,

Emotional suffering.

It'd be important to know them then,

Isn't it?

And important to spot them and try to trim them back.

Reviews

Timely. Love thy crooked neighbour with all of my crooked heart.

Thank you for this Dharma talk and the shift it allowed me to sift and marinate, allowing an entrance to equanimity. I am grateful. Sending good wishes. 🌻

I cannot thank you enough for this teaching. It was just what I needed to hear. I now feel that I have the tools to work with an immense sorrow that has been weighing me down. Thank you for your wisdom.

Going to play it again right now. And a third time to take notes. Awesome thanks

It was refreshing to listen to. And to hear. My mind didn't wander. I followed every word. And vowed to put it into practice. Thank you Cheryl.

Thank you 🙏 so much for this Dharma talk, I really needed it. It has helped me ♥️

Thoroughly enjoyed this, so many great lessons. Thank you 🙏🌀💫

Exactly what I needed at the perfect time. Thank you thank you thank you.

Excellent dharma talk! Will be saving for repeat listenings. Thank you 🙏🏼💚🌱

Excellent. So many great useful thoughts to keep me busy. Will listen again and again. Thank you Cheryl. 🙏🏼❤️

Very interesting concepts and awareness. Loved the stories. Thank you

Thank you for sharing in such a lively, practical and compassionate way… much to be learned and practiced from your talk.. with heartfelt gratitude 🙏

Strong and powerful delivery of good wisdom
Thank you

One of the best dharma talks: funny, clear, relatable and rings truth.

Mindblowing , especially the dosa and dharma part ...I have learned a whole new thing

I found this talk very helpful during a time of family illness

Fun, engaging, informative, and enlightening, but the remarkable thing was how this teaching, which I'd bookmarked ages ago but hadn't listened to yet, appeared on the app's front page recently, reminding me it was on my list.Most profoundly, the situations and examples used seemed lifted verbatim from my life (that or else my Self translated to demonstrate applicability), right down to the entire part about noise. This moment of synchronicity is one for which I am most grateful.

Thank you so much 🙏 beautifully shared. Many blessings.

So helpful in seeing that life is impermanent, all things, people come and go. It is a process of learning, forgiveness, and improving how we respond to life around us. Thank you for this teaching!

An amazing teaching at a time of feeling imprisoned with certain aspects of life there are reminders of how we can address these. Thank you, 🙏🏾💕