Clairvoyance | Ajahn Brahm

Clairvoyance by Ajahn Brahm

This evening’s talk here is going to be on the title of clairvoyance. Interested? How many people predicted I was going to talk on this subject this evening? The reason is because someone sent me an email a long time ago. Can we talk about the Buddhism and clairvoyance and has Buddhism anything to say about this subject? And sometimes when people said no to emails, I just stick them on my desk. And sometimes somebody else comes up with a subject which is a bit more interesting. But because no one asked me anything this evening, I'm going to be talking about clairvoyance and Buddhism. So everyone's settled down now. And strange thing that sometimes that we've, many of us have had experiences, have actually known what's going to happen next. Or maybe we've, uh, gone to mediums or gone to people who call themselves clairvoyance, and they've given predictions and sometimes they turn out right and sometimes they don't turn out right. And you know what's actually happening, and especially these monks in front of you, because we've been meditating a long time and people think we've got amazing psychic powers. Somebody was saying today about our global conference in June because they wanted some entertainment for the global conference, and they asked me, can I levitate in public? Because that would really make the global conference a big success. And I said no. And the reason why I said this before, why monks will never demonstrate their psychic powers, because if we do do things like clairvoyance in practice, then of course you will all be asking me who's going to win the Melbourne Cup. And you'll be asking me, please, can you get the lottery number? I know that's called stealing because if somebody is, somebody buys those lottery tickets or gambles on some horse race. Isn't it unfair that you've got an advantage because, you know, you go to some monk or clairvoyant and find out who really is going to win. So because of that, we don't do such things. And also that if we knew what was going to happen next and we told people, then imagine what the government would do, they'd employ me from the CIA. And I would never be able to come to this Buddhist center ever again, because I'd be so busy just predicting what's going to happen, where the next bomb is going to go off, or who's a terrorist and not a terrorist. And if you could levitate, as I said before, we've got the Commonwealth Games coming soon in Melbourne. They'll be in there all the time doing the high jump. That'll be very unfair because you'd have an advantage over other people. So we do not exhibit such things, but other people do. And sometimes even like as monks, sometimes you say some things and people listening very carefully, you see, telling the future they're especially sometimes in the the ancient tradition. I always think the monks can actually predict these things, give lottery numbers and stuff like that. And it is unfortunate sometimes it's true. You remember just when I was even a young monk, only about 5 or 6 years, I was staying on this mountain just by myself in a remote part of Thailand, and it got to the time of the lottery. We used to joke in Thailand that no one knew when the Buddhist Sabbath was, when the when the full moon was, or the half moons. But they all knew when they were drawing the lottery that the most important day of the week for them. And so they were coming up to me 2 or 3 days before, and they're asking me, look, you're a meditation monk. You must go into deep meditation and be able to help us. Can you give me the numbers? And sometimes they were coming and showing all the blisters in their hand. It were dirt poor people. And they said, oh, you'll be really, um, compassionate if you don't tell us what the numbers were. Sometimes I was seeking to say, okay, as long as you give me 10%. But of course, we can't do things like that. And in the end, I just told him, I just know I can't say that. And so they tried to trick me. They started to ask me these questions. And the question they asked me, he said, how long are you going to stay here? And I said, I don't know. When are you going to leave? And I said, about 2 or 3 days. And he found out afterwards that when I said, I don't know, that means zero. 2 or 3 days. That means five, two and three. So most of the village bought 50 in the tie. They have this illegal lottery. The last two numbers of the real lottery. That's what they bet on. And 50 came up. And I've found that out because the next day the headman of the village came up to see me with his offside. And they said that the whole village is very happy with you. You're a wonderful man. Please stay here forever. And that's what they said. So I had to leave straight away. Because that's not the reason why you hang around amongst us to get rich. And anyway, that sometimes you can make mistakes. Because one of the things about clairvoyance is that for most people that sometimes they get it so right, but other times they're just so wrong. And what's actually going on there? I mentioned that because this is a story from my own own family. It was one of my cousins, or rather my mother's cousins. And it's a very interesting story as part of my old family folklore. Just after the Second World War. Just for fun, like most people do. Just for interest. Something to do. They went to see one of these famous mediums in London. This made him looked at her and said to her straight away she wasn't maybe one of the late teens early 20s. So tell her you're going to marry a man called Donald Wolfers. She never knew anyone by that name. And it's not a common name. It's not like John Smith or something. Wolf Rees. And of course, he dismissed it as just something just now, just impossible. Stupid thing. And a couple of weeks later, she was at a dance. She met a nice young man. They were dancing together. And I say to you, when you dance with someone, he said, oh, what's your name? He said, Donald, are you. What is your surname? We're all freeze. Are I'll never be married now for about 50 or 60 years. They're still together after all that time. Because that was so strange. I mean, how can also chances of doing that? There's something unpredictable. Those actions obviously something there. Sometimes it happens, but there's dangers to one of the senior Buddhists here in Western Australia. Uh, Professor Jayasuriya used to be the professor of sociology in UWA. He told me a story once because one of his close friends was another professor, Professor John Leckie, who was a very, very devout Buddhist and wrote many books on Buddhism, a very brilliant man who came to an untimely death. The reason he came to an untimely death because as a student, he too went to one of these clairvoyance, I think, in the south of India or the north of Sri Lanka, I can't remember which. And again, that clairvoyant told this young student, you are going to marry a girl by a certain name. And of course, he never knew anyone by that name at all. But later on he met her and married her. The coincidence was so unlikely that he had full faith in that clairvoyant and used to go and visit him regularly. But one day the clairvoyant told him, said, now I can see your future. You're going to live to an old age. And because that clairvoyant had got it right once, he thought he'd always get it right. And so, in his early 40s, Professor Geraghty likely had a small illness, but he was told he was going to live to an old age, so he never went to see the doctor until it was too late. He died in his mid 40s. And he died because he didn't go to see the doctor, because he believed in the clairvoyance prophecy that such a belief literally killed him. Which is why that when you actually look for clairvoyance or you look for no telling your future or stuff like that, the one thing which Buddhism makes very clear is that you cannot trust these things. You don't know if it's going to be true or not. Which is why that I told a story in my book, opened the door of the heart of the only time when Arjun Shah told somebody his fortune. This was my teacher in Thailand. He was a very strict monk. He kept all the rules and the precepts which a monk is supposed to keep. But one day this man came to see him. It was one of the real supporters of the monastery. And he said to my teacher, I can charge and charge you a great meditator. I'm sure you're fully enlightened. And many people 49 have these psychic powers. Please tell me my fortune. And like a good monkey said, I'm not allowed to do that. It's against the precepts. And it's good reasons for that. But the man would not be pushed aside that easily. The man reminded that in-charge of a talk he had given recently on gratitude, and this man reminded him that in the early days of Agent Charles Monastery, this man had actually fed him when no one else would come. He had actually spent time ferrying Arjun Shah from place to place. When no one else could do this, he'd taken time off work. He'd given big donations to build a monastery. In fact, without this man's support, I probably would not have had a monastery. Surely you've taught us to be grateful. Can you be grateful to me for all the support and dinner I've given? Just tell me my fortune. And that was a very strong argument, an idea. And Charles realized he was in a sticky situation. So he decided, for the only time in his life to tell this guy's fortune. He said, give me your hand. I will read from the lines on the palm what your fortune is going to be. This is the only time the only person Argentina did this to. So you can imagine how excited this man was. But I turned to took his time. You got to be careful on these things. Otherwise you might make a mistake. And so, very slowly I jumped. He traced the lines on this man's palm with his finger, and every few moments he would pause and say, hmm, that's interesting. Oh, look at that. My, my. And every time at lunch, I would say something like this. You could see this man's level of excitement. Go to another level, as you would do if I would read your fortune. And if you believed, I would tell it absolutely correctly. Wouldn't you be excited? And this was that, man. This was not my idea. And Charlie. Great. Aha. And so when I finished, this man couldn't wait to find out what his future would be, what his fortune would be, because he knew that adventure, he would never tell a lie. And he was so wise and so powerful that whatever he said must be true. And what I turned to said actually did turn out to be right. He predicted his man's fortune perfectly. It's amazing because when Madam Shah said, I know what your future is going to be, and I said, yes, please tell me that. And Shah said, your future, sir, is uncertain. And he wasn't wrong. Now, that was a brilliance of a great teacher because he knew he was not going to be. This man would not be just, uh, stopped by just saying, no, no, I can't do it according to my precepts. So at the end, I was teaching him why monks can't tell fortunes. Because your fortune, your future, is uncertain. No one can truly predict it. All I can say is likelihoods of what might happen. Sometimes those likelihoods actually turn out to be true. And it's only afterwards we think, wow, that's a good clairvoyance. You notice if it doesn't turn out to be true, no one goes there again, and you only get praised by the people who you actually predict the future correctly for. That is one of the problems. So because of that, so you always have to remember with clairvoyance, you know what actually you're teaching there. Sometimes it is so uncertain. But what adventure teaches a future? He actually included that in The Fortune Teller. The future is uncertain, and that is clear, seeing what clairvoyance truly means. Sure, there is tendencies, things which might happen, but you could always change things. The law of karma in Buddhism means that yes, there's tendencies, influences, things which are which are pressing on you, but with wisdom, with diligence, with skill. You can always turn things around. You are not fated for anything in life. You're always constantly changing and creating your future. Which is why when people ask, Does Buddhism believe in a creator? They say, yes, you. You are continually creating your future and that is something you don't need to believe in a book. You can see it in your life. Basically, you are the person most in charge of your destiny. Sure, that life can give you different ingredients, but how you use those ingredients is completely up to you. So when you say about predicting the future, no one can predict that because you can change it if you want to. It's really up to you. Now that is a powerful teaching, which is much, much better than telling you what the next lottery number is going to be, or who's going to win the Melbourne Cup or what's going to happen next. Because if you did predict that future, not only would it be inaccurate and be deceiving people, but number two, be taking away the most important part of life. It's like giving a person the answer to the exams at school. Let's stop. The point of why we have examinations in school? Well, we have tests because these are then not just to pass, but this is there to learn. The school is not actually to get the the degree at the end. The school is there to learn, to get information, to know, to find out. That's why we have universities and schools for. That's what we have life for. So it takes away the meaning of life. If we could predict what's going to happen. So because of that, the future is uncertain, and anybody who has some idea of what's going to happen would never actually let you know, because sometimes you do get it wrong. Another story which comes up, one of the fellow monks who, you know, was the same year as me when we joined the market, were at a joint Charles Tai monastery. He a couple of times he had some psychic ability because he told me that once or he had this recurring dream. He was from the US. His father was in the American Army, a colonel or something, who was from a very wealthy family that lived in Pasadena, in a big house with a swimming pool, a guest house, everything. And he told me that because he was very close to me. We sat next to each other in the line for many years. He told me that when he was young, he had his recurring dream always occurred at the swimming pool of his family home, and he saw his young sister drown in the family swimming pool. You said that one day he was sitting by that pool, just relaxing, just a young man. And the dream started to play itself out exactly as he dreamed many times was actually happening in real life because he knew what was going to happen next. He intervened and he saved his sister's life. He said it was only because of the dream, because he'd had it played to himself. And he remembered it many, many times, only that had he saved his sister's life. He said he had another dream many years later when he was actually in New Zealand, just travelling and working. He said at that time was in a house of other young people and like many young people of their age, there were smoking illegal substances. And he had a dream that the New Zealand police raided the house and caught him. He had that dream many times, but this time because of his stupidity, he never took any action. And it happened and he got deported. But there was two instances. I thought that these greens, which he had, would have to be true. And so when he was a monk in Thailand, this was the time of the Vietnam War. It was a time when our monastery was just, you know, maybe an hour, half an hour from the border where the Vietcong, Lao, Khmer Rouge were. And where those areas of Thailand were supposed to be invaded by those communist troops. Even the governments, the Western governments and the embassies in Bangkok really did think that the north east of China would fall. There were emergency evacuation plans. We were told of them. Until when they come, this is what you should do. So it was really a serious threat. And this marquis had a dream that when the invasion of northeast Thailand came from the communist troops over the border, that he wouldn't make it. He always dreamt of running across a paddy field and being shot by the communist invaders. And he was so sure because of the two earlier dreams which had been true, that this was his destiny, that you get shot. And of course, it never happened. He was shot in the sense, because he fell in love with the girl, disrobed and got married. And. The year later, he died in the car crash. A head on collision. Not by shots. He was wrong. He was one of those cases, from my experience, where you see that sometimes what we predict is going to happen, even though we're sure is going to happen, sometimes it doesn't because life is always changing. The things are always interfering with our so-called destiny, our cells. We create the destiny, and other people sometimes interfere with it as well, so you can't really be sure. Which is why I keep telling people never trust a poor fortune teller. If they're worth anything. Surely they'd be filthy rich themselves. If you see me struggling to raise funds for a retreat center, why do you ask me to give you a lottery number? Figure it out for yourself. Let's do all people want to find this out. That being said, that sometimes, and I've mentioned sometimes there is, you know, like a seeing of the future or seeing or what's going to happen or a deeper thing into the nature of things, which is really weird. Okay. Sometimes you get it wrong, but people ask, how on earth can you get it right sometimes? How on earth can that person actually predict the name like Donald Wolf is, which my mother's cousin actually married? How could that be done? And this is actually where the Buddhist practice of meditation really does actually come out to us. Come up to explain these things. Because we all know the know Buddhism. We make a huge thing about this thing we call the mind. And Buddhism always says six senses, not just the five of seeing, hearing, spreading, touching, always six. As I've joked before, that is not an eastern invention that was part of our of the Western heritage because Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, especially Aristotle, always talked about six senses, the mind as well. Somehow we lost that sixth sense. My joke is that somewhere in the history of Western civilization, we lost our mind. We only had five senses left. And actually, Aristotle is interesting. He actually called that mind. He called it the common sense because it's common to all the other five senses. So my second joke is we also lost our common sense. We lost our mind, we lost the spiritual heart of things. And because we never actually even thought that our mind existed, we never really cultivated it at all. That's why that we don't have any sort of abilities in that area at all in Western world. But if you do cultivate the mind, especially meditation, you finally gets powerful. It gets very, very strong. Now, the way that actually happens, you've heard me describing meditation retreats, and I just mentioned it very briefly here. When your energy, you know, your energy of being, you might call it mental energy, if you like, you might call it C or the winds and the body or whatever, when that energy is all used up in the frantic hurry and bustle of your life, doing things, coming here, going there. It doesn't give enough energy, just the pure mind, just to the knowing nature. It is because we're so active, so much doing, so much thinking. That is the reason why I might have become very, very weak. Two parts of the mind to doer and the knower. The doer is the active part. Which things, which plans, which complains, which makes your body move. You know, the doing part of the mind. The second part of the mind is the no other passive mind which just receives the information. We give so much energy to this doing. To thinking. To planning. To moving. There is hardly any energy is left just for knowing. That's why we dial her what you find in meditation. The whole purpose of meditation is not to do anything, not to plan, not to control. So that active part of the mind, the doer, is calm down, it stops consuming the energy, and the energy is now free to flow into the knowing, into the mind, into passive awareness. And this is one of the reasons why when you start to meditate, you start to become clear minded. The mind starts to become energized. You start to be able to see and hear things become more sensitive to the world around you. And that's usually experienced by meditators that increasing brightness, happiness, the mindfulness becomes empowered. And I've in my meditation teachings, I've coined the word power mindfulness because that's what it feels like. You can actually see more deeply into things. You can hear more, you can feel more, you can actually see more. And you can also know much more. The experiences which I've had with in the early years as a meditator and as sometimes you just go outside and look at the night sky and my goodness is brilliant. Now whatever you see seems to have a deeper, richer texture and colour. There are times on a meditation retreat when you look at the carpet, decide a carpet which is in front of you. Now this is dull, ordinary cheapo carpet. But by the Buddhist society, it's lasts a long time though. But how many of you have really looked at this carpet and see just how beautiful it is? And it was just an old carpet that saw what happens? Sometimes when you get into deep meditation, you might become so powerful the energy starts to increase. You look upon that little piece of carpet like that, it starts to look beautiful, and you start to see so many different colours in there, so many different shapes. Actually see much more in a simple piece of carpet than you've ever seen in your whole life, and it becomes absolutely beautiful, captivating, and full of detail which had never expected. And I call that power mindfulness, simply because it shows the carpet has always been like that, but now your mind's become strong. You can see much more of what's going on in there, and it's part of meditation to make that mind more and more powerful by making it more and more still and allowing, not doing, but just knowing this is the way we actually empower the mind. And sometimes your mind gets so powerful because you are very still not doing very much. You can understand where those psychic powers actually come from. The mind is energized and a powerful mind just like a powerful body, can do things which for other people are impossible. And this powerful mind is a cause of clairvoyance. Can I see? See? But the real clairvoyance, the real person knows, will never actually say. This is what's going to happen when I only see the tendencies to say this is likely to happen. You can see sort of not just the particulars of the future, but the flow of the future. And one thing that a wise person would always say is that when you see the flow of the future, you can see just this world is not going to end in a short time. You can see just the way of human beings. We're going to keep this life going some way or another for many, many, many, many more centuries. You don't actually need to be a clairvoyant to see that. Anyone who says the end of the world is nigh, the end of the world is nigh. I remember reading a newspaper about a guy used to do that. He was actually walking with his practice, actually, beyond the the corner of the of Vincent Street and Charles Street, because on a Sunday afternoon when we used to finish here, we used to go back to serpentine. We always used to go that way. You see this guy all the time with his sign, the end of the world is nigh. Repent. We always used to wave to him and he would wave back. And we would say, see you next week. You did like that. But, you know, in the end, he was right. He got knocked over by a car and killed. It was true for him. The end of the world was diamond and sick joke. But it was true. But it costs a lot of those predictions which people make. Sometimes they're making it for ulterior motives. They're predicting it just to make you afraid. But the truth of the matter is, you know, you can see that that's never going to happen. This is the way of human beings, is we always adapt. Clairvoyance is seeing clearly already. And then somebody said this the other day to me, they said, look, there's so many hurricanes, uh, tsunamis, earthquakes. It's a sign at the end of the world is happening. And they said, you're not seeing clearly. That's not clairvoyance. People always sometimes focus on what goes wrong. But I said, how many hurricanes? Well, it didn't happen last week. How many earthquakes were there in the world? How many tsunamis didn't occur? And that's far, far greater, to be really clear. And we have to see the full picture. And the full picture is yes. Sometimes these things happen, sometimes they don't. Most of the times they don't. And human beings are always adapting. So the world isn't going to end that quickly. But when we have these predictions, we should always use them wisely. These are just telling us roughly what's going to happen, and it's up to us not to be victims of such fate, but actually to make use of it as well. That law of Calm is not saying I am doomed to be like this forever. If you're ugly, you're not doomed to be ugly. You can always get a facelift these days. It's amazing how you can change your karma. Whatever it is, there's always something you can do about it. But that's only like part of clairvoyance. But once you understand how the mind could be empowered, you can understand how these things can be done. And sometimes they do happen, and the best times they happen is when you you can't predict them. You can't make them happen. It's interesting that people who do develop those psychic powers, they can't make them to order. It's not like going into sort of, you know, like a drive in clairvoyance and, you know, please can tell what the future is and just do it to order. Because each one of these events of clairvoyance or psychic powers, they come from the stillness of the mind when it doesn't do things. If you try and do things, it always messes up. You can't force these things. They happen by natural causes, and you have to keep those natural causes in place, even like sort of know the psychic powers of levitation. Sometimes it's natural causes that make that happen. If the causes aren't there, it doesn't happen. And I just, uh. There's a story I often tell about levitation, about this story from the old suitors. And it's a story about the monk who actually was in a forest for many, many, many years. And he learned how to levitate, to fly through the air. And he would always go for his morning exercise every morning in the forest, flying through the air. But it's a very dangerous thing to do simply because someone saw him. And then once I saw him, he started to get a reputation and a reputation because imagine if you saw a person flying through the air, what would you do? You tell your friends, actually hear, you probably tell sort of the ABC or or somebody. But anyhow, the word got to the king, and the king realized that someone who could actually fly through the air obviously was a very, very good meditate and probably had great sort of wisdom as well. So he wanted to invite this monk to come and demonstrate his abilities, and also to be like an advisor, like a spiritual guide to the King. So I invited this monk to come to the palace. And of course, the market refused. You know, I'm a forest monk. I like to live in the in the jungles. It's nice and peaceful. I don't want to live in a palace. So, having refused, the king and the king then sent his army. So then he went to the palace. And the king was very kind. He actually made a area of the palace into a small forest for this monk. And fascinatingly, that the king of Thailand has also made in his palace, enchilada palace and little one acre forest, because many years ago he had a monk among us, and Leon came to visit us for a catena. And the year afterwards I visited Thailand. He invited me to come for lunch in the palace. And so just next to the where they king of Thailand is this. This little forest is planted it like it's in a forest in the northeast or somewhere else in Thailand. A little monk's hut in there. And you go right inside this little forest, only one acre in this little hut. And even though you're in the middle of Bangkok, as far as you're concerned, you may be in the middle of nowhere. And this was a little hut. And he had this monk actively and actually staying there so the king could actually offer dharna, offer food to his, you know, favorite monk. When he had a few minutes, he had the monk there so he could actually ask questions and discuss Dhamma, you know, having a monk in your garden, it was. Don't get any ideas. It's interesting. I said this the other day that when the first monks went to England, and I think, how could we look after these monks, all this food they need and know how to get them health care or whatever? And so we actually worked out how much it cost to look after one monk. And they figured out actually looking after a monk is much cheaper than looking after a dog. So they said every home should have one. Does it have a pet dog? Did the garden? I think they were like a small hut and they're like a dog kennel. You take them for a walk every morning, give them one bowl of food. We eat at the bowls as well, just like. But anyhow, so the king brought this monk into his palace and put him in a nice little hut and nice little forest. And the man was quite happy for a while. The king would actually come and give him some food, and ask him some questions about that dumb about life wisdom and stuff, and he would go for his flight every morning, and the King would look at him and get inspired that these things actually happened. But then what went wrong? The one day. One day the king was busy, so he sent one of his daughters to attend to being the fruit of this monk. And this was a very, very beautiful young woman. And when you know that princess is usually out. And when actually she brought the food to the monk. The monk was just actually coming back, you know, from this morning flights. And way up there in the air. He saw this princess. She was gorgeous. And he had one moment of lust. And I thought, what a crash landing is. He lost his abilities right there and then, and he could crash into the ground. Do you realize that the dangers are the. How sensitive is actually to keep those clairvoyant powers they come from? Causes are the purity of the mind, you know, in deep meditation and simplicity. And he realized that you can actually do that in the great cities. So he actually walk back to his forest. And the court of the story took him about three years to get those abilities back. That's how sensitive no real clairvoyance of real powers truly are. You have to have a very, very pure mind that's actually quite good in the sense, because it's like a safety mechanism. If anybody abuses those powers, you know, like uses clairvoyance for personal gain, you know, or to become some big shot, look at me. If they have that degree of ego and desire, then you lose all those powers. And, you know, there has been though some, you know, saintly figures and even current ones, you know, who are reputed to have all these clairvoyant powers or psychic powers. They can do things which amaze people. And sometimes people have checked them out and it looks really real. They haven't noticed that sometimes they have these powers when they're young. They tend to lose some later on in their life. And the reason is because sometimes they forget the purity of their of their lifestyle, the purity of their intentions. And because they get caught up in worldly things, so lose it. That's what happens sometimes. So the real clairvoyance, people who really do have such powers, they come because of the causes of a peaceful mind, a simple lifestyle, very, very pure hearted, selfless, giving. Those sorts of people have a very strong mind and go into deep meditation. They can get those powers, but they would not use them for personal gain. Thus sometimes they wouldn't even use them at all. They would hide them because for the sake of simplicity, for the sake of, you know, teaching dharma, because that's what they really want to give people. Okay? So you can fly through the air. So what? Big deal. What's the point of that? Now, if monks actually did that, they just be circus stars. So this freaks strange things. And also that you get all these scientists and psychologists that would be hooking you out to all sorts of machines to try and find out how you did or try to disprove it. And you never have a moment's peace. And it's also not the point of life to be able to do such things. Another point of life is actually wisdom, peace, compassion. Sometimes it's inspiring to achieve. No such things exist, but there's some things which are more and more important in life. Know that peace exists. Know that happiness exists now that wisdom exists. So when the Buddha was actually predicting things, he would actually predict things of war, like according to cause and effect, saying, look, if you develop kindness and compassion in your life, then you'll be rich. Not rich with lots of money, but rich with lots of happiness. And if you forgive other people, you'll have a lot of friends and you'll have peace in your heart. That's a prediction. If what it is saying is if you put these causes into place, this is what will happen. And those are the predictions which Buddhism likes to give. And if you are generous, you'll have lots of happiness. At times I've been generous. I can always remember the donations, the kindness which I've given in my life as a monk, and especially before I was a monk. Little things which I gave one of the greatest gifts, which I gave no monetary gifts, was when, as a student, a poor student, I went to a talk by a Tibetan nun and she didn't give a great talk on no, no theoretical Buddhism. All she did was tell me about or tell us about the orphanage she was running somewhere in the north of India. And I thought, what a kind lady that was. So the following morning I was so inspired. I went to my bank and I drew out £10. This was in 1969 or 1970. You may not think that is much, but for me that was two weeks. Food, money. I went hungry because of that donation. It hurt me. No physically, but that was one of the greatest donations I've ever made. I never regret that because it gives me so much happiness to know what I did and little things like that. I proved the prediction of the Buddha. If you're kind and generous to somebody, you're always get lots of happiness back. We call it small investment, great returns. And stock market. You can never trust it. You can't predict that. But karma, generosity can always predict just forgiveness. When someone's harmed and hurt you, you just forgive them. It's amazing. Just you can predict how of being peace and harmony to this world. To your world in particular. You can predict that if you're compassionate and kind. You help other beings. The other beings will be kind and compassionate to you. You can predict that. Now, I spent my life as a monk, trying to be kind and generous and giving what I can give. I can't give money, but at least I can give my time. And soon I'll be traveling overseas. I don't really need insurance. You know when my insurance is. Well, my good karma. If I get sick while I'm in Thailand, people will be fighting to look after me. Please come to my hospital now. You went to that hospital last time. Please come to mine. Same as in, uh, in London or in the US. So many people are looking after you. That's why whenever I do get sick, I try and hide it. Whenever I've got sick here. I've had this whole lot of medicines come afterwards. And everyone says I've got a special medicine for you. I can please take it. And then someone else comes up and said, I've got my special methods and please take this as well. And someone else comes up, no, please take mine and they won't leave me in it if I promise to take them. So I have to take them all. And that really makes me sick. But you know what happens sometimes? It's just like the dawn of time. And you've seen me. I'm putting on weight. I can't help it because people actually come in and say, I made this specially for you again, but please take it later and you've got to take. Even if you don't like it, you just take it. I made this specially for you. I made especially for you. I made especially for you, I like it. I think it's more important that this sort of you. You recognise people's kindness and generosity and you put it in the mouse. Okay, you may be overweight, but you've got a happy heart and you're creating happiness amongst others. Who cares? Even though my body may be overweight, the mind is just so healthy and I think that's the most important thing. So this way of actually predicting the future, the kindness and generosity, that's what we can predict. But people are interested in that. They want to know who's going to win the Melbourne Cup. They want to know how their stocks and shares are going to do. They want to know what's going to happen in the future, who are they going to marry, whether they should do this and they should do that. And of course, that's the predictions of stupid people. So please, when we talk about clairvoyance, I understand that yes, sometimes it's true, but sometimes it's false. You cannot trust it. So you have to be careful there. I'm tempted to tell the story about the five angels, but I think I've told that many times before. It's in the book. Okay, maybe just to check out. Put your hand up if you haven't heard the story of the five angels. Well, you guys should not read my book. But anyway, it's a great story. Whenever I start saying I don't know whether I should, I shouldn't. You can predict I will. But the. Because this is a great story about what happens about predictions, because this is about prophetic dreams, because sometimes you ever had one of those dreams which is so real, and sometimes they turn out to be true for either only afterwards you really understand what they truly meant. Because this particular dream, this guy over here in Perth some years ago, he dreamt of five angels and each angel had his five pots of gold, and they lined up to give this guy 25 pots full of gold. It's worth a fortune. And it just as he received the last pot of gold, as usually happens in such dreams, he woke up in his bedroom. There were no angels in his bedroom, but even worse were no pots of gold. He was only a dream. However, when he went downstairs, to his surprise, he found his wife. That morning had made him five boiled eggs and five pieces of toast. That's a bit weird. What's with this magic number five. You can think what it was like when he looked at the newspaper. And he realized it was the 5th of May. May was the fifth month. Sometimes you have an understanding that there's some omen there, that something is happening. So he looked to the back of the newspaper, the racing, and as many of you who live here know, there's a racecourse called Ascot. He noticed Ascot, five letters. So he looked straight away at race number five. And you can imagine his surprise when horse number five was called Five Angels. Now you can't get some more coincidence than that. So he took the afternoon off work. He never told his wife. He drew $5,000 out of the bank to keep the lucky number five. Ran to the race track. He chose the fifth bookmaker in line to keep the lucky number five $5,000 to win horse. Number five. Race number five five angels to win. It had such coincidence and they can't be wrong. The lucky number five couldn't be wrong. And it wasn't wrong. His horse came in fifth. I don't. Know if you heard it before. It's a good joke. And the moral of that story is. Yeah, it was predicted five. But too often we just saw this. Dad. What the story is going to be. And so sometimes we can't trust those predictions and clairvoyance. So those sorts of predictions, which I actually get from clairvoyance, from mediums or from monks or whatever, please, please never actually believe and don't stake all your life on those predictions because it's uncertain and it will turn out in the end. The great clairvoyant people like agents. I would always say that from the very beginning, life is uncertain. The future is uncertain. You cannot predict it. So stop planning and worrying all of these things. It's a great clairvoyance to know the future's uncertain because you don't know what's going to happen. Isn't that wonderful? It means you have nothing to worry about. On Monday, I start a trip overseas. I don't know how many flights I have to take. Maybe 20 or 30. So the probability of having some sort of accident for me is actually quite high. I like it a terrorist attack and get blown up at 30,000ft. But I always tell people about the three advantages of being blown up in an aircraft at 30,000ft. To remember those three advantages. Number one is an instant cremation, so you don't have to pay for a funeral director. Number two, the airline company will give a payment, the insurance. So you actually get paid for dying. And number three, dying way up there. You're halfway to heaven anyway. Says a lot about it. Why is it that when we look for predictions, we always think of the wrong things which will happen? So much worry about the future becomes when we predict the very worst which will happen to us. It's not clairvoyance, it's almost like a masochistic voice of the future, where we always look at what might go wrong. In a way of Buddhism, it is not to look what will go wrong, but to look at what might go right and finish off with a story which couldn't go into my book simply because of copyrights. But I can say it was one of the stories from Winnie the Pooh. When Winnie the Pooh and Piglet were walking in the forest one evening during a storm, they were a long way from home. The store was getting worse, branches were falling down, and then whole trees were being uprooted by the hurricane. And I was so scared. And once, during the height of the storm. Little piglets. Winnie the Pooh, his friend was so scared he could not go on any longer. He looked at Winnie the Pooh and said, I can't go on. I'm so terrified. What would happen if a tree fell when we were underneath it? And that was a real possibility. And for a few moments, even Winnie the Pooh was scared too. But he had wisdom, he replied. What would happen if a tree didn't fall on us when we were underneath it? And that was the end of fear where we predict the future. Why is it we always think about what's going to go wrong? Why is it that we always worry about failure? Why can't we predict the future is uncertain, so why don't we predict in a positive way? Not what might go wrong, but what might go right. So if you're about to get married, instead of thinking, oh, there's so many similar, what might go wrong? How about think about what might go right. On Sunday, sister Adrienne Williams was having a tiny ceremony. Last time I looked in, the newspaper is going to rain. Ah, what would happen if it were drain? I would say what would happen if it didn't rain? And then she could get a good night's sleep. So I know a lot of these times when we worry too much about the future because we add negativity to our predictions and the clairvoyance, the true clear seeing is understanding the future. Yet it is uncertain as agents are predicting. It always will be uncertain. We don't know what it's going to be. So if you are going to plan a future and think about the future because it's uncertain, what do you think in a positive way? And it's a strange thing. If you think in a positive way, those things usually happen. We had asked in a ceremony last Sunday about Indiana monastery. Did you notice Thursday it rained? Friday it rained. Saturday it rained. Sunday when we had our Katrina sermon. It was a wonderful sunny day. Monday it rained. Tuesday rain was. Strange things happened, isn't it? It was about a week or two weeks of rain. We had one sunny day and that's the day we had our Katrina ceremony. Why do you think that happened? Was that clairvoyance or was it just positive thinking instead of worrying what would happen if it rains? We thought what would happen if it didn't rain? And that's what happened. Now you understand not predicting the future, but creating the future, making it work. So if you have got a biopsy next week. And you're saying, ah, what if I've got cancer? What about if you think like that? Sometimes you get it. Worry is a great cause of cancer, you know. But if you think, what if I don't have cancer, you're increasing your chances of not getting it. To understand or recreate the future, not life. So we talk about clairvoyance. This is clear seeing and is also positive seeing because this does make you rich and healthy, safe and happy. And isn't that what we really wanted clairvoyance for in the first place? But you don't get that by being told what's going to happen. You get that by listening to things like Dharma, which shows you what's really going on with this clairvoyance business uncertainty. You are the creator. You can change things. So instead of worrying or being concerned what someone says, you take responsibility, you take control and go and do it. And that is really clear, seeing what clairvoyance truly means. So I hope you enjoyed this talk today about clairvoyance. Thank you very much. Now, are there any questions anyone is going to ask? I predict there will be no questions. That's all wishful thinking. I'm trying to create the future, unfortunately. Are there any questions? Yeah, there's one at the back here. You see? Future's uncertain. Yeah. Go on. Yeah. Okay. Okay. The idea of spirits in other religions sometimes, like we call it, like the mind or like the stream of consciousness. That's actually how we usually, uh, describe this in traditional Buddhism. But really, it doesn't really matter what the words are we actually look at. Uh, I don't actually what the words actually say. It's actually what it means. What is pointing to. So in Buddhism, actually, no, we don't believe in spirits as against the fifth precept. Now come on, he's like that. But, you know, there is such a thing as you're told that stroke to suppress it. He's one of my friends from the university. I went to see him some some months ago, and I asked him whether, you know, Benedictine monks, whether they believe in ghosts, because that abbot, that term, you know, monastery is very, very old. So do you believe in ghosts? He said, no, I don't believe in ghosts. What about the Holy Ghost? Then I caught you. He laughed. He knows my sense of humor. But spirits? Yeah. The idea of like, a spirit. It actually comes from actually the word. The same word for breath, to know, to respire is actually to breathe in and breathe out. You know, to aspirate. Because in ancient times, they thought that breath was actually almost like a soul. Because when you stop breathing, you die. And that's actually why I don't know if, you know, sort of language. The word for breath in Latin is animals. That's where we get the word animal from, which means having breath. And any of you who know Buddhism or even Sanskrit, Hinduism, prana, prana is the same word for animals. Partner in party. Prana in Sanskrit is like a bee. It's like breath. So like ancient times, we always thought like. The breath is actually an important part of the the being. That's why we get the word spirit from this is derivation, but they just use those different words actually to describe some essence of a person. And the only way you can find what that is is actually to go deep inside and look for yourself. That's what meditation does to find out what this word, spirit, mind, soul being truly is. So that's what you do. But you heard me say today, when you actually do go deep in meditation, when you do actually empower the mind, what people say, empower the spirit, that's actually where you do get. There's some very strong, um, supernormal power sometimes. But you have to be very careful because anyone who has power, they say power corrupts simply because, you know, you know, you think you have a big ego. But there is a it's a balancing mechanism. If you do exert that ego, you lose your powers. Which is helpful. It means that people can't really abuse the powers, at least not for long. Abused them. You lose them. Anyone got any other questions? Well, my petition wasn't that far off. Only one. Oh, that's two questions. It really off, wasn't it? Okay. Go on. Get on with after the game. Don't get involved. How is astrology news? Yeah, well, this will be a question, but the clairvoyance in astrology there is a great, um, piece of research was done about 20, 25 years ago when some astrologers did the charts of some great sites in India, and they wanted to actually to see this was the predictions, you know, for astrology and actually what actually happened to them. And I remember this because they actually confirmed what I always understood from my Buddhist practice. They found that, yeah, you can see these influence on these, you know, these holy men in India, but these holy men, because of their practice, because of their purity, because of the power of their meditation, they actually changed the course of their destiny. Were they actually saying that he proved very, very clearly that, yeah, you can see those influence, but they sort of, uh, use them, change them like changing the course of a current. It's, for example, that the basics are similarly, which I can give because I live in the forest. I know about bushfires now and coming up to bushfire season the way you don't fight and block bushfires because you can't stop those things. The way to do is actually to to move them around, to actually to guide them. So they go away from their houses. So they go into a place where they can just burn themselves out. So I almost like direct them. You've got this incredible, powerful flow and just push a little bit that way. And that's actually what these guys were doing with the, you know, the, the tendencies of their, the, their life. They could still change everything. And this is actually what I mean about we are the creators. So yeah, astrology like any clairvoyance, they can give you an indication of the sort of things which might happen, but they are never absolutely true and you can always do something about it. You can always change it. That's actually what happens. And, you know, the crystal ball things, it's actually if you meditate, it's very easy to understand what's going on there, simply because now those people get into deep meditation. When you get into things like limiters, all you really doing is actually using that ball as a focus of your meditation. That's to allow the five senses to disappear, to stop all the thinking and actually get access to your mind. Hmm. Nobody knew what they were doing. And then now he'll tell you. You're okay. That's right. Yeah. You see, it was meant to be, wasn't it? To. Let Diya sell some of these things. I remember reading a little story once in a magazine about this, this fellow, and he used to go around to school fetes that really people's fortunes. And he said actually that he was a con. He admittedly was a con, you know, he said, it's very easy because when people want to believe, they will always believe anything. And it was actually just raising money for the kids, that's all. And he got very good at it. He started to dress himself up. He gave himself some funny name. I think, you know, it was a man, but he cross-dressers Madame Sola or something, I don't know. And he'd always say, though, you know, before they come in, it pays through the head to have a quick look at them, who they were, and they get lots of information. He said he learned the tricks of the trade. He was very, very good. But I always remember, I don't know if you know a group called the Skeptic Society, they live over in Sydney and stuff. There's a lot of those. Dick Smith is in there, Phillip Adams, and there are all these sort of, you know, very rich intellectuals, but also a bit of larrikin as well. And they did this amazing scam a few years ago with bears mentioning they went over to UK and they hired an actor, a professional actor, not really well known, but, you know, really good actor. And they paid him a huge sum of money and said, we want you to go around to see all these mediums in, uh, in England, learn the tricks of the trade, see how they speak, how they act. Because in six months time, we can invite you to Sydney. We'll actually get to see an exercise if people are gullible or not, because they're never there. On who was actually doing this. And before this fella actually arrived in Sydney, they put advertisements in the newspapers in the psychic news. Whatever else it was about, this amazing psychic from the UK was being invited over at great expense and got a huge reputation just marketing. That's what it was. They built this guy up and they had this really nice venues in Sydney and many people went along and soon his reputation was getting even greater. People saying, oh, what a marvellous person is this? He's got it right. Absolutely. All the time. There's only after about a week they pulled the plug and said exactly what was going on is from the Skeptic Society, Philip Adams, Dick Smith. They all went up and said, look, and we pay these guys as an actor, it's a complete fake. But the object of the exercise is how easy it is to fool people. You believe what you want to believe. And that's the dangerous thing. But that being said, there are true clairvoyance. But they never would. The real clairvoyance would never say, this is what's going to happen. They said, this is a likelihood. That's why you cannot trust them to predict the winner of the Melbourne Cup. Okay. What are the advantages to meditation? Now, most of the adventures and most inventions came from drinking too much coffee. And I always say the Industrial revolution, sort of in Europe, where technology started, coincided with actually finding coffee and bringing it to the, to Europe, because to many people, instead of actually working in the fields, were sitting around the coffee houses drinking coffee with nothing better to do. Thinking too much. And they came up with all these ideas, you know, canals and boats and locomotives and stuff like that. And that's actually why we've got such a complicated society. Coffee driven. Interesting thesis, isn't it? I think someone should write a PhD on that. Yeah, but a lot of time. Why do you want to do these things? I mean, somebody actually gave me electric toothbrush the other day. I mean, who would invent electric toothbrush? I mean, I'd already mentioned I'm overweight. I need at least a bit of exercise. I mean, that's really that really is the side who's sort of like, you know, too much coffee. I'm thinking what to do next. So if you don't think too much. Life is peaceful. And most of these things you don't really need. And that's when life becomes nice and easy. You could keep thinking there's no end of things you can think about and want. When the mind becomes calm and peaceful, simplicity becomes possible. Try too much thinking. Cause too many problems. And sometimes because of too much caffeine. People think this overmuch. They create confusion. How? Somebody told me actually they were working in the government, even here, and people actually work in government offices that got such high pressure. They think 6 or 7 cups of coffee a day minimum. So imagine what happens in the white House. Now you understand why where the problems come from. That's just an idea you read out to see. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much for listening today. Now we got our announcements from our president's.