Emptiness Is Good

Emptiness Is Good by Ajahn Brahm

There was a request or someone told me a request by someone doing a PhD or something on emptiness, and I was too busy to respond to that call at the time. Well, somebody pass it to somebody else. I haven't given a talk on anything for quite a while, so this evening's talk would be on emptiness. I often thought that the person doing the PhD on the subject of emptiness, he should just hand in a few blank pages. See, his professor had a sense of humour. Invited me the story. I remember a long time ago when I was a kid. I was this, uh, school kid who had an art assignment, and he handed in a blank piece of paper for his art assignment, his first to paint a picture. So the teacher of art at school said, what's this? He calls it. I call this cow eating grass, sir. I said, well, where's the glass? I was eating it, so. Well, where's the cow? He's gone into the next field against the wall. I had a lot of fun with the idea of emptiness and blankness, but is something which is quite profound in Buddhism and meditation in life. There's also something which relates to the ordinary person's experiences of life, as there are times in one's life when one feels empty in a negative state. Negative sense. You may have lost a child, or you may have lost a dear partner if you left for a long time. And people say they feel empty without their person. Or you may have other sort of losses and tragedies in life which make you feel the sense of of loss. And you may have lost your job. He may have lost some money in the financial crisis or whatever else you know. You feel you've lost, and that loss means you feel a sense of emptiness. Something was there and now it's missing. We look upon this in a very negative way, and it's as if there are those things which you needed to give your meaning or give you happiness have been taken away, and you feel that that's a negative. However, in the spiritual path, whenever you lose something, whenever it's been taken away, there's also a sense of freedom, like a burden has been discarded. You've moved on beyond and past those attachments which have stopped you being free. Which is why that nurse, a Buddhist monk, you know, you have so few things. There are a few things give you a very more powerful meaning of emptiness. Recently, talking at a school, the kids were asking the usual questions of, you know, why do you have no brown robes on? It's just because you don't have to wash them so often. That's the only reason. They're very practical and simple. You only have one set, so you don't have to have a big wardrobe in your house. And I think there's people some people have walk in wardrobes and sometimes their wardrobes are bigger than the cave in which I live. Why do you want all those clothes for? Fashion. It's terrible to have to live by fashion. Monks robes and nuns robes. 2500 years. They haven't changed yet. Isn't that wonderful and peaceful and just a simple lifestyle which we have. Whereas because they're simple and we have few possessions, no money. Because it's simple and even. Okay. Because it's simple. And I always remind myself just of the emptiness of that simplicity is hardly anything there. And that gives you a lot of peace and freedom. So when you lose things, you say, wow, now I can move closer towards this beautiful simplicity, the freedom of emptiness. So when something is missing or taken away from you in life, it's another way of looking at it and moving closer to the beautiful simplicity and freedom which simplicity gives you. We do live a very complicated life. And just even going into people's houses, we've got so many furnishings in your room. Sometimes I wonder how you ever clean your house up. I think probably you never do. There's so many things to move. There's too much stuff. What would you want all that stuff for? The first story about emptiness, which I mentioned somewhere recently, but I think it was here, was assembly of my mother's mantel shelf. A mantel shelf was this old? This old English houses was a shelf which was above the fireplace, the hearth, the center of her home. And on that shelf above the fireplace, you'd have all the most important possessions, such as your photographs and other knickknacks. And of course, you know, my mother was living in London and I was here in Australia. And so the first time I went to visit her. Now you have to bring your mother something. Somebody offered me a little fluffy, um, kangaroo doll. And so I took it to my mother. And here's something from Australia, a little kangaroo. And she appreciated it. And put it on her mantelpiece to remind her of me. And, of course, a few years later, I went back again to visit her. She already had a kangaroo. This time someone gave me a koala, a koala toy. So I gave the koala to my mother and she put it on the mantel shelf left next to the koala. The next time, I managed to get a kookaburra. And the fourth time. Somebody. What else can you get? I've got a wombat, a nice little toy wombat. And I. Nice and fluffy and cute and cuddly. And as soon as I gave it to my mother, she tried to put it on her mantel shelf next to all the other stuff. And of course, by this time, the shelf was so full. Oh, not just what I'd want her when my brother bought her and other knickknacks from her travels. And. And she started to put the wombat on the shelf and the kangaroo and koala fell off. And so she tried to put the card on a kangaroo back up. Then some other letters and photographs fell off. And I told my mother, look, why not throw away the koala? The kangaroo and the kookaburra just have the new toy on there. No I can't. These are all important. These are all important to me. They remind me of wonderful things. And because she kept on trying to put the wombat on top, things were always falling off. It was my simile for a nervous breakdown. You got one more thing. And then things started tumbling out your mind and he gets all a mess. Why do people want to fill out things so much and have so much stuff on their show? That was my show. I'd have to have one show for when somebody bought me something. I put the the wombat on top. And then when someone else probably something else, I'd throw the wombat away and put something else in there. Isn't that a much more sensible way of living a life despite you have one partner in life, one wife, she dies cleaner off the shelf and another. Can you do that? Why not? Why do you always want to amass things? Isn't it strange that sometimes the emptiness makes people very afraid? You notice in life, whenever somebody climbs up a mountain, what do they do? They put a flag on top of that mountain. They can't leave it empty and free. Even when they went to the moon, they put flags on top of the moon. Can't you leave it empty? Of course. The next stage, after you put a flag on top of the mountain. The next thing you put up there is a restaurant. We can't leave anything alone. Even the most beautiful parts of the world. You know, we. We tend to mess up. And also we have things like our houses again, going to people's houses. Why do we keep putting things in the corner? I mentioned this simplify retreat center on the opening, but now I design that meditation center and especially, you know, the meditation hall. I had to fight to make sure there was no windows, just just clean walls. And I left it out there. Just have this very empty meditation retreat center, the meditation hall. So it's so simple. There's nothing there to distract you. And of course, before I knew it, there was a flower pot in every corner with flowers. If I'm not vigilant. If I go away, I'm sure there'll be be pictures on the walls. And after pictures on the walls. There'll be tables with other knickknacks on there. Why is it we can't leave things for you? Why is it you have a room in your house? You always put things in it. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have one room in your house, which was totally empty? Nothing there. Just to remind you of simplicity and freedom. It is as if we're afraid of emptiness. And there is a reason for that is when is emptiness and freedom. This clarity, and sometimes that clarity is actually scary because we are actually seeing a truth with seeing of freedom. We're seeing something which is much deeper than normal, and many of us aren't ready for that yet. One of the greatest symbols of emptiness, which is an old story which was in opening the door of your heart. Again, just these are stories of my own life. Ways of reflecting on ordinary experiences and taking them to another level. Now was the story when, as an 18 year old, I managed to get myself just traveling to United States and getting very bored because United States was no different than the places where I grew up in. It was only a slightly different culture. I was always fascinated with more indigenous cultures. So hitchhiked down through Central America and went up into the jungles of Guatemala. I was heading for these ancient pyramid ruins of the the Yucatan Peninsula of the Mayan Indians. They disappeared, and no one knew why they disappeared. And they left only a scant amount of records, carvings or paintings on his old temple walls. These pyramids were very, very impressive. And so I managed to find my way to visit one of these great pyramid sites in the town of Tikal, in the heart of the jungles of Guatemala. But before I say what happened when I found that site, I have to say that it took me three days from Guatemala City to reach this site. Today, tourists go there in half an hour on an acre. But to me, I had to go on buses and boats up rivers. And on the back of trucks and all sorts of transport to get to this site. This was in 1969. 40 years ago. Now. Remember the day. By the time I got there, the place, there was no one around. So I saw one of these pyramids and decided to climb up it. When I got to the top, I had an insight. Understood what those two images were there for. Because for three days of travelling, you travel through jungles. Especially those days. The tracks are always single track, just carved out of the jungle. And after a probably only a few weeks, the trees, the vines, the bushes, they grow all over the road. I was travelling through tunnels, even on the rivers. You're just travelling through a tunnel of green for three days. I had not seen the horizon. And now, in the middle of the jungle, I climbed up this pyramid. When I got to the top, it was just above the treeline and at the top. The first time in three days I could see infinity in all directions, with nothing between me and the ultimate. It was empty all around. All the things. The jungle in which I travelled for three days was now below me. There was amazing sense of freedom, of space and understanding of why those hermits were built in the first place. I hadn't got a guidebook. I wasn't an anthropological expert. Can't even say that word properly. But you had a feeling of what it would have been like, what it would have been like for someone who'd not just spent three days in the jungle, but someone born in the jungle. Grew up in the jungle, spent all their life in that deep forest. And one day they were taking out one. Taken out one of those pyramids for the first time. Taken to the top where they could see, like I was seeing infinity in all directions. With nothing between you and the ultimate space as far as the eye could see. Oh, blow their mind. That would give them an understanding of the spiritual element of their life. The beautiful emptiness which embraces everything. And in their emptiness above the jungle. You could look down, you could look down. I could see the route in which I had come that day from the town of Flores, this little island in the middle of a lake. And I could see that in the distance. I realized that this is what the experience of emptiness is like. You're free and entangled by the jungle of the concerns of your life. No past, no future, no concerns, no worries, no entanglements. Because that's what a jungle is like. There's trees and bushes and vines all tangled up together. Now your fear of that about looking down. You can see the plan of life where you live and all the things which you do. Standing above and beyond in the emptiness looking down can understand your place in the jungle we call life. And how to be free of that. For the beautiful emptiness. There is no past and no future, and no thoughts and nothing at all. Yeah, it can be scary. It's so freeing. Sometimes the religions, they have something or someone between you and the infinite. A God, the priest, the Jesus, the prophet or whatever. Isn't it wonderful not to have anything at all between you and ultimate truth? Just emptiness as far as you can see. That's wonderful. And it also shows that why we have monks and nuns with few possessions, why we don't collecting. Because the more we collect, the more we're blocking up that vision and experience of emptiness. It seems the more things we have, the less we can experience that freedom. And not just with physical possessions. We start with physical possession. We can all live more simply. That's why we can welcome the recession. Hey, bring it on. So I don't have to have so much stuff. You've got an excuse to use old clothes or an old car, or even no car at all. Those are wonderful to be simple. You finally have much more freedom. That way you come closer to the emptiness. It's not just physical possessions. The most cluttering things which we have, of course, are mental possessions. All those things which we hang on to, just like in that mental mantel shelf of my mother. All those past memories, good and bad, which we collect inside of ourselves. As I mentioned that in my mental shelf of my mind, I can put a koala on there, throw it away and have a kangaroo tomorrow. It's always empty to be able to receive the next gift. You find that when you attach and carry around the path, you're not free to enjoy the present. Because we are prisoners of the pain of our past. Someone may have hurt you, abused you, cheated you, given you a hard time. Until we can let that go. To clear it off our mantel shelf called our memory. We are not free to have something else come into our heart and into our mind. The past is what imprisons us. If we can find that emptiness so the past is emptied out. Always free to enjoy the present. Why do we, if we let go of the past? Why did we always keep worrying about what's going to happen in the future? Then again, we're filling up this moment with worrying about what we want next. As in saying which I was impressed with. This is not a Buddhist saying, forget what philosopher or what author said this. He said, whenever you want more money, you can't enjoy the money you have. Now it's not just money. That's what he said. Whenever you want more of anything, you can't enjoy what you have in this moment. It is the wanting. The craving stops you appreciating where you've come. It's as if you've been on a journey and you just can't stop. You always want the next, next destination. And sometimes that's what our life is like. A journey with no end or walking with no stops. Which is why we feel ever so tired. However, if one is not looking for the future, it's not lingering in the past. But when empties empties the mind from time to time of future and past. There's an enormous amount of freedom there. It's like having a house. You're in a house. You're in a home. Are you putting, throwing away all of the old stuff and you're not allowing any new stuff to come into your house. You just enjoy what you already have. What do you have now? What is your only possession? The present moment now is the only thing you are going for. The future is like going into debt, lingering on the past. It's just like carrying old coffins. The present moment is this beautiful time when we can start to experience emptiness. When a person understands the spiritual power of the present moment, understand this is emptiness. As the Buddha was explaining it when he gave the talk about the emptiness. He said, monks, whenever you are practicing emptiness, it always remember empty of what? But what's missing? When we look at what's missing? Sometimes we can look upon it with a sense of sadness. If you think that what's missing is important for you. Once you understand just what real freedom is, every time something is missing, you feel just so happy. You're free of another burden in the sense that every time you're carrying something around, it's just so heavy. So like so many rocks in a backpack on your back which have been carrying around for such a long time. And the spiritual path is like emptying out that backpack so you can travel lightly and free. Moreover, I'm travelling to Melbourne. I have my ball and my little bag. That's all I travel with. And I see all these other people and they're going for much shorter journey than me. And they're carrying so many suitcases. You see them at the check in counters, weighing them. And they're always overweight. Trying to argue and trying to cajole the person, checking them in, not to charge them for extra. For me, I'm never overweight. I'm always underweight. Isn't it wonderful? I feel so free when you don't carry so many things, so many bags. And sometimes you ask, why do you need to carry so much? I'm not talking about bags at the airport. I'm talking about the bags which you carry around in your life. All the worries and concerns which happened to you the last time I went overseas. I'm not sure if it's still going on. Swine flu. And I look upon it. Yes. So I'm not worried about these things. And when I was in Thailand, I said, be wonderful if I get swine flu, because then you get into quarantine. If I'm in quarantine for a week or two, that's like going on a meditation retreat. I won't have to give any talk, so I won't have to do any work. They'll put me in a nice room. They give me nice food and they'll be very kind to me. They'll leave me alone. I can just meditate for all day without having to do anything. Yeah. Bring it on. So for me, whatever happens, you can always see that it's all worrying, which is the problem. That's the burden. So we try and empty our mind of those things and be free. See you already in this talk so far. Emptiness and freedom may go together. Things and complications. That's the opposite of of freedom. That's the opposite of emptiness. So after a while, you get the hang of the spiritual life. Understanding freedom doesn't come with more things, with more memories, or with more plans. This is a problem which we have. We always assume that if we work out the past, keep thinking about it, keep finding out what went wrong or what went right and why it went wrong, or why it went right. We'll have a sense of freedom. But no, you actually get more caught up and burdened by all those extra possessions. And worse, we always assume that if we plan or work out where we're going to go and how are we going to do it, that we will have a secure future. And again, that is missing the point. As I said in the meditation. Now is the only time you have. To make your future. Your health is made. Now your happiness is built. Now. Your prosperity is being made right in this moment. Those people who really are concerned about the future. When you think about it, you're missing your future. Are you thinking of the present that makes you so empty? Empty of concerns and worries about where you're going to go? What's going to happen? That's why a monk is so free. We have empty minds in the same way we have empty hearts. I was joking to the monks that sometimes we say, what should we call you? Should we call you Ajahn? Or should we call you venerable and most venerable? When you go overseas, they give you the title of Most Venerable. No, no, that's not why you should call a monk. If you want to address a man, you should call him your emptiness. And if they're a senior monk? No. The most emptiness is the allied monk. Your ultimate emptiness. Why do people laugh at that? Because they think emptiness is a bad thing. But in spiritual life, the emptiness is a beautiful thing. The more empty you are because you are to enlightenment. Long time ago, this Lankan monk used to visit. He was a great monk. Ananda mangala. I remember I was this was 26 years ago when he came here and someone asked him straight out, are you enlightened? And he said, no, I'm not enlightened, but I'm highly eliminated. What a beautiful answer. Not illuminated. Eliminated. So he's getting close to emptiness. So these things, when you think if you're empty inside, great. You're getting close to enlightenment. Bring it on. A lot of times it's because we're not used. The emptiness. Too often. We had too many things around us. Too many people around us. Too many. His wife, his husband. Kangaroos and those things which we thought were giving us happiness and security when they start to disappear. Don't look up the loss for what's been taken away. Look at the extra freedom which you have. The freedom is the path to happiness. Things burden you. Emptiness gives you freedom and liberation. So as we understand the emptiness, more and more and more, we can actually incline towards a more empty life. And trouble is so people say I'm empty. I'm nothing to do. And sometimes in our society, we think that you're a failure. Is something wrong with you? Such a shame. I remember when I was very young, you know, you sit around and. What are you doing? I'm doing nothing. And you got into trouble for that. What's wrong with just doing nothing instead of always having to do things and fill up your time with activities? You're having a weekend coming Saturday and Sunday. What are you going to do this weekend? Is it always activities or can you schedule in a little bit of emptiness time? What do I mean by emptiness time? I mean sitting around and doing absolutely nothing. Not watching the TV, not listening to music, not reading a book, but doing nothing. Empty time. Some years ago, someone told me that they love sitting in their garden, just doing nothing. And I asked them, what do you mean? I just know reading a magazine or listening to some music that's not doing nothing. And I said, look, if you are going to have a garden. Many of you do have gardens. How many of you spend time in your garden? Just empty time doing nothing. And how many only go in the garden to work? You work during your, uh, Monday to Friday? No. You work sort of cleaning up and cooking. Can't you have some time in your house where you have empty time? Just go and get a seat and sit in the garden. And as I say, watch the trees grow. Trees do grow. You know, you just have to be very patient and very still to watch them. There they go again. You don't have to do things all the time. That means empty of doing. You find that that's very hard for some of you because you've got out of the habit. Our society has said, this is what I heard because no came from a Christian society. The devil makes work for idle hands. No, you just have made work for idle no. Devil makes trouble. I don't know, whatever it says. Anyway, idle hands were supposed to be bad for you. And we just got really stressed out because we always have to do things. Is it wonderful? Just have an empty time when you just make your mind empty, time empty, and just have some freedom from having to do things. Having to work things out. Having to see. You can only find freedom in empty moments when you haven't got anything scheduled. Trouble is, most people, in order to have that space, that freedom, then they always have to get things out of the way first of all. And then we can have some freedom and emptiness to get the cleaning done, the cooking done, and all the other jobs which you have on your list done. And then you can have some peace. And of course, you all know that the jobs are never finished. There's always something more to do. And the only people who rest in peace. Where are they found? Yeah. You know where the fat of the cemetery is. Too late by then. So if you really want to enjoy emptiness, it doesn't matter if you've got things to do. Give yourself a few moments of peace and stillness. Place. Emptiness at the top of your priority list. Not doing things but doing nothing. The beautiful nothing. Stay emptiness. And then one can actually feel the beauty of this emptiness. And you find that in that freedom of stillness, of emptiness, when nothing is going on there, you find this amazing sense, which is counter-intuitive of fulfillment. When you are always doing something or going someplace, you're always lacking something. But in stillness and emptiness, it seems everything is full. It's just like when you do get into the present moment in meditation, the present moment is no time at all. At the same moment is everything you have all the time in the world when you're in the moment because you're not pressured. Time is no longer a problem. You're full. It's the same with this quiet, still, empty mind. In that emptiness. Your full cycle. The top of the pyramid. In the emptiness is total freedom and is emptiness surrounding embracing everything. That's why it's beautiful. What this means is when one appreciates what emptiness truly is. Then when you lose things, it's not a problem anymore. When you have something, you appreciate them. When you lose them, you can let them go. How can you let them go? What's the trick of letting go? Is appreciating the freedom of emptiness, of having few things. And again, the mental position. The more still, the more empty you become. Also, the more happy you become. The sense of energy and joy comes in because the more stuff which you have in your brain, in your mind, in your past, in your future to worry about. The more energy it takes. The energy which is lost by having things and doing things and going places. That is what really runs us down, which stops us being peaceful, which stops us being happy. Even today, somebody came up to me and said that they came last Sunday for our waste ceremony, and they were so inspired. But on the way home, somebody backed into their car and they said, usually they get so upset that some stupid person messed up their car and gave them all this extra business to do to get quotes and repair everything. They were so peaceful and happy they didn't mind at all. That's actually a common experience with people. When you really get tense and you're tired, small things make you very angry. They just push you, as they say, over the edge. But when you've had some peace and stillness, abided in emptiness and got the joy of peacefulness and stillness for a while. When these things happen to you in life, you can take them so easily. It's not a big problem anymore. You only fall over the precipice when you're close to the edge for a long time. When you moved a long way from the edge, you had a bit of peace and happiness and stillness and emptiness in your life. Then people can't push you over the edge because it's such a long way away anyway. I notice that most of anger in this world comes because people are always living on the edge. They're always just so tired. They have no they have no slack, as it were. They know that. Any last thing, one more thing will push them over. But when you have more peace in your life, more calmness, the more energy from the empty mind, you will find that you have more resources. Your softer. Your mind is not so brittle that things will hit it and it won't break so, so easily. This is actually the benefit of having some peace in your life. It overcomes the grumpiness and the anger and all these other things which cause so much problems for you, your family, in your business, in your life. So in order to overcome the anger, the irritations, and the problems with which anger and rage given this world will be wonderful, just have a bit more peace and stillness so we can actually basically take more without going over the edge, because we live a long way away from the edge. Giving people a bit of stillness and peace will help that. So as we grow in understanding of the value of emptiness, it means that we don't have to have so many attachments or possessions become more free, which is what we want to feel. An empty mind is always something which can welcome something new. If you have a full schedule, it's very hard to find time to receive something new. More for we are the less emptiness and the less emptiness means less receptivity to what's happening, even in one's wisdom, one's understanding. Sometimes. I went to this conference recently over in Bangkok, and there there was all these professors who were doing PhDs on Buddhism. And I remember just the reason why I left academia a long time ago, going to Cambridge and getting to know some of these professors. I found they knew so much, but I understood so little. There were some Nobel Prize winners. They couldn't live with their wife without having arguments. There was people who were just big lecturers who were suffering so badly when their wife died. All your intelligence. Can't you learn about life and use your wisdom to have some peace in your life and be able to accept the ups and downs in life which happen to each one of us? Why is it there that you are so full of knowledge but empty of wisdom? And this actually, I think, was one of the great things about Buddhist teachings, especially my experience with like a teacher like Changsha. It only done four years of school, but he was far wiser than his Nobel laureates I knew at Cambridge because he knew about life, having an empty mind without any concepts and ideas. He could actually hear and listen and respond with more sense of freedom. And I've used that empty mine in many times, especially as part of my job, was like talking to people and counselling people. Whenever you have to go and talk with someone and it's a difficult conversation or it's something which could be very sensitive. I've known, I've been taught this have an empty mind where you have no plans of what you're going to say. You don't know how you're going to respond. You keep your mind empty, because when you have empty of all these thoughts and plans, it means you're free to respond to the moment as it happens. Instead of always thinking, I'm going to do this, I'm going to say that be really wise. You have to be spontaneous, and spontaneous means you don't have plans filling your mind. You have an emptiness there. That freedom to respond appropriately. The situation as it arises. I don't know if I told this story. I don't think I have. But please forgive me if I did. Yes, I remember talking to the monks. I said, I prefer to actually to talk to older elderly people rather than young people, because elderly people, they forget my stories and jokes very quickly so I can repeat them next week without them realising it. But this, this lady, she was a counsellor over in Sydney and she got an email or a letter, I don't know which from this woman over in United States who was dying of many types of cancer, anxiety, disordered psychosis and you name it, she had it. It was a lady with everything. And sometimes you do find in California but the wrong type of things. And she heard of this counsellor over in Sydney and asked for an appointment. Who's going to come all the way from California to Australia just to see this one woman? So this one woman was smart enough to know that there's so many therapists and counselors of all types and all traditions over in a place like California. Why is she coming to see me? She realized that the usual way of dealing with problems would not work. She'd been there and done that with all the other counsellors and therapists in California. But when this woman came into her room, she had no choice but to empty her mind, empty her mind of everything she'd ever been taught, of any plans of what she was going to. Stay safe. Have any strategies? Empty her mind of all the rules. Only then could she listened to this girl. And she said what happened was amazing. When his elderly, very sick and dying woman came into her rooms in Sydney. His counsellors opened her mouth and said. She said she just came from nowhere. She didn't know where these words came from. He said, I think you should start practicing the violin. Strange thing for counsel to say those words. The only woman for card from California broke down and cried and wept and wept because what had happened was when she was very young. She loved playing the violin, and her mother had stopped her, saying that someone from such a wealthy, high class family does not need to play a violin. You would have to learn other skills. So she was stopped from doing something she loved. It was a symbol of the repression which she felt. Growing up in a wealthy family and just touching that with an empty mind and being able to be sent enough to subtly to see that and and to say that this was a wonderful expression of the power of emptiness. What happened next? The next words just came out of this counselor's mouth was. Instead of worrying about your sickness, you should do some social service. And the thought which came out from that emptiness was, why not go and read books to children in the Burns wards? It will be in this ward as isolation ward for many months. Don't take a book and read to them. The woman went back to California and did exactly what was told. Picked up the violin again, even though she was supposed to be dying of cancer within a couple of months. Started an organization which went into many hospitals in San Fran L.A. reading stories to kids suffering from burns. She lived for another three years. I think it was a wonderful therapy. The woman had actually touched something which no other therapist had touched, because she wasn't coming from what she had learned to what she'd been taught. And the theory and the rules become an empty place. The farthest Buddhism is concerned is from those empty places where we can see deeply into the nature of things. Where there's a problem with that person in front of us, whether it's our own problems, whether it's the problems of life. When it sings in between. They block us seeing clearly. In the jungle you can't see great distances. You can't see deeply on you. On top of those pyramids. And there's nothing there. And it's pure emptiness. Can you see so far, so accurately? Which is why whenever there is a problem in your life, don't go filling the mind up with thoughts and ideas and plans and knowledge. If you can empty it, be still. Suspend all the things you've ever been taught and know. And maybe there's emptiness you can see so much deeper. And you do. So many people, when they've been meditating on retreats over time, have found solutions to their personal problems or even deep problems in life, not by thinking about them. By going to that beautiful emptiness and seeing the deeper, but not only the emptiness as a tool to solve problems in life the beautiful emptiness, the freedom, the space to relate to other human beings. I've often said, sitting here in our life is just a relationship. The relationship that you have with the people you meet. The relationship you have to your body. The relationship you have to. The things which happen in life. The relationship you have to your mind, the relationship you have at this moment, and one of the beautiful, skillful means of living a successful, happy, enlightened life is realizing as what you put in this space between you and the other is what determines happiness, growth, success. It's not about you. It's not about the other. It's what's going on in that space was between you and the other. Many things you can put in there. Sometimes you can put fear when you're meeting another person, and you can see you put fear between you and the other person. If it's an enemy, you can put ill will between you and the other person. The skillful person at least, was kindness, peace, compassion between you and the other person. So when you look through them to them, you look through compassion, look through peace. It changes the whole way you relate to other people. But of all those things you can put between you and the other person. The best thing you can put there is emptiness. Nothing at all between you and the other. And then is a coming together. The best thing to put between you and life is emptiness. So there's no barrier between you and life. But even peace. Not even love, but emptiness. When you get your head around this and into it. This is actually where you get the sense of being at one with things. When there's anything even like positive things between you and the other. There'll always be a separation. There's absolutely nothing that is coming together. So even those of you who have been struggling with things like meditation, why not put some emptiness between you and whatever you're experiencing, and then you'll find that what you're experiencing and the experience to come to a sense of oneness. A singleness of mind is nothing that separates you, but in that sense of emptiness between you and whatever you're experiencing is a beautiful way of getting to incredible deep space of stillness very, very quickly. Having a mind which goes to the very peaks of emptiness. Remember what I said about what emptiness feels like? It's back in the top of the pyramid. Nothing between you and the infinite. The infinite looking at you. You looking at the infinite. Infinite. Not talking about a god or anything. I'm talking about nothing. I know that sometimes. People say, well, where does this all lead? It does lead to freedom. It does lead to a sense of unencumbered joy, happiness which doesn't depend upon others or things of freedom. But I can't resist telling one of the tales of my life as a monk with a great master adventure. He was always talking about emptiness in Thai. He would call it Wang Wang emptiness, and as one occasion he tried to enlighten me. The occasion was towards the end of his life. Towards the end of this great master's life, when he was getting sick, his western monk, we decided to build him a sauna. For those of you who think that soreness came from Sweden, even in the ancient Buddhist texts, it was one of the buildings which was allowed in a monastery for 2500 years ago. Had soreness in India, but people's health. So because it was traditional Buddhist and because our teacher was sick, we built a sauna in our monastery and he would come every week to take his sauna. But because we were caring about somebody else's health, because we were making good come, we got a lot of benefits from this. Because every time he came to visit us, he gave us a beautiful diameter, a beautiful instructions about meditation or about truth. And on this one occasion he gave a very, very profound talk. And if you have heard a very profound talk, it it very much inspires you. You just want to sort of sit meditation afterwards. And that's what I did. I sat in a very deep meditation, so inspired, so peaceful. When I came out afterwards, I didn't know how much time had gone past. I decided it would be a good opportunity now to go and see if I could help my teacher. Maybe just hand him his towel or help him after his sauna. But I was too late because as I walked towards where the sauna was, I saw him coming in the opposite direction. He was coming with two lay attendants, two Thais. We're going to pass on the road. And he'd seen that. I got into a very, very deep state of stillness. Sometimes these great monks, they can look at you and, you know, they're reading your mind. You know, they're going right inside of you to check you out. So Ajahn Chah did check me out, and he realized I was open to being enlightened. So he looked me in the eye and said, run along, sir. Why? He asked me the magic question. Why? I replied, I don't know. I was very young, a stupid man. I tried my best. And one of the wonderful things about these great masters, when you do something stupid. They just think it's hilariously funny. They just laugh. They laughed at this stupid western man. But then he straightened his face again. He looked at me again and he said, Boomerang. So I'll tell you the answer. One of the great monks of the last century, he said, I'll tell you the answer to the question, why? And this is coming from a great master. The answer to the question why? He said, the art of the question, why is this nothing is nothing. Then he wrote me again in the eye and said, do you understand? I said, yes. He said, no, you don't. But that was a beautiful experience, which I always remember. They answered the question, why this emptiness is nothing. Nothing there. It's only in that nothing can there be beautiful freedom and the end of things. Whenever there's something there, there's no freedom. There's always an obstacle, a burden to carry. They ask the question why? There's nothing. Do you understand? No. You don't. So when sometimes people say, you Buddhist, what do you believe in? I say nothing. What do you mean by that? This is beautiful. Emptiness is freedom. There is nothing there. Now that's where we get into the deepest states of understanding about what Buddhism is. Go into very deep emptiness inside the last simile. I'm going over time. The last simile is again one of my favorite ones about the subject of emptiness. I get it, I usually only tell these similes on retreats or to monks. So now I'm just going to share them with you. And this was the story of the driverless bus, because that's what life is like sometimes. Like going on a journey, going on a bus journey, and on your journey sometimes you have some very wonderful times and sometimes a very difficult and painful times in your journey of your life. How do you react to the happiness and suffering of life? It's like being on a bus, and sometimes you go through some very beautiful surroundings, and other times you go through what I call the toxic waste dumps of life. So painful that you tell the bus driver, get out of here as soon as you can. Put your foot down on the accelerator to get out of these unpleasant experiences. And sometimes your bus driver actually slows down, and the painful experiences at difficult times lasts longer than they should. They get very upset at your bus driver. And sometimes when things are going beautiful and well and happy in your life, sometimes you tell the bus driver, slow down. I want to enjoy these moments, the beautiful pleasures and happiness of life. And as your bus driver, slow down. Often it was the foot on the accelerator and speeds up. So they are unhappy. They have a happy times. They don't last as long as they should. And the painful experiences last longer than they might go out of control. Things aren't going properly. So you come to a center like this to try and learn how to have more happiness and less suffering. How to speed up through the unpleasant parts of life and linger on the pleasurable and beautiful time. And so, in order to do that, you've got to find out who your bus driver is, who's running your life, who's your driver? So you can tell your driver how to drive the bus with more happiness and less pain. And in the spiritual path, especially the path of meditation, when you go deep inside of yourself, you come to what I call the bus driver's seat. Find out who this bus driver is so you can teach them how to drive your life better. And so that point will you get one of the most wonderful shots of your life? When you find when you get to the bus driver's seat, you find the bus driver's seat is empty. There's no one sitting there. There's no one driving your life. The will that which runs you is just the empty process. The empty bus driver seat, the driver of the spot. And once you get that type of insight, there's a huge consequence. Then you just go back to where you were sitting all along and you start complaining. Why complain? When is no one to complain to? That's the end of me. Yeah. Nice territory and pleasant territory. It's all par for the course. It's a complaining which causes the worst pain when you realise the simile of the driverless bus. Your bus driver's seat is empty. Then you stop all this crazy and all this controlling and all this worrying and all this guilt and all this anger and all this fear. You're just on a journey, that's all. In the driverless bus. So sit down, shut up and enjoy the ride. Thank you for listening. Okay. Are there any questions about the talk this evening on emptiness? Yeah. Okay. You said when I said it always could be an emptiness. It's always going to be on non-self, not just on physical emptiness. It did start on physical emptiness, but then it moved on to the emptiness of anatta, non-self, especially the very end. The driverless bus, the empty seat. That's what anatta is. When you feel there is no one in control. Thou which you take to be your will, to be you. It's just the process. The process which is determined by many causes, of many conditions. But my monastery in in Bojana I once gave a talk and it was entitled Why Adam Brown Tells Silly Jokes. And the reason I was given that title was because it's not to do with me, just because my father told stupid jokes. And so I'm totally conditioned. I've got no choice in the matter. So I don't feel upset or embarrassed. So that's actually work. So we find out the will is not to do with you. It all comes from something outside. This is what anatta is. The emptiness and deep inside. I mean, many people get scared of that at first, but after a while it becomes very beautiful. That answers the question. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. There is nothing. It's. I've got to be careful because I've one of my rules that if I give away any attachments and I break one of my rules. But of course, you understand what's going on with that emptiness. There's nothing there. Now it's the question. Why? There's nothing. Sorry. I'll explain it. Okay. So one of the explanations is a similarly of like the thousand petal loaders. For those of you who've ever understood some of Tibetan Buddhism, the famous mantra, oh, mani padme hum. That means that basically we worship the jewel in the heart of the lotus. Mani is the jewel. Padme is in the lotus. What does that actually mean? It means that the lotus closes up at night time. When the sun goes on the outermost leaves, it starts to open up and more and more you go to the center of the lotus as this flower opens. Layer by layer. And the idea is that China was in the center of this lotus. And, you know, the similar you are that lotus was in the center of you. You've got to open up all of these things and go in the middle of things to find out what's in the center. And that's the whole path of spiritual path. You go into the center of time, called now on to the center of silence. You go into the center of the body, which is the breath, going to the center of the breath, where you find the mind, go to the center of the mind, where you get the chance, going to the center of the dance, you're in the middle of the middle. You find the jewel in the heart of the lotus. Who you. Who you really are. What's that? Emptiness. That's the jewel in the heart. As a lotus are what? You really don't have to carry anything. I make sense? You understand? No you don't. Okay. That's what you mean about the beautiful. Remember, some people are scared of this in the same way they're scared of having, like, a shelf without anything on. Why? Why? They always have to have things in order to feel that you are somebody or that you're complete. Why do you have to have a partner or kids feel that now you're complete? Why can't we just be free? Why can't? When you get a kangaroo, give it to you. Brush off everything else and put the kangaroo there and enjoy that. And somebody gives you something else. Brush that off and put something else on. There isn't a more beautiful way to spend her life being empty.