Gossip

Gossip by Ajahn Brahm

Transcription

Today's talk is a request. Even I haven't been here for a couple of weeks, I was. Who was I? Hello. For only one week. Last week was sister's turn to give the Dharma talk. I do remember a couple of weeks ago, someone asked me to give a talk on gossip. Because gossip does cause a lot of problems. And I don't think there's anyone here who's perfectly innocent of spreading gossip. Especially when it's really interesting and fascinating. But unfortunately, gossip causes a lot of problems in our community, and it's not a nice thing to do. And there are certain karmic results of gossip, so it's a wonderful thing to try and restrain her. So in today's talk, I'll be talking about gossip, why we gossip, how we can overcome gossip, and that way we can have a much more peaceful and happy lives. So sometimes, first of all, one of the problems with gossip is sometimes we hear something, can we get it all wrong? And then we tell the tale. We get very embarrassed afterwards when what we say happened didn't really happened. I have a great time as a Buddhist monk because there are so many things I shouldn't do that you're more open to gossip than anybody else. For example, just because I was tired one day and I mentioned to somebody having just come back from Singapore, but over in Singapore, I'd met this nice young girl and I was going to marry her. And of course, people said, what? We're not letting you go to Singapore ever again. And I had to explain that I was doing her marriage service for her. I wasn't really married. I was actually doing the marriage service, which is what I mean by marrying people. But sometimes people were quite disappointed when I explained it, because that was such a nice bit of gossip that I deprived them of giving them the proper explanation. So why is it that people get so much fun out of gossip? But first of all, the danger is that no to simple words are simple actions we can very easily misunderstand. And it creates a lot of problems and difficulties for everybody. Actually, I just came back from Melbourne. I was there last weekend, uh, doing the waste sack celebrations for the Buddhist Society of Victoria. So you should really be very proud of your monks and nuns in this, uh, Perth, because we export monks to different parts of the world for their ceremonies. So this year we export. I went over to Vietnam for Vesak ceremonies there. And, uh, venerable family was exported to Singapore to do their way sack ceremonies there. I also went to Melbourne and had changes. Siri went up to Hanuman to do the sack ceremonies there, so that we have an export base of monks and nuns in this, uh, beautiful temple and, uh, Buddhist society here. But when I was over in Melbourne, I heard the source of another piece of gossip, which, you know, actually affected me about, uh, two months ago. I don't know why it was, but I got all these calls, especially from Melbourne. And this piece of gossip even reached Los Angeles. And they asked, can we speak to where John Brumby? Is he all right? And I answered, the furnace, as far as I know. I'm all right. What's up? We said, we heard you got cancer in hospital and a dying. When I said of those three things, one is right. I'm not in hospital. I'm in a monastery and I haven't got cancer, but I am dying maybe another 20 or 30 years. But, you know, the processes started, so you got that one right. But apparently it was just because another monkey in Thailand had got cancer and it was in hospital. And you know that all the monks. We have the prefix prefix Arjan had done this and that and that even the nuns, that's an arm. And it was just a monkeys whose name was similar to mine. And he called one out and just sounds like the other agent. And so they were all sort of phoning up from Melbourne, expressing their sympathy for me, which I thought that was very, very nice, but nevertheless it wasn't true. And sometimes it was very embarrassing for them. And I actually found the culprit in the whole bit. And she was so apologetic. But I said, no, thank you so much, because all that gossip made me very happy. I really enjoyed laughing at all these people. I actually not laughing at them, but laughing with them when they were so concerned that I was dying. At least I made their day by saying, I'm sorry, you have to put up with me and my jokes for another 2030 years. But nevertheless, nevertheless, you know that sometimes the gossip can cause problems. So, number one, we have to make sure we got our facts right. And then if you if we have got our facts right, why is it that people always like to spread the bad rumors about this person did something wrong? Why are we just so negative with our speech? Obviously, I think it's because we live in a competitive society now, because we live in a competitive society instead of actually exceeding our own abilities and just are striving for excellence or striving to sort of grow and to to do well, sometimes one way of succeeding is putting everybody else down, especially those who are in our same competitive area. And of course, you know, my area is religion. And so in order to increase my market share, sometimes, you know, is a temptation to put other people down, to put down your competitors. And I experienced that eight days ago. Eight days ago. Many of you living here in Perth may have seen on the news there was the, uh, the ordination of the first Australian Anglican woman bishop. And I was there. I got invited to go along. And not become a bishop, obviously, but just to attend the ceremony. And, uh, there's only two non-Christians in the whole church. So me and my driver, which was an interesting everyone else was, was being Christian, but I was on the pew. Of the members of other faiths, sandwiched between my old friend Abbot Placid from the monastery. And, you know, so many of you know, there's only two monasteries or big monasteries in Western Australia. And so the Benedictine Catholic monastery up in New Nausea, that's, you know, basically the only other abbot in the whole of the state for thousands of miles. So every now and again we meet together. We would discuss Abbot business. And so we're actually very best of friends. So I was sandwiched between him and a representative of the moderator of the Uniting Church. The one thing I actually, I, I don't think I'll ever become a Christian because they did a sermon from, I think from the Bible, I think it from Ezekiel. And I always remember this because I always walked out the church straight away, because apparently that God said in the Bible, Christian Bible that he will look after all the disabled or the harmed or the weak, but he will destroy all the fat. And when I heard that, I thought, that's really unfair. I'm leaving this place so I can never become anyone who's a bit overweight like me. Don't become a Christian. You get destroyed. But I thought that was really funny, so that really made my day. It's worthwhile listening because I've got a good joke out of that one. But nevertheless, when I was talking to the other sort of people, sometimes they were quite negative about all the ceremonies. I just noticed that. Why is it that, you know, I can go to a Christian sermon and I don't put the Christian ceremony down? But when you go to someone who's very close to like another Buddhist monk, he's very easy to put it down, because most of our gossip, especially most of the negative gossip, are around our competitors, whoever those competitors happen to be. It's just like negative speech. But the one thing I remember as far as religion is concerned, and this is one thing that as Buddhists, we should be, if anything, quite proud of. In India there is a stone column. There's many stone columns with inscriptions from an old Indian emperor called Asoka from 2300 years ago. He was a Buddhist, the first Buddhist emperor in that whole Indian subcontinent. And he wrote in stone the following words. Anyone who defame or criticize another religion only succeeds in putting down his own faith. Was a wonderful little saying. So when you criticize and put down others. All you're doing is just now showing your lack of virtue and wisdom and compassion, especially the lack of compassion of your faith. So sometimes when religions go criticizing others, all you really see from that is just the the lack of depth and profundity in that so particular religion. So hopefully every time you come to this place, you don't find us putting down other religions or comparing us with the with the temple next door. Say we are the best temple. Don't go to those those scallywag monks or nuns in the next temple or the next suburb. We never do that because that is like the rhetoric of negativity. When we try and push ourselves up by just putting down other people. And that's the stuff of gossip. Why do we do that for? We do that with the intention. If I can criticize or tell the tale on someone else, the terrible things or the bad actions they have done, therefore it makes me superior. He doesn't. It just shows just the weakness of your spirituality. When you go and gossip negatively about someone else who just lowering yourself, not them. So will you understand that it's not a good thing to go and tell about what other people have done when it's bad. Instead, there's one type of gossip, which I really like, which I really encourage, and that is gossiping about all the wonderful things someone else has done. In other words, being a person who conveys praise and success rather than puts down other people. So though it's wonderful, I personally even know that much of the Christian faith seems a bit weird to me. But that's my upbringing as a Buddhist monk for these years. But it's wonderful. They did an ordination of her, of a woman as a bishop. It's a great move forward for for the whole of the religious and non-religious, her people of Australia. So I really support that so I can gossip about good things. If you gossip about good things, what a wonderful, um, uh, inspiring, uplifting thing that would be that when you you come home, you say, hey, guess what? So-and-so did in the office today. And it's something beautiful and wonderful and inspiring instead of saying rotten things about one another. Because of that competitive, competitive society in which we live, we tend our gossip is another type of speech which puts other people down, because we think that's a way of raising ourselves and all those putdowns, all those negativities. That does lodge in the human mind. And after a while, some people in our societies, because they heard such negativity again and again and again about other people and even themselves. Such negativity leads to depression and even sometimes suicides. When people put the world down so much and everything is wrong and everything is awful. What did that do to people? You. Just after a while you get worn down. The negative speech, of which gossip is one example, is one of the greatest causes of, um, lack of self-esteem, guilt, anger, frustration has huge consequences for people's mental health, physical health, and also social cohesion and well-being. It is too easy to put people down instead. What I would recommend people to do is actually put the effort into seeing something good in other people and gossiping about that. As much, much nicer and also far positive and creates better harmony and peace wherever you go. I still remember reading about this one guy who would never say a bad word about anybody, even when people did something wrong. He'd find some mitigating circumstances and praise that person. And I remember, according to what I heard, his colleagues at work were so frustrated about this guy because he was so different, because he would never gossip or put down anybody. They once asked him, you say such nice things about everybody. Say something nice about Adolf Hitler, the mass murderer of so many millions of Jews. Say something nice about him. And straight away he said, oh, Adolf Hitler. Yes, he was a leader in his field. Maybe that's stretching things a bit, but at least he could see he had the idea of saying nice things about people. And you can if you really want. I remember hearing this lecture, I think it was by the ex-governor general, Sir William Dean. And he gave this wonderful anecdote about a very wealthy family, an old family in United States who were writing their family's biography and not having, like, an author in their family. They hired a professional, you know, to research their history and write a book about their family's life from generation to generation in the United States. And they asked the author, please tell the truth. But, you know, don't sort of, um, say anything, which would be, uh, now detrimental to our reputation. And they admitted that there was one problem. They had one black sheep in their families. All families have so-called black sheep. And this particular fellow had been found guilty of rape, had been sentenced to death, and had been executed by the electric chair. And this and they also had a very lot of difficulty. How can I say something nice about this? But this author should have been a politician because he wrote that so-and-so, uncle so-and-so, that later in his life he was admitted to a position in a well known federal institution where where he he ended his life as holder of an important famous chair, and his death came as a shock. I. Wish this made another first. I was true, but at least you can. At least you can credit the author for knowing not how to spread bad gossip, but actually to spread something which is positive, even the most difficult of situations. Now, the reason why spreading positive news is important and not spreading negative news. In other words, when we do gossip about other people, we say about their good qualities. It is because saying about good qualities actually inspires and encourages human beings. When we hear good news, positive news, praise, it actually gives us more energy, more hope, no more. Her sense that this life is not such a bad thing, and it also gives us an opportunity to have this wonderful sense of appreciation of other people's goodness. And when we appreciate the goodness in the world, it does actually encourage us to contribute more to such goodness, to emulate the people's praise we hear. Basically, it encourages us to be better people. But when we hear other people's so-called criticisms and the gossip about who did what to whom, and it's all negative stuff that doesn't encourages us to do better. It just made me say, well, we're not that bad anyway. What's the matter? We can also do bad things as well as it lowers us. And so that's why if you're going to gossip at all, gossip about nice things. Good things. What other people in the office have done, which is good and wonderful? Other people in the life has done has been good and wonderful. If you develop that positive state of mind, not only are you going to be spiritually better, happier, more at peace, more inspired, more encouraged, but you're also going to be contributing to greater harmony in this world. Look at all the times that religions criticize one another and it creates wars and she heads and bombings and stuff. But wouldn't it be wonderful if we praise one another? Will the wars go then? Even though we have difficulties and differences. That little bit of praise creates a great deal of harmony. So I have put the cause of this competitive criticism in which gossip is an example, back in the way we run our societies again, especially in our competitive schools, where from the very early ages we are graded and our parents try and encourage us to do well. And that's a great problem for our kids, because only half of our children are going to be above average. And you know that I say that. So some of your children are going to be below the academic average. 50% of you are going to have children about no below the average, 50 above the average. But the trouble is that because we don't accept that, we push and we make it competitive, and the more competitive our society becomes, the less cooperative it becomes. I've made the suggestion many times and I think it's a really good one. You keep throwing these things out because sooner or later someone will hear this and will actually try it out in our schools and their schools are they really need to reform and be doing the same thing for the last hundreds of hundreds of years, 100 years in our schools? Why don't we have examinations of which your personal score at the end of the year only counts for maybe 60% of your total, and the other 40% is averaged over the whole class. So if the other people in the class don't do well, that drops your score down as well. So it's in everybody's interest, especially the interest of the high fliers in one class in a school to go out of their way to help the weak kids, because by them helping the weak children, their own score goes up. Basically, it's rewarding cooperation and not just rewarding competition. Really? We have to reward both. To encourage both. What we reward is what grows. So by rewarding cooperation, that's part of your personal score at school comes from the. How will you cooperate over the whole class, of which I remember as well as your personal competition? Then we are equipping our kids with the skills which they need in real life. You all know that if it's in an office, in a workplace, even on a building site, or in a monastery. Competition is important, but also cooperation is also vital. And I think all of you know that at work, how much cooperation actually is there? How many times do people complain about office politics, backstabbing when people aren't able to work together, let alone in the office? How about in your home where husband and wife know how to compete? In other words, I argue to see who's right, who's wrong. But how often do we lack the skills of cooperation working together? It's because it comes to my schooling where competition is rewarded and outside of like team sports. Team sports are important because that's where you'd have to learn how to cooperate. But where we have cooperation and competition and more cooperation is encouraged in our schools. Maybe then we can be a more cooperative, harmonious, cohesive society. We know how to work together instead of working against each other. And maybe then we wouldn't have so much gossip, which actually serves to divide our society. You know how. So gossip can just really, really harm and hurt your relationships. Look, this is this is a story about its danger. This is it. I haven't told this for many years now. It's a story of the four Catholic priests. Who had gone to a seminar, and I go to all these conferences and you meet all your friends there because they go to these conferences very often. And one of the best things is, you know, if you do go to conferences, it's the networking which you get. And so, you know, sometimes especially as a religious person or a leader, sometimes you're with the same monks all day and all week and all year and sometimes meeting other monks, nuns, different traditions is really great, and it sort of enhances your contacts and your understandings. So I really love going to these conferences. But anyway, these categories were going to the conference. And after the conference there's always time to network. And they went to a walk on a path. And just the lecture they'd just been to listen to was on the the Christian idea of confessing, know your your sins. And one of them said to the other, the other three said, look, I've been thinking about this. I've been inspired by that lecture. You know that people come and confess to us. Well, he said, you know, I've been meaning to tell somebody for a long time. I've never really had the courage to do so. But seeing as how you are my friends with fellow spiritual her people, I want to confess that I have a problem and said and the problem was, was gambling has shown that I have a confession to make at there. Eight days ago in the church, I really had to find the Dean of Saint George's Cathedral, John Shepherd. Many of you know he's actually given a talk here before because two years previously, we'd gone on to one of these ceremonies and Supreme Court Gardens, you know, the the Buddha Day celebrations. And I called him beforehand, asked if he was going and he was going, and he said, it's going to rain. And I said, I won't win. It's a Buddhist. No celebration doesn't rain in our celebration, doesn't want rain here. He said, I bet it rains, I said, I bet it won't. He said, how much? I said $2. I shouldn't have said that because it did rain. And apparently I heard now from the grapevine that he'd been going around and saying action promos him $2. So I went up to him because we had our driver there to pay off my gambling debts. If Buddhist monks have gambling debts, I should be really careful because I'm a little too many jokes. So I repaid him $2. And so I said. I said to my gambling debts, but it was just good fun between two good friends. So now we're friends with each other. So anyway, this Catholic priest said, I'm a gambler. You know that sometimes you're not just like the Melbourne Cup, but anything I have a bet on. And I know some people I have got that addiction to gambling. And he said, look, I'm a gambler and I know that's very bad. And a person in my position, like a priest, should not be there, but I am. And now they're actually a priest. Were really quite taken aback because he looked such a really good guy. Very virtuous. But at least I acknowledge. Yeah. As long as you tell, you know what you know you've done, there's a possibility that, you know, you can get help those Gamblers Anonymous or whatever. And they said, look, we really support you for this. And there's the next piece was looking at the ground. He said, well, seeing as how you said this, I suppose it's right that I make my confession. And he says, alcoholic. And after the service, any of that wine for communion left over? Glug glug glug. I drink it down and then I go to the bar and whatever whiskey and stuff. And sometimes I pull out some glasses and a and a hat and I go to the pub very often. I get quite drunk, said I have an alcohol problem. And again they were. He'd hidden it so well all those years they they never thought he was an alcoholic. They said, well, at least you confess it. Maybe you can do something about that. And then when they got into confessing their sins, they asked the third priest, what's your worst sin? And Jesus was not going to let on. But he got out afterwards. It was, you know, the old one, adultery. He'd just fallen in love with one of the parishioners, and she was already married. As sometimes that happens, it's not a good thing. But at least he admitted it. And of course, no one suspected at all. And the other one said, well, at least we admire your courage for actually letting us know. And so they looked at the fourth priest. What's your worst sin? And he looked at his watch and said, it's about time he went to the conference. And they said, oh, come on, he can tell us. He said, look, I can't. He said, come on, please. He said, don't ask me. And he said, surely it can't be worse than gambling, alcoholic or adultery. And he says, it's much worse. Don't ask me. So those who haven't heard it before, what do you think is much worse than gambling? Alcoholic and adultery eventually got out of him. He said, I'm a gossip. Now, and you can understand why gossip is so bad. They were very happy when he told her, that's for sure. He said he can't stop himself repeating stories when he's heard them. Say it's very dangerous. And also, it does mean that you can't have this wonderful sense of trust between people. So what you tell them, you know, is not going to be spared elsewhere. Happens to me very often that sometime in my position, people let me in on their secrets. And there's no way, even under torture, will I tell people what I've heard in confidence? Now, that happened now a few years ago. They have an interest. Some people think that being a monk is very boring, but I know I have a great time as a monk, even though I don't expect these things. Because one day, a couple of years ago, uh, a senior detective from the peel district, I think, based in Mandurah, came to birding the island monastery, the serpentine. And he wanted to speak with me. Like, usually when detectives come to your house, you'd be dead scared. But you know, I'm so virtuous. I've got nothing to hide. So it's really interesting. What do you want? What's up this time? Had. He told me that at that time, two years ago, the most wanted man in Western Australia was camping right next to our monastery. Those have been to subtitle that big hill as you go up Kingsbury Drive on the right hand side on the hill. This man was hiding out. They'd put a, uh, a bug on his girlfriend's car with a GPS on it, and they'd noticed this car going up that drive, and she wasn't coming to our monastery. She was just going next door to give further supplies to her boyfriend, the most wanted criminal. And so the detective came up and said, the tactical response group is going to go in in a couple of days because this guy is armed. He's got guns. And I need to tell you this because, you know, when we go in, please tell all of your monks just to stay in their house and get down because it could be real bullets. This was serious. Real bullets flying around. He said, if it's all right with you, you know this is a secret here. Our monastery's got this big wall on the front. Can we use the wall? Get behind it so that we can dress. You know, because they lose all this, this gear. No protective armour and stuff as our assembly point before we move in. And yeah, I was sort of very socially responsible. Abbott and also I never seen the tactical response group before. So this was interesting. So I'd say yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. Well yeah you got it right. You got t._v.s at home. I don't have TVs. I have to have to actually go for the real thing. But the worst thing you said, you have to tell your monks, but don't tell them what's going on. All you have to say is when they hear something, get down or stay in your house. So I had to have all the monks had a meeting and say, look, something's going to happen in two days, but I can't tell you what. They weren't happy. They're trying to get it out of me by any means. Come on. You can tell me we're monks together. I won't tell anyone else. Of course you will. But I was really good for 2 or 3 days. I really kept that as secret until, you know, suddenly in the afternoon, you could hear all these helicopters swooping by, and there are 2 or 3 helicopters coming really low, going very fast. And now one of the monks said, well, now I had the term get back in your heart. I was very lucky that they actually managed to get this guy without any violence. They hid behind the bushes and they sort of pounced on him, and he never realized anything. And it was very, very lucky because that man had a bald head. So if he'd have gone over the fence into our property, the police, the TRT would not know who to shoot at. He could have mingled in so easily. But who is just an example of how, as a monk, you actually do keep confidences? And if I was a gossip, you know that I told someone to tell someone else who told someone else. And that would have mean, you know, either some policemen might have got sort of wounded and that operation would not have worked. And that so criminal was a very dangerous man might have gone off on her other people. So really important that, you know, that people have got that restraint even though you're dying to tell, you know, you don't. So as a human being who is sensitive, who is wise, we have to learn restraint of this, of our mouth. And if you are going to speak, say something nice. If you want a saying to write on your desk or write on your wall, it is. If you can't improve upon the silence, be quiet. Wonderful saying if you can't improve upon the silence, be quiet. And a lot of time, negativity doesn't improve on anything at all. Praised us saying nice kind of things about other people. That works. So this is what we mean about learning to restrain and train the way you speak. And if you can do that, it's amazing. Just one of the problems I feel is really shouldn't be happening in today's society. And I know this is a huge problem, is the way that husbands and wives talk to each other. You can usually tell how long they've been married. By the way, they speak to each other. And why is it they keep putting each other down and criticizing and scoring points? They're at each other's expense. That's nasty. And, you know, it's nasty. It feels really wrong. So look, all the people here have got a partner. Can you not train yourself never to criticize them, but to say something nice? Can you do that? It's very easy to do what you have to do. This is a way that through meditation. Meditation is a training of the mind. But this particular part of meditation, I call it programming your mindfulness. In other words, putting a suggestion into your mind. So that the mindfulness, the awareness is taught how to restrain stupid speech which can harm your relationship. What do you do if you're having this, um, interaction with your husband, with your wife? You know, always negativity. Tell yourself, the next time my partner says something negative to me, I will not say something negative back, but I'd say something nice. I usually repeat that three times, and next time my partner says something negative and I will respond with something nice. The next time my partner says something negative, I will respond with something. I say that to yourself, programming it in because what happens? You're back at home, you forgot what you've programmed in. Partner starts saying something negative. And the old habit. It's a bad habit. That's all of being negative back. Mindfulness arises in that moment. You put in the suggestion and it's amazing how effective this is. You put the program in and add that particular moment when you've told yourself to be careful. When your partner says something negative, you're about to just get into the old habit of saying something negative, perhaps in your mind for you aware? No, I'm going to say something nice. You change the habit that way. It's amazing if you start saying nice things to your partner as they start saying nice things back to you. Not only do you change yourself, you change the way they relate to you. It's not that hard to do and that will save your relationship and make it much, much happier and more positive and more able to work together. In other words, to cooperate together in life rather than competing. And so it has changed this negative speech. And that's also the gossip. In other words, when you want to say something negative about someone, you program yourself. Train yourself. No, I'm not going to spread these negative rumors about anybody. I'm just going to say something positive about her. And that makes for a much nicer society and much nicer person. And really like religions of all things. We should be the leaders in positive spirituality. And so whenever I see any religion being so negative about other religions or other sects within their religion, I think that they're missing the whole point. Hopefully, and I may not be aware of this, but hopefully I put a lot of effort never to put down other religions when I'm sitting here, and hopefully I've been reasonably successful in that and certainly never putting down either parts of Buddhism. You know, it is so easy for people to do. We're the best those guys out there that don't know what they're talking about because this is actually part. I read this with great happiness in the ancient Buddhist teachings, in the teaching of non conflict. You never criticize a person, okay? You can actually criticize activity. It's bad to to lie and it's so harmful, you know, to, you know, overindulge in your senses the fact that you're unfaithful to your partner. Those things are bad in the sense you can see how harmful they are, but you never criticize the person. They're all simile about that, about how you can sort of focus on faults in life without being a gossip or without being negative. That old simile of the two children in the supermarket. Checking out the muck with their mother. They were checking out their purchases, and one child dropped a jar of honey and it went splat all over the floor in the parallel aisle. The child dropped the carton of milk and that went splat on the floor. The mother of the child who dropped the honey. Say, you stupid boy. The mother of the child who dropped the milk said that was a stupid thing you did. Do you know the difference between those two? Huge difference. One is criticizing the person. The other wise is criticizing the act. So stupid boy, or a stupid thing you did. There is a huge difference in that response, but I think that you can see that sometimes when you criticize, sometimes we do the stupid response you stupid wife, you dumb husband, or you lazy child. You know, you crazy monk. I'm not a crazy monk. Do crazy things sometimes. But I'm not crazy, man. There's a whole difference between that. Now, this is sometimes gossip. It's all right to ask you to focus on silly things, which people do, but not on silly people. Because that creates a lack of harmony, a lack of cooperation. When we focus on the bad thing or the stupid thing, it means that we are not destroying the person. And that's what gossip often does. It destroys a person. And that's why that's very harmful and hurtful. So if you are going to be critical about something, and sometimes we do need to be critical to actually to point out the faults in our government, in our, in our, um, religions, in our societies, in whatever else we're going to point faults into. Yeah, but make sure it's deep, personalized, accurate, deep, personalized. And as I've often been saying in private here, because a lot of times people come after half of these talks and they ask these questions. Standard technique. If you are going to say something critical, always use sandwich technique. Sandwich technique is, before you say any critical, anything critical about a person or a body or whatever. Say something nice about them. First of all, praise about five times, then criticize and then praise them afterwards. Sandwich. So you sandwich your criticism between praise. You try that to your kids. How many people have trouble with their children, especially when they get teenage? Why is that? Because yeah, we criticize them, but not with the sandwich technique. Try sandwich technique. Let us say how much we really appreciate. You know your son. You know how much you know you love him. What a great son he is. What a marvelous person he is, how great he is at this. But. And then you sort of know, kicking with whatever, you know he's not doing right. Being too lazy. And then you praise him afterwards. Now, if you try things like that, imagine what that child hears. He hears that his parents appreciated. Value him, love him. That's what they hear, first of all. So you set the ground to make sure the person is not feeling rejected, and then you give the criticism and it's amazing with praise. Our minds are open. We do listen then, but then it hurts. So you've got to reinforce the fact that they're valued by giving praise afterwards. That's much, much better. So if you are going to gossip about things which have gone wrong, at the very least use the same technique in gossip instead of having you heard about so-and-so, what she's done. Have you heard about our president of our Buddhist society? She's such a wonderful president, spent so much time doing all this hard work, so much time sort of working when she got her own job, because she really gives such a lot of time. But she should be a bit more strict on telling people about the mobile phones during meditation. But no, everyone makes mistakes over there and she's doing a really, really good job. And. There. You see, that's just an example that fingertips. You can do something without people getting too offended. And so that we can have the cooperation and the goodwill. So if there is a problem we can solve it. And it's not that hard to do. It changes the so much of the dynamic of your life. So you can have good relationships, but you can also address the problems which arise from time to time. But your whole idea, the intention is to get something positive, to improve people, to improve yourself, to get a better, harmonious, better society. But most gossip is just putting things down, criticizing negative. And that's just such a hard society. And of course, that as my position these days, you do meet so many politicians and I just feel so sad for our politicians. And because we're so critical, we spread gossip about them. That's the that's the bread and butter of newspapers sometimes gossip about politicians. You know, 1 or 2 stupid things they do in their parties. But what about what would you do in your parties? These are representatives of the people. In other words, they're one of us. It's probably what you do. The same. I wouldn't be there because I don't go to parties. I'm a monk. But I don't know about you guys. Well, look, can we give them a bit of slack? You know, we want them to be one of the people to be able to. So I feel very, sometimes very sad about our politics. And when we just so thought finding about our politicians, what actually happens is. Who would want to be a politician these days? Would you like to do things like that, knowing that every little peccadilloes some newspapers can search into every corner of your private life and anything you do which is wrong. That's what they're going to put on the newspapers. One little bad statement. I think that's really unfair. And what it means is really good people maybe not attracted to to be leaders. Maybe we just make it just too unpleasant for people to do that job. And so maybe we just don't get the very best of people to lead us in our society. That's what happens when we have such a critical society full of gossip for finding negativity. So this is important if you want to have a really nice society in the future a good marriage, happy friends, cooperating society. Can we do a little bit better? We can if we sort of, instead of gossiping about negativity to gossiping about nice things, which people do. Have you heard what Alan Carpenter did? Have you heard what, um, Senator Chris Evans did? The immigration minister. He actually arranged a meeting for our president myself to try and fix up this problem with the the visas. So that's very nice thing to do. And so we've got a way forward there. So just an announcement. Please don't send all those letters. The time being, it looks like we've got, um, some movement here. Keep the letters in the drawer if we need them. I'll ask you to send them next time, just in case. There. Because sometimes these politicians are responsive if you treat them in the right way. Just like your like your wives, your husbands, your kids, they are responsive. You treat them the right way. It's a way of getting, you know, getting some traction, getting something better and good out of people. And for those listeners, some people have been to my monastery. They've become monks. Some of them are left. Some are still monks. I asked them and I said, leader of a monastery. I don't go around gossiping about monks or putting them down or criticizing them. But I realize that's not the way you get the best out of the people you live with. You just praise, build them up, understand? So it's time to criticize. How is technique? It's amazing just what you can do. That way you have a harmonious society. And I hope that you know the the little microcosm of like, a monastery, you know. I don't know how many monks or how much committee you got. About 20, sometimes up to 30 people, all living together. All guys with their own, uh, different ways of doing things. And it's very remarkably harmonious. There's always a few problems every now and again. But, you know, we get on together. We don't have fights. You never see me coming up here on a Friday with, uh, with a black eye. So we do have a harmony there. And this is actually how we do it. So the talk is saving gossip. Be careful of it. And if some other people do gossip about you and you're the end of that gossip, I'll just enjoy it. Nothing hurts people who say bad things about you that when you laugh and smile. That really upsets them. Because why do they gossip? They. They gossip to try and put you down. To make you upset, to cause you pain. And one of the powerful sayings in that little book. Just a simple one liner. Please never allow other people to control your happiness. What other people say and do, that's their business and only to allow them to make you unhappy. And then what? I realized that it was such a great freedom. People could say whatever they whatever they liked about me. I wasn't going to get upset because I had the choice. And I wasn't under the control of other people. They can call me a fool, an idiot, stupid, get up off a job. Your wearing girl's clothes looks like a dress. I don't care. You can say that. I'm just gonna smile and be happy. That way when you don't allow other people to control your happiness, whatever they say or whatever they do, there's sometimes people let you down. They don't turn up or they don't do what they asked to do. But is that really a reason to make you unhappy? To spoil your day? Some other stupid people. Why do you allow stupid people to make you upset? You put it that way. It's crazy, isn't it? You're the stupid person. So if that's the case, you understand. Look at how other people to control your happiness. People gossip about you and they say stupid things about you. Oh, I find it very funny because I know who I am. I know what I'm doing. And so when other people gossip about me or say about me, ah, it's just good fun and games that way. The whole purpose of negative gossip. To upset someone. To put them down. Is completely undermined. So summary summarizing the talk. So gossip. Bad speech. It's a waste of time. It doesn't make you a better person. When you put down other people, it actually lessens you. Certainly in the respect of others and certainly in spirituality. People who gossip put down others, such as shows us how weak they are and how advanced they are. And also, instead of negative gossip, it's much better to have the positive gossip. If we are going to talk about other people, talk about the nice things they did, which means you get more into praise and less into fault finding, which means that it's so easy to create harmony and peace in society, to have a much uplifted mind and inspired mind and encouraged mind rather than a negativity which leads to depression and even suicides and just saying, oh, what's the point? This whole world sucks simply because of so much negativity which goes around. And instead, if you have to criticize someone, use sandwich technique. It really works with your kids. You can program your mindfulness. Try to make sure you don't get into this negativity. Sandwich technique, also not criticizing the person the acts. And that way we can create a much better society, more harmonious, more cooperative. So you have much less pain in your office. People know how to work together, less politics. He can cooperate. We can work together both with ourselves and also in our society. Different countries, different religions, different world. It's too small a place to fight. We have to work together. One of the reasons why we don't work together is because of stupid bad speech such as gossip. Such as for fighting. You know that's true in your relationships. How you live together. You can change it. It's not that hard to do if you can change it the way that husbands and wives talk to each other in Australia, maybe. Who knows the way the liberal part in the Labour Party talk to each other. They may change. We can have a co-operative parliament. And who knows? Who knows? Maybe the way the president of the United States and the president of Al-Qaeda, Mr. bin laden, maybe they may be able to speak to each other better. Don't you want a nice world? Maybe we can start by changing the way we speak. So be careful. Don't gossip. Bad things. And as I talk on gossip tonight. Thank you. Okay. Now, has anyone got anything to say about this? Please don't tell other people about. Oh, I don't give a terrible thing. You wouldn't guess what he said tonight. Then we'll go. Any comments or questions about tonight's talk about gossip? Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Your workshop today called Cooperative Learning. Yes. The rules for having kids working for groups in groups and schools. Yes. You say that when, uh, in some classes where they are encouraging to work together as a group. Some kids don't like that they want to get to other classes. Is that what you're saying? Ah. Okay. The competitiveness they're saying here that in, uh, in some schools where there is a group, uh, is encouraged and some children would go to other classes where they would think they could become more competitive and do better. I think the problem is better. What are we rewarding in our societies? Because whatever we are rewarding, that is what we're encouraging. That's the behavior which we are generating, whichever behavior we reward. So if you do reward the great competitors who beat their friends at all costs, if that's what we'll be rewarding, that's more what we get in our society. So a lot of times I think we should really be careful to what we reward in our school, in our house and in our society. And if we give rewards to the cooperators, notice the competitors. Now that about 15 months ago, I went to a conference in London, Human Resources, and I gave a speech there. And I also listened to another speech which was done by the HR manager of the department or one of the big government departments, and she was brilliant where she was saying that everybody had said that they wanted to reward cooperation, but eventually they found they were rewarding achievements. In other words, they said if these bureaucrats, they went to Brussels, part of the European Union, this was British government department. If they went to Brussels and they got the agreement or the protocol signed and came back again, then they got the promotion. But because she was very active, she managed to convince some minister how the thing was. David Miliband, at the time, she mentioned his name, an up and coming minister. I think he's moved to another department now, a foreign minister, I think of Britain. But anyway, she, he, she convinced him not to reward the achievement, but to reward the process of actually how it was done. And she convinced him of this. And there was a big change in the whole ministry where the people who thought they were going to get promoted never got the promotions. Yeah, they got the agreement signed, but all the people who worked on that got fed up, got, uh, left the, the whole, um, department because the politics and no one was appreciated. It was just achievement at all cost. And so all the best people were leaving before they got the, the things signed, but they were leaving afterwards. And the whole ethos changed. Not the achievements but the process. So even if they didn't get the agreement signed in Brussels, but they had a cohesive, really hard working group of people and they felt happy to stay there afterwards. That team got the reward and promotion because they were rewarding the behavior they wanted to see in that department, and that's why. Okay, they didn't get the agreement signed this time for the next time they would if they had the people, the person know the experience and they had the motivation. So in any society, either at school, a monastery, Buddhist society or a little family, what do you want to see grow? That's what we have to reward. So we need cooperation. It's vital in our world. Just. We don't get on together. Why? Because the abilities to get on together are not being rewarded. Solo effort is rewarded. So we should give more scholarships. That's why status. Give more points to people who work together. And then those kids will realize, yeah, if I really want to get on and go to university, I've got to be able to cooperate. So I think you get the get the point there. So maybe I should apply to be the education minister. Okay. Anyway, I think that's enough for this evening. So you've all been educated and hopefully you understand. Be careful if you kind of put upon the silence. Keep this up. Okay. And anyone who can't keep this shot. I think the Buddhist society, we've got quite a bit of duct tape left over from the last retreat. If you want to take some for your partner, or more likely, for yourself, if you need a good thing to do. But we don't need duct tape. We just need mindfulness and a bit of restraint. So thank you for listening this evening. Uh, handsome. Uh, some would appear for dying, but the one unhappy. What made me. So, uh, cut off by a what are Dharma the Magnum. Asami. Sir. Patti. Panel. Archer. Sara. Cassandra. Sun. Hannah. Mommy!