Lessons From The Road

Lessons From The Road by Ajahn Brahm

Okay, so it's a pleasure to be here once again. After going overseas, this evening's talk, I'm going to be talking a little, mentioning some of the dummies, some of the understandings of what, you know, banks have to do because some of these teachings of Buddhism are very best understood in the light of our practical experiences. I know that sometimes that people say, what experiences do a monk have a monk has, and how can the monk's experience relate to your experience in a very busy world? And of course, it's in one sense refreshing. So if the monks work very hard and can also experience the same stresses difficulties which everyone experiences, but also that we have this other layer of understanding, wisdom, peace, the training which we get as a monk so that we can deal with these problems of daily life a much better than particular. Somebody was asking me, they sent an email from Los Angeles, just about like how the the lifestyle of a monk, especially some of the rules of a monk, actually enhance and help the the role in society and their work, which they have to do. Because this is a strange thing which I noticed a long time ago. That when actually do something good for others and you really work hard for others, and when you put all that energy into the moment and you do things properly, it's incredible just how much energy you can arouse and how that energy can really focus the mind and make you perform to high standards, even though your schedule seems to be almost impossible. Because I have been, I think away now for about just over 30 days, and that was the going, first of all, to a huge Buddhist summit in Bangkok. Then one of these big conference from the very early morning to late in the evening. And of course, like most people, I thought, well, you get back about 8:00, that's a bit early. Why not arrange a talk? So again, I added to my work schedule some nice talks as well in the evening. And one of the nice highlights of my time in Bangkok was a talk which I gave at the Royal Bangkok Sports Club to is supposed to be an estimated 600 people by 800 people turned up. And the reason why they turned up was very inspiring. The copy of my book, The Opening The Door of Your Heart, which was one of the main reasons why I was travelling overseas, had found its way into the Australian Embassy in Bangkok. Many people had read it in the embassy, as you do. If you find a good book, you share it around. And there were four couples, two of whom had already separated. Two more were on the edge of splitting, and because of the stories in that book, they came together and they're still together. The story literally helped them resolve the differences, which kept them apart so they could continue in their relationship for their own benefit and the benefit of their children and the other people who are involved in any marriage. And you can imagine it was a great honour and privilege for me to be able to say two of those couples, couples who were going through the pain, the trauma, the huge amounts of inner suffering, of a separation of a divorce, and because of a few simple stories, they kept their relationship together. It's wonderful that a man who's never been married can be able to teach people how to stay together, and it works. I imagine how much energy that gives me. Whenever you do something inspiring and good like that, straight away, you get this huge boost of inner energy. The energy of happiness. The energy of doing something good for the world. The energy of being of service, of giving your life meaning. When everyone does things like this, you start to arouse another source of energy, which is sometimes very impressive, which doesn't really make sense according to the the medical world, but is certainly right there. It was. I met many monks, uh, who are old friends and some monks who are now disrobed. Some children of ex monks. And it's wonderful to see them and remind myself of old stories. There was one, uh, one monk who I grew up with who had about the same amount of, uh, we are basically in Thailand together. He was an a monk from the United States. I was from England, but we were friends together. And I always remember, just as a young man, he had premonitions. Sometimes we ask about Buddhism, about these premonitions of the future. How do we work with them? And this particular man, I was reminded of this book how I should tell these premonitions first, and then tell you afterwards why I was reminded of this in my visit. First of all, he said, as a young man living in Pasadena, in Los Angeles, he'd always had a recurring dream that one of his sisters drowned in the family swimming pool. It occurred many, many times. And one day, as he told it to me, he was sitting by the family pool and his dream. Starts to become a reality. The sequence of events which you could remember so clearly from his dream states started to act out, but this was now real life. He saw his sister going through those emotions in which she drowned in his dream, because he saw it so clearly and knew exactly what was going to happen because of his dream. He intervened. The last moments say it had saved his sister's life, and he told me if he hadn't had that dream, he wouldn't have been able to react. React before the event and save his sister's life. His dream turned out to be reality. His dream enabled him to save somebody's life. And because of that, he always believed that his dreams, especially those ones he could distinguish from the others by his clarity. It was so, so, so vivid, and it would keep on repeating itself. Time after time, night after night. But he also remembered that sometimes he was very heedless. If you do have these prophetic dreams, you should at least take precautions, because the next time he has such a dream. He was a young man living in New Zealand, as many young men at that time in the late 60s, early 70s. He was smoking marijuana in a house. His dream was that the police came to that house, busted them all, including him. He had that dream many times, but he took no action. And it happened and he got deported. But his third dream was that he was running through the paddy fields of northeast Thailand. He told me this because obviously I never knew him when he was a young man in Pasadena, nor when he was living in New Zealand. Later on, he became a good person. Instead of smoking these terrible substances and he was a monk. But this was the time of the Vietnam War. And just afterwards. And he always said that he had this recurring dream just like the other two, which turned out to be true, that he was running across a paddy field, chased by communists from across the border, and he was shot in the back of the head and died. But it never happened that way. Because after four years as a monk, you disrobed. One year later, he got married, and a year later, having given birth to his first daughter, he died in a head on collision. So did his wife, who, because of the collision, was ejected through the windscreen of their car. Carrying their baby like a mother does. Instinctively protecting the life which he is given, she rolled. She died on impact with the. And we're not sure whether through the screen or on the ground, but the baby survived and I met her over in Los Angeles. Little baby of this monk I grew up with, now a grown girl who reminded me of all his wonderful stories at that time. First of all, about premonitions has sometimes become the turn out to be correct, sometimes not. And the point is that we can never know which one is the correct one and which one is a false one. And it's strange that they all seem the same, but sometimes they can just so completely confuse us. But more than that, I recall when this young man was taking his higher ordination as a full monk. And in those days that all the monks. It was Ajahn Sharma teach us tradition that we all had to make our three sets of robes by hand. Everything had to be sewn from white cloth. And we had to dye it from the jackfruit tree. The wood was chopped up into little chips and boiled in water, and the water had to be cut from a well. The fire had to be made from other wood. And it took a long, long time to get enough dye to but to dye your robes. At this time there were three novices ordaining at the same time. So it would take them about 3 or 4 days working around the clock to actually to make enough dye, to sew, the robes to dye it, or to be able to make their robes. And I always recall that on this occasion they had been working already for about 36 hours without the rest of the tour. And it was late at night after our evening meeting, about nine 930 we finished. Usually we'd go back to bed in these forest monasteries in Thailand, because in the early morning you'd be woken up at 3 a.m. by the bell, and there you'd have to go to the hall for the meeting, usually about 315. So that's why we used to go to bed about 10:00 to get for 4.5 hours sleep. So on this particular occasion, after the evening meeting, I thought about these three monks who had been out for about 36 hours without any rest at all, because you cannot leave such a dry pot. You know, it would all be ruined. You had to be around there constantly. So I went to the the shed where they were making the dye, and I told them, you guys have been up for so long, why don't you go and get a rest? And there was so grateful that someone could give them a few hours of sleep. You know what it's like when you haven't slept for such a long time. Sometimes the mind goes a little bit crazy, but you crave sleep more than you would crave anything else. And just the opportunity just to lie down for a few hours. Oh, there was so grateful. So I looked after that Thai pot all night by myself without having any sleep myself. When the bell went at 3 a.m., they quickly came from their huts to carry on the work, and I quickly went off to the morning meeting, where we chatted and meditated until dawn. And then we went on the arms round. Now, in those jungle monasteries of Thailand at that time we were badly fed. We were malnourished. It was very hot, sticky and we were always sleep. Had a sleep deficit. We never had showers to sleep enough, but at that time. Usually in the morning I'd always be sleepy, but that morning I was not sleepy at all. It was one of the clearest mornings for my meditation. My mind was sharp and I could not figure out why. It was when I hadn't slept myself for such a long time. I felt no tiredness, so it was so strange that on the way back from arms bound, I asked one of the senior monks, this is strange. I'm not sure what's going on. Why aren't I tired? Why that morning? To have such sharp mindfulness when I hadn't slept for myself. Maybe for. For 20 hours or so? No more than that. So about 36 hours. And this monk told me a great secret. He said, whenever you are selfless, whenever you act compassionately, whenever you're ready to let go, you don't expect anything back from your actions. There's another source of energy you tap into the energy of selfless compassion. That's what I was doing. It taught me something wonderful that to be a high energy person in this world, you don't need to always take so much coffee. Instead of coffee. Take compassion instead. I was going around sort of United States telling them about the benefits of vitamin C. I was joking, it was vitamin coffee, but I said no. The vitamin C stands for Vitamin Compassion. So don't forget to take lots of vitamin C, vitamin compassion because it gives you incredible energies. And this is actually one of the things which I was doing in the trips. I was over to the US. But one thing I'd like to say about these great teachings of Buddhism, because they start to get at the heart of the human condition, and they speak about things which are important in everybody's life. We all have to do so much, and so often we feel so tired, we feel worn out. And when we get worn out and tired, that's usually when we get angry and grumpy and even sick. So much of the problems of the world come from people's lack of energy. Now. Depression is a great one to look at because that is a huge deficit of energy in the human beings, so much so that the whole world is grave and black. And the opposite of that is the energies of a monk. Huge energy, huge happiness. Not just by sleeping all day, but by working so hard. Those entities become huge and you tap into those as a monk. But when you practice those energies in your life, you find that because the mind brightens up, not only does it not have depression, but it never gets so angry, so upset. At that particular time recording, these monks and I met many of them. There was one monk which I met. He used to be the the second abbot of our monastery in Thailand. He was an American. He was in the, uh, Vietnam War as a helicopter pilot. And he always calls me his tea guru, because in those early years of these Americans, they managed to get some coffee from somewhere, but they never had tea. And I was the first basic English monk who went to that monastery. And when my mother sent bags of tea, they would not know how to make it, and they make a complete mess. And so one day I went and said, look, this is not how you make tea. Whatever you do in life, do it properly, for goodness sake. It's basic Buddhism, like carefulness, mindfulness, keeping the rules. So I taught them how to make the tea, get a big container, warm the pots. They use boiling water, fresh water, just the right amount of tea. This is how you do it. Brew it for the right time. They all thought I was crazy. You know, those English are just ridiculous. You just want to just put some in the pot and water in there. Doesn't matter. But when I actually did this and it worked, this monk in particular, he liked his boost of caffeine. And so he was actually converted. I actually converted him, which is another wonderful thing. In Buddhism, you don't convert people by words. You convert people by actions. So I converted him to this tea drinking man. And so when I went to visit him just north of Boston. I was very pleased that those teachings I gave him about 25 years ago, he still kept he made me a perfect cup of tea, which was amazing for an American. But him in particular, that he would also, you know, understand that from those beautiful states of mind, he'd get huge amounts of energies. And it's the energies of happiness. Because at that particular time, when he was with me in his jungles of Thailand, we would have this tradition. I don't keep it any more in our monasteries here in Australia. Of one night a week, all the monks would stay up meditating so it forgo all sleep for one for my basically for 24 hours. And we'd go to the hall after the evening meeting. We just carry on meditating right through the night, and one thing I noticed was after going without sleep the following morning was when all the arguments started in the monastery. And I noticed that myself, because I remember one occasion I'd been up all night meditating. I had no bad meditation, and the more we did our chart, there were. But then we went our arms round. But during the latter part of the night, I noticed a few of these monks slip off back to their huts to take a rest. They were cheating. They were not playing the game by the rules. They were trying to get away. I noticed them, they weren't going to get away with this. And so I wanted to go and tell them off. But when I went to go and tell them off so often, I'd done that and it just created this very bad feeling. And so one morning I've stayed up all night. I'd been in as a monk long enough. I had that one of these insights. The inside is nothing profound where you go and write a book about it inside. So what changed the way you look at life and solve problems? Real problems, such as just the the bad feelings, the arguments in a monastery. So that morning I said, no, I'm not going to tell these monks off now. I wrote it down on a piece of paper so I wouldn't forget to tell them off. They need to be told off. This was not on. I've been meditating all this night. Why should they get away with it? So I wrote it down on a piece of paper. And then I had a rest. Had a nap in the middle of the day. And after I woke up from my nap and everyone was allowed to have a nap. You've been up all night. So you have a nap just after lunch. So when I woke up after my nap, I looked at this stuff, which I was going to criticize my fellow monks for and I thought, what do you want to do that for? After I rested, it was not so important. It didn't look so bad and it wasn't worth talking about. I screwed up the piece of paper and threw it away. Never did tell those monks off. What I realized is, when you're tired, just small little things become enlarged and you will tell somebody off. You'll shoot your mouth off, and you create all sorts of problems in your monastery, or in your house, or in your place of work, simply because of tiredness. And I realized from that time, if ever I'm tired, I'm not going to criticize anybody. I'm to keep my mouth shut until I'm well rested, got energy, and then if I really feel that they deserve criticizing, then I will criticize them. What I realized all that bad speech, which people come all comes from tiredness. So I, the French philosopher Pascal once said, all the problems of man come from not knowing how to sit still and rest. All the arguments in the world come from sleep deficit, tiredness, the lack of inner energy and the happiness and the positive perceptions which such energy and happiness bring. So that's what I learned from that occasion. I learned that not to criticize when I was tired. And also I learned that when other people criticize me, what told me off, a lot of times I realized it wasn't me. I'd done nothing wrong. It's just those guys were tired. So they call me an idiot and a fool. Lazy, whatever. And I just say go and take a rest. So what a wonderful way of dealing with the complaints you receive at home and in your life. If your husband starts to get really cranky, you should say I'll go and take a sleep a long one, the better. And there's some truth in that, because when you rest, then you have the energy. But if you don't have time to rest, then it's just putting all this energy into the moment, especially if it is for others. You get an extra boost of energy from inside. But not only that, we are just so inefficient the way we use our minds, and that is why we lose a lot of energy. So when I was out there in the US, my goodness, it's just even before I left, I was working really hard because one of the reasons I went overseas was actually for the this book opened the Door of Your heart, which in the US is called Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung? People love that actually in the US. And then many people picked it up just because it had that title, which is the whole point. How could anyone call their own book? Who ordered this? I mean, this book's truckload of dung, but it sold very well, especially in gardening centers. But that's hardly a joke. But that's one of the reasons. But also, just before I left the second book, which is going to be the beautiful prayer and meditation instructions, I was just working really, really hard, staying up again late at night, getting up early in the morning just before I left because I had to take off to the United States. The second proof of that book. So even just, you know, all the work I do. Anyway, just before I left, I was working really hard late at night, early in the morning on the proof, so that even before you went on this huge long trip and even though you work so hard, slept very little, going across many timezones because you knew how to use your mind, you could do all of that stuff very easily. One of the things is one thing at a time. You don't go planning too much and worrying about what's going to happen next, or where are you going to go to next or what? How you can cope next. Because sometimes I dare look at my program. If I don't see your program, I think, oh, I can't do this, this is too much. That's what's making you tired. The negativity. So I knew it was a very busy program. So you have a busy program. Just don't look at it. Instead, look at the moments. Look at what you're doing now. And this is, again, one of the things which I learned as a young monk especially, which is what you learn in meditation. Sometimes you think, I got to save myself because later on I've got to work hard. This isn't work. When you try saving yourselves, when you're not putting 100% energy, you're putting 50% in or 60% because you want to save something for something else. You find later on, you've only got 50% energy. And I had around 40% energy. But when you put 100% energy into the moment, you have 100% for the next moment and hundred percent for the moment afterwards, and always hundred percent. This is how energy works. So I learned whatever you do. Give it everything you've got. Save nothing for the next moment. Because if you give everything to the moment, the next moment, you'll have the same attitude and your energies will increase and you really get sort of powerful. And these are teachings which people need to understand and to incorporate in their life. Just give this a moment. Whatever you're doing if you're sweeping. This is again something which I told people in LA, the the way you notice, the way you notice a good monastery or temple is not the talks which the people give, because anybody can learn to give inspiring talks. You get these guys in United States with these sharp suits and expensive hairstyles, and they get incredibly inspiring talks which people pay thousands of monies dollars for. Nowhere near as good as you hear in this centre on a Friday night. But you look at their lifestyle and it's gross. What do they do when they're not talking? They say one thing and do another. But. Of course, you know, we have this dishonesty here, but that's so impressive. But you look at their lifestyle, it's different. And you always say in the monastic tradition and the Buddhists look at our lifestyle, not so much the teachings, but how we live. And that's really inspiring. And that's one of the reasons why I think our Buddhist society here in Western Australia has gained such a huge reputation. And I found by going to the United States in Europe. So throughout the whole world, it's amazing what this Buddha's teaching does, because when I teach, it's not just theory is at the heart of the problems. How you live your life. More energy to do your job. You have to work hard. We all have to work hard. So let's learn how to work hard well and also how to have that energy so we don't get grumpy, we don't get tired, we don't get negative. We know how to create happiness and efficiency in our world. And that's such powerful teachings that. When I was in this. I want to share this with you. It's a great piece of information. When I was reading this big summer, this big conference in Bangkok, the Swedish representative told about some research which had recently, recently been done by the Swedish government. The Swedish government had asked every child in high school throughout the whole country the following question if you had to choose a religion, which one would it be? They couldn't say no religion, they had to choose one. Every child was asked that question who was in high school? 60% responded. Buddhism is in a secular country of Nordic people with they have some immigration there, but not much. 60% said they would choose Buddhism. Why? When I was in the US, because I knew the country I was in, because Buddhism is supposed to put its teachings in the language of that place. I said, why 60% of people want to be Buddhist? Could I said, for the United States people, Buddhism is a religion of the people, by the people, for the people. That's Abe Lincoln's Gettysburg Address with a few with a few small changes. Okay. Yeah. But there's truth to that, because whenever you've had monks or none sitting here, have we ever told you what to do or have we advise you what to do? It is never any hierarchy in the sense of authority figures like a pope or like an archbishop or a chief rabbi who tells you what to do. We haven't got that in Buddhism. Not even a god or a higher authority. In Buddhism, we don't have. Now, the reason why, um, Abraham Lincoln said that Gettysburg Address was not a monarchy, but a religion, not of some elites, but a religion of the people, by the people, for the people. It's your religion, not mine. As the Buddha said, the Buddha's only show the way. They can never force you. They can never tell you. And all of you will be listening to these talks over so many years now. The only thing you get here is advice. We never order you to tell you what to do. That is not our right, but as a means of addition of empowerment, not disempowerment. Enfranchisement of people, giving them the freedom, but also the assistance to make their ethical and life decisions. That is why it is the religion of the people, by the people, for the people. Understanding that we understand how Buddhism is becoming so popular, but also because it gives things which help people. And of course, one of the great reasons why. This particular tradition is very powerful in the world, and why many people came to listen to my talks and invited me to their temples was because this is impressive what we do here. The simplicity of the sanga which you have here is very pure. When we get to our precepts and our rules, the simplicity gives the understanding of why the monks live this way. What a great teaching this is for our world. When we start talking about the Kyoto Protocol, or we start looking at the, um, the rise in the fuel prices or the decline in those fuel prices, and where are we going to get our sources of energy for in the future? When we start to look at the problems of finding land for houses or whatever, you can see that Buddhism has a huge amount to offer for people to learn how to live simply. So we don't waste so many of the Earth's limited resources. It's great to talk this way, but those monks will live that way. Someone once asked me, when I was in the United States, what was my most inspiring teaching for my master ag and chair of all the sermons and talks which he gave, what was the word which you remembered the most that inspired you the most? And I had to tell them he was a story when for the only time that I was with him for nine years, he asked me to go up into his room and get something for him. Well, actually, I used to live. Was his coyote. A coyote is the word for monks. That was actually. A like a hut, a house, if you like, a small wooden building on top of stilts. And he used to spend most of the day underneath receiving guests, asking questions. Teaching people how to meditate or just counseling them about the difficulties of their life. His upstairs was just for him and sometimes his attendants. I never got to see where he actually lived until this one time. He asked me, please go out and get something. So I went in and took a look in his room. Now, this was a great monk at the height of his fame, when literally prime ministers, generals and incredibly wealthy businesspeople would go and see him and ask for advice, and they would always leave him gifts. You know how people give things to monks. Even in this monastery, this was a great monk, a famous monk. When I went into his room, I just could not believe what I saw. One of the most famous monks entirely. This time, all he had was a grass mat, his bow, one robe on the line. I think there was one book, and that was it. It would have taken him less than five minutes to pack up all his belongings and go. How long would it take you to pack up your belongings? They usually have to hire companies, don't you, to do it for you. And the tracks which you have to light up in front of your house. They're huge. Now, that was this beautiful teaching of simplicity. And that was something which inspired me a lot. So as some religions or some teachers who weren't just saying these things, they were living them. That's why I would say it was most inspiring teaching to see somebody living the teachings of a Buddha, not accepting any money, keeping the precepts and being an inspiration for others. So the the wife was telling people in the United States and in Europe in our monastery twice a year, on the entry to the raceday, the catena ceremony, which we just had a few weeks ago. So we allow all these people to come to our monastery and they can go into your huts. Have a look around. See what's there. And I'll tell this to you now, as long as I'm not in my hut. You can go into any time you like and have a look. See what I have. See what a mark has so that you can see. Because we're not just teaching these things by words. This is how we live. Simplicity. For the monks who went to meet me. The airport, my baggage. Even today, every time I go through those customs, I have my bowl. I have a wooden stand. I have to declare that wooden stand simply because it says on the customs form if this word, you have to declare it. And then if you've ever seen those customs forms. But a strange one of the things you're not allowed to bring into the country is holy water. You see, now you can check that out for yourself. Next time you come from overseas. One of the things you can bring in the country is holy water. I can't really figure that out until once I heard this story about this man who came into the into the Perth airport. He went through the Green Channel and is always, you know, some people in the green channel always get sort of taken aside and check their baggage. So when they were checking his baggage, they found a bottle of whisky in his baggage and declared. So the assets matter. What's this thinking critically, the man said, I've just been to Europe. I'm a Catholic. I've been to the holy site of Lourdes. This is holy water. Holy water from Lourdes. Casas man. I said, well, why did you put it in a whiskey bottle? Have I got to put it in something? Just had an empty whiskey bottle, so I put it in there. And this customs man was not convinced at all. He insisted on opening it up and smelling it. As soon as he opened up and smelling smelt it, the customs officials said. Have a smell of this. This isn't water is whiskey. And then Mars opened it as a spout. It all sunk. And the man said, very good to see. You're right. Another miracle. Methodology. But I always have to have one. So. I. Actually, I heard another joke when I was over here. I said, this is a fresh one. It's a it's an interesting one because many of the people in United States who are Buddhist were actually from the Jewish tradition. There's so many, uh, not monks, but teachers. There are people like those Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg. These all know Jewish people, and there's so many of these that they've got a word for them. United States have called them Jew, but they do so understanding this, this, this lady, she went to go and see this great teacher in the United States, this great guru. But of course, you know, these are very, very important famous people. So she when she went there, she had all these minders she, she should go to. And the first minder said, look, this guy lives on top of the mountain over there. You'll take you 2 or 3 days to get up there. And even when you go up there, you're only allowed to answer one, ask one question, that's all. And this old lady came along and she insisted on climbing up the mountain to ask this one question of this holy man who lived on top of the mountain and the man said, no, you're too old to get up there. No, no, I'm going to get up there. Look, you can't do no person like you. It's just too much. But I'm going to go up there and, you know, even if you go up, they can only ask one question. And since I wasn't gonna go up there, they couldn't stop her. So she climbed up this mountain. When she got to the top, took her 2 or 3 days. His poor old lady was almost exhausted. And as soon as she got up there, she saw this holy man. And she, you know, she asked her question and and her question was sort of they'd have to use a Jewish name. They use the word Sima to say, my son, when are you going to come home? With a question. Because the holy man was a Jew. And she was a Jewish mother. So back to, like, uh, inspiring people with this, uh, beautiful piece of reading life that, you know, so simplicity. That's something which is an important part of our modern age, because really, we need a spiritual path which teaches people, encourages people in simplicity. And we need sort of leaders who are encouraged by example. And it's one of the reasons people in the US look and Europe look at our broader society in West Australia here, because we have examples and I'm just talking about myself with all these other monks and Sister Armour who've been teaching here while I'm away. Sometimes it's not just what they say is where it comes from, which is most important. People who keep the rules as in the time of the Buddha, who don't ask for things. A lot of times people give you things and you just give it away afterwards. So those monks who came and saw me in my monasteries just saw how little baggage I had. And every time I come to those customs, it happened again today. The customs officials. Us. Is that all your baggage, sir? Said? Yes. That's all my baggage. I remember one time going through, I think I was just going through the customs in, in, uh, London. They saw I had to saw your. Your baggage says yes, I'm a monk. And he said, wonderful. Great. That's what monks should be like. But isn't it terrible when you see sort of monks with all these bags and bags and bags? What are they doing that for? What's the purpose of it? Sometimes we teach in the wrong way. What do you really need to be happy? We give these teachings the simplicity. The less you have, the less burdens you have in life. Why do people live in big houses just to impress their friends? Or so. And sometimes you wonder, what are you doing that for? Why do people have big cars just to impress your friends? Small cars are great, which is why our tradition is always called the small vehicle. And that is always the best vehicle. Especially in times of rising fuel prices. You get much better economy and it's much easier to find a parking place. So this is why. But also the way we use these Buddhist teachings on small vehicles. I started telling people because I always develop new teachers. Whenever you go along a place to place because people were asking me, you know, you're supposed to be this highly honored tradition. That's what they usually call serve. And it's absolutely wrong. It's not accurate, according to the history. But nevertheless, they called us Indian and they got this other thing called Mahayana. And traditionally the difference is this Indian, you just concern about your own enlightenment. Basically, you're selfish and Mahayana just concerned about other people's enlightenment and you forget about yourself. So when somebody asked me that question, what's the difference between Hinata and Mahayana? I said, first of all, you got to understand what those two things are before you know what the difference is. And I say a good example of that is a marriage, because in a marriage is usually one part is Indiana and the other part is Mahayana. And usually the Hindu partner. Please excuse me, is a man. And they're concerned about themselves, what they can get out of this marriage. And the Mahayana path is usually the woman who sacrifices herself, you know, for the family and for others. Both, I said, are dysfunctional. If you go into a relationship to seeing what you can get out of, out of this, your needs, your wants, the marriages can't last if you go into that marriage. Like many women, this is one of the mistakes. Why the marriage fails. The relationship fails just thinking about the other. You just get burnt out, frustrated, eventually depressed. You just give up. The Mahayana is wrong and so is the Hylian. In a marriage, you should never think about your partner. You should never think about yourself. It's obvious you think about us now. What's in between? Not here in the Mahayana, the middle way, for goodness sake. You know what's in between you. So if you think about it, this is actually a powerful point. You know, when I said this, people just went silent because it was truth. They realized the mistakes in the relationships. And whenever you talk about relationships in the US, you really get a long way. That's what people want to hear about relationships, relationships, relationships. So I said, look, don't think about yourself in a marriage. Don't be selfish. What? You get out of this. What's in it for you? But also, don't be selfless and think about the others. You also count. So today you see us basically what's in between us. That's the most important part. So when you start to talk about things like that, even as a monk, it's not what I get out of this. Nor is we think about others. Basically, we're in this together as a Buddhist society. The whole sangha here, or the monks and nuns, the energetics or the laymen or lay women, all the people who come here. It doesn't matter what you call yourself. We're in this together. His and us Buddhist society not and I not a you. We're in it together. Therefore we understand how we get progress and why we have got progress in this society. So much so that people actually look, I'm not just saying as they look at this Buddhist society here and these monasteries as an example of how things should be done in the world. I know that some soul is going to get very upset at me about this, but about I have got a letter. They invited me to be the spiritual advisor of their monasteries as well over there. My goodness, I'm going to be, well, spiritual advisor for the Buddhist communities. If I don't watch my my step and say what they want me to do that for, and I've got enough on my plate already. There's obviously there's something which you're doing which is inspiring and leading by example. And this is why this is happening. This beautiful Buddhist teachings. I said over there also, there are two types of religion in this world. And I'm not talking about Buddhism and other addictions. This goes across the board applies to all the major religions. The two types are those which bend the facts to fit the faith, and the other is those which bend the faith to fit the facts. And that happens in Buddhism, certainly in Christianity and Islam and other religions. And it also happens in science as well. And in politics, those who bend the facts to fit their faith, their dogma, the ideology that is the cause of so much problems in this world, even in a business, in a relationship, say in the business, you you bend this sort of the the accounts know to fit what you want to present to the shareholders or to the stock market. You know, like Enron or like was the other one, Arthur Andersen or whatever he did that he was great at bending the facts to fit the faith, and it creates huge amounts of problems in a marriage. You've been the facts to fit the faith, what you want to believe, and you don't see the problems which are happening. And that's the same as many religions. They say this is what the book said. It must be right. So to hell with any facts of life and the evidence which is right around around you. We're going to bend the facts to fit the faith. They just ignore the facts. Was it Buddhism? It never was like that from the beginning. Never will be like that. Sometimes Buddhists forget that and they think, oh, my teacher said this, therefore it must be right. Please never think like that. You have to bend the faith, bend your ideas, bend your beliefs to fit the facts. So it's always growing. They're always testing, always even arguing until you find out the truth. And science. As I said, it can be so dogmatic. They got these ideas which they just will not bend, even though the evidence is just so strong. That's not the way to go in life. Spiritual life, in your company, in your marriage, with your kids. Don't just be a dogma test and think, this is our tradition. This is the way that our parents did it. This is the way we must do it. Please bend the faith of the old traditions to fit the facts. Keep the heart. And then you'll understand why you understand why we bow to a Buddha statue. Not because our parents did, sir. Not because now we're going to get married out of this. There we go. Because people in the United States, and because many Sri Lankans were invited me, they asked me about this period thread. This period thread, you might see many people here. They're tied up with string around the wrist, apparently got very, very common and very popular in the United States. And all these movie stars were actually getting this Kabbalah thread threads, making a fortune out of these things. Our Buddhist threads are much more powerful and you can get them for free anytime. But what's the point of these things? I'll tell you the point of this thing is, a few weeks ago, I was giving some of these out and this Thai lady asked for a piece and I gave it as it's too small. I need a bigger piece. So what do you want it for? I want to wrap it around my husband's neck. Like. What's been the source of her suffering. But that's what she said. I said, that's not the purpose for these these threads. But apparently the people in some of these temples over there were tying these threads around their wrists. The thing that now got these threads around my wrist, I can drink alcohol, really get drunk, and nothing wrong will happen to me because this will protect me. It was like. It was like a license to break all your precepts and be stupid. Like so that I had to tell them the old story of the most dangerous spirit, ghost in the world. Because just like many other places, especially Asians and Sri Lankans are part of that tradition. They are also afraid of ghosts, especially these very, very dangerous ghosts which possessed people. I don't know if you've ever seen a position where people sort of get crazy. I think this might be the case because I don't watch TV, but apparently they have all these weird programs like Buffy the Teenage Ghost or something. I don't know what it's called. It's very, very popular, apparently, because there's a whole great interest in psychic phenomena, I think with Harry Potter as well, and about all these weird, magical stuff. And so people are very concerned about things like evil spirits and possessions. So I was going around telling people about the most dangerous ghosts, this evil force which I saw in L.A. and so many people who were possessed by this, this terrible being, this terrible ghost. We just call the bottle ghost because apparently it's Franco. People also understand that sometimes he goes to actually put in the bottle and stamped, even in the, the, um, Western tradition as well, because, you know, have these genies, these these spirits, ghost they're supposed to be in put in bottles as well. So says this bottle ghost, it's so dangerous that you see it making people go crazy. They lose their mind and sometimes it kills them. And I was saying I was telling this group of slogans yesterday, and you can see the color draining from their face when they get so worried about the bottle ghost. And then I told them what it meant. The bottle ghost means whisky or alcohol. This spirit is loose in the bottle. You open up. The coconut possesses you. It makes you go crazy and do stupid things. But you just go out tonight past the pubs and you see. Many bottle ghosts have been released. But not many people go crazy. They can kill people because one of the memorable experiences of my life in Perth and it's memorable, memorable for the of the wrong reasons, was having to perform a funeral service for this Chinese lady. I think she was from mainland China who came to Perth on a scholarship. She'd done so well, graduated, got a job and invited her two parents and her only family. They only had one child. They gave everything for their child's education. She did so well, and when she did well, she invited her parents from some poor village somewhere in mainland China to Australia to live a good life. It was gratitude to your parents who'd really helped her. They only had one child, her near the one child policy in China, and the parents were all without any other relations. I think after two days I think could have been three, but not four when they'd come to Perth. She was walking, I think, down one of the roads in Kelmscott. The drunk driver lost control of the car, smashed into her and killed her and the two parents. They could not understand any English at all. They'd just come and their life, their daughter, had just been destroyed and I'd performed a funeral service for them. It was one of the most difficult services I'd ever performed. Just because of the tragedy and the pain of those parents was greater than I think any other parents I've seen. There are lost in a strange country without their only hope in life. For some stupid reason, this person got drunk and dismount someone down some bottle. Ghosts. The most dangerous in the world. So we encourage people in this spiritual tradition to think for yourselves, to build the faith of it. The fact is alcohol really good? Whatever you're doing in life, think about it. Contemplated deeply. You find that these paths, these teachings, you get here because your huge energy gives you peace. So you don't get grumpy and angry at others. You become efficient in your life. Another way of creating happiness. Seeing the dangers in life. Creating more simplicity. So you become a person who can look after this planet, this world. You can look after others. You can care. Be caring. Be wise and be just so peaceful and happy. This is why Buddhism is growing so strong, why these teachings are going around the world, and why monks like me get so busy. But look, I think I got up this morning at four and that was about 36 hours ago. 40 hours ago. That was in Los Angeles somewhere. And then all day talking to people. They would not let me alone. One more question, please, because I was going soon, and then the 18 hour flight from Los Angeles to Singapore. And even when I went to have a quiet time, somebody came to talk to me, and I asked him, said, I can just go for a walk, please, to the airport to get some exercise, but also wanted a quiet time. And of course, the 2 or 3 people recognize me and as I jump from. Because I'm well known in Singapore. So even the person I was sitting next to on the aircraft, and he knew me straight away because his I think his ex-wife comes to our retreats. So all that time. And coming here in the evening to give a talk, where do you get the energy from and the clarity and the power? You get that energy not from sleeping, but from getting everything you got into the moment by being selfless, or rather, putting that energy, not caring about yourself or caring about others, but caring about us the middle way. So hopefully you're inspired and energized as I am. May you have a wonderful life. You don't need to sleep if you know how to give to others. Thank you very much. Okay. Any questions now about this evening's talk? Uh, coming up. Tired? What time do you get up this morning? Any questions anyone has today about the talk about this, that and the other. Now. Okay. You had your chance. Okay. Finish off.